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Why multicultural teams make work in sales (and in general) better

One thing interesting about the sales profession is that it has very specific cultural nuances. And I think that’s one of the most important things that I’ve learnt during my career: how cultures impact sales processes and what you can gain from multicultural team structures. Benefits from cultural diversity apply not only to the client side, i.e., greater ability to relate and connect with diverse client-partner organisations and the ability to innovate and recognise new work/service opportunities, but also to the selling company (supplier) in terms of better hiring processes, greater team member retention and also improved internal approaches to innovation.

Internal view

Today, in business, many companies speak about DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) in relation to culture; specifically, corporate culture. They often do so from the perspective of welcoming peers into their company teams and also in recruitment planning. Studies in the psychology of team building and hiring have shown that it is human nature to hire people like ourselves, i.e., find people with similar educational backgrounds, with similar work experience or hobbies and interests. But pushing for greater diversity of ideas and experience in your sales team does a lot to boost your reputation and the overall company calling card. Candidates for careers in sales, especially Millennials and Gen Z prospects, tend to respond more favourably to visibly diverse team set-ups. Diversity of education, work experience, and cultural background shows that your business is inclusive and open: willing to leverage different types of experiences to make processes (in this case sales) more innovative and improvement-curious.

External view

In addition to helping build more progressively thinking teams, multicultural company structures also help to make the seller:client experience more meaningful and likelier more successful. Because our sales teams at Gi Group Holding are more culturally and thought diverse, it means we have the opportunity to connect with a wider audience in terms of not only how we pitch our services, but also how we identify and understand client resource needs. With culturally diverse sales teams, we can do deep dives into understanding multiple issues like a) work and labour market culture in clients’ home countries, b) approaches to relationship-building and use of tone/respect in negotiations, or c) local infrastructure and regulatory systems to ensure service offers are market-feasible.

It all boils down to the People Factor and mindfulness

What I’ve learnt from working in multicultural sales teams is that mindfulness is a critical sales skill; whether it relates to cultural sensitivities or other aspects of forming human connections. I believe this applies to both the internal and external views mentioned above. From my engagement in multicultural team settings, I have been able to finetune my approaches to communications for example. My colleagues help guide me in knowing when to lean in more or when to pull back and give our client-partners more space to reflect and put forward their own questions. Seemingly minor aspects of cultural understanding count in big ways, i.e., more conservative countries in Central Europe are not always going to trust or get excited about the use of superlatives that is common in Anglo-Saxon markets. And markets in Asia or MENA countries will likely place stronger emphasis on organisational hierarchies and respect for seniority in communications and how their representatives are addressed in project presentations. And those are just of couple of the many nuances that a multiculturally astute team will notice and reflect upon in their internal team and client relations processes.

The simple message here is that in today’s world of sales we are all connected (companies, colleagues, candidates, clients), but we all maintain our specific cultural differences. That is why I feel multicultural teams have great value for improving and delivering meaningful sales approaches. By better understanding one another and embracing our uniqueness and differences, we design, sell and deliver better services.