I just attended the BNI International Conference in Southern California. There were almost 1,000 people from 40 countries around the world at the event. It looked like a meeting at the United Nations with people from different countries and different accents all meeting for several days. It was amazing to watch business people from various cultures working together to network and build each other’s businesses despite their differences.
It was appropriate that Brian Tracy was a keynote speaker at this event because he and I spoke about the subject of cultural differences and doing business a few years ago. We had lunch in San Diego and I asked him if he changed his material when he did seminars in other countries. He said that he didn’t. He said that entrepreneurs want to do things more efficiently or more effectively. If you can show them how to achieve either of those, the cultural issues are not as big a factor as many might believe.
This made me start to think about why structured networking programs work so well and in so many countries. It occurred to me that there is a “culture of entrepreneurism” that in many ways transcends other cultural issues. The core of this process is the importance of trust. When people get to know and trust each other, that factor supersedes many cultural factors.
Different people, different places; different countries, different cultures; different races, different religions, we all want to do business with people we trust. While there may be many other things to divide us and separate us, we all speak the language of referrals.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Networking, BNI, Ivan Misner, Entrepreneur, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.4 Responses to “The Culture of Entrepreneurism”
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November 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I, too, was at BNI conference and totally agree with Ivan. We do all speak the language of referrals, and BNI provides opportunities for referrals to happen between people in different countries- how awesome is that? Trust is universal! So be bold! Embrace learning about other cultures, different races and different places.”Think continually about what you want, not about the things you fear”. (Brian Tracy)
Shawn McCarthy BNI ED Ventura County, Ca.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I really loved the History Lesson, Enjoyed all of the points you made. Keep up the great work and I look forward to another posting soon!
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I know many individuals, including myself, that have seen tremendous benefits from BNI. I’m sure the conference was great! Business networking is more important than ever. I just wrote an article on my blog about the emergence of social networks for young entrepreneurs. You can check it out here:
http://grantdeken.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-network-for-young-entrepreneurs.html
Let me know what you think,
Grant
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:06 am
I agree Ivan. In our coaching programs, building a business through relationships is always at the core. We also work with individuals at a personal level so that they learn to not only be authentic and trustworthy, but OCCUR that way. I have found that former does not always lead to the latter.
There truly is an Entrepreneurial culture that transcends all other cultural differences.
Be Well,
Lauren
www.RevenueBlitz.com