Thread: Mike Bird - Managing Director Bloomstorm Ltd

International Sale and Business Development

Mike Bird, Managing Director Bloomstorm Ltd discusses international sales and business development with NLP trainer Michael Beale.

Mike runs Bloomstorm - the consultancy to come when you want to make change happen properly, quickly and permanently.



(Please allow up to 3 minutes for the MP3 file to download if you want to listen to the discussion.)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/sales/mike_bird.mp3

International Sales

Michael : Thank you very much for taking part in this call. Just to kick it off, can I ask you to introduce yourself, say a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Mike : Thanks Michael. My name’s Mike Bird. I’m the owner of a company called Bloomstorm. We are a change training and consulting company: we enable companies, particularly larger companies to implement change much more effectively by thinking about what they need to do organisationally and operationally to execute the change practically and quickly.

Michael : So today we’re going to be talking about international sales and development, so what experience do you have that gives you that credibility in international sales and development?

Mike : Well, I spent thirteen years before I set up Bloomstorm as a partner in an international consulting and training company where I sold and delivered projects in twenty-six countries in a variety of different, very large organisations.

Michael : Could you give a bit of context into that, as in what sort of countries, what sort of products and services? What sort of channels to market?

Mike : Absolutely. We were selling troubleshooting skills and capability and were equipping clients to solve problems more effectively. The clients we were going after were typically larger blue chips mainly in the technology sector, but also in the banking and financial services sectors. So the kinds of clients were Sun Microsystems, EDS, Dell, ABN AMRO Bank, Nokia Networks, and so on.

The kind of countries we did this – the kind of countries where I’ve sold business– include the United States, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, and a couple of others.

Michael : Now within the markets that you’ve talked about and the services you’ve talked about, what do you think are the biggest challenges people face in selling today, internationally?

Mike : The biggest challenge, I think -- particularly if you’re selling to international companies -- is the problem of assuming that because a company is trans-national, its people are as well. So the fact that somebody works for, say, Sun Microsystems in Germany, it does not follow necessarily that they have the same attitudes, the same beliefs and the same approach to what’s being offered as somebody from Sun Microsystems in the United States, or in France or in Japan.

One of the things that can happen is that the vocabulary for the conversation is different. The kinds of basis for working are different. For example, if you are out doing a lot of work, say in Finland, it’s very hard to get a meaningful conversation with Finnish-born people, because in Finland there’s a latency: there is a time in which people want to get to know you, and in that time, particularly if you’re coming from the United States, or from the United Kingdom, it’s very frustrating because the Finns – like, say, many Asian people – won’t give you very much at all. They won’t be working on the relationship because the mindset is that they have to have to get to know you. There’s a culture, not of silence, but of being quiet for a while until they understand you better.

In, for example, France - you have to be careful not to stereotype, but sometimes some of the stereotypical behaviours are observed - in France, some people do like the appeal to higher values, to higher philosophical structure. And the relationship is not so fundamental as the concept and the idea. Whereas for example, in Germany, the notion of providing clarity, and removing ambiguity becomes important - so that equipping the client to genuinely understand what they’re going to get and being very specific about that generally helps, whereas in France you’d want to spend more time talking about the intention behind what you’re doing and the theoretical model behind it, and also the wider values that underpin what you’re doing.

Michael : What other sorts of challenges do people have selling internationally?

Mike : Well, of course, the other problem you have selling internationally is language. It’s an intrinsic problem, and I have been very fortunate, because I don’t speak any other languages apart from English, but I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work with clients who have been prepared to put the effort in to have the conversation in English – and to receive the services we’ve offered in English.

This is not entirely the case: I have helped to sell things that were delivered locally in a different language, but the sales process was conducted in English. And then you have an interesting challenge, because you can sometimes not be certain that a client’s interpretation of what you have said is accurate.

I’ll give you a quick example. The term ‘client’ and the term ‘customer’ in the United Kingdom and in the United States have two different meanings. A client is a person with whom your services are relationship based. This is a subset if you like, of the term ‘customer’ where the term ‘customer’ is anybody who engages in a financial buying transaction.

In Spain and in Italy the term ‘Client?’ is the same whether it’s customer or client. Those two terms are not distinguishable and the assumption being, particularly as I’ve done, offering professional services to organisations in Spain and in Italy, you then run into problems when it comes to customer and client. Because you aren’t aware until it comes up that in those languages those two terms are inter-changeable, whereas in English they are not.

Michael : So we’ve talked about the trans-national cultures, we’ve talked about language. Anything else you think is important?

Mike : There are a couple of things. It can be very easy to focus on the cultural differences when you are selling in different countries. You can be aware that in certain countries that punctuality or lack of it is a sign of rudeness or not. In Switzerland and in Germany, turning up late is close to a mortal sin. In Ireland, it’s rare for the client to turn up on time. In Indonesia, the notion of punctuality is a hugely variable feast and you can have people coming and going out of your meeting over two or three hours.

