No Value, No Sale
We believe in our product and we are very knowledgeable about the facts, details, specs, etc. We launch straight into our presentation of the details with the buyer. They want to negotiate the price. Do we see the connection here, the entire catastrophe? Often salespeople are slogging it out, lowering the price, hurting their positioning of the brand, lowering their own commission. In Japan once we have established a low price for the product or service it is very difficult to move it up thereafter. What is missing?
The conversation isn’t hitting the high notes on value and instead is a pitch based on the details of the product. Japan isn’t the only place where this is an issue. Despite all of the resources available to American salespeople and the long history of consultative selling there, they are failing massively as well. According to a study by Accenture, called the “Death Of the Salesman”, buyers are not seeing the value of the proposition. In 77% of cases, the buyer found no value in the offer during the sales call. In a separate study by Forrester, they found that from the buyer’s judgment, 92% of salespeople didn’t understand their business.
These are pretty miserable figures, no matter which way you look at them. I haven’t seem any similar numbers for Japan, but based on my experience with salespeople here, I would guess they would only be worse. “Pitchpeople” is how we should properly term Japanese salespeople in my view. They are not asking the buyer questions and are zeroing in only on the details of the product.
As the Accenture and Forrester studies show we need to know our client’s business and we need to counter price objections by showing value. Excellent advice Greg and just how do we do that you might be thinking?
Knowing the client’s business these days is unbelievably more easy than in the past. Listed companies very nicely put up their annual reports on their websites. We can gain an understanding of the strategy and direction they are going and what are the major initiatives that are so attractive, we will part with our hard earned cash and buy their shares. Not that many Japanese are on LinkedIn, so this is a more difficult resource to use here, than in the West. There will be press coverage of companies, which we can search easily through Google. We may have other clients in the same industry and can probably assume many of the issues will be the same.
Even if we can’t get much publically available information, we can ask the client. Now in Japan, this is verboten, so Japanese pitchpeople don’t ask any questions of the buyer. The reason is the buyer is GOD in Japan and GOD won’t answer our questions, because we are impudent minks for having the temerity to ask anything. Well it is verboten if you play by God’s rules, so that is not a wise choice. Instead we can give our Credibility Statement and get permission that way. What is our Credibility Statement?
For example, if we take Dale Carnegie Japan, we could say “Dale Carnegie is a global corporate training company, which leads the field in soft skills training. An example of this would be XYZ company where we trained all their sales staff. They told me they got a 30% increase in sales as a result. Maybe we can do the same thing for you. In order for me to know if that is possible or not would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”.
Another approach might be, “Mr. Client, prior to this meeting I spent quite a bit of time researching your business, so that our talk today would be valuable and efficient. To my surprise it was very hard to find any publically available information on your company. Before we go any further, would you mind helping me to better understand if I can actually help you or not,
by asking a few questions about your business?
Once we know what their issues are, we can make a judgment on what is the best solution for them from our lineup. We may in fact conclude that we are not a match for them. If so, we should not waste anyone’s time and we should go find someone we can help.
If they are a match, then having identified the issue we explain our solution. When doing this, we need to go beyond just the product spec. We MUST explain how these facts transform into benefits for them. That is not enough. A benefit applied is where they will understand the value to their business. If we leave this step out, they may not be convinced we can help them.
They next need proof of where we have done this for another client. Salespeople talk a lot, so clients have learnt to be skeptical of salesperson blather. After providing evidence we now ask them “how does this sound?”, to draw out any residual concerns, issues or related questions.
If we do this, we will be in the top 1% of successful salespeople in Japan without a doubt. We bring value to them and we show we understand their business. As the surveys have shown, this is what buyers are looking for. Let’s give it to them.
How To Handle “We Are Happy With Our Current Supplier” Pushback
Japan loves the Devil they know over the Angel they don’t know. Change here is hard to achieve in any field, because of the inbuilt fear of mistakes and failure. This country takes risk aversion to the highest heights in business. There are no rewards for salaried employees to take risk. There are massive career downsides though, if things go wrong, due to an initiative they introduced. Personal accountability is not very popular here.
