Developing Tomorrow’s Global Sales Leader: Adapting to Cultural Differences Utilizing Role Play

Purpose of the Study The purpose of this research is to help students and professionals gain awareness and insights into buyers’ requirements and expectations across cultures. The teaching innovation uses Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions as a foundation to understand and adapt across cultures within a sales meeting using the sales process. A cross cultural role play exercise is developed and applied to help students understand cultural differences. Method/Design and Sample Data were collected from 224 international students taking the International Negotiations and Selling course. Students were asked to provide a score on the level of importance on each area of a sales meeting (Approach, Discovery, Product/Service Presentation, Overcoming Objections, and Close) for three different countries: France, China and Brazil. Results The findings indicate that based on each country’s unique culture, several areas were significantly different in level of importance. Therefore, adaptation to that country in the areas such as Approach, Needs Identification and Close were necessary in order to have an effective and successful sales meeting. The cross-cultural role play enables students to adapt to different countries and develop their communication skills based on each country’s uniqueness. Value to Marketing Educators The purpose of this cross-cultural role play exercise is to develop students into global sales leaders. The exercise provides an opportunity to teach students how to research cultures, analyze cultural differences and adapt to those differences. The exercise provides students the opportunity to enhance their cultural knowledge and adapt communication skills in the sales process.