Where You Sit Determines How You Buy In Japan

Every role in a company has its own priorities, perspectives and functions. When we are selling to individuals inside the company we need to make sure we really understand who we are talking to. When we are out networking at events, we meet a broad sway of people from different industries, companies and functions within the companies. Fortunately with the business card system here in Japan, we can quickly tell what section and role the person we have just met is playing. I find that it is always a good practice to check the kanji on the Japanese language side of the business card.  Sometimes the English translation is a bit misleading. Knowing the role helps us to gear our sales talk toward focusing on the key interests they have.

Presuming we have been able to flag their interest in whatever we are doing, we are able to get an appointment to meet with them  This is where we really have to be on the ball and fully understanding where they are coming from.

If they are the CEO, then usually they are focused on the strategy for the enterprise. How to get the whole thing to move from A to B. They have a number of drivers influencing them. They are tuned into the overall direction of the enterprise.  They know what are the current key themes being stressed inside the company.  They are very aware of the quality of the people working for them.  Equally they are also very aware of the gaps and inadequacies.  They have a need to leave a legacy for themselves.  To create a “dint in the universe” as Steve Jobs said.  They want to use this opportunity to take themselves to the next level.  They want to make sure their vision is realised and that everyone is getting behind the effort to make it happen.

So with the CEO we had better have already read the company’s annual reports to know what the company is planning.  If they are not a listed company, we need to see if there is any media reporting on their plans.  We don’t want to waste a CEO’s valuable time with dumb questions like, “what does your company do?”.

We need to be asking questions which show we have done our homework and that we are here to help the CEO make their goals a reality.  Does the CEO want to partner with a company when the rep hasn’t bothered to do any research prior to the meeting and obviously takes the company so lightly.  Is this the type of person a CEO is going to want to entrust part of the realisation of the vision to?  No, never!

The CFO on the other hand is interested in the impact of the payment on this month's cash flow. The CFO’s job is to keep the business safe, efficient and effective. They want to make sure the investments are paying off to warrant the expenses.  They will want to know what are the payment terms and timing? Can this item be moved into the balance sheet as an asset? How can we push the price down further?  They like numbers to three decimal places, love data, proof, testimonials, evidence, etc. If the money spent can bring in more money through business expansion or through cost reduction, then they are all ears. We had better be talking in terms of the returns the buyer will get though partnering with us.

The technical buyer is concerned that the specifications will be met. They want to know the standards, the detail, the measurements etc.  They are well trained in their field and need to justify the spend against the return. That is usually measured in greater efficiencies and cost savings.  The existing system may not be fully maximized and if there is a way to squeeze more out of the existing system, then they want to hear about it.  If there is a new and better system, then they prefer to hear about that.  They love new things, complicated things, expensive things.  They need to be well armed by us to fire the arrows internally to get the CFO and the CEO to go along with investing more in the business.

The User buyer is worried about ease of use, functionality, who to call if things go wrong.  This buyer is rarely the final decision maker, but they can have a big influence on upper management.  They need arrows to fire to convince others in the company they need this so that they can be more effective.  We need to be trying to set some measurements or milestones which will show the investment is worth it.  This is where evidence from other similar users is so powerful.  The money people inside the company want proof and that usually involves numbers.  Come armed with the data and proof, to help them get internal support for the purchase.

When we understand that the buyer's role has a strong bearing on their areas of interest we can better hone our questioning skills and our ability to present our solution in the best possible light.

Selling To Buying Teams

In Japan it is rare to be selling to one person.  Even if we only meet one person, there will be others who have to be consulted and have an influence over the buying decision.  It is often the case that we meet teams of buyers in the meeting.  We may have our champion helping us to become a provider for the client company, but there may also be blockers who attend the meeting to make sure nothing happens.  When the numbers increase, the complexity of getting a positive decision goes up.

When we are dealing singly with our champion, we have to arm them sufficiently to run through the blockades within the firm.  They need to be given the right arguments to deal with the naysaysers inside the company. There will be different executives involved, with different agendas and we have to give our champion the bullets to fire off, when they hit resistance.