The decision-making system here is also a nightmare in this regard. Who is the decision-maker? Probably no single person. The meeting we attend may have one to three people present in the room, but they are the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg we will never get to meet by the way. Behind the walls of the office, sit their other colleagues who will have to sign off and agree on the change.
The checks and balances of Japanese organisations guarantee a few things. One is it makes for good communication internally. No one faces an unpleasant surprise. I have found most Japanese, as individuals, are not good at dealing with the unexpected. The sudden emergence of something that had not been previously factored in, has these staff rushing for emergency exits in fear.
The other thing this system supplies is the opportunity for all the vested interests to have their say. Fast action is not viewed as a plus. Reaching a consensus is very important in Japan and people expect to have input into any new arrangements. The piece of paper suggesting the change physically moves around the section head’s desks and each one applies their hankoor stamp to the document, indicating they are okay with the change. Nothing will happen until all of those stamps are there.
Turning up and finding the buying team are already quite happy with their current supplier, means a lot of work has to be done internally by the people we are meeting, to make a change away from the known and established order. Who wants more work? No one in Japan, that is for sure. When you are dealing with small to middle size firms the supplier arrangements can be even trickier. They often have a strong owner running the show. They make a lot of the key decisions and then everyone else does the execution of the decision. You may not get to meet with the dictator directly.
In many cases, the current supplier company was supplying their grandfather who started the business. Many a good time was had on the golf course, being entertained in the Ginza by geisha and visiting expensive cabaret clubs together in the good old days. Gifts flowed thick and fast as well, to cement the relationship. The current generation of the heads of the respective businesses may have been at school together, have marriage links between their two families or belong to special clubs as members. I see these connections at my very exclusive Rotary Club here in Tokyo. These are successful families who move in the same circles. The third generation of family business heads have deep links together built up over the last generations. Why would they change their trusted supplier to you?
Be it a big corporate or a smaller concern, there are a lot of barriers to change in supplier relationships in Japan. Frankly, we have few levers at our disposal as a result. The one thing that companies fear in common though is getting left behind by their competitors. The globalisation of business has meant these harmonious relationships between supplier and buyer are getting shaken up.
Just explaining the details, benefits, quality and pricing advantage of the solution you provide are not enough. We need to lob some dynamite into their current cozy little supplier arrangements, by bringing up their exposure to being blindsided by a competitor. We need to remind them that the best solution will win in the market or at least reduce their market share. We need to point out that in a competitive industry, no one cares about the depth of the existing relationships, because they are fully focused on their survival. Rivals will make key supplier changes and these will trigger changes across the industry, as everyone else has to adjust accordingly. By getting ahead of the curve, they can win time to adjust and win market share for themselves, vis-à-vis their rivals.
Price and quality differentials only become meaningful in this light in the current market. Just talking about price or quality in isolation won’t move the buyers to make any changes. The effort to make new or change supplier arrangements needs a strong reason in Japan or else everyone just defaults to a “do nothing” stance.
This requires we come armed with examples of where a change in supplier arrangements wiped certain companies out. The best option is relating changes in their industry, but even if we don’t have that, we need to show evidence of how dangerous it can be to avoid change. The drivers of change are plain to see: globalisation changing supply options, Japan’s declining population driving companies to take desperate measures to stay afloat, technical advances challenging existing business relationships, currency movements impacting pricing, etc.
We say fear and greed drive behaviour. Well in Japan, the fear factor is certainly more pronounced than the greed factor, so lead with the downside of non-action rather than the upside of a new initiative. Paint a picture of how the advantages of your solution could become dangerous in the wrong hands, that is to say, their competitors. Advise them to not give an unfair advantage to their rivals by not making the change today. Express the importance of urgency, the time factor exigency to take action right now.
We need to do this to drive the imperative of all those characters sitting behind the wall of the office, to get their hanko out and stamp the recommendation, showing their support for it. The people we are meeting are not the final decision-makers, so we need to arm them with the required nuclear harpoon to break through all the inertia and resistance to change, that is the hallmark of business in Japan.
