Honing in to the comfort zone in Brazil

financialexpress.com: "Convergys has several key telecommunications clients in Brazil, and I quickly learned from several interactions that robust personal relationships - including meeting one-on-one with client leaders—are as important and perhaps more important to business in Brazil as they are in the US and Europe. People buy from people that they know and trust. But first they have to know and trust you.

When, for example, a program conflict arose or there was a technical issue, I discovered that hastily calling a summit meeting of all those involved and starting an intense investigation was the completely wrong approach. Indeed, offering to join a client leader in a quiet meal, away from the work environment, to talk through the problem slowly and calmly was an effective way to settle our differences. Rather than adopting the straightforward, ‘let’s cut to chase’ attitude typically associated with American businessmen and women, I found it was far better and more successful to hold off on discussing the work issue at first. Instead, I would engage my client on a personal, familiar, trust-building level. We would talk about life in general and life in Brazil and how life was treating us. We might discuss the upcoming football match, and so on until midway into the meal. Only then, calmly and with no confrontation would our chat turn to"