Why Speed Kills Your Deals in Europe

Why Speed Kills Your Deals in Europe

EPISODE SUMMARY A friend of mine, French and about as American as a French salesperson gets, killed a deal last month with a US software company. Good product, real fit. He walked anyway, because the rep moved too fast. In this episode, I get into why speed, the exact thing that wins deals in the US, is the thing that quietly kills them in Europe, and the small adjustments that keep the pace difference from costing you a whole market. IN THIS EPISODE * Why even the fastest, most "American" European buyer will walk away from a deal that feels rushed. * The two very different definitions of "progress" that make US and European teams misread each other in real time. * The invisible cost of moving too fast, and why the American who loses the deal almost never figures out why. ABOUT CROSSING THE ATLANTIC Crossing the Atlantic is the show for companies doing business on both sides of the ocean. Host Christina Rebuffet-Broadus is an American who has lived and built businesses in France for over 20 years. She shares what she's learned from hundreds of companies expanding between the US and Europe, so you can avoid the six-figure mistakes most only learn the hard way. CONNECT WITH ME I'm Christina, and I write about what really happens when companies expand across the Atlantic: the blind spots, the deal-breakers, and the moves that work. 📬 Get in-depth insights 2x/month: https://transatlantia.com/en/crossing-the-atlantic/ [https://transatlantia.com/en/crossing-the-atlantic/] 💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffetbroadus/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffetbroadus/] 📅 Book a US-to-Europe strategy call: https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/us-eu-expansion-discovery [https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/us-eu-expansion-discovery] 📅 Book a Europe-to-US strategy call: https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/rdv-decouverte-US-fast-track [https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/rdv-decouverte-US-fast-track]

Bringing a French Medtech to Tech Week NYC

EPISODE SUMMARY This week, I'll be in New York City moderating an important event for a French medtech founder I've been working with for about two months. The event we're walking into looks very different from the one he first described to me, and the gap between those two versions is the thing every French founder needs to understand before introducing their company in the US. In this episode I take you inside the architecture of what we're actually building for Bruno Aubert and WarnFeet, the principle behind it, and why the part that matters most happens after the slides come down. IN THIS EPISODE - Why a 90-minute keynote-and-Q&A format empties a New York room twenty minutes before the networking even starts - What happens when you ask a room of strangers to commit publicly to a scientific advisory board, and the simple reframe that actually works MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Bruno Aubert [https://www.linkedin.com/in/innovation-for-the-environment/]and WarnFeet: Bruno is the founder and CTO of SoleCooler [https://solecooler.com/en/], a French company building the first mass-market diabetic foot prevention system, WarnFeet. It's their newest product. If you're in NYC, come to our medtech breakfast! 🗓️ Wednesday June 3, 8:45-11:00AM 📍 Maison de l'Occitanie à New York [https://www.linkedin.com/company/occitanie-new-york/] 🎟️ RSVP here: https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s [https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s] ABOUT CROSSING THE ATLANTIC Crossing the Atlantic is a biweekly podcast for business leaders expanding across the ocean. Hosted by Christina Rebuffet-Broadus, an American who has spent 20+ years in France and founded TransAtlantia, each episode tackles the cultural blind spots, strategic mistakes, and hidden dynamics that make transatlantic business harder than it looks. New episodes every two weeks. CONNECT WITH ME, CHRISTINA REBUFFET-BROADUS - Website: transatlantia.com [http://transatlantia.com] - LinkedIn: Christina Rebuffet-Broadus [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffetbroadus/] - Email: christina@transatlantia.com [christina@transatlantia.com]

The Yes Trap: How French vs American business culture kills deals

A French founder I work with was sure his US deal would close. The American buyer kept telling him "we're excited, let's keep moving forward." Eleven weeks later, still no contract. Around the same time, an American sales VP walked out of a meeting in Paris and told me to write the deal off. The French team had grilled him for an hour. Three weeks later, they signed. Two opposite mistakes, same root cause. In this episode I break down why an American "yes" and a French "oui" are almost never the same word, how French vs American business culture turns the same signals into opposite meanings, and why the warm responses you're tracking in your pipeline are probably lying to you. Then I give you four questions you can run after any cross-Atlantic meeting to find out what's actually real. IN THIS EPISODE * Why an American "yes" is cheap and warm, and usually means "keep talking," not "we're committed" * Why a French team that grills you with hard questions is often interested, not rejecting you * How each side prices risk and time differently, and why that shapes the language they use MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE MedTech breakfast on a ground-breaking innovation in diabetes prevention: June 3, NYC at La Maison de l'Occitanie. Featured speakers: one of the world's leading doctors in the field and Bruno Aubert, founder of SoleCooler and inventor of WarnFeet. I'm moderating the event. If you're in med tech, health insurance, or the medical field and you'll be in New York, come join us. Save your spot here: https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s [https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s] ---------- My next book: working title False Friends. It's about doing business across the Atlantic and the gap between what looks similar in the US and France and what actually is. If you've had a transatlantic "false friend" moment, a conversation or meeting that hid rough patches due to cultural differences, reach out and tell me about it! I'm looking for stories and companies to feature in the book! SOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED * Diabetes Prevention Breakfast, June 3, NYC. Sign up: https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s [https://partiful.com/e/pRGMGLY8pbqZl3qbuG9s] * Share your "false friend" story for the book: christina@christinarebuffet.com [christina@christinarebuffet.com] ABOUT CROSSING THE ATLANTIC Crossing the Atlantic is a biweekly podcast for business leaders expanding across the ocean. Hosted by Christina Rebuffet-Broadus, an American who has spent 20+ years in France and founded TransAtlantia, each episode tackles the cultural blind spots, strategic mistakes, and hidden dynamics that make transatlantic business harder than it looks. New episodes every two weeks. CONNECT WITH ME, CHRISTINA REBUFFET-BROADUS * Website: transatlantia.com [http://transatlantia.com] * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffetbroadus/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffetbroadus/] * Email: christina@christinarebuffet.com [christina@christinarebuffet.com]