Selling In The Coming 5G World
The release of 5G or fifth generation mobile networks is only a few short years away, probably around 2020. There is a lot of controversy at the moment about the reliability of different providers, but the real story hasn’t been grasped yet. Our phones currently run on a 4G standard, which provides a certain connectivity speed. Interestingly the move from 4G to 5G, isn’t a simple speed doubling process. Reports are that the difference is 5G will be 600 times faster than 4G. Wow! What does that mean for salespeople across all industries?
The capacity to upload heavier files, to send at lightening speed, grabs your attention. What are some of the heaviest files at the moment? Video! YouTube is already the second largest search engine after Google. It is true too. I have noticed myself that I prefer going straight to YouTube to find out how to do something, rather than wading through all the links on Google. The union of content marketing with blinding connection speeds, means the search function for YouTube will overtake Google in the next few years. Are you prepared to be found there staring in your own video?
Now this is not to say that the importance of audio is going away. Podcasts are also a key to getting value in front of buyers. That is why I am releasing three ever week. People are multitasking these days like they have been possessed. They want to listen to audio, while they are at the gym or walking the dog. Don’t miss the implications of audio access to our information from all of these devices like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Home, etc. We will be tapping into information through audio, to a greater extent than now, but today I want to feature more on video and 5G and what it means for us in sales.
Producing video content and uploading that to YouTube will become a more important aspect of “know, like and trust” than we have at our disposal today. Video gives a very strong impression about us. How we look? How we sound? Are we trustworthy? How we relate to the audience? As some of my friends have unkindly remarked, “Greg, you have a good head for radio”, meaning I am not very photogenic. We may be shy to video ourselves thinking that we are not handsome enough, smooth enough in front of the camera, or attractive enough on tape when a microphone is involved.
Forget all of that. This will be the age of discovery by buyers, before they ever meet us. This is how they will be searching for experts to bring solutions for the problems they face. They will be able to “try us before they buy us” by watching our video, to see if we have the goods or not. What if we are not attractive enough for video, won’t that work against us?
Well, I wish I was more handsome, but there is not much I can do about that. My parent’s DNA contribution has spoken. I have to go with what I have got and so do you. I don’t have a great sounding voice either, because it sounds husky, from all that shouting or kiai I did, in my 47 years of karate training. Can’t do too much about that either. One of our Dale Carnegie trainers in America is DJ Thatcher, who has a voice you would die for. Very deep and melodic. I can’t become DJ Thatcher, but I can control what comes out of my own mouth.
So despite how we look and how we sound are we providing value? Our videos have to show we know something special about our subject and we can be useful to the buyer. Don’t think you have to hold the “best bits” back either. You have to go the other way and provide strong expert authority in this environment and do it for free. Won’t my buyers become sated on my free video offerings and not need more from me?
I don’t think this is a concern. When they need more than what they can get from a video, you are the one they will select over everyone else you are competing with. By the way, if a video can fix their issue that simply, then there probably wasn’t a substantial engagement involved anyway.
Won’t my competitors steal all my best ideas? The old style control function of buyers by suppliers, through exclusive, high value, proprietary knowledge, still exists, but only just these days. Almost everything is out there today. There are not many secrets left anymore. You have to jump in because everyone else is. Now, they can copy you, but they can’t be you.
I could order a big truck right now and send all of our training manuals to my competitors, but it wouldn’t help them. They don’t know how to deliver it the way we do, so all they get is an empty shell. This is the same with your competitors. They can’t replicate who you are, your company culture, your approach to clients, quality, reliability, plus all the human interaction pieces which are the sum of all that you are, down at your firm.
As an example, I recently did the recordings for the audio version of my book Japan Sales Mastery. Anyone could have read the text but no one would emphasised key words the way I did. This is because I wrote it, I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. We cannot be copied. Get your stuff out there in the public domain.
So let’s start working on video of you for your newsletters, video email messages, website, YouTube channel and then push it out through social media so that it can be easily found. These days you have so many choices. You can do it through Facebook Live. You just pick up your phone and away you go. Although, as I found that that is like walking on the high wire between two skyscrapers, with a strong wind blowing and no safety net for beginners. If you screw it up, like I did (!), you are very visible to lots and lots of folks. Oops. I am your typical male who never reads the manual. I found out later there is a function you can select where only you can see the video, which is probably a good precaution when you are starting. Hey, I should have done that!
