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Relationships
Business bonds
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Neil Templeton
Marketing Director,
Flag Telecom
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In Spain business is built on trust and relationships, but you have to spend a long time with them before they are actually signing a deal. And that obviously means going out for long lunches and long dinners. But it means that you do build up a friendship, a social friendship as well as a business friendship.
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Trust is quite a strong feature in their interpersonal relationships. It's very important to bond individually with Spaniards so a lot can be left on trust and words of honour, if you like. They don't necessarily feel the need to have everything tied down, completely buttoned-up, especially when dealing with foreigners. It's been understood, it's been said and that's it.
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Jay Kettle-Williams
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| Let's discuss this over lunch
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William Gibbs
TV Band Leader
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Food in Spain is incredibly important. And just the other day we were talking in the band about how we've achieved a greater cohesion just by going out and eating every day. And I think within a band and also for the whole of Spain, that hour and a half at two o'clock is a really important moment of the day, when people stop talking about work and sort of get together and have a laugh and a glass of wine.
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In Spain it's important to go out after the meeting and bond properly with the person, perhaps over lunch or over dinner, and that's when you really start to relate. Interpersonal skills are very strong, interpersonal relationships are very strong. The human side of life is extremely important. I stress the formality of a meeting can be codified, if you like, can be given the stamp with a meal. And so food is important, they like their food. They've got excellent food over there as well, so meals are an event.
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Jay Kettle-Williams
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Wayne Rosemin
Managing Director,
Addison España
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There is a great deal that is done on trust. That has its downsides but in our 12 plus years of operating in the market place we've only had to write off the debt on one client. It might have taken us a long time to get paid but we've always been paid.
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We often joke about the Spaniards and the "mañana syndrome", and yes, there is an element of that. That's because other things perhaps have priority. So Spaniards don't tend to get that hang-up we get. It's not that they're bad on time. It's a different approach to time, you know, we're all playing the same game with different rules.
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Jay Kettle-Williams
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- Be patient and try to enjoy a slightly slower pace of business.
- Go with the flow and don't insist on sticking to the agenda.
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Being there index |
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Being there