Find the Right Definition for Trust When Developing Your International Business
When developing your international business, one of your first challenges will be creating trust with your foreign prospects. You may not recognize this as a challenge. You probably do a great job in creating trust with your current customers.
But there is a big difference. Your definition of trust will be different to your prospect’s definition of trust if he lives in a different country.
I had a very inspiring conversation with Liz Strauss on the use and misuse of translation online. Liz is the best person I know capable of inspiring interaction on her blog. She also knows a thing or two on the differences in the interpretation of the meaning of trust.
One of the things you are confronted with when you live in different countries, is different interpretation for a few common words. You may be able to translate them, but they have totally different guide books on how to apply them in different cultures. Nothing you can learn in a book can teach you everything.
Some of the words are always a challenge to apply and identify an accurate meaning:
- Politeness
- Friendship
- Trust
Every time you change country the interpretation for these words changes. If you stay in a foreign country long enough you will pick up the new definition.
But one of these words, trust, is an essential part of developing your business.
So what do you do if you want to create an international business but cannot learn by traveling yet?
This is a question you need to ask yourself right from the start. In international business developing trust is critical to your success.
Luckily trust is often easier to create than you think.
Primary Factors In Creating Trust
To build trust in different cultures you need optimize two things:
- Clarity
- Consistency
This is simple enough. The hitch is that you must do both of these throughout absolutely everything you do.
Strive for clarity and consistency in all your communications and all your actions. And then review everything. Is there anything that is not clear and consistent?
A lack in these two factors is the first place where you lose trust. You will often lose trust from lack of clarity and consistency immediately and without any tell-tale sign. This means you may not even be aware of losing trust.
Other Trust Tools
I’ve just finished a two and a half month long series of cross-cultural communication web tools on Get International Clients. This series identifies specific cultural preferences for dozens of web tools.
For example, how you highlight your guarantee depends on the culture you are targeting. With so many North American internet marketers it is easy to see the type of guarantee that stimulates trust in these cultures.
But a French marketer would not use the same type of guarantee in the same way. Of course French people also need to have certain buttons pushed to incite trust. It’s just that the buttons are just slightly different, placed differently, and highlighted differently. The priority of how to hit all the emotional buttons is also different.
The way you communicate with your prospects can also create trust. Here are some things you can provide to help build trust:
- International Case Studies, or Success Stories
- Regular and consistent communication: newsletters, ezines or blogs
- Glossary
The Perfect Trust Tool
There is no perfect trust tool you can learn about and use in all situations. The cross-cultural web tools are based on the five different recognized cultural behaviors. Countries can be rated or compared in these different scales.
Unfortunately my experience does not prove that you can use a cookie cutter tool for effective cross-cultural communication. This is why I do not advise you to sit down and compare ratings per cultural behavior and simply put all of the tools in place on your website.
You need to adapt these web tools with your specific and unique market. The web tools are a good guideline. But your market might have other overriding cultural differences, barriers or opportunities.
Find The Right Definition For Trust
Creating trust is often a very delicate balance. Especially when you are trying to create trust between two different cultures.
Here is how you I think you should go about finding trust-building web communication for different cultures:
- Concentrate primarily on clarity and consistency in your communication and your actions
- Get to know your international clients, go out of your way to communicate with them
- Then slowly tweak how you highlight the different web tools appropriate for the country you are targeting
- Consistently reach out to your international audience and evaluate your communications
Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?
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Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural eMarketer & International Sales Specialist, aligning businesses with different cultures. She has over 25 years field experience in international business development and helps mid-sized business owners create international business development strategies that shorten time to profitability.
Question about business development
how does business development work in a private physio center. who can be approached?I need help to find out who can do business development for a private physio center. The usual referral areas dont seem to be working, so basically dont know how to promote the center and get more work
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14 Responses
Sales are people that sale stuff, like car salesman
Marketing – market a product, not necessary outcome into a sale. More of promoting the products espeically new ones.
Business Development – nowadays corporations go for this instead of the above. The tasks are wider. One need to understand the market, know their clients needs and wants, and research to develop the product that the market needs. Promote and market them. Make a sale.
This is what i understood.
@whiteguysamurai full flash support is new for android 2, which hadn’t been released in june, and it is still in beta.
what is your question?? need details.
do you want a comparison of how people look at Business development
“how did you do the animations?” Dude, its Android, it has a native animation framework….
Yeah. Business development is typically inside sales and support. In these positions, you support outside sales staff. Order management may be required – you do what’s necessary to move orders through ‘the system.’ You’ll also establish relationships with customers, sales staff, and other internal organizations. Idle time is spent calling prospects on behalf of your sales staff and building upon any leads – and you will therefore forward pertinent info to your sales staff.
you haven't started doing anything yet, so you don't have any UPDATING to do YET. after 3-6 months, you will have lots of things to add.
Also, if you really are a business development executive, your duties would be clearly laid out in your contract.
If you really want to own your own business you will need to understand that SALES is the ONLY place where ALL the money is.
If you are looking for work at home big money with no work, I'm sure you will get 500 answers advertising their down-line.
Invest the money in your business, not their scams. There is NO EASY money.
looks cool
The best information on quality MBA programs is found in the Official MBA Guide, a free public service at http://officialmbaguide.org. It enables you to locate MBA programs worldwide that best fit your criteria and preferences.
Flash lite?
The snapdragon can do a full browser with full flash 10, that’s bullshit.
Most people who go to physio are either from doctors – or personal trainers at gyms. The other source is sports teams – consider even high school teams.
Get to personally know doctors and trainers – this can be done through personal networking at chamber meetings, rotary or other group meetings.
Another thing to consider is hosting an after hours function at your location – use the Chamber or other local organization that does these and be a host – then make sure you have proper promotional material geared towards doctors and personal trainers and sports teams. – Hand them out.
Hello Dil,
Good luck to you! I can imagine it must be a tough choice to make. If you already have a payed job that pays more then the fixed salary minus penalty pinch I'd say think twice about it. I'm sure there is a good reason why they have this penalty.
If advertising is your thing you may want to think about getting an online business as a second income to back you up. You don't have to limit yourself to India but can advertise worldwide and build up a genuine monthly returning income without having fixed hours. Below site lets you sign up for free and is listed at better business bureau with an A score and no complaints. They are one of the greatest in the world and have been on TV as well. You can read testimonials from people all over the world at below site and they also have a free signup plan.
A lot of newer companies overlook the effectiveness of joining the local Chamber of Commerce. By being an ACTIVE member, you have numerous opportunities to network with those searching for the services that you provide. You build relationships with leaders in the community, and in turn, become well known within the community. It sounds simple, but it works if you take the time to attend all of the networking events and build relationships. Let your personality shine…don’t be a salesperson at the events, be a friend, and the business will come!
o.O that’s pretty good for a netbook/phone