A few years ago, while leading a project in Latin America, I learned a valuable lesson. We scheduled important meetings on Fridays, but no one showed up for 3 weeks straight.
After a conversation with the local project manager, we learned that in Argentina and Brazil, Fridays were for soccer, not meetings.
The outdated approach to international business meetings:
➡ Typical Step 1: Schedule meetings without considering local customs.
➡ Typical Step 2: Expect full attendance, business as usual.
➡ Typical Step 3: End up with poor attendance and failed communications.
All that hard work for missed opportunities and frustrated teams?
Here’s the new path:
✅ New Step 1: Ask the local team what their customs and preferences are.
✅ New Step 2: Toggle meeting times in order to get maximum attendance.
✅ New Step 3: Show respect and appreciation for local practices.
Here’s how to get started:
🎯Action Step 1: Before planning, speak to local managers to understand the best times to schedule a meeting.
🎯Action Step 2: Be flexible.
🎯Action Step 3: Schedule 1:1 meetings with managers to get buy-in on the plan. The managers, in turn, got buy-in from the broader team.
Gaining trust internationally can be hard, but worth it.
📌Key Insight:
We immediately shifted our meeting schedule to Mondays, respecting local customs and showing our team that we value their culture. This simple change was pivotal. Attendance at meetings went from 0-100 in 1 month. We were able to launch a highly successful product.
📌Lesson:
Entering a new international market isn’t just about being polite—it’s about being strategic. That can make or break the success of your operations.
📌What did you learn when you entered a new market? I’d love to hear your stories!
