Chinese Business Culture - Global Sales Mentor | Zach Selch

30 Mar 2020 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:34

In this brief presentation, Zach Selch explains a key cultural difference that affects how Chinese and broader Asian business audiences process visual information in sales presentations. He notes that standalone portraits of individuals, common in Western slides, can make Chinese viewers uncomfortable because they lack contextual cues about the person’s role, environment, or group. Sociological research shows that such out‑of‑context images can distract and irritate the audience, reducing their focus and interest. Selch recommends using images that embed the person within their work setting, showing surrounding people, tools, or activities. This contextual visual approach aligns with Asian viewers’ expectations, helping them internalize information more smoothly and keeping their attention on the sales message. The talk ends with a call‑to‑action to contact his firm for help growing international sales.

Chapters

Let's talk about cross-cultural selling and Chinese business culture. One thing we talk about is how people internalize information and feel comfortable with it. And one of the big differences in terms of how people of Chinese culture and Asian— and some Asian cultures internalize information is that when they see pictures of people who are sort of standalone, right, without any context, it can make them very uncomfortable because they're used to seeing people in context and understanding what that person does, what group that person belongs to, what type of profession that person has, etc. And what can very often happen is that in the same way that if you saw picture in the middle of a presentation that didn't make sense to you or raised questions with you, it can distract you. Okay, so what scientists have found, what sociologists have found studying this phenomenon, is that if you show in a presentation pictures of people completely out of context to a Chinese business audience in a presentation or in some type of a demonstration, very often you're gonna lose their interest because it will irritate them a little bit. It'll take them a little bit off of the focus of what you're trying to achieve. So what's very helpful is to add in pictures with more context, not necessarily pictures just focused on the person's face, which we do sometimes just because we want to. From our perspective, very often in the West, we're adding faces or we're adding pictures Just to make it graphically and aesthetically more pleasing in our presentations. If we were to make them for an Asian audience, if we were to add complete context, if we were to show the area that the person is working in, etc., we would show what they were actually doing, other people around them, their surroundings. This will make it a lot more easy for people to accept and internalize, and it'll make the information flow in a presentation to an Asian audience that much more smooth. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us.
When you decide it's time to grow your international sales, call us.