You can go for a weekly YouTube TV show like I have, with the Cutting Edge japan Business show. High quality camera, lighting softboxes, serious audio recording, a set, editing suite, etc. Or you can shoot something on the move with a mobile phone, or a tablet, as the camera quality is so good today. Just add an external microphone, stand close to the camera and away you go. It can be edited later, so you can correct any problems. I have a number of videos on our Japan Dale Carnegie TV channel on YouTube which were shot on my iPad with an external mic. Very low cost and time effective for the quality. The audio is key though, so I suggest you make an effort to get that to be the best you can arrange.
What about appearing in front of the camera? My recommendation is to do our High Impact Presentations Training course. I don’t say this because it is Dale Carnegie, I say it because it is such an awesome course. This will give you the supreme confidence and skills to master the lens. That is what I did and you can check out the results in my videos! I reckon if I can do it with how I look and how I sound, you can do it and probably do it much better. You will see 5G distribution roll over the top of you or you can start surfing down the face of the wave. The technology is here and time waits for no salesperson.
Action Steps
Selling Yourself First
Selling yourself first can have two dimensions. One is selling yourself on the product or service, so that the client feels your integrity when you recommend the purchase. The other aspect is that the buyers buy us first and then they buy the product. They are related, because our belief in what we are doing shines through and the client feels they can trust us. Conmen will fluff themselves up, look pretty, be honey tongued and ever so charming. They will make one sale and then have to find a new mark, because they can never go back. I don’t mean this type of “selling yourself”, where it is all skullduggery intended to fleece the buyer. I am referring to the real objective – securing the re-order because the trust has been built.
How can we sell ourselves in an ethical way? We can start with having the client’s interests firmly in the front of our mind. The kokorogame concept or starting with our true intentions, is the basis for all that we do. This concept defines how we approach the client and the sale. Their success is our primary aim because in that success is wrapped up our re-orders, testimonials, positive word of mouth and referrals. The clients can feel if you have your hand in their wallets pulling out cash like a pirate or if you are working hard to make them super successful. We often hear motivational terms like “Ten X” your business but the client wants to hear how you can help to “Ten X” their business.
Sincerity is revealed by the way we conduct the sales call. We are dressed professionally. The smallest details are taken care of, to reinforce “you can trust me to be a quality provider to your company”. That means being on time, every time. It means shoes gleaming, heels properly shed, no food stains on ties or scarves, colour combinations matching, hair neat and tidy, properly shaved, make-up perfectly applied. These days it may mean business suits or something more casual, to match the client’s world. The clothes must fit, not looking like you are wearing your younger siblings gear, that you are too big for.
The way we have done our homework before the call, tells the client a lot about how serious we are about getting the business. Asking low level, basic “duh” questions shows arrogance or stupidity. A classic is “what do you do?”. Clients are not keen on stupid questions.
Bringing valuable information is appreciated by the client. “Ms. Client, we have seen a pricing formula which works very well for our other clients, perhaps this might be of interest to you too?”. Even more impressive is asking insightful questions which cause the client to have an “ah hah” moment. This possibility stimulation is pure gold. For example, “Mr. Client, how do you know if the current pricing is optimum for your business. You have kept the same pricing for a long time and so is there now an option to raise prices and improve profit margins? We have seen companies similar to you raise their prices and see no drop off in demand. I wonder if this might be a possibility for you too?”. We all get into ruts. Insightful questions might trigger thoughts we have not previously considered. This is how salespeople can be useful to buyers, rather than asking, “tell me about your business?”.
Telling the client you can’t help them is real trust building. It sounds ridiculous to tell the client you can’t help them and forego sales. We are talking about the long game here. If what we have isn’t the best thing for the client, then we should never try and slam the square peg into the round hole. Better to tell them that what they want isn’t something we can do and direct them to someone else who can help them. That type of honesty gets remembered. Maybe they will never be our client because we are not a fit for them. However, your good reputation is established within their circle of business contacts. When people ask about you, this non-client will sing your praises as a trustworthy person.
