When you are working in a sales position, there are a number of strategies that you have to take to heart.  Of course, the most fundamental strategy that you are ever going to hear is to keep a smile on your face at all times.  Even if you are talking to someone over the phone, you have to be sure that you are smiling because the customer is going to be able to tell.  Of course, another fundamental rule, here, is to make sure that you are catering your sales presentation to the customer who you’re dealing with right now.  Generic sales presentations might be more efficient, but they are hardly going to lend themselves to building great rapport with your callers and your customers.  As such, when you are speaking to Canadians , you have to be sure that you are changing several things in your sales presentation; likewise, that you are avoiding certain things in your sales presentation.  For the sake of simplicity, this article will run through a couple of strategies that you are going to want to keep in mind when you are handling Canadians in person or on the phone.

The first thing that you are going to have to bear in mind, here (and stick with me even if this seems too obvious), is that you are not going to want to fake an accent to disguise your place of origin.  While Canadians do have an accent, that does not mean that you should have an accent when you answer the phone.  As with any accent, the potential to offend, here, is much greater than the potential to please.  If you botch your accent when you are giving your sales presentation, you are going to come across as uncaring and unprofessional—or, even worse, as flat out insulting.

Unless your company or supervisor has explicitly approved of your accent; unless you can pull off your accent without any hiccups—then you are going to want to leave it in the closet and save it for your own amusement.

Moving on, here, it is important that you adopt a certain regional dialect when you are helping Canadians .  Once again, this does not mean that you should don an accent.  What it does mean, however, is that you are going to want to use their vernacular if and when it is helpful to your sales presentation.  It’s important for you to refer to things like “postal codes” by their proper names.  If you refer to a “postal code” as a “zip code”, then you’re immediately going to damage your credibility.

Likewise, if you do not know the time zones of the provinces, then you are going to hurt your credibility right from the start.  Canadians are not going to care that an American is helping them over the phone.  What they will care about, though, is being helped by someone who hardly understands a thing about Canada.  And when you think about it, that makes a great deal of sense.  You have to prove to them that you care about their business; you have to prove to them that you are going to be able to help them despite your location.

At the end of the day, you can apply these strategies to your sales presentation and build rapport much more effectively.