Preparing for cultural differences in Asia is mandatory, but is the same true for Europe? Would you give the same thought and preparation to your first business trip to Europe as you would do for Asia? Are you looking into differences in business mentality and culture before leaving?
Well aware of the cultural differences, you book a seminar to learn how to bow to someone correctly and that you have to present your business card a certain way. By the time you have finished the seminar, you know about dress codes and some phrases in the local language to show respect to your business partners. You may have learned how to use chopsticks correctly. I know you have been used to chopsticks for years, but be open to discovering that there could be a wrong way of using them.

Undoubtedly, being prepared for the cultural and business differences is mandatory.

Now that you have gone global, you are on your first business trip to Europe. Are you going to prepare yourself as you did for Asia, looking into the differences in business mentality and culture before leaving? Are there similar differences in business cultures in Europe as in Asia? Indeed. The differences may not be as noticeable, but they exist. As you prepare for travel to Asia, similar thoughts should go into preparing for your first business trip to Europe. Still, you do not have to use chopsticks, just a knife and fork. Or is it? Did you know how you use your silverware differs in the United States versus Europe? For example, if you order a steak in America, you typically hold the knife in your dominant hand to cut off a few pieces, put down the knife, and switch the fork to your dominant hand. You would never put your knife down in Europe as you do in America. You keep it in your dominant hand (unless you are ambidextrous, and then you can do whatever you like), using it to cut the beef and push side dishes on the fork. The opposite hand is then used to fork the meat and eat with. Little difference in using silverware, but a significant impact on the mark you might leave. While the European way of using cutlery might be misunderstood in the US, the American way irritates Europeans. Using the fork and knife simultaneously during an entire course is a 101 of cultivated manners in Europe.

Going overseas is the beginning of doing international business.
Learning the nitty-gritty helps to be successful in a foreign country.

Isn't it frustrating reaching out to somebody only to get an automated "out of office" reply?
And what does it mean? I am only open for opportunities during certain times or Currently, I don't care about business?
Of course, everyone needs quality time with family and friends, but the question is, do you need to advertise it?
We are living in a 24/7/365 world. Your international business never stops. While you go to bed, your customers on the other end of the world are on their way to their offices. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't sleep or that you shouldn't go on vacation, but telling the world that you are off for a certain amount of time and, even worse, that you don't have access to email or voice mail is asinine. No one needs to announce they are not interested in new opportunities. As a successful entrepreneur, you know you are never really out of the office. You constantly think about your customers. You are always plugged in wherever you go.

Isn't it frustrating reaching out to somebody only to get an automated out of office reply? And what does it mean? I am only open for opportunities during certain times or Currently, I don't care about business?
Of course, everyone needs quality time with family and friends, but the question is, do you need to advertise it?

They often say, “I want to build a company with products that change the world. All I need is a good idea.” But that’s not the whole story. Good ideas that look like good ideas are not changing the world. Everyone has the same ideas because good ideas are obvious. Big companies are already working hard on good ideas that look like good ideas. So, are startups in the ideas-left-over business? Not necessarily. The best startups are good ideas that originally looked like bad ideas. It would help if you had an idea that sounds bad but is not bad but brilliant. Lucky for you, most people can’t see these. We call this the idea sweet spot. Draw two intersecting circles, one labeled “good ideas” and the other called “seems like a bad idea”. The intersection of both is the idea sweet spot for startups.

Let SEIKOURI help you identify the idea sweet spot.

At the end of 2007, we had the idea of founding a new company. Like all founders, we faced the issue of finding a cool and memorable company name. We decided to follow established naming conventions to get it right the first time and avoid common pitfalls.

THE RULES

Rule 1: For international business, use a company name that can be pronounced in different languages without sounding completely different.

Rule 2: Exact match domain name (company name & domain name are equal)

Rule 3: With an exact match domain name in mind, find a company name with eight characters or less, preferably in English. (Longer domain names bring with them the risk of misspellings & frustrated visitors.)

Rule 4: If you are doing business in the United States and/or internationally, a .com domain is a must.

Rule 5: Wait ... HOLD ON A SECOND ... An English word, eight characters or fewer, still available with a .com domain? IMPOSSIBLE at the end of 2007. All English words with eight characters or fewer .com domains were taken.

We thought, are we screwed? Are we going to end up with a ridiculous domain name like www.buyyournewwallpapersshop.com?

THE SIGN (Or Non-Sign)

We still had no name two weeks before the holidays, and the deadline for the company kickoff was looming. We brainstormed this and that; we had different working titles and iterations, but nothing stood out. We were going crazy and almost delirious (okay, maybe we were delirious) with panic. We began to ponder using just a symbol as the company name, as the artist Prince did. But there was an issue. During this period, Prince was referred to as "the artist formally known as Prince". When we came to our senses, we realized Prince's bad moniker was terrible for us too. Back to the drawing board.

THE CALL (The Real Sign)

As we were prepping for the launch and still struggling with the never-ending name debacle, we had a call from a potential client. The person on the other end represented a large technology company headquartered in Japan. He had heard about us and indicated he would like to hire us (yes, miracles happen every day). We, of course, enthusiastically explained our services and pricing model. He was excited, and we were excited. But then, the moment happened, the moment we had been dreading, he said the words we were hoping he would forget, "What is your company's name?" The blood froze in our veins, and there we were, entrepreneurs with a great business idea, a first client but no name. So what did we do to solve this problem? No, we did not pull a name out of the magic hat; we did what any respectable person would do; we hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Oops!!

