Teaching American Culture, Makes Me Think

Posted by Michael Michelini on Sep 01 2010

Just landed in Manila today, unpacked, and am now working USA schedule, from 10am to 7pm. Have 3 new workers to train, and have prepared more powerpoint training seminars (feel like a powerpoint machine lately…training, ebooks, etc). We went over ecommerce in USA, Shadstone company introduction, and my favorite one so far

Understanding American Culture: Dealing with American customers for an ecommerce business

The agenda is rather interesting:

•Understanding American background

•Independent thinkers

•Freedom is very important

•Understanding Different Regions of USA

•Northeast USA (New York)

•Southeast USA (Florida, Georgia)

•West Coast USA (California, Washington State)

•Central USA (Chicago, Michigan)

•Patience of Americans

•Most want it now

•Being a REAL PERSON

•Don’t be a robot, realize they like chat (mostly)

The best slide I made, which really makes me think is, UNDERSTANDING THE BACKGROUND OF AMERICANS which is outlined below:

•Young country, kicked out British to be independent

•Melting pot, cultures and people from all over

– Lots of mixed blood (like me) from European decent.

•Always talk about being free, able to do what they want

•Pressure to make money

•Trust easily, quickly,

–But also get upset quickly.

•Low patience

–Time is money

–Don’t like to get delayed response

Its funny, I explain that Americans don’t think outside of USA, and that you have to accept that they only know US dollars and speak in English. That most Americans see no reason to leave USA, and are not curious or interested to know about other cultures.

Then I go into the different sections of USA – northeast (New yorkers) – fast talkers, impatient; Southeast and midwestern are more slow paced. West coast is surfers, mexicans, and internet companies. Its rainy in Seattle.

I also think I made it clear to them USA is all kinds of people, from all kinds of places. And that people trust quickly and easily, give chances quickly, but also don’t give a second chance if there is a mistake. Low patience. Want things now, money isn’t as important as speed.

Just gets me thinking…..but still, Americans are pretty strong, independent, and able to get things done. It is a strength that will be hard for other countries to copy and replicate so quickly and easily.

For those that want to download the report – here is the american culture training presentation

lucy

hi.mike.
can you show me your powerpoint about “understanding american culture”?please.
i will sell some products to foreign country couple month later. so need to know about it to help me better. thank you for your help.

sincerely

lucy
http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

hi Lucy,

Glad you liked the understanding american culture presentation – I uploaded it here: is this what you need or the ppt?
http://blog.michaelmichelini.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/4-american-culture.pdf
Yang

Good!i wanna to tell you that your article is better than my university books! i am try to read all of your articles:)
http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

wow, thanks for the compliment….so happy you are getting education from it…thanks so much for reading and commenting
Micus

I think you need some more research…
http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

I will work on updating this, thanks

About Mike

American internet dude living in China (since '07) helping western companies leverage Chinese social media for business.

Passionate for working with more like-minded internet entrepreneurs. Love international business & connecting, and working on ways to give hard working people global opportunities. (Read More...)