The Sales Valley of Death
Sales cannot run like a manufacturing production line. We are not making industrial cheese here. This is more like an artisanal pursuit, closer to art than science. Yet, every sales force on the planet has targets which are usually uniform. Each month, the sales team has to deliver a specified amount of revenue, rolling up into a pre-determined annual target. The construct may be logical, but sales is far from logical, as it is steeped in emotion, luck and magic.
Having said that though, sales is also a numbers game and to some extent pseudo-scientific. There are accepted algorithms which apply. You call a certain number of people, speak to a lesser number, meet a few and from that residual group, you conclude an agreement. There are ratios, which when calculated over time, apply as averages linking activity with results. So we call 100 people, speak to 80, see 20, strike a deal with 5. In this construct, to make one sale, on average we need to call 20 people.
With this type of precision available, you would think that we could industrialise the sales process and confidently set annual targets, neatly divided into units of 12, to arrive at a consistent steam of revenue achievement. Sales managers would be multi-tasking, sipping their afternoon martinis, propping their cowboy boots on the desk and carefully calculating their next car upgrade, as the sales team obligingly track to the revenue plan.
Sadly, it doesn't work like this. Sales flow without rhyme or reason, some months exceeding the target and other months missing it completely. Some sales colleagues are precociously consistent producers and others are annoyingly unpredictable and some are just annoying because they don’t seem to be doing much at all. Why is there this perplexing inability to automate the production of results? The valley of sales death is the problem.
This is the plunge between sales peaks. It is the lull in the fighting, the quiet before the storm, the brief interlude in the phony war of sales. Sales people work hard, usually because they are on commission structures which guarantee not very much if you don’t produce. Japan is a little different - basically here it is either a base and commission or straight salary and bonus system. Few sales people in Japan are on 100% commission. Why? Because they don’t have to and the Japanese preference for risk aversion means forget it! Nevertheless, they know they have to produce, so they tend to be diligent.
Commission structures vary but many “industrial structures” specify that you have to hit a monthly or quarterly target before your commission kicks in. If this is too industrial, it may fail to take into account seasonal downturns, because each target unit is the same throughout the year. This is hardly motivating and probably needs a bit more nuance around expectations and reality.
Sales people cannot be consistently successful unless they have two great professional skills. They must be machine-like time managers and they must also be highly disciplined. The two interlock. The ebb and flow of sales is based around customer activity. Networking, cold calling, following up with previous clients, chasing leads which come through marketing activities etc., all of this takes considerable time.
If we pump out enough client contact activity we will get appointments, sales and therefore generate follow up. Time starts to disappear from the mining activities that made us active in the first place. We can’t do the prospecting work, because we are too busy executing the follow up. Once the fog of being busy clears though, we suddenly see that we have a very pitiful pipeline ahead of us. So we work like a demon again to kick start generating new leads.
Downturns in activity lead to massive holes in revenue. This is the Sales Valley of Death. It is the messy counter point to industrial sales production, which is consistent, predictable, uniform, and when graphed for boss presentations, is beautifully shaped, balanced and ascetically pleasing to upper management.
To avoid this valley phenomenon, we need to make time to keep prospecting every week. Hence the requirement for excellent time management skills and the discipline to make sure we are doing it every single week. Otherwise, we find our time for pipeline development is stolen away by client demands, emergencies, mistake correction, more detailed discussions and results follow up with the buyer.
Sales people who do not block out time in their diaries for prospecting everyday will be Death Valley dwellers in short order. They will be joined there by those who don’t plan their day in detail. That means planning the necessary activities with numbered action priorities. Winging it, being “spontaneous”, living in the moment unshackled from schedules are all delusional activities which cannot be part a successful sales life.
If we don’t wish to enter the Sales Valley of Death, we must block time for prospecting and craft a carefully prioritised daily To Do list. Failure here is permanent, because the consistency of production will elude us forever. We will get lost in the harsh environment of the valley and perish by the wayside bleached bones in the sand.
Let’s commit to build the pipeline every day and avoid the Sales Valley of Death at all costs.
Action Steps
Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
About The Author
Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.
A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.