During the meeting we are facing a mixture of viewpoints on the buying decision.  We need to run the ruler over this group and decide who we are dealing with and what are their buying perspectives.  Generally there are four different types of buyers apart from our champion.  The Executive Buyer will be the CEO.  They tend to take a long term viewpoint and are driven by strategic value and growth opportunities over time.  The Financial Buyer is usually the CFO and they have  shorter time frame in mind than the CEO.  They are driven by costs because they are looking at the cash flow situation of the company and the debt burden.  They are interested in payment terms – usually long ones – and flexibility around the conditions associated with the purchase.   The Technical Buyer can be the functional specialist, the accountant, scientist, engineer, doctor, HR specialist, etc.  They tend to be driven by efficiency, practicality, capacity. The User Buyer has direct application of the purchase and are concerned with the features, the ease of use, the reliability, the warranties etc.

Giving a one size fits all presentation to a buying team made up of people with different perspectives is going to be insufficient to the task.  The presentation needs to be structured so that the tasty bits are presented to each perspective, in a way that they can identity with it.  We should prepare on the basis that all four buyer types will be in the room and then vary our presentation according to who actually turns up.

There is no guarantee that concentrating on the President is going to bed down the deal.  Often the President will have delegated the final decision to the person who has the biggest stake in the decision.  They may be trying to empower their staff and won’t overrule them, even if they personally hold a different view.  Japan is also a classic for ignoring any women in the room because they are not perceived as having any say in the final decision.  This is old style thinking. 

I was at networking function and met a very attractive, smart young businesswoman who had a big title on her business card.  I guessed correctly that she was a family member of the majority owners of that company. I didn’t go and see her, but sent one of my very capable female consultants to do the follow up meeting. Don’t assume that because they are women, you can concentrate on the men and still do business with that company. Those days are over.

Also don’t just address your remarks to the English speakers in the group.  They are rarely the decision-makers.  When you talk make eye contact with everyone in the group and include them in what you are saying.  It doesn’t matter if they understand the English or not, but they will understand you recognise their importance in the group.   

You may have experienced the reverse situation.  The buyer only talks to your Japanese staff member and ignores you even though you are the boss.  This can happen even when you speak Japanese.  It is very annoying.  So don’t do the same with your buyer group, involve everyone in your remarks.

Just to make the whole picture more challenging, there is another layer of complexity we need to add to the meeting.  Each of the people present on the buying side, will have a particular personality style which will impact on how they like to communicate. 

Those who are Drivers are very task and outcome driven and are strict time-is-money types who will make a quick decision and want to move on to the next project.  Get straight to the point with them and be direct, they won’t be offended.

Their opposite style are the Amiables who like to get to know who they are dealing with, so that the right element of trust is established.  They are not in a hurry and don’t like pushy salespeople.  Be subtle and soft in tone and body language.

Analytical styles are logical, data and proof driven.  They love numbers to three decimal places and having all the ducks in a row, arranged nicely. They dismiss all salespeople statements which are not backed up by fact as pure fluff.  Talk numbers and logic.  If you want to make a statement, then wrap it up inside a question.  If they say “yes” to the question then they are accepting the statement.  For example, you want to make the statement that, “we can guarantee delivery in three days”.  Don’t state that.  Instead ask, “If we could guarantee delivery in three days, would that help your business?”. If they say yes, they have validated the importance of quick delivery.

Their direct opposite type are Expressives.  They like the big picture, look at holistic solutions and love to brainstorm on strategy. They hate getting stuck down in the weeds with a lot of small fry detail.  Talk about the future and how brilliant it will be with your solution to their problem.

So in addition to the buyer’s job function perspective, we also have to be aware we need to switch our communication style to suit who we are talking to.  We will need to be talking about the area of their interest and in the communication style they like.  This takes quite a feat of flexibility on the part of salespeople, but this is what separates the great from the good.

What Is The One Key Thing When Presenting?

I was talking with a friend, while we were having lunch at this very nice Italian restaurant he frequents, near his office.  Between dishes, we were talking about how he has to go to his US headquarters and join all the other representative Country Heads from around the world and give his report on how the business is going in Japan.  I was thinking that that must be a very high profile and pressure presentation. So I mentioned how great our High Impact Presentations Course was. In my own case, I wish I had done it 20 years earlier, because it would have changed my career trajectory.  Anyway, my friend was patiently listening to all of this and then asked me a very profound question,  “What is the one key thing when presenting?”.

What he was getting at was that if we had to boil it all down, what is the one most critical skill we need to be effective as a presenter.  This is a major question in business. After all, this is our personal and professional brand we are putting out there on show for all the world to see.  This is not something we want to get wrong.  I had no hesitation in telling him “focus on your audience”.

