I knew that being a foreigner, obviously not being a native German speaker and running a company with the HO in Slovenia might be an issue in the DACH market to some of our would-be clients even in today´s international environment.

I was not wrong, personally I experienced mixed or negative responses to my origin, but it did not leave me feeling too negative about it, as I tend to be sceptical of foreigners providing services or products, which is a trait I am not proud of, but I guess it comes with being human and having a certain perception or stereotype of a nation. Since I caught myself behaving in such a way on several occasions, I do not really blame people having the same initial response, and you can never really keep everyone happy, right.

So recently I had an experience where we were offering a solution to a client that really can benefit from it, so business case wise it is not an issue, however, we did the initial introductions (after the product was already presented to them by their IT consultant) via telephone. After the phone call, the CEO of the company said she will investigate our competitors and let us know. We knew there are no competitors that would offer this solution, at least not for that market price and outputs, but still, a month went by. Indirectly we found out that an issue was with my German on the phone call, so this resulted in scepticism. It is not a big deal that would be of strategic importance, however it is a very nice showcase how a client may benefit from our solutions and really save time, effort and operational costs when doing business. My colleague and I decided to meet the CEO in person and proposed a meeting.

We met, and I believe we left a good impression, that may potentially result in a bit broader scope of our services as initially anticipated, but we will see how the decision on the client side will go. Whichever way it turns out it is a clear indication that business is based on trust, which must be part of the package, no matter if your solution is really the best or the most competitive on the market. And I understand that, I cannot take it personally, even though I would very much rather have it the other way around, without prejudice as a global environment should be. This is part of doing business and if meeting people in person to try and get rid of that issue, I have no problem with that. We are here for the long term and building trust and reputation is something that one cannot achieve overnight.

My expectations for the future lie clear – there will be several more cases where our HO or my origins will lead to a trust issue with clients, surprisingly with larger clients this tends to not really be an issue since they are used to working with foreign companies and foreigners. For smaller companies I do believe they might be more conservative and that doubts will always be there. On my part I take it as a mission to prove ourselves and every such attempt will make us better, able to learn more and improve our communication and presentation for even the most sceptical clients. So, a friendly advice on my part – expect everything and if you are confident about your products or service, keep on persisting, it will show on the results and over the years you will manage to build up a brand and awareness of your company and these doubts will fade away through recommendations, good practices and happy clients.

The only thing that keeps bugging me in my mind is – would it have been different if I was from England, Switzerland, France, Austria? Who knows, I think probably yes, but possibly not. In the end it does not really make a difference to me, I know who I am, who we are and that we deliver quality in an efficient way. Therefore, persisting is the only way for me.

I will end this post with a quote attributed (but disputed) to Winston Churchill: “Success is all about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”