So, one of the challenges that you need to address is that thinking about these things, and concentrating on them is a mistake. Good business discipline works everywhere. So good manners, good punctuality, treating people with respect and – a rule of thumb that I was given when I was a very junior consultant - was that you always have to be 10% more conservative than your client in dress, and in language, and that applies everywhere. That way you don’t run the risk of offending people, and the other thing is that you focus on the things that you are intent on rather than on the differences. And focusing on the differences can get in the way of what it is that you’re supposed to be doing.

Michael : Could you give an example of that?

Mike : Yes, one of the classic cultural warnings people are told if they’re dealing with Japanese people is that you have to treat a Japanese person’s business card with great reverence. A business card is seen, in Japan, as an extension of that person. Whereas in the United Kingdom, when somebody gives you a business card, you say ‘thank you very much’ and you might put it in your pocket. In Japan that is a mortal sin.

So, you take it, you look at it, you put it in front of you on the table. You take time to look at it, you certainly don’t scribble on the card to make a note of where you met the person. And you pick the card up carefully at the end of the meeting and you make sure that you don’t leave it behind.

The problem with that is that it can then start infecting the way in which you talk to the person. And you’re concentrating on the card as opposed to concentrating on the person instead of the things you should be worrying about - the sale, the relationship and the conversation.

There are other examples. Again, thinking of again Japan – it is possible, because in Japanese culture (and actually this applies in a lot of Asia and South Asia), you can find yourself in a situation where the conversation does not get onto the substantive part of the meeting. You’ll have a lot of conversation about the relationships and about the weather and about where you’re going – and any time you try to get onto the discovery of need, or any of that stuff, you get steered away.

Now, famously, that can be used as a tactic, notably in Japan, where they will understand when you are planning to leave, and with half an hour to go will then start raising substantive items, knowing that you will have to leave, and then thinking that you will then have to compromise because you’re pushed for time.

So one of the tips that I was given when I first started working with Japanese people, is certainly to tell them when you're leaving, but always make sure that you have a flexible ticket - so you are not having necessarily to compromise on having time, you can always catch the later flight.

So there are variations on these kinds of things, but the thing to recognize is - there's one other factor which I think is important, and it relates to this - in Asia, and other countries that I mentioned such as Finland, one of the problems with particularly bigger ticket sales is that you have to do a lot of discovery: you have to ask a lot of questions and uncover a lot of client needs. If you are not really careful about how you phrase your questions and about the way you treat your answers, you can run the risk of having your prospect be nervous about the answers because they could lose face. Because if you're talking about a need, that's because there's a problem - if you're talking about a problem, that might reflect badly on the person who is talking about the problem. And in parts of Asia, and also in certain parts of Europe, people are reluctant to talk about their corporate problems and they're reluctant to talk about how that effects them personally - which in a lot of sales, is an essential item to getting to a close.

Michael : Let me pose you a question. If you were asked to sell, or you were going to sell in a country in which you as of yet had no experience - how would you start off?

Mike : The first thing that I would do is that I would find some people that I know to ask them if there is anyone that they know of who knows that cultural environment. Somebody who is neutral, to whom I am not trying to sell, who can give me advice on how to have the conversation and what things to watch for.

I would also then try to not be seduced by these things, as I mentioned earlier. So I can understand how to keep onto my agenda, to make sure that I can get to where I want to be. The two or three things that I would be looking for are: what are the social rules - what are the things that make sure that they want to carry on talking to me?
Secondly, where are the linguistic challenges? What is the domain of the area in which I am working? I once had the good fortune to do a job for a telecoms company, and there was a project in which we were doing some work in the United Kingdom and in Germany - and one of the requirements was that the people we were working with in Germany had to speak English. I was assured that they all spoke it because 'that was the corporate language', and we went over to do the work in Germany and discovered that we were in Berlin, and one of the things that they don't tell you about that you have to learn about Berlin and anywhere close to East Germany is that West Germans historically have a much better grasp of English than East Germans. So you need to be aware of that, and to slow things down and check for understanding much more if you are in a group with East Germans - but if you didn't know that you could be tripped up, because you could be assuming that you'd be talking to a group of West-Germans, with whom you'd typically have to explain yourself less.

So linguistic awareness, and understanding of levels of basic English are important. In India, usually the level of receptive language is higher than it is in, say, China. So you will typically have more people understand what you're saying in India than in China. But in China, they will never let you know that they don't understand - so you therefore have to, again, you have to look for ways to confirm understanding. Look for ways to either summarize back what you have heard, or to ask for examples whenever they mention an issue or a topic - because when you ask for an example they are forced to demonstrate a level of understanding.
And when they demonstrate a lack of understanding you always have to blame yourself. If they explain something, and it isn't correct, one of the things that you must do is take the loss of face onto yourself. Say “I'm sorry, I can not have explained this correctly. I'm sorry for my clumsy use of the correct words in English - let me see if I can help you, and help explain and deal with this better. Let's go back through it again."

The final thing that I would ask about is how do people like to be sold to? If you're going to New York, coming from the United Kingdom, and you're selling professional services or any service offering - one of the things that strikes you immediately is that people in New York City don't want to waste time in conversation, small talk, or relationship building. They want to get to the solution and know that it's going to meet their needs, fast - they will always tell you that they are pressed for time. If you're not aware of that, you can find yourself losing a lot of momentum in conversation - and they get very frustrated with you, because you don't know how they want to be sold to.

