Category: podcast

Summary: Episode 50
How can female entrepreneurs manage their businesses and their families at the same time? How do companies sell to many nationalities with the same product or service? Denmark-based Christine Gouchault, the author of Business Mum [“Business Mom” for Americans] and a major sales director and coach, explains how non-subsidized women are usually more successful, and shows sales methods for various countries and communication…

Summary: Episode 49
Now the world’s fifth largest and fastest growing economy, India has become the major alternative to China and specializes in “friendshoring,” placing overseas operations in friendly countries. Gunjan Bagla, CEO of the California consultancy Amritt Inc., describes the billions of dollars being earned by biotech and hi-tech firms such as Medtronic, Apple, Dell, IBM, Honeywell and Oracle. More diverse than the US, Gunjan describes how India has become an …

Summary: Episode 48
While most US companies’ focus is domestic, most US software firms derive at least 60% of their revenues abroad. Ramsey Pryor, the founder of California-based Port of Entry Partners, guides software firms into international markets, highlighting successes and pitfalls. Ramsey explains software companies’ traditional (“waterfall”) and contemporary (“agile”) methods of product development, and presents issues about adaptation, globalization, internationalization, and having global support teams … as well as critical questions around product acculturation which many…

Summary: Episode 47
How do you get people to reveal their true intentions and their true motivations during sales negotiations, interviews, or even interrogations? Michael Reddington, the CEO of InQuasive, has worked in over 50 countries teaching these techniques. Ultimately, he says, it is about saving face, establishing credibility and trust, and knowing the primary goal. How to get there becomes the issue. While he taps into the universality of human experience, he also talks…

Summary: Episode 46
As a global business strategist, Australia-based Cynthia Dearin has a process that helps companies determine the most viable overseas markets to enter and a series of steps to enter them. While “overnight success” can take ten years and a minimal commitment of three, she emphasizes that “simple scales and complex fails.” In this episode, Cynthia discusses her long experience in Arab countries, whether being a young female was a detriment there…

Summary: Episode 45 – Part 2
France-born Cecile Israel, “Ceci The Wine Lady,” expands upon her experiences starting a wine marketing firm in China. In this episode, she explores the importance of branding and influencers, China’s domestic wine industry, the country’s pragmatic approach to doing business, wine pricing, why “wine” may not really be wine, how wine consumption practices differ from the West’s, wine pairing, dominance of online wine buying, and etiquette at restaurant meals…

Summary: Episode 44 – Part 1
How did a young French woman build a wine business in China when she didn’t speak the language or know anyone when she started? Cecile Israel, who became known as Ceci The Wine Lady, presents her fascinating professional background and desire to bring wine to a wide audience. With marketing methods very different from the West’s, she also elaborates the in-depth role and centrality of “Guanxi,” the importance of branding, the use of …

Summary: Episode 43 – Part 2
Part two of our two-part series with Chris Smit and Peter Van der Lende. How do you meld people from different nationalities into one corporate culture? How accurate are stereotypes by which we all initially judge? How can people from hostile countries work together in one company? Which countries generally have open vs. top-down communication styles …. except when they don’t? How do you get people from collectivist cultures to communicate…

Summary: Episode 42 – Part 1
How do you meld people from different nationalities into one corporate culture? How accurate are stereotypes by which we all initially judge? How can people from hostile countries work together in one company? Which countries generally have open vs. top-down communication styles …. except when they don’t? How do you get people from collectivist cultures to communicate in more open cultures? Chris Smit and Peter van der Lende…

Summary: Episode 41 – Part 3
Part Three of our three-part series with Marion Renk-Rosenthal. Marion explains how she navigates the politics of both state-run and private media companies. There are different rules to follow, and there are pros and cons for both. The world is changing, and the younger generation has a different mindset. Marion explains how the world of documentary filmmaking is changing…