Other cultures are different. Fact.

If you are doing business with people from other cultures, you need to understand (and accept) that they are different, they behave differently, their values and norms are not the same as yours. And that’s a fact.

Some years ago, a central African country obtained a large cash injection from the EU for a project that was never implemented. A couple of years later they applied to the EU again for aid for a different project.

On that occasion, the rotating Presidency of the EU rested with a certain northern European country, who asked the Africans, “Where is the money we gave you for the last project?” No answer.

The Africans repeated their appeal for aid, but made no reference to the previous grant. In frustration, the EU President said, “We are happy to give you the aid for the new project, but if you didn’t use the last grant, show us the money and we will top it up for the new project.” No answer.

The Europeans then closed down their diplomatic mission and pulled out of the African country. They saw things in black and white and could not understand why the Africans were unable to show them the money or explain where it was.

I was reminded of that incident when I sent a sum of money to India in support of a good cause. Even allowing for variable conversion rates, the sum that arrived was 15-20% lower than I expected. I asked for a paper trail, but nothing happened, but I gather that the money had travelled through two or three banks.

Pandit Nehru once said that cash transactions in India (as in government spending) were like passing a block of ice from hand to hand: it would inevitably be smaller on arrival than when it started out.

It is, of course, easy to condemn. However, I as explained in my book, “Communicating Across Cultures”, different nations have different values and different ways of doing things. In the book I defined culture as “the way we do things around here”. And, of course, each nation has its own way of doing things, which will often be very different from your own.

Accepting that is the way to cross-cultural understanding. It’s the starting point.

Why make a speech?

 

Recently I attended the local Toastmasters Area and Evaluation contests. It was a revelation.

Almost all the speeches delivered that day were without purpose. Or, to be more precise, they had little relevance to, or value for, the assembled audience.

This is not intended as a criticism of the speakers, all of whom are at various levels of the learning process. They cannot know unless they are told what a speech is for.

Their speeches were either self-centred or simply narratives.  In the evaluation contest, for example, a speech was delivered by an invited speaker who told a charming tale of her time in Japan. She told it well, and it was interesting, but it was not a speech.

In simple terms, the purpose of a speech should be to bring about Change — in the thinking, attitude or behaviour of the audience. What passes for speeches most often could better be described as an entertainment, a confession, or a declaration. If the audience thinks, “Why do I need to hear this?” or “How is this relevant to me?” it fails as a speech.

When I am training people in public speaking, I sometimes don a surgical mask and tell them how people in Tokyo may be seen in public places wearing similar masks — not to protect themselves from that city’s infamous smog, but because they have head colds or other infectious ailments. They wear the masks to protect others from their germs.

So my question is this: is your speech for your own benefit, or for the sake of others? That’s a good starting place for any speech.  Or presentation.

Over-exposure is a nuisance

On the timeline of one of my social media networks, one person has 30 (almost consecutive) posts, each with that person’s photograph. Another person has 11 such posts on the same page. Scrolling down the page I am faced with seemingly endless exposure to those two people.

My initial two reactions were (a) too much and (b) not the best choice of photos.

I’ve noticed a number of people adopting the strategy of multiple posts to bring themselves to the notice of their contacts. The fundamental weakness in this approach is that each post carries a link to a website elsewhere. Effectively they are saying, “Go somewhere else and read what someone else has written.”

But will that gain them the reputation as a source of interesting material? Hardly. Who has the time or the inclination to explore 30 suggested sites just to find an article of interest?

It actually diminishes the person’s credibility. He or she is seen as someone who is simply spraying out a random collection of links for the sake of attention. He or she has no obvious connection with the recommended articles. The term ‘content farmer’ springs to mind.

Let me now turn to the photographs. I’m not sure how some people choose their profile pics. Do they ever get feedback from trusted friends? Every headshot makes a statement – ask John Cassidy. There’s strong body language in the pose. And we are not always the best judges of our own photographs.

The two in question are OK as single images, which serve merely as identifiers. But when there are 11 or 30 of the same images in a row, you start to form an opinion about the people themselves. That’s when the choice of photo becomes relevant, and when it’s advisable to get feedback from trusted friends.

Once you alienate people through over-exposure of this kind, they will automatically dismiss anything you post in future. It’s overkill.

It amounts to being a nuisance.

Long copy or short copy?

 Depends on how you see it.

The debate in direct marketing circles is a long-standing and on-going one. Which works better – long letters or short ones? The answer may surprise you. It arises out of a significant shift in our reading habits.

I experienced it at first hand this week, when I found myself reading a number of blogs in a hurry.

I read them because they were discussions on topics that interested me, and had attracted quite a few comments from well-informed people. However, I struggled with them

The reason I found them hard going was this: the paragraphs were too long.

And there were too many paragraphs.

In some blogs, for example, the text is set in 10 point, with a line length of about 110 characters. That’s hard to skim read, and you have to move your head as you read each line. Too much work.

Easy on the eye

In contrast, some online sales letters from the USA run to many pages, but the paragraphs usually consist of a single sentence and are almost NEVER more than four lines long. The line length is short too.

Some paragraphs are one-liners like this.

They also have subheads like the one above, to segment the subject matter and break up the grey text.

Why that works

We all suffer from Attention Deficit. It may not be a Disorder (yet!) but it gets in the way when we are at work.

Every day, we are all assailed by huge numbers of messages and calls for our attention: radio, TV, emails, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, posters, tannoy announcements, traffic, phone calls, conversations, meetings …

We cannot cope with more than one thing at a time, so we have developed the ability to switch off. In fact, it’s a reflex that kicks in very quickly.

So what’s the answer?

The answer is to deliver your information in small bites. Like this blog. Make it easy for the reader to take in each new idea or piece of information, and it will increase your chances of being read all the way down the page. Page after page.