Let’s Go For The Sale’s Bull’s-eye
Sale’s solutions are what make the business world thrive. The client has a problem and we fix it, our goods or services are delivered, outcomes are achieved and everybody wins. In a lot of cases however these are only partial wins. Problems and issues are a bit like icebergs – there is a lot more going on below the surface than can be spotted from the captain’s bridge. The salesperson’s role is to go after the whole iceberg and not just the obvious bit floating above the waterline.
The standard sales interview is based on two models comprising the outer circles surrounding a bull’s-eye. The extreme periphery is the “telling is selling” model. This ensures the salesperson does most of the talking. The client is subjected to a constant bombardment of features, until they either buy, die or retreat. The second model, the inner circle adjoining the bull’s-eye, is the solution model of providing outcomes that best serve the client, based on what the client has understood is their problem.
The latter is a much better tool and is in pristine condition because so few salespeople use it. The rapid fire of features at the client, rarely provides success because of the randomness of the proffering of alternatives. Welcome to the “toss enough mud at the wall and some is bound to stick” School of Sales. Aligning the fix with the client need in the solution model is the mark of the semi-professional. There is nothing wrong with this model but what are the rock star sales masters doing?
They are zipping up their wetsuits and diving into the icy water under the iceberg, inspecting things closely and really understanding the full scope of the situation. They are on a mission to try and find what nobody else is seeing. Their ability to deliver previously unseen, unconsidered insights is pure gold for clients.
Mentally picture our big red bull’s-eye at the center of a series of concentric circles. Stating the features of a product or service is the first level, the very outer circle. Our solutions constructed around what the client knows already is the next inner circle. The highest level is providing solutions for problems that the client isn’t even aware of yet.
A truly magical client statement would be: “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that or allowed for it!”. Think about your own experience. Anytime we have been a buyer and have uttered those words to ourselves, as a result of insight from the salesperson, we have experienced a major breakthrough in our world view. Now that is the bull’s-eye we want right there.
The salesperson who can provide that type of perspective, alerting clients to over-the-horizon issues, provides such value that they quickly become the client’s trusted business partner. Be it in archery or business, hitting the bull’s-eye is no easy matter. Insight can’t be plucked from the air at will. Plumbing one’s experiences, sorting and sifting for corresponding relevancies and then diving deeply into the client’s world looking for alignment are the skills required.
In a way, ignorance is an advantage. Paraphrasing Peter Drucker, our success can come by asking a lot of “stupid” questions. A salesperson has an outside perspective, untainted and pure. There is no inner veil obscuring the view, no preconceived notions or ironclad assumptions clouding judgment.
Counter intuitively, the fact that we don’t know, what we don’t know, becomes our strength. Ignorance allows us to question orthodoxy in a way that insiders can’t because of inertia, groupthink, company culture or the internal politics of the organization.
When salespeople serve numerous clients, be it in the same industry or across industries, they pick up vital strategic and tactical commercial intelligence. Researching various client’s problems, experiences, triumphs and disasters is valuable – but only if you know how to process the detail.
In all of our companies, we can only see clearly what we are doing ourselves. We all exemplify that Japanese saying: “the frog in the well does not know the ocean”. Everything is too familiar and so we don’t ever question everyday normality. We don’t have the opportunity to peak behind the curtain and look into what our competitors are doing.
It is also very rare for company personnel to do study tours of totally unrelated businesses. If we classified industries alphabetically, in a standard business setting, representatives from A and Z would rarely meet, let alone get to trade ideas and experiences. Salespeople however are floating around businesses and therefore able to know many wells and oceans. The ability to select and apply one particularly successful thing in a different context is a commercially valuable skill.
How can salespeople get that skill? Some ways salespeople can provide over-the-horizon value include being highly observant. Take what you have seen working elsewhere for one client, in a different company or industry and then apply it for your current client. Sounds rather easy doesn’t it. The reality is pressured salespeople miss much, record little, remember less and blag their way through most of their client meetings. Let’s all slow down, listen, think, and then innovate. The answers are often right there, but we miss out because we are too busy and not looking for them.
