How To Sell To A Buying Team
Selling to companies in Japan usually means sitting in a meeting room with a single buyer or perhaps two people. There are occasions though where we may need to present to a larger number of buyers in a more formal setting. It may be a pitch to secure the business or it may be a means of getting the buying team more easily coordinated on their side.
Before we know how to present to a team, we have to analyse the people in the team. That means we need to know ahead of time, who will be in the room from their side. A team comprises multiple layers of responsibility. We might have some functional interests represented such as the Executive Buyer, Financial Buyer, User Buyer, Technical Buyer and Our Champion. Each one has a different driver for making buying decisions.
The Executive Buyer will have a strategic vision for the organization so they are interested in opportunities and growth. We need to include the big picture here of what our solution will do to position the company into the future, as well as today. The Financial Buyer is always interested in cash flow, no matter the size of the organisation. They focus on the cost, the terms of the transaction and how much flexibility it can provide for them. The User Buyer wants to know about the features, how easy is the solution to use, how reliable will it be? The Technical Buyer is concerned about efficiency, practicality and capacity. Usually we are in that room because of our Champion. They are concerned about their relationships within the company, with having influence over the buying situation and gaining recognition for their efforts.
Just to make it more complicated, there are also the buyer personality styles to contend with
The Amiable who is focused on relationships and is never in a hurry to make a decision. The
Driver is the exact opposite. They are dynamic, fast movers who just want the facts so they can make a decision and move on. The Analtyicals want data and lots of it. Three decimal places is fine for them. The Expressives are bored with the nitty gritty detail, preferring the big picture.
It is possible to focus on just one group but not very wise. The presentation should have a little something for everyone.
There are also going to be attitudinal differences. Some will Hostile, Resistant, Discontent, Ambivalent, Favourable, Supportive and Enthusiastic. We need to get our body language meter on full throttle to read the audience and we need our Champion to give us the who’s who of who is in the room, so we can anticipate where we might hit trouble.
There are different levels of expertise in a team. There will be varying levels of Experiences, Education, Biases, Problem/Positive issues, Goals, Expertise and Culture. Before we present we need to know who is going to be in the meeting and try to understand what will be driving their reaction to what we are going to say. We may not know this completely beforehand but we will certainly start locating people into different sectors once we get into the meeting room.
We need a presenting structure which will be well regarded by the majority of people in the room. We need an opening to grab attention, a statement of need for change, an example of the need for change and to suggest three possible solutions. For solution one, we outline the advantages and disadvantages. We repeat this balanced formula for solutions two and three. We then suggest the best solution of the three, with evidence as to why it is best. In our closing remarks we repeat the final recommendation.
Selling to a buying group is fraught with difficulty, because of the massive variations in the room, as to perspectives, needs and interest. Nevertheless we can use this structure to cover off as many of the needs in the room as possible. We rely on our champion to brief us on who is in the room beforehand and to go around drumming up support following our presentation. We win or lose though the quality of our preparation and our structure. If they are both in good working order, then the chances of winning the business go up dramatically. We won’t get so many chances to present to a buying group but we need to be well prepared when we do.
Nine Major Mistakes By Japanese Salespeople
We see Japan as a modern, high tech country very advanced in so many sectors. Sales is not one of them. Consultative selling is very passé in the West, yet it has hardly swum ashore here as yet. There are some cultural traits in Japan that work against sales success, such as not initiating a conversation with strangers. Makes networking a bit tricky to say the least. We train salespeople here in Japan and the following list is made up of the most common complaints companies have about their salespeople’s failings.
Japanese people are risk averse and everyone here prefers the devil they know to the angel they don’t know. Staying in the comfort zone of the known customer is preferred to trying to create a new relationship with a buyer they don’t know. Measurements systems and incentive schemes definitely need to include the number of new clients achieved as well as the overall revenues, if you want to grow the business.
Diving straight into the company brochure or the product catalogue, the nitty gritty details is favourite here. The trouble is they want blue, we don’t know that because we haven’t asked what they want and we keep showing them yellow.
Why don’t Japanese salespeople ask the buyer questions, to find out what they need, like the rest of the universe? It is considered rude by the buyer. That is a cultural aspect that can be overcome if permission to ask questions is asked for first. Why don't they do that? Because they are trained by their seniors who never asked questions and just went straight into the detail of the spec. The salespeople need training to learn how to craft the permission request.
