Sell to Their Culture, Not Yours

Why do some businesses thrive in global markets while others fail, even with great products?

In this episode of 10 Keys to Thrive, Jim Krigbaum shares powerful lessons from working in 82 countries. He reveals why understanding culture is one of the most important skills in business, leadership, sales, and marketing. From Japan and the Middle East to Europe and Latin America, Jim explains how successful leaders learn to adapt their communication, branding, presentation, and business approach to connect with the people they serve.

Through real-world stories and international business experiences, you'll discover how culture influences buying decisions, negotiations, product packaging, dress codes, customer relationships, and business success. Jim also shares examples of companies that succeeded by respecting local customs and others that struggled because they expected customers to adapt to them.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, salesperson, consultant, or business owner, this episode will help you build stronger relationships, communicate more effectively, and create greater success in today's global marketplace.

Because in business, it's not about getting people to understand your culture. It's about understanding theirs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let's talk about how your culture is not the dominating culture in when you're negotiating. You have to comply with the culture of the company or the country that you're dealing with. You have to be able to coordinate and communicate and effectively communicate with them and make them feel comfortable. You don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. Stay tuned to the end of this session. We'll talk about one trade show where the buyers were uncomfortable because of the way that the exhibitors were dressed.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Are you sick and tired of spinning wheels, wasting time and money in your business, but getting nowhere fast? With the 10 Keys to Thrive Podcast, it's your masterclass in momentum by International Business Strategists and your host, Jim Krigbaum.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Welcome to 10 Keys to Thrive in Business and Life. I'm your mentor and host, Jim Krigbaum. Today we're talking about culture, business culture, but also personal culture. Everywhere around the world, people have different cultures. Culture, even in the United States, will have the southern culture and the western culture, the eastern culture and the Midwest culture. There's different cultures. And if you're going to sell a product, if you're going to market yourself in a country or in a region, you need to be able to relate to that culture. And that culture, more importantly, needs to be able to relate to you. They need to be able to look at you and say, this person understands me. This person understands why I need the product. This person understands how I'm going to use it. And they understand why my culture is the way it is. Now I've been around the world. I've been into 82 countries. So I've seen a lot of different cultures. I've seen Central Asia where the culture is very calm. People are very nice. And their culture is extense. And it's important that you understand it. You don't go into the country without understanding their history. So if you're going to go to a market, if you're going to go to a country, whether you're going on vacation or you're going on business, you need to spend some time to understand where they come from. You need to understand their history, what made them who they are today? What wars were they involved in? What discoveries were they involved in? What businesses have been successes and what businesses have been failures in their countries? And by understanding that, you'll be able to adjust your presentation. You'll be able to adjust your culture, your presentation to meet theirs. Remember, it's not important what you like, it's important what the customer likes. So how do you make them feel comfortable? When I go to Japan, I don't go with a bright suit. I don't go with jeans. I don't go with a t-shirt or even a shirt like this, a polo shirt. I go with the suit and I go with a dark suit. Why? Because that's the way business is done in Japan. You don't go and do business in Japan like the same way you do it in Holland or in England or in Central Asia or in the Middle East or Africa. You do it based on their culture. You can learn about their culture. There's thousands of books, I probably have a half a dozen behind me here, on understanding people's culture, whether they should bow, shake, or kiss. There's all kinds of books on understanding how to adapt yourself to their culture. You have to understand their culture. You don't have to accept it as this is the gospel and this is the way it's going to be. This is cast in stone. But if you're going to sell to them, you have to understand it. The Japanese culture is a great one because it's being an island, they've been isolated for several years. They were isolated for several centuries, which allowed them to develop their own culture. And it's still pretty much a monoculture. There's it's pretty much Japanese, and you go there and you have to comply with that. We've seen situations, and there's an example in my book, the difference with Trump meeting the Japanese Emperor, and the difference with