We often hear that people buy on emotion and justify with logic.  The strange thing is where is this emotion coming from?  Most Japanese salespeople speak in a very dry, grey, logical fashion expecting to convince the buyer to hand over their dough.  I am a salesperson but as the President of my company, also a buyer of goods and services.  I have been living in Japan this third time, continuously since 1992.  In all of that time I am struggling to recall any Japanese salesperson who spoke with emotion about their offer.  It is always low energy, low impact talking, talking, talking all the time.  There are no questions and just a massive download of information delivered in a monotone delivery.

As salespeople, our job is to join the conversation going on in the mind of the buyer.  But it is also more than that.  The buyer’s mental meandering won’t necessarily have the degree of passion we need for them to make a purchasing decision.  So we have to influence the course of that internal conversation they are having.  This is where our own passion comes in.

I always thought Japanese people were unemotional before I moved to Japan the first time in 1979.  The ones I had met in business in Australia were very reserved and quite self contained.  They seemed very logical and detail oriented.  After I moved here I realised I had the wrong information.  Japanese people are very emotional in business. This is related closely to trust.  Once they trust you, they have made an emotional investment to keep using you.  No one likes to make a mistake or fail and the best way to avoid that is to deal with people you can trust.  How do you know you can trust them?  There is some track record of reliability there, that tells you the person or company you are dealing with is a known quantity that will act predictably and correctly every time.

The problem with this approach though is that you will only ever be able to sell to existing accounts.  What about gaining new customers?  You have no track record and no predictability as yet.  When you meet a new customer they are mentally sizing you up, asking themselves “can I trust you?”.  Naturally a good way to overcome the lack of track record is to create one.  Offer a sample order or something for free.  This takes the risk out of the equation for the person you are dealing with.  To get involved with a new supplier means they have to sell the idea to their boss, who has to sell it to their boss, on up the line.  No one wants to take the blame if it all goes south.  A free or small trial order is a great risk containment tactic and makes it easy for all the parties concerned to participate in the experiment.

The other success ingredient is passion for your product or service.  When the buyer feels that passion, it is contagious and they are more likely to give you a try to at least see if there is some value to continue working with you.  When he was in his mid-twenties, my Japanese father-in-law started a business in Nagoya and needed to get clients.  He targeted a particular company and every morning he would stand in front of the President’s house and bow as he was leaving by car for the office.  After two weeks of this, the President sent one of his people to talk to him to see why he was there every day bowing when the President left for work.  When he heard that my father-in-law wanted to supply his company with curtain products, he told him to see one of his subordinates in his office to discuss it.  That company eventually became a huge buyer and established my father-in-law’s business.

Was that a logical decision, just because some unknown character is hanging around your house everyday like a stalker? No it was an emotional decision. What my father-in-law was showing the President was his passion, belief, commitment, discipline, patience, seriousness, earnestness and guts.  That is a pretty good line-up for a new supplier in order to be given a chance.  We need to remember that buyers are wanting to know our level of belief in what we are selling.  The way we express that is through our passion and commitment to the relationship and the product or service we supply.  Is our demeanour showing enough passion, without it seeming fake or contrived?  Do we have enough faith in what we are selling, that it naturally pours out of the pores of our skin?  Are we painting strong enough word pictures to get the buyer emotionally involved in a future involving what we sell?

Audit your own levels of passion when you are in front of the buyer.  Do you sound sold on your own offer?  Do you sound committed to go the extra mile?  Do you sound confident and assured, showing no hesitation?  Are you honest about what is possible and what is not possible?  Always understand that buyers, whether for themselves or for the company, buy on emotion and justify it with logic. Make sure you can supply that emotional requirement as well as the strong rationale for them to buy your offer.