In Japan the buyer is not a lowly King but an almighty GOD, whose penchant is to destroy pesky salespeople’s presentations. Salespeople here don’t know how to control the sales conversation, because they don’t know how to get permission to ask questions and control the direction of the conversation.
It is almost impossible to hit a target you cannot ascertain. If the questions to ask need are not there, it is impossible to work out whether you have what the client needs or not.
When salespeople dive into the detail, they get stuck there. We don’t buy the spec. We buy the things the spec does for us. We need to draw out what are the benefits the spec delivers but much more than that. Few Japanese salespeople even get to the benefit explanations stage. We need to show how the benefit when applied in their business will improve their business and we back that up with evidence of where this has worked before.
Japanese salespeople suffer the same objections as everyone else, “your price is too high” etc., but they have no way of dealing with them. On the job training taps out pretty quickly when we get down to the finer points of sales ability. The simple answer is professional training because this the difference between the pro and the mug.
It is shocking to think how much money is being left on the table by salespeople when they get price objections. Just dropping the price by 20% is common and it doesn’t have to be like this. If you know how to handle these types of pushback, then you can do a deal and either defend your value or reduce the amount of discounting.
So many meetings end with a big fat nothing. The salesperson left the client “buy or won’t buy” bit quite vague and not clarified. Always ask for the order. The worst that can happen is you are told “no” or “we will think about it” but always ask. Don’t make the client do all the hard work, ask for the business.
Sales is not complex. It is a serious of basics that need to be performed professionally. Take a good look at what your Japanese colleagues are doing and see how many of these nine you uncover.
My Clients Never Call Me Back
Today in business, reaching anyone by telephone is nothing less than a miracle. Japan is particularly good at making sure you can never catch clients. The lowest ranked staff on the totem pole are designated as the “first impression” bearers for the company. They are invariably doing a pretty poor job of it because they are not properly trained. They think their job is to be brisk, business like and protect their colleagues and bosses from everyone who calls in, especially salespeople.
Japan’s risk aversion ensures that you have no idea who you are talking to when they answer the call. This is because they are careful not to divulge their name. They ensure there won’t be any repercussions from the call, should it ever become a problem. They are not thinking “great, you called, we are so happy that you want to do business with us”. No, they are guarded, suspicious, fearful of people they don’t know and so their tone is negative, protective and doubtful of the caller’s intentions. Did I mention they were the designated company’s first impression’s holders? Call into your own shop and I bet you will find the same. It might be time to rethink what first impressions you want to portray to the wider world.
Usually, when the person you wish to reach is not there, they rarely volunteer a return call option. They just say, “they are not at their desk”, expecting you will desist and duly disappear. I have found that if you remain on the line but silent, they quickly get confused. In their bafflement, they may inadvertently blurt out “can I take a message?”. Great, you can leave a message now and get the person you seek to call you back. However, later you begin to wonder if that message ever got delivered, because there is never a call back.
We all live in the Age of Distraction and there are so many things competing for the mind space of our clients. Technology is supposed to be helping us by giving us instant connectivity 24 hours a day, but all it has done is make sure we fill up the entire day with “stuff”. Meeting frequency has become crazier and busy people can spend their entire day gracefully wafting from one meeting to another.
You see these digital nomads, with their one fifth open oyster shell laptops, breezily migrating from one room to another. When they do get back to their desk, the in-basket in their email has become overloaded and they have to spend hours sorting through it. Perhaps there is a piece of notepaper, that looks like litter, lost somewhere on their desk. It has your name and phone number on it, left there by the person who took your call.
This is all very disheartening, frustrating and annoying. However, never take the lack of a call back personally. Do not try to psychoanalyse the lack of response from the person you are trying to contact. You do not know why they are not returning your call, but you need to keep calling to find out why they won’t call back. When you call them again and get their voice mail service, always leave a message. If you get Mr. or Ms. Lowest On The Totem Pole answering the call again, leave another message to call you back. You should keep trying to find out why they are not returning your call by sending emails, snail mail, and dropping by, that is, if you can access their building without a prearranged entry pass.
If you do finally get hold of them, be professional, don’t complain about the fact they were so hard to contact or that they don’t respond to any of your calls. Rise above the personal insult you may be feeling. Yes, you are fiercely frustrated by their lack of common courtesy, but this call back courtesy is no longer common. We have to realise we are in a different age. One of my friends who runs a big foreign multinational operation here tells me that his younger Japanese staff absolutely avoid the phone at all cost. They simply don’t want to answer it. This is the new age we live in. Remember, you are the salesperson and it is your job to make contact with clients. It is not their job to do anything helpful or useful.