Great. What does that mean, because aren’t we all focusing on our audience when we present? Definitely, yes, we should be focusing on our audience, but often we are deluding ourselves.  If we break down the presentation and analyse it, we can see that focusing on your audience has major ramifications for your degree of success when talking in front of others. 

We may have what we want to say in our mind when preparing the talk.  We may be an expert in our field and have a whole bunch of stuff we want to share because we are excited by the content.  However, we may have not taken the trouble to think about what the audience would be most interested in?  Why would they turn up?  What will they be expecting to hear?  We may have not bothered to research who would be in the room.  What would be the age range, the gender mix, the degrees of expertise on the subject.  Did we do our research so we could focus the topic down to the slant most likely to impress our audience?  Or did we just talk about what we were interested in?

Who were we thinking about when we got up to speak?  We may have started our talk focused not on the audience but on ourselves. We were thinking how nervous we were feeling.  We feel captured by our high pulse rate, our sweaty palms, our dry throat, our weakness in the knees.  The focus is 100% inward not outward.

We may have been very deeply engrossed in the notes we were reading, such that we didn’t even look up at the audience.  Or if we did, we used one of those fake eye contact approaches, where our eyes look in the direction of the audience but we are not really looking at anyone. We may have decided to ignore half the crowd and only talk to one half of the room or maybe only the front row or maybe no one, because we are staring over all the seated heads at some spot on the back wall.  Or we may be skimming across the room looking at everyone for one second and therefore looking at no one.  We cannot engage anyone in the audience with a fleeting one second glimpse but we can try to give the impression of an attempt to engage with our audience. This is not a talk focused on the audience.  Do the audience members sitting there feel that we are talking directly to them individually and not to an amorphous mass.

We may have decided that the audience was pretty dumb, so we need to read the text on the slides to them. We might even do that by turning our back on the audience and staring up at the text on the screen.  We are so focused on the text and the content and not on those listening to us.

Just to drive home the lack of focus on the audience, we cram so much information on each slide, that they becomes impenetrable.  Analytical types love jamming ten graphs on the one slide or throwing up the entire text document on screen.   We may hit up the slide with five different colours in a florid mess.  Or we may have gone crazy, like an example I saw recently, where the presenter used four or more different fonts in the text.  This made it super hard to read for the audience members.   Where was the focus?  It was on the presenters “cleverness” to showcase so many fonts on each slide, even though it was a disaster. Not to really rub it in, but the Japanese presenter was delivering a two hour lecture to a local Chamber of Commerce on presenting skills.

We may be rambling, because we have a poor structure for the talk, so we are hard to follow.  We may not have applied a logical flow to the talk to make it easy for the audience.  “Don’t make your talk hard to follow” is a fundamental rule.     Or we may speak in a monotone to see how many people we can put to sleep.  By hitting key words we can emphasise key messages we want the audience to take away with them.  We may be umming ahhing like a legend, to really distract the audience from the message.  We have not done any work on polishing our presenting skills, because we are not focused on the audience but selfishly on the most friction free, time efficient approach.  That means no extra effort being made.

We may have spent a total time of zero minutes practicing the talk before we gave it.  We may have spent our time instead working on the slide deck.  It takes time to cram ten graphs on the one slide, with five different colours and four different fonts for the text.   This major effort will just suck up any potential rehearsal time before the presentation.  So where were we focused after all?

Even though we may imagine we are focused on the audience, we may in fact be missing the opportunity or actively working against that aim.  Take another look at whether you are actually focused on your audience or whether you are just imagining it.

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 dalecarnegie.comand 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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.

No Sale’s Questions Please, We Are Japanese

I was visiting the office of one of my multinational corporate clients and we were talking about the issues he was facing with his Japanese sales team.  His product is given the “yes” or “no” purchase decision by the business owner.  In this industry the business owners have very little time available so getting an opportunity to speak with them is gold in itself.  There are also lots and lots of competitors in this business, so the buyers have no shortage of choices.  The sales team are experienced salespeople and have been selling this range of products for a number of years – they are veterans.  And yet they haven’t come to grips with one of the most important precepts of selling – ask well designed questions of the buyer.