Ninja are masters of illusion, invisibility and subterfuge.  All of these traits have pretty much died out in modern times, except for a small bastion of steadfast office workers.  Some Japanese commentators have tried to imply that the salaryman is the modern day samurai.  Loyal to their modern Han, the firm, giving up their lives for the greater good, sacrificing family for their corporate captains of industry.  This sounds pretty good until you meet some of them.  Unremarkable, grey, uninspiring, they are more often like the army of the walking dead.  The system has drained all the life out of them, as they trudge forward in lockstep toward retirement.  Japanese “office ladies” however are the true warriors in the modern day firm.  They are the kunoichi (くノ一) or female ninja of modern times.

They are always poised ready to strike.  They are tasked by the older males of the firm to answer the incoming phone calls.  They relish this opportunity to slay salespeople making cold calls.  They have subterfuges aplenty at their ready to get rid of us when we call their firm.  We boldly make the call, identify ourselves and our company.  They immediately recognise we are cold calling salespeople, because they have been doing this for years. They have picked up that tell tale hesitation, that lack of sureness in our voice, that warbling reluctance to engage with such a formidable enemy.

Their first weapon employed is a thick, grinding silence.  You speak and they say nothing. There is no acknowledgement of your very existence.  It is as if we are an illusion, a figment of our own imagination.  We are unseated immediately and now feel firmly in retreat, pushed on to the backfoot, by this vicious employ of the void.  Suddenly ums and ahs are tumbling forth from our mouths, as we try to regather our fragile senses and press on.

If we don’t know the person’s actual name and most often this is the case, we ask to speak with the person holding a certain position within the company, such as the line manager or the head of HR etc.  The kunoichi has been clever to not reveal her own name.  They state the company name when we call and then they go dark.  We don’t even know who we are talking to, even if we wanted to complain about this brutal treatment.  No Japanese salesperson would ever dream of complaining, but as foreigners, it may be worth a try. A common kunoichi ploy is to simply say “they are not here”.  We don't know if they are there or not, but I would guess in 99% of cases they are there and this is a tactic to deny us access to the decision maker.

The voice telling us this information is icy, unfriendly, bored, impatient and disengaged.  The whole ninja approach here is to hide people and information from us.  This works like a charm in Japan.  The average weak kneed, untrained, no guts salesperson collapses at this point under the weight of this ninja tactical pressure and blurts out “I will call again later”.  This is a bald faced lie.  They didn't have the guts to engage with the kunoichi this time around and mentally, they have given up immediately on the possibility of a reengagement.  They are broken into small pieces and their tender egos have been crushed by her towering strength.

Even if we know the name of the person, we will get the same stall line anyway.  If we are not put off so easily, we may ask when they will be back.  We say this although we know the game is in play and this will register the next pushback of “I don’t know” followed by more deathly silence.  They are so expert at using screaming silence, it is actually impressive.  If we keep pushing and ask for them to take a message, they are not so easily willing to cooperate and will just calmly and methodically say, “call back later”.  What would you say to that little hand grenade blowing up in your face?  We have to realise we are dealing with cold calling salespeople killers here, who will show no mercy nor margin.  Remember in the Japanese sword dramas, the hero drives the sword into the back of the bad guy and then twists the hilt slowly.  And that is the good guy!

We should never invite obliteration, so we don’t ask for permission to leave our contact details.  We just don’t want to invite that brush off.  Instead we just say, “okay, I understand, please write this down” and then go straight into spelling out our name and phone number really, really slowly.  Then we repeat it all again to make sure they got it.  Tell them if we don’t hear back, we will call again the day after tomorrow.  We need to strongly imply we know their kunoichi game, we are not falling for it and we will keep calling back until hell freezes over.

Don’t talk to me about how tough cold calling is in New York folks.  When you have to deal with the kunoichi of Japan, you are elevated to a different dimension of pain and despair.

Sales is always a tough job, but not being able to get any new clients during Covid-19 just takes the degree of difficulty right to the top of the scale.  Every company I speak with says the same thing – they cannot get any new clients at the moment, so they are stuck.  Even when the target decision-maker is in the office, it is diabolically difficult to get through the steel wall erected to keep out salespeople.  Today many buyers are safely tucked up at home, just placing them at that even more distant point away from us.  The person who answers the phone when we call, has not the slightest interest in connecting us, in fact, they are hell bent on getting rid of us altogether.  We know they will get scolded by the boss, if they put through a pesky salesperson.  So we have to make sure that we are bringing so much value, that the boss won’t get upset. Here is a Four Step approach to deal with this conundrum.