15 Top Tips for Public Speaking

It seems to me that the main reason why people get anxious about speaking in public is that they are not sure what is expected of them. If you have a speech or presentation to deliver, here are 15 tips to help dispel that anxiety by making sure you are well prepared.

These tips will help you feel confident that you know your stuff, and also that you know why and how it will be relevant to your audience.

Tip 1: Imagine you are speaking just to me and answer this question: What do you want me to know?

Tip 2: Tell me why should I care about what you want me to know.

Tip 3: Why do I need to hear it from YOU? What’s your special connection with the message?

Tip 4: Would you pay to hear YOU speak? If not, why not?

Tip 5: Record your voice and ask yourself and some close friends if your voice is attractive. If not, make changes.

Tip 6: What’s your reason for speaking? Money? Influence? Ego? Passion? When you are clear about it you’ll be more focused.

Tip 7: When you have credible answers to tips 1-6, write your Core Message (the ‘carry away’) in a single sentence. That’s the message you should drive home when you speak.

Tip 8: Develop your message in 3 streams of argument or thought, e.g. Problem / Consequence / Solution.

Tip 9: Decide on your call to action. What do you want people to do when you have finished speaking?

Tip 10: Create an opening ‘Hook’ — something unexpected or dramatic that grabs attention right at the start.

Tip 11: Write out and learn your opening and closing paragraphs. Just use prompts for the rest, to sound more natural.

Tip 12: Decide on the ‘point of arrival’ or climax of your speech or presentation and build up the energy to that point. Your second ‘climax’ should be at the end.

Tip 13: Practise in front of a mirror or camcorder. Watch your gestures and body language.

Tip 14: When you are confident of your text, answer (aloud) the questions in Tips 1-3.

Tip 15: Unless you are in a speech contest, don’t try to give a world class performance. Just be sincere and passionate.

Condemned by something similar

On Radio 4 this morning, announcing a programme that was to follow, the announcer said, “People are reticent to spend …” I was moved to write this correction, not merely because she and others use the wrong word, but because it was a shibboleth.

First, the correction. She should have said “People are reluctant to spend …” Reticent means being reserved in speech, holding back from saying something, being inclined to silence, not wanting to speak.

In the context of her announcement, she clearly meant that people were unwilling to spend. Reluctance means being unwilling or disinclined. The words are slightly similar, but they mean very different things.

Confusing one with the other is quite common, in both senses of the term. It’s an error that many make, so it’s common in that sense. But it is also an indicator of a down-scale language pattern, suggesting poor education and/or social inferiority – being socially common. That’s why it’s a shibboleth, a social gaffe.

A shibboleth is a test word or principle that marks its user as an outsider. The term derives from the Biblical story of the battle between the Gileadites and Ephraimites, which the latter lost. Anyone trying to cross the Gileadite checkpoints was asked to say “Shibboleth”. The Ephraimites could only say “Sibboleth”, which identified them as the enemy, and they were slain.

Since then the term has been used to mean anything that marks a person as a (usually inferior) non-member. In the context of business, especially in the increasingly competitive job market, shibboleths can disqualify candidates from consideration, no matter how able they may otherwise be.

They could be condemned for saying something similar, but incorrect.

For my part, linguistic shibboleths such as the one on Radio 4 this morning make me set aside my reticence and even my reluctance to criticise.  Silence, after all, would be collusion.

What is your brand proposition?

Every business presentation must reinforce the brand. The brand is the way your company is perceived in the market place. If your presentation is about yourself, if you are a consultant, for example, then it’s about how you are known.

The brand is about your values, your place in the market, the quality of what you offer, and the instinctive reaction it brings about when you or your company is mentioned. Everyone is a brand. It’s just that some are better known than others.

What’s your favourite car, washing machine, soft drink? What is it you like about them, and where do they stand (in your mind) against the alternatives? Now think about famous politicians, footballers, business leaders. What do you think about them? You probably have a clear impression of them, and opinions about them, even if you have never actually met them. That’s branding.

In simple terms, reinforcing your brand means telling your audience more than what you can do. It’s saying, “We can do this for you because …” That “because” is your brand, it’s what distinguishes you from alternatives, and your product or solution must always be related to that.

In these competitive times, it is increasingly important for us all to distinguish ourselves from our competitors. To help you focus your mind on your own brand values, here’s a 6-point plan:

1. Know what you do – for others. Yes, it is important to know what you do, but don’t focus inward. I say a bit more about this under Point 6, but your starting position is to consider what your market wants, and how you can be of commercial benefit to others.

2. Identify a pain that you can remove. Is there a weakness that your listeners encounter, to which you have the solution. Focus your ‘offering’ on magnifying the pain and then showing how you can remove it. You then become the long-awaited Solution.

3. Do something right. Apart from removing a pain, there could be something positive that you could do, something that adds to the collective good, something that no one else has thought of doing.

4. Mix with the right people. We all need reinforcement, and we get that from like-minded people, whose own thinking reassures us that we are on the right track. If you network, be selective and don’t commit to regular meetings that lead nowhere. If you don’t feel uplifted after spending time with certain people, and if they don’t understand the things you say, it may be time to move on. Remember, too, that we are judged by the company we keep.

5. Drop the toxic folk. Some people are just plain bad for you. Maybe they are chronically negative, maybe they don’t respond well to your enthusiasms, maybe they drag you down in other ways. Leave them to the professional therapists and move along. Don’t let them infect your mind or use up your energy.

6. Project your one defining benefit. What’s the ONE thing that defines you and distinguishes you from the following pack? Spend time finding out. Get feedback from those you trust. Challenge your first thoughts about it. Then make it the core of your business offerings and everything you say about yourself.

Finally, why not add your own thoughts about branding in a comment below?