It's the little things that count towards building trust and a friendly atmosphere in our business relationships. Whether it's a Christmas card or a thank you note, a short conversation about the hottest horse or latest baseball news-working with people on a more personal level will likewise lead to a more intimate level of contact.

This dynamic is even more important when working with people abroad. As Americans, we start many business relationships with an image disadvantage, considering the U.S. has a worldwide reputation as something of a cultural gorilla. No one wants to be a mere line item in someone else's budget, or just another barn to be stormed.

How can you best avoid appearing overbearing? You'll find that other cultures mean other rules. A Christmas card could be deemed offensive if sent to a Moslem or Hindu, and talking about sports or the weather might make you seem foolish rather than friendly.

There are some easy steps you can take to keep your mindset aligned with your contacts. Like any other people-skill, it merely takes an ounce of forethought to yield many pounds of smooth cooperation.

Recruit an ally

Other cultures' agendas and taboos are easy to learn, when you have someone explaining them to you. If you're working with an interpreter, spend half an hour asking about the sort of small talk you can expect. Are you using a translator for your correspondence? Double-check that they've conveyed the intended tone, and if a personal item is expected in a business letter. You are likely to get a better response if you don't come across as interested solely in the financial aspect of the relationship.

Stay informed

The six o'clock news does not go a long way towards keeping viewers informed about the world beyond Hollywood and the Beltway. Happily, other sources of information about your target culture abound on the Internet. The International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com) gives a good round up of the world; the BBC's news site (news.bbc.co.uk) is unsurpassable, both in headlines and in the details available. CNN has a rather different take on things (www.cnn.com), which is short on details but does come in a format more familiar to Americans. However, your best bet would be to locate and occasionally look over a local newspaper. Find these by entering the name of the city you're interested in into the search box on the Google news page (news.google.com).

Keeping up to date about the business climate of your suppliers and clients can be crucial: as economies crumble, business ethics have spiraled downwards, while strikes and riots have become commonplace. You need to know what's happening if you want to make an effective response.

Keep a calendar

There are many good reasons to keep track of major holidays in your foreign market, including but not limited to the way big projects and complex changes tend to get put off until after the holiday disruptions have passed. Your own calendar should have more than this: every country celebrates its holidays in a slightly different way. Knowing that Santa Claus is a persona non grata in the Netherlands, where he tried to encroach on the local tradition of Sinterklaas (who is celebrated with gifts on December 5th) will keep you from offending your contact with a greeting card that could be construed as an agent of cultural imperialism. Even Canada has its quirks-our neighbors to the north celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October.

No store-bought calendar will provide you with all the information you need, not even for a single culture. The market can't seem to support a "talk to Singapore" calendar, not to mention squeezing more than one culture into a planner (although the MS Outlook planner does give it a try). To master the "ins and outs" of your contact-cultures, you'll have to interview your ally. Make sure you find out what greetings are customary for the particular event.

Learn how money talks

Americans write paper checks and expect to receive and deposit them. Europeans frown at all this moving paper about-bank transfers are much easier and more common for them. Bank account numbers are an essential element of business stationery in Europe, and no less important than contact information. Credit cards are only starting to make their appearance in Russia and the CIS. The function of banks is different in each culture, as well. An Austrian banker told me that his clients generally brought little gifts when making a deposit in numbered accounts-it was expected, a form of tipping.

The one thing you can be certain of is that how you handle money will be important to your contacts. Their expectations will differ according to their cultural roots. There are dollars and cents advantages to knowing how things work, but the attitude advantage is the real one: all too frequently, people are afraid that a foreign client is trying to cheat them. This fear grows when the client does not operate according to what seems, in their experience, to be the only way to work. Knowing what these expectations are gives an international executive an edge.

Speak their language

Not the whole time, not at native level--but if you make an effort to twist your tongue around the gutturals or tunes of your contact's language, you'll win some points of personal approval. At the very least, learn how to say "hello," "good-bye," and "thank you," even if all the rest of your communication is in English. This considerate bit of study humanizes the executive and subtly reminds the foreign contact that they are valued. Our presidents have made this effort time and again (sometimes without doing their homework first).

For most of your communication, you do not need to learn the language. However, a good translation provider may prove invaluable even if the correspondence is entirely in English. It is a good idea to consult with a translator familiar with both cultures when a correspondence takes a perplexing turn. Does the enumerated list (with the 6th and final point being: "Take care of the matter!") mean that your correspondent is angry? No, only that this is a person with military background in the Middle East. If things ring oddly, consider asking a language expert before making a response.

Work with your interpreter

The ultimate way of speaking another language is through an interpreter. Interpreters tend to be highly educated individuals, often with many years of experience in all facets of bi-lingual business dealings. Maximize the return on your investment in interpreting services by letting your interpreter know what you expect of the meeting and what you want to achieve.

Expect the unexpected

In all dealings with foreign cultures, it is wise to be alert and aware. The greatest pitfall is assuming that everyone, everywhere, lives and works in the same way you do at home. The alert stance works like a "mind the gap" sign on the London tube (which we'd call a subway): knowing there's a gap, cultural or physical, makes it easy for an executive not to step off into the void.

Sidebar: The Inside Scoop on Interpretation
By Stacey L. Shiffman

In today's global economy, business people should be asking themselves, "How can I get the biggest bang for my buck?" Not only do you want to spend your money wisely, you want to make sure to successfully achieve your most basic and primary goal. Did the audience you were appealing to understand your bottom line? Did they feel confident that you have the same goals and share similar objectives?

Working with a well-trained and seasoned interpreter is a way to effectively communicate with your target audience, either one-on-one or in larger group settings.

According to Orlando, Florida-based International Planning Inc. (www.ipitranslation.com), there are several types of interpretation services. Simultaneous (U.N. style) interpreting is the highest level of spoken interpreting, which is usually critical for larger multilingual meetings and conferences, and requires special equipment. Consecutive interpreting is more flexible. In this setting, the presenter(s) says one or two sentences then pauses while the interpreter repeats in another language.

The corner stone of any business relationship is trust. In the current business environment, many companies are struggling to do more with less, and building and maintaining client relationships in foreign markets has become more challenging with dwindling budgets and restricted travel. The need for effective communication, therefore, becomes elevated to an even higher level of importance.

Investing in an experienced interpreter not only works to open doors to foreign markets, it helps close the gap for accidental misunderstandings and missed opportunities. That's "money well spent" in any language.