Step One is give your company name, your own name and who your company is.  The who you are part must be brief and overflowing with credibility at the same time.  For example, “Hello, my name if Greg Story from Dale Carnegie Training Japan.  We are experts in soft skills training, globally for the last 108 years and here in Japan for nearly 60 years”.  Key words are “soft skills training”, “global”, “108 years” and “nearly 60 years”.  In one short sentence the key unique selling points have been highlighted.

Step Two is why we are calling.  We need to go straight to the pain point facing similar competitors in their industry.  “Recently, we have had many of your competitors calling us asking about leadership training for leaders dealing with remote teams.  The new Covid-19 situation has made leading teams much harder and companies are noticing the substantial drop in productivity. Despite their best efforts they have not been able to find any answers internally.”  Japanese companies are often paranoid about what their competitors are up to, so it is always good practice to frame things such that this company is missing out on what their rivals all know. Now we explain that we have been able to fix that problem.  “We have been able to provide on-line training for leaders on how to lead effectively in this new environment and these companies have seen immediate improvements in productivity across the board”.

Step Three is where we go for connecting with the decision-maker.  We suggest that this company can also enjoy all the advantages of other companies we have helped.  We approach this is a humble way, by saying, “Maybe we can do the same for your company, so please transfer me through to the person in charge of this area of the business. I am sure that they are really frustrated by now with being unable to improve the leaders’ ability to lead remote teams”.  We need to reiterate that they have a major problem, they are not fixing it themselves and the decision-maker will be really glad to hear from us.

Step Four is for the 99.9999% of cases when they won’t transfer us to the decision-maker.  They give us the brush off by saying, “They are not available at the moment” and expect us to crawl away, slip under a rock and disappear out of their lives forever.  We again repeat the key pain point with a sense of urgency.  “Thank you, I understand. In your industry, your competitors had initially suffered from reduced performance outcomes until we gave them the training to totally fix those issues.  Now they are doing really well. I am sure the person in charge of these results will really want to know how we fixed that issue for your rivals. Please write down my name and number and pass that information to them, so that I can explain how we fixed the issue for your competitors.  My name is Greg Story from Dale Carnegie Training Japan and my number is 080-1106-2328.  If I don’t hear from them, I will call back again the day after tomorrow.  I know you are busy, so thank you for passing on the message.”

We have done a couple of things here.  Importantly, we don’t ask them for permission to leave a message.  We are instead instructing them to write down our name and number and pass it on to the boss.  We also mention we will be calling back in two days if we don’t hear from them.  It signals they cannot get rid of us so easily and that we are going to keep calling back, until we get to speak to the person we need to help.

So altogether, it sounds like this:

“Hello my name if Greg Story from Dale Carnegie Training Japan.  We are experts in soft skills training, globally for the last 108 years and here in Japan for nearly 60 years. Recently, we have had many of your competitors calling us asking about leadership training for leaders dealing with remote teams.  The new Covid-19 situation has made leading teams much harder and companies are noticing the substantial drop in productivity. Despite their best efforts they have not been able to find any answers internally. We have been able to provide on-line training for leaders on how to lead effectively in this new environment and these companies have seen immediate improvements in productivity across the board. Maybe we can do the same for your company, so please transfer me through to the person in charge of this area of the business. I am sure that they are really frustrated by now with being unable trying to improve the leaders’ ability to lead remote teams” .

“They are not available at the moment”.

“Thank you, I understand. In your industry, your competitors had initially suffered from reduced performance outcomes until we gave them the training to totally fix those issues.  Now they are doing really well. I am sure the person in charge of these results will really want to know how we fixed that issue for your rivals. Please write down my name and number and pass that information to them, so that I can explain how we fixed the issue for your competitors.  My name is Greg Story from Dale Carnegie Training Japan and my number is 080-1106-2328.  If I don’t hear from them, I will call back again the day after tomorrow.  I know you are busy, so thank you for passing on the message”.