Now what if the client complains about the fact that you keep calling them and leaving messages? You should just ignore it completely. Remember, this is part of your job, not theirs. They may be feeling guilty that they never got back to you and want to switch the blame to you. Don’t get emotional, defensive or aggressive. Apologise in a light hearted manner like this, “You know…you are probably right, I have been calling a lot lately haven’t I”. Then immediately explain that, “The reason I have been calling is because what we have is so good, I consider it my duty as a sales professional, to at least make sure you are aware of it. Whether you do something about it or not, is entirely your business decision and responsibility on behalf of your company. My role in business is to help you as much as possible to expand your business, if it makes sense”.
Go on to explain that you are here to help them do just that. And you would be letting them down if you didn’t introduce the opportunity for their consideration. Also gently mention that you are absolutely certain that they encourage their own sales force to be equally motivated to help their own buyers.
They will know that their own sales force could do a much better job and in fact should be doing more tenacious follow-up like you are doing. Deep down they will respect your dedication to your company and your efforts to help them make the best decisions in business they can, armed with the best information. So be brave, be persistent and be patient.
The One Minute Pitch
If you have been following me for a while, you know how down I am on pitching. This is the standard modus operandi in japan. Turn up to the meeting with the buyer and bludgeon them with detail and data on your solution. Ask no questions but keep throwing a ton of mud up against the wall hoping some will stick.
I always stress you need to get permission to ask questions in Japan and then you need to have a good questioning formula which will allow you to uncover the buyer’s needs. Once you have achieved that you make a judgment on whether you can actually help them or not. There are occasions though where we don’t have that window to the client. This is where the one minute pitch can help.
This will typically be when there is very little face to face time with the buyer. I go to a lot of networking events and the time available to chat can vary. Often it is very short, because you are filtering the people you meet, to see if there is an opportunity to have a longer, more valuable conversation back at their office. We don’t want to get caught up in a riveting conversation, that sees us manage to meet just one person at the event. Like in the fairy tales, one of these frogs will turn into the beautiful princess, once they are kissed by the handsome prince. We just don’t know which frog to kiss, so we need to kiss them all.
As we apply our filter, we realise we have a beautiful princess here and we need to grab their attention to smooth the path to a follow up meeting later in the week in their office. This is where we need a brief pitch to grab interest and apply the hook for the next meeting.
Numbers are always good for grabbing attention. While chatting they may look at your business card or meishi and ask what your company does. This is very common in Japan. Instead of going into a spellbinding recitation of the incredible history of the firm, the triumphs, the awards, the accolades, try throwing out some mysterious numbers. They are mysterious because they are in isolation and therefore it is impossible to have any idea what they represent. This piques the client’s interest and curiosity.
So, as an example, when asked what we do, I might say something like this, “Let me give you four key numbers to explain what we do – 108, 64, 100 and 95. 108 is how long the company has been going since Dale Carnegie launched his soft skills training firm in New York. 64 refers to the number of years Dale Carnegie Training has been teaching in Japan. 100 counts the number of countries where we have offices on the ground to help clients with global businesses and 95 refers to fact we conduct 95% of our soft skills training here in Japanese language”.
In this power packed short burst I have pointed to the fact we teach soft skills, the robustness and reliability of the business in the USA and in Japan, sustained over many decades, our capacity to match the breadth of their coverage across the globe and the fact most of training is in Japanese, when most people think we only teach in English. At a reasonable clip I can get through those numbers and their explanation in 30 seconds, which means I have plenty of opportunity to take my time, use pauses for effect and let some of those numbers sink in. Following this, my immediate question to the client would be , “what do you do for helping the team with their soft skills at the moment?”. This will lead into a conversation to gauge whether there is any point in having a further chat. If there was, I would just say, “Sounds like we might have something to help you grow the business. I will reach out to you after this event and please allow me to swing by and show you what is available to help your business”.
I wouldn't add anything or explain anything further, because I want to have that face to face meeting in their office, in order to get down to the details of their business needs. The one minute pitch is just an entry point to getting them to accept my email outlining some times for us to get together. Think of some numbers which would work for you and three or four are enough, so give it a try!