Another way to get that skill is to do practical research. Based on what you already know, build up a point of view on an industry, check it against what your clients are telling you (or conduct company surveys). Delve into nascent potential problems, arrive at your hypothesis and be the first mover. The real time insight garnered from this type of activity, allows salespeople to become rockstars in the business world. They are providing “take it to the bank” added value for the buyer.
We won’t always be able to conjure up a bull’s-eye. However, in trying to do so, our aspirations, general direction and thinking will be correct. Our kokorogamae (心構え) or true intention will be on track. By comparison, our competitors will lag well behind, still waffling on about features or playing detective interrogating clients. We have to move on to a higher dimension, where clients seek us out. They do so because they recognize the value of what we offer. In sales, the inner-most circle, the big red bull’s-eye, leads straight to the winner’s circle and that is where we must be. Let’s make “insight” our springboard to success.
Action Steps
Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
About The Author
Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.
A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.
Selling Ain’t Telling
He slid effortlessly into the chair and before I knew it, he had popped open the oyster shell of his laptop and was pointing his screen menacingly in my direction. Uh oh! Powerpoint slide after powerpoint slide bombarded me with detailed data, specs, diagrams and text information. After 20 minutes he stopped the torture. “Wow”, I thought, “he hasn’t managed to ask me even one teensy question during this session of our first meeting”. His business card announced he was the Sales Director – that seemed a definite worry if he was responsible for others.
The irony of this sales presentation was that I had requested it. I was in fact, a hot prospect. I had heard his President at a function talking about the new whizbang service their firm offered and I was intrigued. So intrigued, I approached the speaker and asked that he send one of his crew over to see me.
I should have suspected something was amiss though, by the reaction of the President when I made my “visit me” request. Did he become buoyant with anticipation of a sale and reassure me that this product was the best thing since sliced bred? Surprisingly aloof, I found him, in fact almost disinterested. Was this a Nordic thing, I wondered or just his personality? I will never know, but what I did think to myself was, how important it is in sales to be positive and upbeat about your product at all times.
So back at the meeting, after a death of a thousand powerpoints, I miraculously revived and questioned the Sales Director. Why? Well despite his incompetence, I still had a need. In the end though, I was not a buyer.
What could he have done with me? He could have asked me a few questions to ascertain what I was interested in. He could have holstered his weapon before drilling me with detail, dross and pap. Of the ten functionalities of the whizbang, there were only two or three that were of any match with what I needed. We could have dispensed with all the irrelevant detail and gone straight to the finish line with the “hotties”. We could have spent the bulk of our time talking about the aspects which were most likely to lead to a sale. We had limited time and he limited his own chances of gaining a new client by telling me everything, instead of only those things I needed to know, to make a buying decision.
Reading this little vignette, I hope you take immediate action and self-audit whether you are any better at questioning than this guy? Do you have a sales process in place. Are you spending the bulk of the client interface time, laser focused on where they have the greatest likelihood of success?
If you are a “teller”, then here is a simple questioning step formula that will help you get to the heart of the matter and uncover where you can be of the most assistance to the client. Start with either where the client is now or where they want to be – it doesn’t really matter which one you ask first. This is because what we are trying to understand is how big is the gap between “As Is” and “Should Be”. By the way, unless the sense of immediacy about closing that gap is there, then there will probably be “no sale” today. Clients are never on the our salesperson schedule and will take no action, unless they clearly understand there is a benefit to doing so.
Having plumbed the parameters of the current and ideal situation, next enquire about why they haven’t fixed the issue already. This is an excellent Barrier Question and depending on the answer, you might be the solution to fix what they cannot do by themselves.
Finally, check on how this would help them personally – what is the Payoff? They may need this fix to keep their job, hit their targets, get a bonus, get a promotion, feel job satisfaction, rally the troops – there are a myriad of potential motivators.
Why would that particular question be important? When we come to explain the solution to the problem, being able to address their closely held personal win, helps to make the solution conversation more real and relevant.
If my sales Powerpoint maestro had applied some of these basics, he may have had a sale that day. He was in his forties, so one can expect that he has probably been repeating this same flawed performance for decades. Adding it all up, the total amount of lost sales over that period would be mind boggling. Such a shame really and so unnecessary. If you want to see revenues go up, ask clients questions, before you mention one word about your magical widget. Do this one simple thing and watch the difference.
Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.
About The Author
Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.
A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.
Principled Salespeople Win
In 1936 an unknown author, despite many frustrating years of writing drafts and receiving publisher rejections, finally managed to get his manuscript taken up by a major publishing house. That book became a classic in the pantheon of self-help books – “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Surprisingly, many people in sales have never read this work. Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius etc., were all around substantially prior to 1936 and we still plumb their insights. Dale Carnegie has definitely joined that circle of established thinkers, offering wisdom and valuable ideas. His aim was to help all of us be better with each other, particularly in a business context. He did this by laying down some principles, which will make us more successful in dealing with others, especially those people not like us.
Salespeople should definitely be friendly. Ancient Chinese wisdom noted, “ a man who cannot smile should not open a shop”. What this is saying is there are some pretty basic things we must do to be successful with people. We know all of this, but we forget or even worse, we know but we don’t apply our knowledge. Here are nine principles for helping us all to become friendlier with our clients.
Become genuinely interested in other people
Our buyers are actually more interested in what we know about what they want, than in what we know about our product or service. It is a common mistake though to be wrapped up in the features of our offering and lose focus on the person buying it and what they want. At the extreme, transactional thinking means you don’t care about the individual, you only care about their money from the sale. That is the hyper short career in sales option.
For a long career, we better get busy really understanding our clients. The key word in this principle is ”genuine”. Having a correct kokorogamae or true intention, means we will be honestly focused on understanding the client so that we can really serve them and build a partnership. We must be fully focused on their success, because wrapped up inside that outcome is our own success.
Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
Salespeople have a self-defeating habit of selective listening and selective conversation around what they want to talk about. Their kokorogamae is centered around their interests and the buyer’s interests are secondary. Sales talk is a misnomer - there is no sales talk. There are well designed questions and there are carefully crafted explanations around solution delivery, which are tightly tied back to what the buyer is interested in. Questions uncover interests and with laser beam focus, that is the only thing we talk about.
Sounds simple, but salespeople love to talk, they love the sound of their own voice and they become deaf to the client, often without even realising it. Check yourself during your next client conversation – imagine we were to create a transcript of your words, would they be 100% addressed to the buyer’s interests. If not, then stop blathering and start talking in terms of their interests. By the way, Japanese buyers are rarely uncomfortable with silence, so don’t feel pressured to fill the conversation gaps with pap!
Be a good listener. Encourage the other person to talk about themselves
Good listening means listening for what is not being said, as well as what we are hearing. It means not pretending to be listening, while we secretly think of our soon to be unveiled brilliant response, witticism or repartee. It means not suddenly getting sidetracked by a single piece of key information, but taking in the whole of what is being conveyed. It means listening with your eyes – reading the body language and checking it against the words being offered.
Talkative salespeople miss so much key client information and then scratch their heads as to why they can’t be more successful in selling. The client doesn’t have the handy dandy sales handbook, where the questioning sequences are nicely aligned and arranged for maximum efficiency. Instead the client conversation wanders all over the place, lurching from one topic to another, without any compunction.
I am just like that as a buyer. I have so many interests and will happily digress on the digressions of the digressions! Well designed questions from the salesperson keeps the whole thing on track and allows the client to speak about themselves at length. In those offerings from the buyer we learn so much about their values, interests, absolute must haves, their desirables, their primary interests and their dominant buying motives.
Japanese buyers usually need a level of trust to be developed, before they may open up and talk about themselves. It is exceedingly rare to wrap up an agreement in Japan with just one meeting. So salespeople, play the long game here and don’t be in a rush. We are limbering up for a marathon, not a sprint in Japan.
Arouse in the other person an eager want
This is not huckster, carnival barker manipulation. This is becoming a great communicator, someone who can arouse passion and enthusiasm in others. Sales is the transfer of enthusiasm, based on the salesperson’s belief in the “righteousness” of doing good, through supplying offerings that really help the buyer and their business.
One of the biggest barriers to success in sales is client inertia. They keep doing what they have always done, in the same way and get the same results. Our job is to shake that equation up and help them to get a better result, through doing something new – buying our product or service.
