Shut Up to Sell: How to Translate Your Selling Methods Across Cultures

Does it ever feel like sales requires a ton of chasing, convincing, and talking at your potential clients and customers? Does it feel like you’re constantly trying to reach new prospects and get your message through to them? What if we told you there was a better way to sell? On our new podcast, we spoke with Ambrose Blowfield about how it may actually be best to shut up if you want to sell. He’s worked with an array of cultures, and there is no one-size-fits-all when going from one country to the next. However, he has discovered some pointers that will help you sell effectively, regardless of the country and culture you’re selling in. 

Watch our podcast with Ambrose Blowfield to learn how to shut up and sell around the world:

Ambrose Blowfield is one of Australasia’s leading trainers and speakers in sales, marketing, and business growth. He has both top-class academic and experience-based knowledge from working at many leading international companies, including P&G UK and Robert Half International, among others. Ambrose has trained businesses of all sizes in both sales and marketing. He has delivered training in person in 10 different countries across 3 continents, while his online training has helped over 15,000 businesses in 20 countries, across 6 continents, make over $2B in additional sales… just Antarctica to go! His first book, The Authority Guide to Writing and Implementing a Marketing Plan, was published in the UK in 2017. His sales-focused book, Shut Up to Sell, is set to be launched in late 2021.

Ambrose has had a very international journey to get where he is. We start the discussion with learning how he became a leading trainer and speaker in sales, marketing, and business growth. He divulges some of his background, including how he’s ended up working – and effectively selling – across continents, countries, and cultures.

With this multicultural experience, Ambrose has gained insight into how sales strategies must adapt from one culture to the next. Just as language, humor, and what’s considered polite differ greatly between cultures, so, too, do winning sales tactics. You may have unlocked the best sales strategy for your home country, but what works in, say, the United States won’t necessarily translate to your target market in, say, Italy. Ambrose offers his insights here, including how you can find your footing when moving into different countries and cultures.

Ambrose’s new book is called Shut Up to Sell. It’s a bold title, but it isn’t just to garner a quick reaction. Indeed, the title gets to the heart of some of the lessons within the book. Do you know the adage that we have one mouth and two ears because we should listen twice as much as we speak? This advice can be applied to sales. In order to understand your customer, you must listen to them and see the world through their eyes. Selling isn’t about you and your product or service; it’s about your customers. What do they want, need, or lack? You can’t know unless you shut up and listen.

Shut Up to Sell is unique from other books about sales, and Ambrose outlines why that is here. He also reveals some of the key takeaways that he wants people to get from both his book and from his training. Once you read his book – and we highly recommend you do! – you’ll be better equipped to get the most out of it.

Ambrose has a lot of passion about sales. We end our conversation with why he loves sales so much. Our own Lynn is right there with him when it comes to their shared love of sales and selling correctly.

Listen to our conversation with Ambrose to learn how you can translate your sales for different cultures:

To learn more about Ambrose Blowfield and how you can master sales, visit his official website here. You can also pick up his book, Shut Up to Sell, for a deeper dive on the topics discussed here. To keep up up with all of Ambrose’s latest updates, follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.