Japan throws up all sorts of interesting challenges in the selling field.  One of them is social hierarchy.  This can be pedigree – coming from an elite social group, who tend to marry within their own ranks and who tend to inherit the business.  It can be based on education.  The name of the elite institution you went to, puts you into a very small circle of the best and the brightest in the land and everyone knows it, including you.  It could be the faculty you attended within that elite higher education organization, that marks you even further apart as an expert.  It could be the title on your business card, that tells everyone you are a formidable person who has risen to the top of the tree in business.  It could be the size of the organization you work for, a massive machine of vast power and scale, a behemoth bristling with power and influence.

The lowly Japanese salesperson calling on one of these elite buyers is fully conscious of their own inferiority and the low rung they occupy on the totem pole of influence.  Unless they are properly trained they can be on the back foot from the start and never get in control of the sale’s conversation. This was the problem I was discussing with my client.  His salespeople are telling him they cannot ask questions of their elite buyers because of their own social inferiority and position as salespeople.

Nonsense.  This is a lack of sale’s ability not a business barrier erected to keep the hoi polloi at bay.  As in all cases in Japan, the buyer is GOD.  Note: they are not king as in the West but GOD, regardless of their background. When they are part of the super elite, then they are a bigger GOD. You don’t just start interrogating GOD, you get permission first.  Now this would seem a relatively straightforward process, except that few sales people in Japan have any well defined process for the activity of sales.

The first thing we need to do in setting up the permission to ask questions is to design our Credibility Statement.  It is not complex.  Tell the buyer what it is you do, but do it in a succinct way.  Do not ramble and do not go into super detail – just the broad brush of what your company does.  For example for my company we would say, “we are global experts in training soft skills”. Four key words there – global, experts, soft skills.  That is enough for the buyer to clearly understand what it is we do and to make an initial judgment of whether that is relevant or not to their business.

Next we give a relevant example of where we have provided our service or product for a similar buyer and had success for them.  We know that buyers doubt seller’s claims as fluff, unless there is some evidence to back it up.  It is not always possible to come up with a similar case.  However we should try to get as close as we can, even if it is a different industry but a similar echelon of scale – for example, very boutique or gargantuan, start up or 19thgeneration, foreign or domestic.

“We recently did some work for an asset management company to improve their people’s pitch quality, they made it to the final round and won the billion dollar pitch”.   Here we are proving evidence that what we do works, that we have the skills to make a difference securing the client’s desired outcomes.

Finally we make a suggestion, but not a bold claim. In America a bold claim, actually a super bold claim would be de rigeur but not in Japan.  We need to be subtle so we say, “Maybe, we could do the same thing for you. I am not sure, but in order for me to find that out if that were possible would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”.  It is showing respect for the buyer, saying that we are not presumptuous or arrogant enough to think we know what they need, without discussing it with them first.

We don’t say we are going to spend the next twenty minutes drilling down on your needs and finding out all the issues of your company, going deep and personal.  We just say we want to ask “a few questions”.  Every client will think a few questions is better than an interrogation.  However, because our questions are very well designed, we will have them thinking more deeply about their own business. In this case, they will not have any hesitation to continue the session with us beyond a few questions.  If our questions can trigger a thought bubble inside their head that says, “we hadn’t thought of that” or “we haven’t planned for that”, then you have struck gold right there.  Ask stupid questions instead, suddenly the interview will be over and you will be out on the street.

Getting permission to ask questions is not hard, if you know what you are doing.  Years in the job of selling doesn’t mean the salespeople actually are professional.  They are just repeating the same mistakes their sempai or seniors taught them when they entered the company.  So getting progress here in the sale’s field is glacial.  Japan – you have run out of time, we need to do a lot better.

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 dalecarnegie.comand 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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.

Totally Ineffective Sales

The phone rings and a magazine wants to interview me for a series where they feature companies located in suburb of Minato-ku, in central Tokyo. I had never heard of this magazine, but am always grateful for any media exposure, so I say “Yes” to the interview. The date and time are fixed. One twist to the interview was that it would involve an interview by a Japanese actor, who I had never heard of. Fine, because what do I care, as long as the media exposure is there, I don’t care how they do things.

So the cameraman, the actor and the journalist all turn up and away we go. It turned out the actor didn’t ask me any questions at all, but was primarily there for the photo opportunity. The journalist was actually conducting the interview. The cameraman and actor depart and I am now getting an explanation on the magazine from the journalist. Despite what was written on his business card, it soon becomes apparent that the journalist was actually the sales guy.