Realizing we had to overcome this mental block, we started again. What did we want our name to do? Explain our approach and business in general; the clients should remember the name. And since our first client was Japanese, we asked ourselves, what would make him happy, maybe a Japanese word? It would be nice, and finding a word still available with a domain of under eight characters and .com might be easier.

GET IT DONE

Suddenly the block was gone, and we knew what we wanted. What is the goal of our business? SUCCESS. What is the Japanese translation of "success"?
"seikouri". It didn't look bad. We needed to know the pronunciation and how it sounded. It sounded excellent and was far easier to pronounce than expected.

How does it comply with Rule # 1? We need it to be pronounceable in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, and Russian. Fortunately, we have a global network of friends, so out go the e-mails to 80+ friends around the globe asking for a favor. Please read the word in their language and record the pronunciation. Within 48 hours, we receive 57 files covering a multitude of languages. We were overwhelmed and thrilled because no matter what language used, SEIKOURI always sounded more or less like the name. Rule #1 — checked.

Looking up the spelling made us even more excited. Eight characters. Rules #2 and 3 - checked. (We know it is not an English word. Not yet.)

Next step domain name. This might be the tricky part. Let us perform a WhoIs search. "seikouri.com" - sent ... wait ... wait ... wait ... Domain available. This was easy. Unbelievable. Rule Four - Checked.

Here we are, several years later, with a company name that really works. Great ideas are born every day out of the simplest things.

Entrepreneurs start their businesses with a vision - a vision about products, a vision about customers, a vision about success.
Quite often, there is a huge gap between vision and reality. A vision lives in an ideal world. A vision does not care about sales targets, revenue streams, cash flow, or shareholder value. To turn your vision into a profitable business, define your mission, set objectives and goals, and develop and execute a successful strategy. Stay focused, follow your timelines and dates, sell your product, and save your vision from becoming a dream.

SEIKOURI helps turn your vision into a success, ensuring sweet dreams at night.

Usually, you send or receive an appointment request through a calendar app or as an email attachment. These appointment requests may or may not show the time zone. Often emails will go back and forth asking, is it your time zone or mine, EST or GMT? And when you wait for the call to take place, you discover that despite all the back-and-forth hassle, the time still isn't right.
Did you pick the correct time zone in the end? Which time zone is Scottsdale, AZ? Mountain Time? But wait, Arizona does not participate in Daylight Saving Time. So, Scottsdale will have the same time as Pacific Standard Time from March to November, even though it resides in MST. Is that confusing enough for you? Confusing!
How to get rid of the time zone hassle when booking meetings across different time zones?

Research showed that all online scheduling platforms work with a fix home timezone. You have to set up your home timezone, and all appointments in other time zones are related to this base.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me that way. My availability is 10 AM to 10 PM on business days. So far, so good, but the "10 AM to 10 PM" availability could be in New York on Monday, Los Angeles on Tuesday, and Singapore on Thursday before going to Berlin on Friday.
If someone wants to schedule an appointment with me, this person should see my availability in their local time, no matter where I am.

None of the reviewed apps allowed me to set up my availability in a different time zone correctly.
What I needed was a solution like this. My office is in NYC; therefore, EDT (UTC -4) is my time zone. When I go to LA on Tuesday, 10 AM to 10 PM is PDT (UTC-7). Wednesday, I am not available because I will be on a flight to Singapore. In Singapore, I am available from 10 AM to 10 PM in SGT (UTC +8) and in Berlin on Friday from 10 AM to 10 PM in CEST (UTC+2).
None of the vendors we talked to could deliver this functionality.
I was close to giving up when I came across a startup from Edinburgh, Scotland, offering an online scheduling solution for beauty salons. How could an online scheduling specialist for beauty salons help me with my time zone issue?
First of all, they listened, and they understood my requirements. They listened to my time zone hassle; they understood the problem, and - most importantly - understood the market opportunity, especially for the North American market, where people have to deal with 4+ time zones all the time.
We had these conversations in early December 2014. They fixed the problem for me and thousands of needy customers a couple of months later. They moved the solution to a level where they offer the world's first and ultimate multi-time zone scheduling software.

Today, if you want to schedule a call or a meeting with me, no emails are going back and force anymore. You go to http://markus.seikouri.com, pick the best time, and finish. Whether I am in NYC or Berlin on the selected day, you will see my available time slots in your time zone. No time zone math anymore. And there is 2-way sync with all major calendar systems to get all my appointments directly synced into my calendar.

This isn't good because premise and premises are different words and mean other things.
In today's world of texting, spell check, and informal communication, grammar rules have flown out the window, but that does not mean there is not a right way and a wrong way to use words and phrases. The word on-premises, for instance. Many people mistakenly remove the "S" from the end and say "on-premise", but this, grammatically speaking, is incorrect. Premise and Premises are two different words, meaning very different things. Premise: To base a theory, argument, etc., on an idea, thought, or belief. Premises: A tract of land with the building thereon, or a building or a part of a building If you want to say that you like your software running in your building or on your servers, you want the software on-premises. Now some will argue that premise is a fine substitute for premises and that the English language is evolving, just look at the word cloud. However, the two words mean two different things, and using premise as a replacement is not grammatically correct; it is technical slang and an abbreviation. Be aware and conscious of this word and many others as you speak to people unfamiliar with tech jargon.