communication

Link to Podcast: HERE Transcript found below: Bill : Hi and welcome to the next episode of belly to belly. And we’re here today with Lanie Denslow from Worldwise Inter Cultural Training and Communication and it’s just great to have you here Lanie and welcome today. Lanie : Thank you. Thanks, Bill. It’s always fun to be with you and have a conversation. Bill : Thank you. Well, today we’ve got I think a really interesting topic and it’s something I think we both see happening. And it’s I think it’s an American problem that happens as we communicate with each other. But as you know, when people come into the country it’s also a challenge for them. And this is about yes or no questions and these are questions where whoever we’re speaking with access, you know, a simple yes or no question something like, you know, is it does this have color options as an example or can I get it and my size or are there you know, whether is the, you know, price in a certain range or anything and and quite often we hear people respond to these yes or no questions with an explanation as opposed to yes or no. And so, Lainey and we’re going to probably peel this back just a little bit, but you know, how, as you think of yes or no questions, and particularly thinking of people coming into the country and maybe not knowing sort of our level of patience or impatience as Americans, how do you how would you coach somebody coming in? And let’s maybe just so there’s context, let’s just say we’re in a sales context or a sales meeting, and, you know, maybe you’ve given a somewhat of a presentation, and potential customer asked you a yes or no question. Yeah, maybe let’s start with that scenario and talk through. Yeah, how somebody would appropriately respond to it. What are the things that they should consider? Lanie : I’m starting to laugh because I realized that I want to back it up. Because what you’ve asked me is sort of get to the bottom line. Do what I need to do, tell me now and I’ll do it right. That’s why you asked me and that’s our American approach, because we’re very time focused for us. It all goes back to this concept that time is scarce. It’s a resource, there’s not much of it, and we’re in a hurry. We want to make a deal and move on. Right? But if, if you were my client coming from someplace else, in a perfect world, we would have done some coaching and talking before you ever walked into this meeting. So that first of all, you had some understanding of this American beyond time we’re in a hurry, let’s just do it. And there are several things that play into that conversation. First is understanding that because we’re in a hurry, we would rather hear yes, I can do it clearly. Or no, I can’t do it clearly. We listen for data and facts, tell me what I need to know so I can make a decision. And I had another thought that just flew off which we’ll come back in a minute. So and that is quite different than many parts of the world, let’s say the Middle East, China, where there’s a different sense of time and the importance of the relationship between the parties. So communication is as much about nurturing and not disturbing the relationship, as it is about communicating data and facts. Everybody wants to make the deal. It’s how you approach it. So it’s hard for somebody, especially if there’s a no or a maybe it’s hard for somebody to understand that they can tell you say to you know, we can’t give it to you in 10 sizes. We can only give it to you in this range, because they don’t want to lose the deal. Lose the relationship and so you and they don’t have an idea that of saying well right now we only do it in these four sizes. But if you can give us an extra two months we can get the sizing adjusted, you know, we’re kind of accustomed to, well, we can’t quite get there. But this is what we could do. Which is a long way from still more clear than a long explanation that you stopped listening to. Because you hear it as no, you don’t hear them. Maybe we could get there. You have to ask us some more questions. Hmm. Bill : So I’ll throw out another scenario and I my guess is we can probably get to set you up after a little dialogue here. We can get to some maybe some, some suggestions, but the next thing I’d like to throw out is so let’s just imagine now I’m pitching to an investor and an investor asks me a yes or no question about my you know about the business opportunity and whatnot. And I guess my observation of investors and also potential customers, and particularly investors is quite often investors are asking you questions somewhat because they want the answer, but also because they have a point to make. And, and what I’ve seen people do is again, respond to that yes or no question. And quite often, there’s very limited time to respond to investors you’ve made have, you only have five or 10 minutes to pitch and they maybe have five or 10 minutes to ask questions. I mean, it can be very curt, and you know, so the longer you respond, the less questions you get, and the less interaction you get. But the I quite often look at questions from investors almost like it’s that tip of the iceberg of what they’re really what they really want to know about. And I’m wondering, you know, that, that in that