Well we are straight into the details of the pages of the ads in the magazine and the different configurations. Ad sizes, locations, colour, black and white, pricing etc. This takes some time to go through and I am sitting there thinking to myself, “Is this guy going to ask me any questions? Is he going to explore where the gaps are in our marketing? Who is the primary audience we want to reach? What are the issues we are facing?”.

Now fascinatingly, these areas did come up in the interview phase, as I outlined some of the things I wanted for the firm and where I felt we were being challenged. Did he follow up on any of these leads or plumb them for more information and greater depth? No. He just ploughed straight into the features of the magazine.

I asked him how long he had been in sales and he told me 18 years and had been with this one company his whole career. It was obvious he had never received any sales training in that time with his employer. Here is the immense irony. He is here in my office calling on the President of a corporate training company, that specialises in soft skills training in the areas of sales, leadership, communication and presentations. We teach sales! He had no professional sales skills.

It was also obvious during the interview, that no research had been done on our business or on me. Given I thought this was a media interview, I was not perturbed by that, because they were here to ask me a bunch of questions for the article. Once I realized this was a sales call, I thought that is pretty poor preparation on the part of this sales guy. He could have done a very simple search on us, checked out our YouTube channel, looked at my LinkedIn profile, looked at my Facebook, checked me and the company out on Google search. He could have come to the meeting well armed, to engage me in the buying process. He had done nothing.

Being a patient, generous soul, I went to the rack of flyers and brochures and pulled out the Japanese version of Sales Advantage, an eight week course we teach on selling. I then proceeded to explain to him about the sales cycle. Research the buyer prior to meeting, gain trust, explore client needs, tailor the solution to those needs, deal with any hesitations or concerns, ask for the order and do the follow up. No rocket science here but there are a lot of very effective structures present in the training for each part of the cycle.

I particularly pointed out that he asked me no questions at all, but proceeded to try and sell me a solution, when he had no idea what I needed. That just cannot work because it is madness and yet this is the shtick of so many salespeople everywhere around the world not just in Japan.

Until he knows what I want, he shouldn’t even be bringing up solutions. I told him to keep his magazine and price list on the chair next to him, well out of sight of the buyer. Don’t even refer to the details, until you know which details will be relevant. All that should happen first is to build the trust through gaining some rapport. This can easily be based on information uncovered in the pre-meeting research. I am a traditional Shitoryu Karate 6th Dan and that is fairly unique for a foreigner in Japan. He could have engaged me on sports, because he was pretty big guy himself and maybe a sportsman as well. If he had been a rugby player (he had that type of size), we could have talked about my Brisbane Broncos hometown rugby team. The possibilities of creating something in common are endless. He did nothing.

After establishing rapport, we need to ask well designed questions to uncover the needs. Only then get involved with the solution. That magazine had many pages and many possibilities, but he should only have been directing my attention to the few areas where I have the strongest need. I don't need a tour of the magazine, we are all time poor and he should be sensitive to that. He should only show me the areas which are going to light up my strongest interest. I also suggested he get out a pen and use that as a pointer, to again direct the buyer’s attention to only those parts of the page which are most relevant. A page is crowded with information and the sales person’s job is to isolate out the most compelling sections and only concentrate on those. Exclude the rest because it is a distraction from the main message.

I now started selling him on our sales training course! The terrible part was at the end when he asked me for $500 for a tiny little paragraph, with a black and white photo, in the rear of the magazine. I said “No”. He then told me, he had explained over the phone that there was a $500 charge involved with the interview for the space in the magazine.

Well I don’t recall that part of the conversation, perhaps because he was speaking so fast when we were discussing the meeting over the phone and the phone line clarity wasn’t the best. This was when I also realised this was a bait and switch technique to get sales. They sell you on doing the media interview but the real purpose is to sell ad space.

I stuck with my “No” to the $500, even though it wasn’t a huge amount. I wasn’t being mean. I was trying to educate this 18 year veteran of sales about selling. Going to his boss and explaining why they has spent money on the actor and the cameraman and had come away with no result would be an unpleasant conversation, but I thought it may cause him to reflect on his poor skills. Will that be the case. I hope so but I doubt it!

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 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 podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations 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.