Obama meeting the Japanese emperor. They're very different styles. And which one was right and which one was wrong. I guess a lot of that depends on what side of the political fence you're on. Both individuals understood where they're at. When you meet the queen, you have to understand what the culture is. Now, when you go to England or you go to Japan, you're not meeting the emperor. And you're not meeting the queen. If you are, then you're probably not listening to this podcast. But you're meeting the business people, you're meeting the average person. You need to understand why they do the things they do. What is their motivation? When they dress in uniform, when they dress in the same dark suits, why are they dressing in dark suits? Why do they try and comply? You know, understanding the Japanese culture, for example, Japan, there are so many people that if one person stands out, if one person's wearing a red suit to stand out. And in Japan, they say the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Because it can't have the freedom to be different. And that's one of the things we don't see a lot of entrepreneurs in Japan, because to take the risk to be an entrepreneur is not a success. Even in the United States, to a certain extent, people like myself, people like you that are entrepreneurs, a lot of times are not accepted by our peers. When I graduated from college to say, hey, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur, versus the person who says, I'm going to go work for Procter and Gamble, or I'm going to go work for Chevron. They had the clout. The entrepreneur had to prove themselves. Some have proved themselves beyond a question of a doubt. They proved themselves with great success. Others prove themselves by getting knocked down and getting back up again. That's the culture of an entrepreneur. One time when I was in Portland, my brother was an alcoholic, and my father was an alcoholic and an entrepreneur. My brother said, How come you didn't inherit the alcoholic gene? And I asked him, I said, How come you didn't inherit the entrepreneur gene? At the time, I wasn't sure which was worse. As an entrepreneur, I got knocked down and got back up. As an alcoholic, he got knocked down and kept digging. Entrepreneurs have our own culture. But when we're selling, we have to market ourselves into that culture. When I go to the Middle East, I don't wear a suit. I dress more casual to comply with what they expect. If I was a woman and I'm trying to do business in the Middle East, I might wear a scarf and cover my head. You have to understand I can't shake hands with the women, for example, in business, even if we're doing business together. They're not supposed to touch me. I have to understand that. This is the broad picture of culture from country to country, but also works within industries. If I'm going to a banking meeting, I'm not going to dress the same as if I'm going to a meeting of computer programmers or computer gamers. I don't want to be the person who stands out, I want to be the person who fits in. Now there are times when you want to stand out. There are times when you want people to notice you and pay attention to you. A trade show is an example. When I went to the trade show at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago several years ago, we were giving out samples. And to give out the samples, we hired an individual to dress in traditional Incan attire. So they looked like they were Incan and people were intrigued. People came over to talk to her. Flip side of that, when we were in Dubai, the Brazilians were dressing like they were at a show in Rio or Sao Paulo. They were there in short skirts, they were there in loose-fitting blouses or tight-fitting blouses that exposed a lot. And they were dealing with the Muslim culture. They were dealing with the culture in UAE. They were shunned. They weren't accepted. People look at them and say, oh my, I'm too embarrassed. I'm too shy. It doesn't fit my culture. I can't go talk to them. Though the Brazilians were saying, this is our culture, this is the way we are. They had to realize that the customer doesn't care how you are. The customer cares how you fit with what they want. We see the same thing with the Italians. Italians, a lot of times, the women are much more free than a lot of countries around the world. So we'll go into it and expect them to comply with us. We'll expect them to meet our standards. But remember, you're there selling to them. You're there to fit into their society. And again, there are times when you want to stand out. There are times when you want to make a statement. There are times when the attire that you wear will help promote your product. And there are times that the attire you wear will close the door before you even get there. And it's not just the way you wear it, it's the way you speak. I was down in Colombia one time. We flew on a helicopter out to a village and it wasn't safe. They were producing product to counteract the coca production, so it was an area of narco production. And at the end of the day, when an experienced consultant came up to me and said, you need to be quieter. You need to talk with a low-tone voice. Because I wasn't talking loud. I'm not a loud talking person and I'm not flamboyant, but I was talking in a normal voice. And he says, as soon as you do that, everybody knows that you're American. Everybody takes a look at