The Alignment Trap: How French and American decision-making kills deals

This week, we explore another challenges of transatlantic business : the alignment trap and decision-making differences. We'll delve into the impact of cultural nuances on decision-making and give you strategies for understanding how deals move forward in different cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, and more importantly, how to manage the decision-making process so things really do move forward. Chapters * 00:00 The Alignment Trap * 05:26 Cultural Differences in Decision-Making * 14:13 Consensus First Decision-Making * 20:22 Strategies for Transatlantic Deals About Crossing the Atlantic Crossing the Atlantic is a biweekly podcast for business leaders expanding across the ocean. Your host is Christina Rebuffet-Broadus, an American advisory consultant in transatlantic deals with 20+ years in France and founder of TransAtlantia. Each episode tackles the cultural blind spots, strategic mistakes, and hidden dynamics that make transatlantic business harder than it looks. New episodes every two weeks. Connect with Christina   •  Website: transatlantia.com [http://transatlantia.com]   •  LinkedIn: Christina Rebuffet-Broadus [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffet/]   •  Book a conversation: Schedule here [https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/rdv-decouverte-US-fast-track]

The Operating System Trap: Why US companies fail when expanding to Europe

If the Familiarity Trap is the disease, the hidden cost of assumptions is the bill. In this episode, I put numbers on what happens when companies cross the Atlantic without questioning their instincts: 68% of failed transatlantic expansions trace back to cultural assumptions made in the first 90 days. I'll talk about the concept of “cultural operating systems”, the invisible rules governing how business gets done on each side of the Atlantic and explain why running your American operating system on European infrastructure (or vice versa) breaks things in ways you won’t see coming. In This Episode * The French energy company whose growing US revenue masked a team falling apart and why nobody saw it coming * Why 68% of failed transatlantic expansions trace back to assumptions made in the first 90 days * Cultural operating systems: what the computer analogy reveals about why business cultures are incompatible without translation * The American OS (speed, individual accountability, 70% and iterate) vs. the European OS (depth, consensus, 85% before you move) * How one fintech company hired a single local advisor and rewrote their entire go-to-market in three months * The three-phase framework: Observe, Translate, Pilot and why the companies that slow down spend less money Sources & Links Mentioned Studies & Data: * 70% of international business ventures fail due to cultural misunderstandings : Academic research on cross-border failures (GRIN) [https://www.grin.com/document/137585] * Cross-border M&A failure rates of 70–90% : Harvard Business Review: A Better Approach to Mergers and Acquisitions [https://hbr.org/2024/05/a-better-approach-to-mergers-and-acquisitions] * EACC Transatlantic Expansion Barometer (survey of 200 US & European mid-size businesses) : EACC France / OCO Global [https://www.eaccfrance.com/2024/11/20/transatlantic-expansion-barometer/] Previous Episode: * Episode 1: The Familiarity Trap [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crossing-the-atlantic/id1737974898]: Why the Atlantic feels easy and isn’t About "Crossing the Atlantic" Crossing the Atlantic is a biweekly podcast for business leaders expanding across the ocean. Hosted by Christina Rebuffet-Broadus an American transatlantic expansion expert with 20+ years in France and founder of TransAtlantia. Each episode tackles the cultural blind spots, strategic mistakes, and hidden dynamics that make transatlantic business harder than it looks. New episodes every two weeks. Connect with me: * Website: transatlantia.com [http://transatlantia.com] * LinkedIn: Christina Rebuffet-Broadus [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarebuffet/] * Book a conversation: Schedule here [https://app.iclosed.io/e/TransAtlantia/rdv-decouverte-US-fast-track] Next Episode Decision-Making: Consensus vs. Command How Americans and Europeans make business decisions differently, why neither side understands why the other “takes so long” or “rushes into things,” and what to do about it. Drops May 5, 2026.