Under promising and over delivering has taken a beating as a sales execution approach. It sounds manipulative, false and deceitful. If we are told that something cannot be delivered by Friday and it promptly arrives on the Monday of the same week, we are happy, but also suspicious. We were told that Friday was the earliest that the delivery could be made and we believed that statement from the salesperson.
It arrives much earlier. Now we realise that they were sandbagging the timing all along. Yes we received the delivery faster, but we also feel we have been lied to. The salesperson has not been transparent with us. If it came late afternoon on the Thursday, well that would be acceptable, we can understand that. But almost a full week early says that either, they were trying to con us or they are disorganised and can’t control their scheduling of work. Be realistic, transparent and honest with clients about the execution of the fulfillment of the order.
Use showmanship wherever you can. I don’t mean a full vaudeville production but illustrate points in a way which are memorable and differentiated. For example, when you are trying to illustrate the difference between where they are now and where they want be, two Rubik’s Cubes can come in handy. One is a convoluted mess of colours and the other is the fully completed version, with all sides showing just one colour. The first one is brought out to demonstrate where they are today and the second one to show where they would like to be. You ask them to describe what is the goal they would like to achieve holding up the completed cube and then ask them to describe the current situation showing the uncompleted cube.
You can ask them the payoff question. The payoff questions is designed to identify what is in it for them with this sale. If things go well do they get promoted, receive a bonus, keep their job, increase their status inside the firm, etc. You set the question up by producing your Harry Potter style magic wand. Holding up the magic wand, you ask “if I was the magic fairy and can give you whatever you wanted, what would the success of this project do for you personally?”. Often Japanese executives are reluctant to talk about themselves and this might encourage them to share some insight into their interests in seeing this project succeed. The point is we are using a different way of plumbing the client’s motivation.
To illustrate the importance of getting support internally for the proposal we could use some of those famous Russian Dolls which fit into each other. We reverse the usual order and begin by just showing the smallest doll. As we describe getting broader support for the project inside the company we keep adding another doll over the top. This visual well represents how decisions are made in Japan following the group signoff format. We might say, “This doll represents you. There are others who will be key decision makers. Who else in the company could we add to generate more support for this project”. They tell us and we add the next doll over the top of the first one. We keep going asking and adding more dolls, as we identify the key decision makers we need to work on. This is just another way of asking who are the key decision makers, but using this technique, we may be able to get more information than normal.
My suggestion here is to use props, word pictures and vivid imagery to illustrate the point you are making. Do it in an individual way so that they will remember you. There are lots of competitors out there, but they will definitely remember your sales call.
Sales has changed with technology. Clients will do a search on us and see what they can find. They will check us out on social media before we meet. Is your main photo one with you and an umbrella infested cocktail, being consumed under your straw hat at the beach or are you in a suit? Are the photos showing up in the posts scenes of you looking professional or you smashed at the party?
Is your on-line personal information a padded out resume, as if you are looking for another job or is it girded with information on how you help businesses to succeed? Are there hundreds of solid articles or posts by you, that talk about key issues in that industry. Posts which have zero propaganda content and which add a lot of objective value instead? Do you look and sound like an industry expert in your field? Is the first impression being created that this person is a serious professional?
Clients want to work with salespeople whose main interests are securing the buyer’s interests. They want to be able to place their trust in others who can help them to succeed. Reliable, pleasant, helpful, honest people are required. To sell that image to the client you have to be all of those things for real. No bait and switch personality types, no “sale’s smile”, no two faces, no obfuscation. What do you stand for? Who are your really serving? Can we believe what you say? Your kokorogamae determines everything. Selling yourself is easy once you put the client’s success before your own. Clients will feel it and they will go for it, because they will recognize they have found someone who wants to partner with them to grow their business. Be that person.
Lying Salespeople
Riffraff inhabit all corners of the business world, but the sales profession suffers more than many others. Bankers do all sorts of evil things with our money. Stock brokers do all sorts of evil things with our money. Real estate agents tell one version of the truth to buyers. Government officials purloin our money. Everywhere you look, someone is ripping us off. However, these industries and institutions do not get blanket smeared with the failings of the few, like in the case of salespeople.
