When in Rome or East Asia

One of the great­est fal­lac­i­es in the glob­alised mod­ern age is to assume that every­one is the same basic bag of atoms. This, believes Allyson Stew­art-Allen, founder and chief exec­u­tive of Inter­na­tion­al Mar­ket­ing Part­ners, a busi­ness con­sul­tan­cy with offices in Lon­don and Los Ange­les, is a uni­ver­sal prob­lem, stem­ming from the innate human assump­tion that “anoth­er cul­ture or coun­try is just like theirs”.

They aren’t, of course, and you prob­a­bly noticed that the last time you went on hol­i­day. But recog­nis­ing this mis­con­cep­tion and con­tort­ing your mind to adapt to local cul­tures can mean the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure for export-mind­ed com­pa­nies.

First things first. For any exporter one sim­ple, fun­da­men­tal fact per­sists: we do busi­ness with peo­ple we like. “You need to make friends first,” says Lara Mor­gan, who sold Pacif­ic Direct, the glob­al toi­letries firm she found­ed at 23, for £20 mil­lion. “We buy from the per­son first, the prod­uct sec­ond and the com­pa­ny last. That’s fac­tu­al­ly how we approach the buy­ing deci­sions we make.”

This friend fac­tor is com­mon to all cul­tures, but it’s greater in some mar­kets than oth­ers. Exporters look­ing to do busi­ness in East Asia typ­i­cal­ly have to build in more get­ting-to-know-you time than they might in Europe or North Amer­i­ca, and look for shared val­ues and philoso­phies. Expect­ing to do a deal before rap­port is built is insult­ing in some mar­kets, notes Ms Stew­art-Allen, sug­gest­ing that you are will­ing to put busi­ness before rela­tion­ships.

Being a good soul and a friend­ly face helps, of course, but it isn’t a panacea to all ills. To sell suc­cess­ful­ly over­seas you also need to have a range of weapons in your arse­nal, each ever-shift­ing and con­stant­ly avail­able. Ms Mor­gan, who now runs a busi­ness advi­so­ry out­fit, Com­pa­ny Short­cuts, believes a suc­cess­ful exporter must be a “chameleon, using your brains and adapt­ing to the world around you”.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

This flex­i­bil­i­ty of mind is more like­ly to be found in those with a diverse past or an innate sense of adven­ture. The trade-mind­ed Dutch are famous­ly good exporters, hav­ing retained their mer­can­tilist spir­it and adapt­abil­i­ty. For oth­ers, it’s the rich­ness of their upbring­ing. Arnab Dutt, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Tex­ane, a Leices­ter­shire-based firm that man­u­fac­tures heavy wheels used on mass-tran­sit rail­ways includ­ing the Paris and New York met­ros, was brought up in north Lon­don speak­ing three lan­guages. That instilled the sort of “cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence” need­ed to do deals in far-off places, he believes.

Often, the key to suc­cess for any exporter – it’s dif­fer­ent for every­one – is to get the lit­tle things right. Don’t be rude or assume – still a com­mon British blun­der – that shout­ing will get you under­stood. If you can’t speak the lan­guage of the coun­try you are pre­sent­ing into, hire some­one reli­able who does. Prepa­ra­tion is key. Do your research before you leave home. Talk to local part­ners if you have them or in-coun­try con­tacts.

We buy from the per­son first, the prod­uct sec­ond and the com­pa­ny last

Well-pro­duced mar­ket­ing lit­er­a­ture is cen­tral to your integri­ty, so spend time and mon­ey on your web­site and brochures. “The first thing to go when you lose accu­ra­cy is your cred­i­bil­i­ty,” says Lar­ry Gould, chief exec­u­tive and founder of the­big­word, a Leeds-based trans­la­tion firm boast­ing FTSE 100 firms among its ros­ter of clients. “If what you are say­ing is wrong, you’ll lose out. It amazes me how many chief exec­u­tives fly first class on busi­ness trips, but won’t get stuff trans­lat­ed.”

And don’t try to do every­thing your­self. UK Trade & Invest­ment, the gov­ern­ment body, is a vital source of infor­ma­tion, as are Britain’s myr­i­ad spe­cial­ist trade asso­ci­a­tions. All British embassies now have trade depart­ments that are “vital sources of con­tacts for any aspir­ing exporter”, says Texane’s Mr Dutt, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cul­tur­al­ly com­plex regions, such as the Mid­dle East. Offi­cial gov­ern­ment trade mis­sions can help, but keep a clear aim in mind to avoid wast­ing time and mon­ey.

DON’T GIVE UP

Think on your feet. “Speak to the concierge,” when you arrive in a new mar­ket, sug­gests Com­pa­ny Short­cuts’ Ms Mor­gan. “Find out what hours peo­ple work and what cus­toms peo­ple hold dear.” Irony and sar­casm may work in Britain, but usu­al­ly get lost in a for­eign board­room; leave humour to come­di­ans. And don’t let rejec­tion dis­cour­age you. Ms Mor­gan bom­bard­ed the Indi­an hote­lier P.R.S. Oberoi with sam­ples when build­ing up Pacif­ic Direct. “Even­tu­al­ly he gave me the time of day,” she remem­bers. “You have to be per­sis­tent and we don’t learn that well in Britain. A real entre­pre­neur always finds a way.”

A host of oth­er prin­ci­ples are also under­val­ued. How you present your­self – clothes, shoes, ties, hand­bags – is a proxy for com­mu­ni­cat­ing suc­cess and gain­ing trust in Amer­i­ca, while in Europe, authen­tic­i­ty is built on get­ting to know peo­ple. In some coun­tries, buy­ers typ­i­cal­ly place more empha­sis on what a prod­uct promis­es to do, while in oth­ers it’s all about hard and prov­able fact. Ger­man cus­tomers, notes Mr Dutt, want “sol­id evi­dence – proof, test­ing and sci­ence – that your prod­ucts are the best; then they will talk to you”.

Even the con­cept of time varies immense­ly from one region and coun­try to anoth­er. In hard-head­ed Amer­i­ca, notes Inter­na­tion­al Mar­ket­ing Part­ners’ Ms Stew­art-Allen, time is “tight­ly reg­u­lat­ed” with busi­ness meet­ings “planned minute­ly and each slide or bul­let point care­ful­ly chore­o­graphed”. In Latin Amer­i­ca, Asia and even Europe, clients care less if a meet­ing runs over or even has no end­point at all, a cul­tur­al dynam­ic that can some­times make all that hard work worth­while.

For Mr Dutt, meet­ings with one French client start not in a board­room but a restau­rant. “We get through a bot­tle of cham­pagne at lunch before even talk­ing about busi­ness,” he says. “I could get used to that sort of lifestyle.”