How to run a sales call with a client who speaks another language
Prepare materials in their language before the call, decide in advance whether you will translate live or work in a shared second language, and put every number in writing. Most deals lost to "language" are lost to ambiguity nobody wanted to admit to.
Selling across a language barrier is mostly a preparation problem. What happens live is the smallest part of it.
Before the call
Send materials in their language. A one-page summary, the pricing structure, and anything they will need to discuss internally. Someone who has read the substance beforehand can hold a productive conversation in a shared second language; someone hearing it cold cannot, and will end the call politely without committing.
Find out who else will be in the room. The person you have been emailing may be the most comfortable in your language and the least able to decide. If the decision-maker’s language is different, that changes what you prepare.
Decide your language strategy explicitly rather than discovering it live:
- Both work comfortably in a shared language → use it, and send materials in theirs
- They are clearly more comfortable in their own → offer translation, and mean it
- The decision-maker does not share a language with you at all → live translation or an interpreter, not improvisation
Offer, do not impose
“Would it be easier if we ran this with translation?” is a good question. Switching to translation unannounced signals that you have judged their language ability, which is a poor opening.
Some clients will decline because they prefer to practise, or because they find the delay intrusive. Take the answer.
During the call
Every number goes in writing. Prices, quantities, dates, contract lengths, discount percentages. Say them and type them. This is the highest-consequence category and the cheapest to make safe.
Confirm understanding by restatement, not by question. “Any questions?” gets “no” in every language. “Let me check I’ve understood what you need” gets you the actual gap.
Slow at the transitions. When you change topic, introduce a name, or state a figure.
Drop the idioms. Sales language is unusually idiomatic — “low-hanging fruit”, “move the needle”, “ballpark”. Each one costs a beat, and beats accumulate.
Platform constraints for external calls
Client calls are external calls, which is where native tooling is weakest:
- Teams Interpreter excludes external guests and anonymous users, and requires Microsoft 365 Copilot rather than Teams Premium. For most client calls this is disqualifying.
- Google Meet does one English-anchored language pair per meeting, 90 minutes.
- Zoom gives translated captions, not audio.
Afterwards
Send a written summary in both languages within the hour: what was discussed, what was agreed, what happens next, who owns it.
This is where translated deals are actually protected. It also gives your contact something to circulate internally in their own language — which is often where the real decision gets made, in a meeting you are not in and cannot influence except through the document you left behind.