We all know that cold calling has a low success rate, but it is part of the tool box and this is the moment when we need to be wielding every tool at our disposal.  If we are going to get anywhere, then we have to doing cold calling at the highest level of skill.  Your competitors will either not be doing it at all or will be making a mess of it.  This is the chance to go for it, because you have nothing to lose and all to gain.

Generally speaking, we mainly have failures of follow up in B2B sales.  The conduct of the sale’s meeting is normally done professionally.  Perhaps the salesperson could have asked better questions or presented the application of the benefits of the solution better. Maybe they could have dealt more professionally with objections or closed the deal more effectively.  In B2C though, the troubles start from the point of contact.  Getting this wrong means no meeting, let alone no sale.

I blame the managers for these issues.  If they were doing their job properly, then there wouldn’t be these customer facing problems.  We are salespeople and we are also buyers.  We go shopping, we eat out, we buy lots of stuff in the face to face environment.  Maybe not as much as before, because of Covid-19, but we still we do engage in some B2C activities.  When the whole hospitality industry is on its knees, you expect that those survivors still operating, are really maximising their opportunities to build their clientele.

Imagine my surprise when I called a restaurant in Midtown for a lunchtime booking and bumped into some idiocy that flies in the face of the current reality.  It was around 11.31am and I was calling to make a booking for a 12.00 luncheon.  The staff member who answered the phone told me that all bookings for lunch close at 11.30am.  I could just show up at 12.00 and take my chances with the rest of the punters. It is 11.31am when we are having this conversation.  I asked him does that mean I should book at another restaurant instead of his.  There are tons of restaurants in Midtown by the way. Irony and sarcasm aren’t really features of the Japanese language, so my obtuse point went straight over his head.

He had been told that bookings for lunch close at 11.30am and that was that.  The idea that we are in the middle of a pandemic and that many enterprises in his industry are closing for lack of business, would warrant additional flexibility wasn’t one that had ever crossed his mind.  He couldn’t connect the dots and realise that what his job depends on are customers.  It was not clear to him that every restaurant wants to build new clients and to boost the spending of their regular clients.  He is just an employee, so building the business isn’t part of his work remit.

Well it should be.  He could have been focused on grabbing my booking, guaranteeing two covers at lunch, rather than relying on providence to supply walk-ins off the street.  He could have made me feel special by telling me that although 11.30am is the cut off point, he would take the booking anyway and really looked forward to meeting me at 12.00, “Ask for Taro and I will take care of you”, he could have said.  How would I have felt?  Would I have become more likely to go back again in the future?  Could I become a valued customer?  The answers are obvious to me but the concept was not in his mind.

By way of contrast, I like Elios in Hanzomon, which is across town for me.  I have been going there with clients and with my family, since 2001 when I came back to Tokyo from Osaka.  What is my lifetime value as a customer?  Elio certainly knows this equation and so do his staff.  That is one of the reasons why I keep coming back.

So I was wondering what is the difference and the reasons are obvious.  The leadership outlook and work culture of the restaurants are different.  The bosses determine the way the staff think about the business and the customers.  So, the natural extension of this reflection is to move to self reflection.  Are my staff flexible when dealing with our clients?  Are they just following the rule book and not using their brains?  Do they feel trusted enough to take responsibility to fix an issue for a client or are they ninjas, hiding behind the rules.  As the boss, you cannot be in every client conversation, so you have to delegate client care to your team.  Let’s all take another look at the culture we have created.  Are we allowing individual decision making based around a common understanding of how we think about our clients?

One of the things we quickly learn as leaders is that telling people something once, almost guarantees no one will remember it.  It becomes annoying to have to keep repeating the same things over and over, but you find you have to do it.  So, it always a good practice to remind everyone about how we think about serving the client.  Explain where this aligns with the value system, the vision and the mission of the enterprise.  There has to be a symbiotic relationship between our teams and the clients. The boss determines how that plays out at every micro-interaction, every day.