Oil business is booming in Libya and you see oil companies pouring in from all corners of the world for acquiring exploration licenses in Libya. Almost all of these companies are considered potential or current customers for the services that my employer offers. My job is show certain innovative technologies to these companies through demonstrations, pilot projects, technical workshops, presentations etc.
The fabulous things about what I do is that I have the chance to see how different people/companies express their needs/concerns and it is more interesting to see how difference in cultural background influences the way they perceive you and your offer. I do not want to judge people here, not at all. Nor I am trying to see which approach is better or worse.
The other day, I had a meeting with a Norwegian manager. He asked us to go to his office, 10:00 a.m sharp to discuss a technical training we offered for his organization. Normally we would start explaining our offer in details to encourage the purchase. This guy know exactly what he wanted, what he did not want, what was enough and what was extra. He was very content about the timing for the delivery of the service, people who need to attend in training and what he wanted from us. It was the most precise and up to the point meeting in many months.
I recently had a very successful pilot project with a group of Italian experts that resulted in a new sales after a week. I found them very emotional and at the same time very friendly. I walked into their office one day and soon enough, the talks diverted to cool things about the city, where to go and see while in Italy etc. Rather than telling me what they needed, they waited to see what I had to offer and were intrigued by any new thing they were seeing. The cool part was joining them around their coffee machine. One of them told me that in his home city alone, there are 6 different version of coffee specific to the district and he explained how Italians are in favor of experimenting new things and how much they dislike branding and standardization for their food items. Once after lunch when I was with them in the elevator, listening to them talking in Italian, one of them turned to me and said: "Don't worry we are not fighting" :)
