How To Build Better Relationships with US Clients
- How to schedule meetings
- How to prepare for the meetings
- Making sure we are starting 5 minutes early and ending 5 minutes early (Time Management)
- How to write a good agenda
- How to use questions instead of statements
- Need to find backups in case someone is absent (not to delay the meeting or start of the meeting)
- Give updates before they ask for it (proactive updating)
- Use names instead of he/she, title
- Importance of thank you: how to say thank you and respond to thank you
- How to participate more effectively
- Use open ended questions
- How to start a conversation
- Getting equipment ready for the meeting
- Negotiation – having facts ready, pros and cons
- Housekeeping session
- Never say I don’t know when we are not sure, but buy time, ask for clarity on the question or give partial information or reference
- How to give feedback (positive, negative, positive)
- Use names to show initiative
- Don’t say hi friends or hi people (team)
- Learned some better ways to respond to Americans questions- rather than just ‘ok’
- I learned something about the American mindset which can help me interact with them better.
Session Planning Boards
These programs are typically delivered in a ‘flipped classroom environment.” This means that the facilitator does not teach all of the content, but tailors the delivery and fine tuning based on the first activity of the program.
As the program kicks off, participants are asked to look over an etiquette tip sheet. They are asked to categorize the line items into three areas: “Doing Well” and “Learn More.” Learn More refers to the points on the etiquette list that they are not doing or want to improve on.
After the participants write or share their feedback, the session is tailored around these points via role plays, debriefs, case studies, and more.
In this first planning board example, the participants added their own category, “additions,” which referred to points they are doing but were not listed on the suggested tip sheet.
In the next planning board, we can see the participants have used the categories “Things going well” and “I want to improve.” The top four or five points on the top of the board were the points they extracted and prioritized for the session.
In this way, our programs not only address what management wants the participants to work on, but the participants are active participants in their own learning, creating their own session (so to speak). And, in this way, the facilitator is not teaching or giving feedback on everything, but only on the points the group feels they need to improve on the most. As we go through the role plays, case studies and demos, if there are strategies the team is not doing that they should be doing, the facilitator does point these out and helps the team understand the justification for adding them into their professional repertoire.
We prepare teams in India for interfacing with US clients in addition to learning how to perform with confidence in our work from home world through training and consulting. Get in touch with us. today.