We have to help them overcome their fears and persuade them to take action. In Japan there is a penalty for action if something fails and less of a penalty associated with inaction, so the bias here is to do nothing. Having a need and taking immediate action are not connected in the client’s mind, until we connect them. We have to fully explain the opportunity cost of no decision, no action or no response to our proposal.
We achieve all of this by using well thought out questions, which lead the buyer to draw the same conclusion that we have come to – that our offering is what they need and that they need it right now. This Socratic method of asking questions works because it helps to clarify the buyer’s own thinking. Most salespeople don’t ask any enough questions, because they are too busy talking about the features of their widget. We can arouse an eager want if we frame the questions well.
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers
Telling is not selling. Ramming our proposal down the client’s throat is not selling. Being bombastic and dogged is not selling. Naturally, we will always have more information, data and knowledge about our solution than the client. Blabbing on about the fine detail won’t persuade the client to buy. Often Japanese buyers expect a sales “lecture” on the proposal, so they can slip into the role of the critic. Avoid that scenario at all costs. All you will get out of that type of meeting is the thin cheap green tea being served and little more. Instead, go and find some buyers who will accept your questions.
We all own the world we help to create. Our job is to help the client create a world we can share, that they feel deeply connected to and about which they feel some ownership. If I tell you some worthy insight I still own it. If I ask questions that spur your thinking and help you to garner some of those “lightbulb” moments, then you own that insight. We are always more likely to execute on our own ideas than other people’s.
Sales is about assisting client’s to see possibilities they haven’t considered. We have probably all had the experience of shopping for something and the store clerk’s explanation alerted us to something we hadn’t even considered, which immediately framed our subsequent approach to that purchase. This is the job of the salesperson – to help the client re-frame their worldview with rich and valuable insights that lead them to make the best buying decision – with us!
Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
We have reached the age we are today, built on a firm foundation of mistakes, errors of judgment and ineptitude. None of us were born perfect, we had to fail in order to learn what not to do, as well as what to do. We were not brilliant from the start with new tasks. We had to spend time to master the new and unfamiliar. In the beginning, we were inept until we gained some solid skills.
In other words, we are all hauling around prejudices, biases, painful memories and firm views on the world, built on our foundation of hard won experiences. Salespeople trying to inject their views into this construct, will feel like they are trying penetrate a block of marble. “Education” in the original Greek and Latin meant “to draw out”, not “inject in” information and ideas. We should embrace the classics and like Michelangelo, draw the hidden David out of the marble.
In order to be successful in doing this our communication skills are required to have empathy, to really get deep with the client’s worldview and experiences. We need to understand their concept’s creation platforms which reveal who they are today. Let’s get to know them at a more substantial level so that we really get where they are coming from and more importantly, we need to understand their WHY. Most Japanese buyers are not as open to being frank about what they want. To get there, we need to build trust through multiple meetings, big dabs of patience and a correct kokorogamae or true intention.
This requires we stop concentrating on ourselves and what we want and focus on the buyer instead. We need to suspend our own surety of our concept’s creation platform and see things fresh, in an open, unbiased way. When we can get that clarity, the words coming out of our mouths will be perfectly aligned with what resonates most deeply with the client’s needs and they will buy our offerings.
Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately
“Yes momentum” is an old idea in sales. It works on the psychological principle that a series of positive responses will lead to an acceptance of our offer. A simplistic understanding of this idea would see our hearty sales hero designing a long set of killer questions, the only logical answer to which must be expressed in the affirmative.
For example, asking a question such as, “if you were able to reduce costs, would this be of help to your business?”. Everyone wants to save costs in business, so the only answer is yes. The problem with this type of approach is it becomes manipulative, as the salesperson belts a whole series of these “can only be answered by yes” questions.
It reminds me on those nodding animals in the back of cars, that bob up and down with the ride. Expecting to fast track your way into a sale through this client head bobbing subterfuge is a misunderstanding of the principle. The latter is saying let’s get “yes, yes” responses immediately, but not exclusively. In the Japanese language Hai means “yes”, but this is the “yes” of I hear you, not the “yes” of I agree with you. We need to understand this and ask the question in a way that differentiates between the two responses.
