Creating a Consistent Global Customer Experience

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Building a global company is easier, but also more nuanced and complex, than ever before. In the past, companies could limit expansion in a more controlled fashion to just one market at a time. In the digital age, global growth is far more continuous and incremental in nature. 

But with this new approach comes risk: If your customers in one market receive less value than those in another, they perceive your offering differently. This is not only unfair to them, but it can also hurt your business in the long run. 

To truly create an equitable experience for your customers, you will need to focus as early as possible on driving a global mindset.  Start here to learn how it is done.

Going Beyond Borders with a Global Mindset

Today in Global Small Business: Is Tariff a Dirty Word to Business Owners Who Trade Globally?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Is tariff a dirty word to business owners who trade globally?
• Quote of the week:  “To create something exceptional, your mindset must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail.” – Giorgio Armani
• wegg® is helping women entrepreneurs create jobs and achieve global goals.
• Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) and Facebook have announced a partnership that aims to ramp up job creation and to further empower entrepreneurs in India.
• The air cargo industry faces slower growth, declines in general cargo shipments, and criticisms about being slow to adapt and innovate to evolving customer needs.  Yet e-commerce is still the hot topic.
• Learn why the international world requires an international mindset.

The Making of a Global Leader: Empathy, Cultural Awareness and an Open Mind

Today in Global Small Business: What Makes For a Successful Global Business Leader?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Read these 10 books on globalization. 
• What makes for a successful global business leader?
• Learn how to win the trade game with creative export finance (WEGGinar™ on 9/6 free of charge but you must register to attend: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4753604763900421122; if you participate, I'll be fielding your questions).
• How a woman business owner took her business from a hobby to a $2 million international business. 
• To become an international player, you must develop a global mindset.
• Speaking of global mindset, developing a global mindset is a key leadership attribute.

Today In Global Small Business: How Can We Better Support Global Female Entrepreneurs?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Amazon buys Whole Foods for more than $13 billion.  Forget groceries.  It's now about more important things.
• Which country accounts for 40 percent of global ecommerce transactions?
• How to finance export sales (WEGGinar™on 7/12 - no charge).
• The entrepreneurship bug is spreading in Canada.
• How can we better support global female entrepreneurs? And then there is WEGG.
• Do you have a global mindset?  And then there are other characteristics that lead to overseas success.

Globally, Why Would Anyone Follow You?

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Why would anyone follow you?  That is the question Cari E. Guittard, Principal, Global Engagement Partners and Professor of Global Management, Hult International Business School asked her students during a class she taught on women's leadership at the Hult International Business School in Dubai.

Before we get to how that question was handled (don't want to let the cat out of the bag here), she defines global leadership.

Take a look:  Our World Demands a More Effective Global Leader

And by the way, Why would anyone follow you?  Let me know and we'll post your answers here. Meanwhile, need some help?  Explore the Global Mindset Inventory tool.  And read:  Leading With a Global Mindset.

Global Mindset In the Hiring Process

Related article, "Leading With a Global Mindset."

What's the Key to Success? A Global Mindset

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Here's what Jamal Mohamed Fakhro, Managing Partner KPMG Bahrain and Qatar says:

"A Kuwaiti company’s future today is in investing outside of Kuwait and not just within the country.” With globalization and the subsequent removal of boundaries, he affirmed that a successful business is one with a global mindset.

Fakhro is the chairman of KPMG’s Middle East and South Asia sub-region and the managing partner of KPMG’s Qatar and Bahrain practices. He is also a board member of KPMG Europe.

Read the entire article here.

Are You a Global Thinker?

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How do you break from the past and develop a global mindset?

The Global Thinkers Forum (GTF) is a non-profit initiative and a platform to create dialogue and bring current and future leaders together to discuss governance, society, progress and the future. GTF has been created to reposition perceptions about governance through a global perspective.

Global Thinkers Forum

Related article:  Leading With a Global Mindset

Worldwide: Dealing With People Who Are Different From You

How to Make Yourself and Your Business a Success Overseas

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Listen to the podcast: Mansour Javidan, dean of research at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and co-author of the HBR article "Managing Yourself: Making It Overseas." Copyright 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing.

We've written extensively about what Dr. Javidan refers to as developing a "global mindset" (a major prerequisite to moving ahead in our world) and characteristics needed to achieve success as a leader in the global marketplace. So we are glad to see he's "on it."

Find out if you have a global mindset here (immediate download):

Are You Ready? Take The Global IQ Test To Find Out

And remember, even McDonald's was a small shop at one time. Why just click on the 1940 button and you'll see what I mean!

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

Learn to Think Globally

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How do you develop a global mindset? How do you run a business creatively spanning great distances, multiple cultures and different time zones?

Get a global education. It will allow you to experience the flavor of the world beyond what a book could ever offer.