I’ve recently had a number of business people in the US contact me with plans to call me and have a chat about business opportunities. But they often quote their timezone and do not seem to understand that as I don’t live in their country we don’t work with the same timezones. A bit difficult when someone is going to call me first thing in the morning PST only to be told by me (after I’ve done the research) that equates to around 2 or 3am the following morning for me. Not a good time for a business call! Not all overseas contacts do this but sufficiently enough for me to find it a somewhat annoying and repetitive exercise.
When I make contact with others in different countries and if the need arises to speak to them on the phone or Skype, one of the first things I do is look up their nearest major city so I can do a time comparison and organise a meeting. I often wonder why others don’t bother to do the same?
I asked a business contact last week what his nearest major city was so I could look him up and he came back with California. Huh? That’s a state and I don’t know his country well enough to know what major city is in it. Sorry, but I didn’t study US geography at school and it certainly hasn’t been an extra curricular subject I’ve picked up since (mind you if I was about to travel there, it might be a different story). If I told someone in another country that I am in Victoria would they have any idea what major or capital city was here if they weren’t familiar with Australia? I doubt it - they would have to look it up.
Perhaps I’m showing myself to be arrogant or obstinate but I do feel that if I’m contacted by a business person overseas to make an appointment then perhaps it would be in their best interests to familiarise themselves with my location and timezone, or at least not talk in their local lingo (PST, MST or BST for example) and actually help me to work out a suitable time. Oh, and then stick to it - I sat by the phone for almost a half hour waiting for a call that actually came an hour later. As I had other appointments I missed the call and am yet to find out if the time had been incorrectly worked out or whether he did not understand that I might have other appointments since it was the start of my business day although it was late afternoon for him.
For those of you planning an international meeting with others from different countries, then why not visit the meeting planner at timeanddate.com to assist you with your plans? The meeting planner looks up major cities (not states) and works out the time differences and even makes allowances for the various daylight savings changes around the world. When planning your next virtual meeting, impress your contacts by having all the facts prior to setting a suitable mutually convenient time.
Tags: Business Operations by Kathie Thomas
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