Michael : What's the quickest way of finding out how people like to be sold to?

Mike : There are two or three things. One is, you go talk to - if you have a network, and if you are working internationally at all then hopefully you will have some folks that also have international experience in your network - to whom you can call or speak to. It's usually better to have a conversation, but not always.

One of the other things that you can do, is that you can always use LinkedIn Answers and say 'I am about to go to the Philippines, to sell, or to do some sales for this domain or area. Who has advice or experience of working in the Philippines as to what I should look out for? But one of the tricks is not to simply say 'What should I look out for?' but to provide categories. 'What should I look out for linguistically? What should I look out for socially? What should I look out for in terms of the sales process?'

Michael : Now moving on from that - if you were recruiting a salesman yourself to sell to one of these countries, how would you know who to choose?

Mike : I would be very careful about choosing somebody simply because they have native understanding of an area. This is partly due to my own background - for a while I, in my dim and distant past I directed theatre, Fringe Theatre and things like that. When I started, when I was casting a play, I'd read the play, I'd get a really good understanding of what it was about, and then I'd look for people that would fit my view of how the character should be - and it was almost always a disaster.

What I learned very fast was that I needed to find people who were good actors first and foremost, who demonstrated some potential around and then let them develop into it. And I think it's the same thing when it comes to recruiting people for social and cultural capability. You need people who can demonstrate that they can work cross-culturally. Having local knowledge is useful, but if you're interested in selling internationally - look at people that can work across borders rather than within borders. So you would look for people who - and I would expect to see in a CV - have experience of some international working.

When interviewing them, I would want to see them selling to me. I would want to see their sales process to see how they are checking whether I'm on board, checking their language, checking the way I want to be sold to. I would also ask for horror stories - where they've got it wrong. Because if they can't tell me where they've got it wrong, I know that they're going to get it wrong on my watch instead. I would much rather they said 'Well, I did this, it was horrible, and I'm not going to do that again!' So I want evidence of hard-won experiences, rather than book-learning.

Some linguistic capability, wonderful. But it depends whether I'm recruiting for somebody to go into an individual country and just work between two countries or if I'm looking for somebody who can genuinely work trans-nationally and go wherever we need to send them. In that case we'll be looking for potential and capability rather than technical and cultural knowledge specifically.

Michael : Before we move on to anything that you'd like to plug and your contact details - is there anything else that you'd like to say about selling internationally? It may be something that we've left out, or it may be something that you really want to emphasise.

Mike : The thing we haven't mentioned is the written part of selling - the proposal, the letter, the presentation. And again, a couple of things; there will be a temptation when you're selling, if you're selling anything complex, there be a temptation to be really specific and possibly even pedantic about how you use your language. Write out exactly what you mean, really specifically and then, preferably with someone who is skilled professionally in English, simplify it. Plain English, remove the ambiguity.

Again, the people that you are dealing with, will not typically speak English as a first language - apart from possibly our American friends, and our folks in Ireland - and any ambiguity you see in the sales documentation definitely will cause problems for you.

I have been in situations where I have turned up to follow up a proposal and the client has steam coming out of his ears because what we wrote in the proposal was, in our terms, an accurate reflection of what we discovered - but the way that we presented it was (a) ambiguous and (b) the ambiguity could reflect badly on him. And so he was very unhappy with that. And we spent a lot of time, instead of closing the deal, rescuing the deal because we hadn't got our language right.

Michael : Now, you've been sharing your experience for the last twenty minutes, is there anything that you would like to bring to our audience’s attention - anything that you're doing that you'd like a plug for?

Mike : Thank you, yes. I am now running a company called Bloomstorm, we help companies implement change effectively, and I've done this in some forty countries now with global projects and I've also done it locally. And one of the things that I'm interested in is finding out and talking to companies that have to make change happen, whether it's through technology launch, whether it's through the introduction of training, whether it's because they're setting a new strategy or maybe it's just because they're trying to dial things back in a bit because of the credit crunch - and the challenge is how do you do this consistently, internationally, without compromising too much as to what the goals of the organisation are?

And one of the things Bloomstorm are good at is equipping an organisation to have a common frameworks for dealing with things, regardless of situation, but giving people enough local autonomy so that they retain control. And just for your listeners delight and edification I'm writing a book on change, called 'Everything You Know About Change Is Wrong, But You Can Do Something About It.' and they can expect to see that next year.

Michael : Excellent, and your contact details?

Mike : Yes, my name is Mike Bird, the company is Bloomstorm, Bloom as in flower, and storm as in weather. And my email is mike.bird@bloomstorm.com, our website is Bloomstorm - The Antidote to Change Nonsense - Home and if you want to find out more, go on there, or go onto our blog (Bloomstorm Blog) which you can link to from the website.

Michael : Thank you very much indeed for your time.

Mike : Thank you Michael, it's been a pleasure.