We do want to design questions that help the buyer clarify their thinking about our proposition. We should start with one or two “yes” questions that narrow the focus down to a positive investigation of the value of our solution, when judged against all the alternatives. It should not become a “Yesfest” though.
After getting some positive responses we should begin asking the WHY behind the response. This helps us to dig deeper into the drivers of an affirmative decision. Clients, as mentioned, will wander all over the prairie once they get going, so we have to shepherd them back on topic. A good way to do that is to ask a closed question to which they can easily answer yes. Now we can keep the conversation moving in the right direction, without the whole process being manipulative. “Yes momentum” – yes, but in moderation is the better approach.
Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires
Understanding the dominant buying motive of the buyer is the Holy Grail of sales. Of course we need to know the primary buying motive – the WHAT, but to really serve the client we need to know the WHY. In particular, how will this buying decision advance their career or their business? Where can we fit in, to become a booster for their success?
Risk aversion is a strong emotion in all of us, especially among Japanese buyers, concerning the buying process. We have all been burnt at some stage through a purchase that failed to satisfy us and which we immediately regretted. We paid too much or it broke straight away and the sales person’s spiffy spiel wasn’t matched by the good’s performance. Some people may have an MBA, but we all have an MS - an advanced Master’s Degree in Skepticism. The Japanese buyers by the way all seem to have a PhD in Skepticism Of Sales People, especially foreign sales people.
As salespeople, we need to be mindful of the client’s emotions and find ways to legitimately prove our solution will not disappoint. The client’s desire is to improve or defend their situation – no one wishes to go backwards in business. They have their own ideas about how that is done best and our job is to find out WHAT they think and WHY they think it. We may have reached a different conclusion on the HOW, but by understanding what is driving them, we can more easily explain where our solution gels with what they want to achieve. Getting them to do most of the talking and by prompting new thoughts through great questions, we can make that happen.
Dramatise your ideas
When we pick up the phone to speak with our client or when we sit down in the meeting room with them, they are bursting at the seams with “stuff” in their heads. They are wrestling with what happened yesterday, what they have to get through today and worrying about what will happen tomorrow. These days, we are all having much more face-to-device time than face-to face time. There is no down time any more, as we slip out our phone to check everything we ever wanted to know and lot of things we don’t need to know. Salespeople are competing for client brain space with all of this internal “noise”.
We need to be primed to break through all the clutter and grab the client’s attention or we will never be able to sell our wares. We need to be working out how our client likes to be communicated with. Are they micro or macro focused? Are they interested in people or task outcomes? Once we have established the form of communication which best resonates with them, we should be looking for various ways to dramatise our recommendations.
Verbal word picture drawing is a great skill for a salesperson, as we choose evocative words that our listener can see in their minds eye. Collect “power words” that you can pepper your sales explanation with, in order to register the greatest reaction with the buyer. We need to become great story tellers with lots of “colour and movement” to grab their nanosecond attention spans. In regards to the delivery it may vary quit a bit. We may be very direct or we may be very thoughtful in our expression, according to the client’s preferred style of communication.
We are giving them the floor for the bulk of the meeting time, so we have only a limited window for our words, so we need to be very deliberate in what we are going to say. Salesperson blarney is a thing of the past – you simply don’t have enough air time to blab on anymore. We need word injection precision when we speak.
The words themselves and the vocal range we use to articulate them, are both important. We need to use speed – fast and slow for emphasis. We need to put the power in for some words and take the power out entirely for others. Word emphasis can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Try this sentence: “I didn’t say he hit his friend”. Repeat the sentence seven times but on each occasion, emphasise one word, much more that all of the others. By doing this the inference of the words also changes. This simple exercise underlines that we have a powerful tool at our disposal – our voice. We also need facial expressions and gestures which are congruent with what we are saying and which add strength to amplify the key message.
Dale Carnegie was a leader in thinking about being good with people. His principles are universal and timeless. All of us in sales can adopt these principles and become more effective in our dealing with our buyers.
Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com
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About The Author
Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.
A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.