Culture and sales

Culture affects everything that we as human beings do. It permeates our thoughts as well as our actions. The nature of culture can be thought of as: (1) communicable knowledge, (2) all that which separates humans from nonhumans, or (3) all of the historical accomplishments produced by man’s social life.1 What seems obvious is that learning is a key ingredient, and society is the primary provider of that learning. We define culture as: all of the behavioral traits that we acquire from and share with the members of our society. The point is that cultural traits are learned from the environment that surrounds us. They are not inherited. Our cultural makeup affects how we feel about and react to various societal stimuli. One problem that we constantly face is our tendency to view the actions of others from our own perspective. We basically project our culture and our cultural expectations on others. While this appears to be appropriate if we are dealing with others from the same culture, it is increasingly more likely that we will be dealing with individuals from other cultural backgrounds. It is therefore better to be sensitive and able to adapt to a variety of different cultural backgrounds.