A brief lesson in plain English. From Denmark.

Before moving to Denmark five years ago, I did something that I thought was charming, intelligent and unusually proactive.

By my standards, at least.

You see, I had no connections with Denmark at all. This was going to be a big adventure. So, it seemed sensible to prepare the ground for my exciting new business venture with a bit of good, old-fashioned fishing.

Based on £1000 worth of research I commissioned from the British Embassy in Copenhagen, I carefully selected my ten target clients and made each of them a personalised, talking heads style video.

I went to huge trouble to demonstrate that I had done my homework about each business and tried to position myself as an expert that was visiting a foreign land with a fresh, relevant perspective and a cooperative attitude.

Not wishing to waste their time and to keep down the file size I crafted each script so that it lasted no longer than two minutes.

Then I pressed ‘send’ and waited for the appointments to fly in.

Within ten minutes I got my first ping.

Someone called Mette responded, saying ‘I have shown your video to Henrik. He is not interested. Thank you. Venlig hilsen.’

I hurriedly Googled ‘Venlig hilsen’ and found out it meant ‘Yours sincerely’, rather than ‘Only joking!’

So, the air went crimson, I can tell you.

I imagined this Mette woman to be some frumpy sixty year old, with blue hair and support stockings, scowling from behind her metal framed spectacles. Smelling of mints.

What a rude response! How dare she! I spent ages on this project!

And I never normally use exclamation marks.

In the UK, the response would have been something like this:

“Thank you very much for your kind interest in our company. Unfortunately, we do not see any immediate opportunity of working together but should this situation change we will, of course, be in touch. Until such time, your details will be kept on file. Kind regards, etc.”

How utterly charming, polite and pleasant.

And a waste of my time, energy and money.

Henrik clearly thought my video was irrelevant. Or rubbish. Or irrelevant rubbish. So, what’s the point leading me to believe there is still a glimmer of hope?

Actually, the Danish response was frank, honest, straight to the point and respectful of my time. When I read it again, I realised there was no offence intended whatsoever.

It’s a reminder that plain English often comes best from foreigners. Their comparatively smaller English vocabulary means they write like Jan, not Jane Austen. (Well, if their name is Jan.)

When you’re looking for new clients, getting to a quick ‘no’ can be just as helpful as a brisk ‘yes’.