Dave Smith picked up the phone with something less than excitement. That could hardly be a surprise; it was, after all, his fourth cold call of the morning and the first three had not been ego-builders.

“Guten Morgen,” he began in almost perfect German, “May I speak with the Sales Director?” After being put through to someone (he was never sure if there was a sales director), Dave went into his spiel. He’d done it a number of times, practiced it with several members of his staff in advance as well as having had several debriefings after the first few calls over the last few days. The approached appeared to be almost as good as his language. Despite that fact, he had been surprised each time to discover his potential associates were not interested in pursuing a new marketing avenue – a one-way street to income and earnings. Almost every call had gone much the same way – polite listening, followed by a polite “Thank you, but….” and then, in some variation or another, the end of the conversation.

For his fifth call Dave decided to reward himself and call a Canadian woman he knew on a sales staff of the type of organization he was focusing on. There could be no doubt about it, the personal contact meant that he did not have to beat the door down, but it went further than that. It was almost as if the door was being ripped open from the inside and arms reaching out to pull him in. He had hardly had the chance to explain the concept when his counterpart was upon him with “I’ll get a package together for you and see what we can work out.”

The contrast could not have been greater to the previous calls. In those cases, if he had been lucky he had managed to get a personal interview where he could present the plan and then perhaps get a package from the potential partners. Here he had accomplished the whole nine yards with a single phone call.

1-Focus’ View

Ending the story there is actually more than unfair. The fact of the matter is that the package that Dave received three days later from his acquaintance was completely off base. It had little to do with the product to be sold. Of course, it was a step in the right direction, but it was a much smaller step than Dave had expected.

What had happened? The acquaintance had not listened. Dave had not insisted on confirmation that they were on the same sheet of music, a mistake commonly made when the cultural background is the same.

Why did he so often find it so difficult to get his foot in the door with the Germans? A number of factors certainly played a role here:

1) skepticism

2) disinterest

3) not invented here

4) wrong door

Perhaps most importantly he had not gone through the steps of developing a relationship first. In other words, he had not taken the time to become genuinely interested in the person on the other end of the phone before trying to sell his product. The old rule of “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is even truer here.

At 1-Focus we understand the challenges when two different cultures (either organizationally or geographically) merge to try to form one new identity. We have developed an exciting and experiential simulation that takes participants through the seven steps to achieve a sustainable and healthy merger. Please contact us for more information.