We are our own worst enemy in many ways. There is a taint to the profession, an odious odor, scandalising the hallways. Desperate people do dumb things and tell lies to buyers. There are no common standards of conduct being adhered to in the sales profession. You just become a salesperson by dint of putting your hand up for a sales job. After that point, you are free to unleash your reign of terror and destruction on all around you.
“I am not like that” you may say, but how would the buyer know that? They have been trained to expect to be ripped off by salespeople. It is one of my pet hates with the profession. Lo and behold anyone who calls me up with a lie. A lie? How could anyone be that stupid, you might be wondering?
Well, have you heard this one before, “Hello Mr. Story, how are you today? I am from XYZ company and we handle a range of investment products. One of our representatives will be in your area and so are you available for a meeting next week?”.
This industry of selling investment products is tricky. I know, because I oversaw the sales of these products at the Shinsei Bank and the National Australia Bank here in Japan. What makes them difficult is you can’t hear, see, touch, smell or taste these intangibles. Investment products are abstract ideas. The buyer will have no idea if the decision to buy was a good one, for many months and in some cases, many years.
So the obvious thing we are all buying is the trust that what we have been told will in fact happen. Given the trust element is so vital, how could the leadership at XYZ company come up with a sales script, built on a lie? Amazingly, this is the first thing coming out of their mouth. Reality check: their representative won’t be in my area. That is a total fabrication, a complete lie. Why? They think that somehow this will convince me to see that person. When they call, I ask them which area their representative will be in. They panic, look at the suburb address on their screen and blurt out “Akasaka”. So I ask, “Well given Akasaka is quite a big place, which exact part of Akasaka will they be in next week?”. More blustering and panic, because now we have gone off piste.
Japan is a very honest culture. This means though, that when people tell lies, they never admit to it. They never take any accountability. Instead they will tell you anything, in order to not admit that what they told you was crap. They try and move the blame back to you, by claiming you misheard or misunderstood what they were saying.
This honest culture can blind us to this quaint trait to lie. So when we are leading our salespeople, we can’t just assume because everyone is so honest in Japan, that our salespeople won’t lie to the client. This is also a culture where the buyer is GOD and whatever the buyer wants the salesperson will make happen. This can include lying, breaking the rules, over promising and being disengenuous. The delivery component of the company cannot easily deliver on salesperson over-promised goodies. Now we have a new set of problems to deal with, as sections within the company start to feud amongst themselves. Or they agree to a deal that is bad for the business. Being truthful with clients also means delivering bad news too. Salespeople in Japan have to be guided to do this, because of their own accord, they will avoid it every time and prefer to sow chaos internally.
It is important to state and keep re-stating what should be obvious – don’t lie to buyers. We have to explain we would rather forego a deal than get it by lying. This gets harder when their bonuses and commissions are linked to the sale. Also, a hard nosed selling culture will force people into positions where they will compromise their personal and the firm’s integrity to do the deal. Suruga Bank has been a very aggressive lender in the market. They are now reaping the whirlwind of negative media coverage, because of all the lies told by the bank staff to get loans written. Wells Fargo had a similar issue with staff creating fake accounts to meet aggressive quotas. The real cost of those episodes play out over many years.
We may have our own aggressive targets too, but we also have to ensure that we are guiding people along the correct path of how to make those targets. If we all agree that trust of the buyer is key, then we can start to build that trust by ensuring that our salespeople are never lying to the buyers, in order to make a sale. We have to remind salespeople of one very important thing. We are not after a sale. We are after repeat orders and these only come when there is a track record of trust.
The solution to this lying salesperson problem doesn’t arrive from outside. John Wayne is not going to come charging over the sand hill, heralded by a bugle call, to our rescue. This is an inside out process and we have to start with our own sales operations and clean them up. If we do this consistently over time, we can isolate the baddies and contain the harm they do to us. None of us want to work in a profession that stinks. Our job is to develop good people in sales, rather than good salespeople.