you. And you don't want to stand out in this situation you wanted to fit in. So there are times when being fitting in is important. When I was in Pakistan, I had a bodyguard with me, and I walked around with the bodyguard behind me. Now the bodyguard wasn't beside me because that would have drawn immediate attention. So they were back a couple of feet, at back a couple of people. They were there to protect me, but it wasn't obvious that that's what they were doing. But I had also learned to be quiet. I'd also learned not to try and draw attention to myself. That wasn't what I wanted to do. You know, we had the situation, gender and sexual relationships are important in how you do that. What you do in the United States, you cannot necessarily do in some of these other countries. Same-sex marriage and homosexuality is not accepted there. Not to say it's right or wrong, that's not for me to judge, but if you're trying to sell into that market, you can't openly go into those markets and counteract their traditions. If I'm going to sell into the Middle East, maybe I don't want to wear my holy cross. We were dealing with a company out of Ukraine that their logo was a dove with olive branch in its thing and the cross. And they're trying to sell into the Middle East. They didn't adapt their culture. We'd had a situation where years ago I sat down with Starbucks and they were just getting ready to make their purchase of Seattle's best coffee in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. And I was talking to the individual and I said, Well, you got to be careful because your colors of Starbucks, the green is a color of religion in the Middle East. Your stars are in the mermaid, and the mermaid's attire, just to put it that way, was not appropriate for their country. And Starbucks said, We're Starbucks, they'll adapt, they'll fit, they'll realize who we are and they'll adapt their culture. Well, Starbucks took over the stores, their sales and those locations fell because they immediately changed the logos and all of a sudden they were Starbucks stores. And the color green, the stars, the mermaid, all those things were counterculture. And they weren't strong enough to go in and say, we're going to change their culture. We're going to make them who we want them to be. Starbucks would have been able to achieve greater sales in those retail stores supplying their product, but maybe with a different brand. So even on packaging, when we look at packaging, we have to look at how the brand fits in with the culture. We had a situation where we had a chocolate, excellent chocolate. It was a Seattle-based chocolate company. It was a premium package. It was ideal. There were three pieces of chocolate in a box. We sent it to Japan. We never heard anything packed and we finally said, What did you think of the chocolate? And our customer kind of laughed and said, Well, we can't sell that. And we were trying to sell it as a Valentine's gift. He said, We can't sell it because that box is the same box that we sell condoms in, same style box, same design. So if I'm going to give that box to a girl for Valentine's Day, she's going to think I'm giving her condoms. Not the right thing. So understanding that even the packaging can conflict with their culture. So how do I understand what culture fits in? And how do I understand what I need to dress like and how I need to package? Use the internet. Use AI. Ask AI what a typical business meeting in Tokyo looks like, or their typical business meeting in Dubai, or typical business meeting in Belgium looks like. How do people dress? Take a look at the retailers. You can go online and look at a grocery store, you can go online and look at a department store, and you can see what the people are dressing, you can see what people are selling, and you can then adapt accordingly. Don't expect the world to conform to you if you're trying to sell product at them. Try and fit in. Unless, again, of course, you're trying to make a statement. And there are times when making a statement is you're strong enough to do that, or you're independent enough, or your brand creates a certain image. If you can pull that off, it's going to take a lot of money. It's going to take a lot of money and a lot of time to try and change cultures. Try and get people to adapt to what you want. You have to adapt. You're the seller. You have to adapt your quality. You have to adapt your flavor. You have to adapt your culture. You have to adapt it so it fits into what they want. Thank you. Join us next time. If you're interested in a topic and you'd like me to address it, drop a note in the messages here. Contact me. You can contact me from the website and let me know what topics you'd like me to address. Again, consider the fact that I've been to 82 countries. I've worked with thousands of businesses around the world, both large and small, and help them find their niche, develop their products, and plan their business accordingly. If there's a person that you'd like to have come on or a topic that you'd like to have another person to discuss on, let us know. Drop us a note. Thanks. We'll see you there.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

So that's it for today's episode of Ten Keys to Thrive. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. Be sure to head on over to tenkeys to thrive.com to pick up a free copy of Jim's gift. And join us on the next episode.