We all want to achieve as much as possible as fast as possible, without seeing the necessity of small steps

Yes, I plead guilty: connecting global business locally is the slogan of my blog, and by it I seem to suggest that global business depends on size. In my view however, this is far from true.

I support many companies and I have a growing admiration for the many successful mid-sized businesses that nobody knows. Instead, the big companies of the world are on everybody’s lips and this leads to greatly overlooking some decisive facts:

1. All companies in the world started small: so did Richard Branson’s group Virgin, which started as a student magazine.
2. Small companies simply are and will be in the future the backbone of the economy with an overwhelming share of more than 90% of the world economic power.
3. Start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses are the job drivers of the economy per se, not the large companies.

This is dangerous and expansive to ignore as the countless failed mega mergers à la Daimler-Chrysler or AOL-Time-Warner show.

Of course, we all want to achieve as much as possible as fast as possible, without seeing the necessity of small steps, which we all easily overlook, me including. People just want to achieve as much as possible as fast as possible.

This became clear to me over years of day-to-day business, as I have never until now gotten a major contract in one shot. On the contrary, the assignments we were trusted with always came for having taken care of insignificant details. I remember all too well the large American group whose first assignment to us was to urgently provide them with a business credit card in Spain. And we have since grown with them step-by-step for 15 years.

Unfortunately it still seems that clients come to me with the following condition: you get the contract (ideally provision-based) if you send us clients. That way, the necessary process of the many small but immensely important steps will be completely overlooked. My experience teaches me that the sale process is one of the many small steps. First there needs to be a proper introduction between the appropriate contacts, which will lead to a real interest. In the best cases this will lead to a closer dialogue, which can in turn result in a “small” offer. Then, on the basis of this minimal added value, trust is built, which leads to a real client.

In my work and language I have therefore coined the MAP concept = Minimum Added value Proposition “ because I see small steps as the mother of all successes.

I only need to think of the different language versions of my blog posts to see that the Spanish text is twice as long as the English one. Not to mention my jokes: the Brits just don’t understand them, the Germans don’t laugh and the French put on a compassionate smile. Basically the same happens at talks at international meetings: Germans wish for ten-point structured presentation whereas the Brits ask for a good-looking and witty one.

Allow me to go back to the 1.500-word English vocabulary, which some call “globish”. This expression is mostly used by international managers, who do not lack self-confidence as they know well that their counterpart share the same problem. This approach has certainly a lot to offer, yet it reaches its limits where the language serves to convey different cultures.

Let me tell you about a recent incident which, I believe, illustrates well the point of this post: a fire alarm at a factory in northern Spain with approximately 600 workers, 400 Spaniards and 200 Rumanians. I would think, a rather unequivocal message but was happens? Everyone leaves the factory as quickly as possible. The Spaniards gather that it is a fire alarm and go to the coffee machines in the recreation room. As for the Rumanians, they set themselves in military order, standing in lines on the parking lot thumbs along the trouser seams (!), and wait patiently for further notice. So much on the complexity of communication in different cultures.

In my view, the next level after globish is GLOCALESE, which means that top management must have lived a couple of years abroad in order to understand what it means to operate in another market and should have perfect command of English. Then, you quickly ought to be able to speak Glocalese, which for me means: to be aware of the specificities of each individual market, have good English knowledge as well as the capacity to surround yourself with first- class people in the target country.

Confession: I would have been completely lost in Rumania without my Rumanian manager.

No, he answered, he hadn’t any experience of those markets, but he had serious inquiries, even if so far he had only been to France for holidays. But without doubt, he added, the future lies in a strategy for internationalization, as wasn’t it true that there wasn’t much to gain in national markets anymore? Correct as his analysis was, I slowly started to realize that I had to carefully explain to the client that he would have to concentrate on just ONE new market first, and for his own good, a relatively close one.

So I started my next question by asking whether he or his management team spoke French, Spanish or Arabic, a fact which he shouldn’t belittle. A further question of who he would contract as regional managers within these countries, brought him back to reality, and now the client asked me with disarming honesty: What do you think: France or Dubai?

No question. Even for a larger European SME, France is an important market not to be overlooked, but the risk can also be easily overlooked, without even thinking about cultural differences. Consider that France is a European neighbour with many peculiarities and endless possibilities for failure, if one does not respect local market characteristics.