A few years before winning a famous deal on Shark Tank for her motorcycle gear company, Arlene Battishill needed to figure out how to get her products manufactured in China.

So she took off on a sourcing trip (by herself), not knowing a damn thing.

And I’m really glad she did, ‘cause it’s a helluva story.

Sounds like a horror movie

On that sourcing trip, Arlene found herself squished into the backseat of a Toyota with no floorboards, no seatbelts, and no AC.

Accompanying her on this car ride were a few manufacturing partners she was interested in working with.

Arlene couldn’t understand the conversation taking place, but it didn’t matter anyway, since she really couldn’t hear anything above the wind whipping by the open windows.

Suddenly, terrifying chaos erupted as her Chinese associates began screaming and violently pummeling the dashboard, the sideboards, and the seats of their rickety old Toyota.

The car was shaking under the beating. Arlene sat there, helpless, wondering if a tuck-and-roll escape was a death-wish at 80 miles-per-hour.

Then she realized — they weren’t screaming…

They were singing — loudly.

She recognized a familiar tune on the radio.

🎵“Beat it, beat it, no one wants to beee defeeeated”🎵

It was Michael Jackson.

Her associates weren’t spontaneously violent, they were merely “beating it”.

Of course, they didn’t realize that “beat it” means “leave” —  it’s not a call to beat the living hell out of anything within arm’s reach.

But regardless of their misinterpretation of the lyrics, you gotta respect such hardcore MJ fans. ✌️

The one thing you should never do in China

Arlene has now been doing business in China for 15 years, and the Michael Jackson incident is one of many confusing culture shocks she has endured.

Aside from the fact that Chinese fashion considers everything above a size six to be a “whale” (which I feel personally victimized by 🐳), some cultural differences are less humorous, and have the power to be enormously destructive to your business.

Lucky for us, Arlene f*cked up with the Chinese, and lived to tell the tale…

When production was delayed on one of her orders, Arlene sent an email to her liaison at the factory, commanding them to move forward.

“I was demanding in the way that Americans are demanding of getting shit done,” she told me.

And ya know what happened?

Crickets. 🦗

After a week, Arlene still hadn’t heard back from her liaison at the factory — a woman who (up until that point) had been incredibly friendly and responsive.

So she promptly freaked out

Arlene had already paid the factory, and now they weren’t communicating with her at all.

Clearly, she was getting screwed.

So she called up a consultant she had previously worked with and explained the situation, expecting sympathy and a solution for how to make this evil Chinese factory make good on their deal.

Welp, she sure as hell didn’t get any sympathy.

The consultant said, “Arlene, you cannot speak to the Chinese that way. You cannot speak like an American. You must be deferential. You must behave in a way that always shows respect — and you need to go back and apologize to her.”

“Fat chance,” Arlene retorted. “I’m not apologizing to anybody. She’s supposed to do her job”.

He bluntly told Arlene to get over herself, else she could kiss her entire order (and her relationship with that factory) goodbye.

So Arlene swallowed her pride and wrote an apologetic email. 

And you know what?

She received a response instantly.

“She acted like nothing had ever happened,” an astonished Arlene told me.

That’s when Arlene learned an incredible cultural lesson: By being demanding of this woman, Arlene had caused her to “lose face” and feel shame.

In Chinese culture, this is one of the most profound signs of disrespect.

So much so that when Arlene apologized, the factory liaison made no mention of Arlene’s poor behavior, because that would have caused Arlene to “lose face” and feel shame.

This ended up being the biggest lesson Arlene has ever learned

“It hugely influences how I interact at work because you just don’t know how people are going to receive what you’re saying. It made me slow down.”

Forget about cultural differences for a minute, and think about personality differences, motivational differences, and differences in background.

We interact with these differences every damn day.

But how many of us slow down and pay attention to them?

Not many. We expect people to behave the same way we would behave — and that’s a huge f*cking mistake.

If you really want to get shit done, you’ll slow down and adapt to others rather than expecting them to adapt to you.

Cheers! 🍻 

-Kristin

Oh, and connect with me on LinkedIn too, I’m pretty friendly.