Fostering a strong relationship with stakeholders is essential for increasing their trust in your company and understanding their demands and needs. It is also necessary to fuel your business growth. For that, you have to regularly engage with both external and internal stakeholders.
Some of them may not be living in the same country where your company is headquartered. Because of geographical distance, linguistic differences, cultural diversity and work culture differences it may require more effort to strengthen your relationship with them. Here are three tips that can help you improve your relationship with overseas stakeholders.
1. Determine the Differences
First, identify your stakeholders and the countries or regions in which they reside. Once you have done that, determine the differences that exist between you and the stakeholder. You can do that by talking to experts as well as your stakeholders. Read about your stakeholder’s country’s culture, language/s, culture variations, and work culture. Also, if possible, visit their countries a few times and meet them in their space. Your observations provide you with first-hand information on cultural differences as well as differences in management structures, leadership attitudes, employee behavior, and communication styles.
After noting the differences, come up with custom engagement strategies to engage with them. Make sure to adapt to the local customs, and if required, adapt your behavior to match the local culture. This will help you understand them better and get your stakeholders to trust you more.
2. Value Your Stakeholders’ Opinion
Encourage your stakeholders to share their views and opinions. It will enable you to see their perspective, which is important in today’s business world. Also, allow stakeholders to express themselves in their native language and implement some of their suggestions. Doing so will help them feel valued and confident, resulting in greater stakeholder satisfaction. Your relationship with your stakeholders will improve as a result of that, which can help ensure the success of your project and initiatives.
3. Communicate Regularly with Stakeholders
Regular communication is central to maintaining a positive relationship with your stakeholders. When it comes to those who are overseas, it is not wise to communicate in a language that only you can speak and understand. You must speak or write in a language that they can understand as well. Learning a new language has multiple benefits, but there is no need to do that only to communicate with your stakeholders residing in non-English speaking countries.
Translation services, such as those of Unbabel, make it easy for you to communicate in your stakeholder’s language. Translation service with Unbabel offers both machine and human translation. It enables you to communicate with stakeholders in a transparent way and in the language they prefer. It also eliminates any possible confusion regarding motives, goals, strategies, and plans for a project. All these can help build trust between you and your stakeholders overseas.
Achieve Clear Communication with Translation Service
Stakeholders are valuable assets. You must constantly engage with them to ensure everyone shares the same vision and is committed to the company’s mission. Clear communication is the key to making sure that everyone is on the same page, including international stakeholders. You can achieve that by visiting the stakeholders’ home countries, asking for and implementing their suggestions, and taking advantage of translation services that help you better communicate.
