We salespeople love to talk. We are enthusiastic about our differentiation, our solution, our features, the benefits and a myriad other remarkable things about what we sell. Many salespeople have never moved out of first gear and are stuck there just telling the buyer all about their widget. The more advanced salespeople are asking questions and trying to become the trusted advisor, helping the client grow their business. Regardless, one of the biggest failings of salespeople and I definitely include myself here, is that we talk too much. We want to connect with the buyer, to build the rapport, the trust and so we do that by talking, talking, talking.
If you ever realise that the only sound in the room or online is your voice, then you are talking too much. This happens to me still. I get on a roll and away I go, all enthusiasm and belief and then it clicks – wait a minute – I am doing all the talking! It is time to ask a question, shut up and let the buyer do the talking. We know what we know, but we need to know a lot more about the client and their business and the only way that will happen is if we let them talk.
When we first meet the client we are not sure of each other. They are wondering if this meeting is a waste of time or not. We are wondering if we have what they need. Usually in Japan, the meetings start with some light conversation before we get into the meat of the discussion. If we are a bit nervous about this meeting then we can easily find ourselves talking too much and too fast. The early stage of the meeting is a chance for both sides to get to know each other and it shouldn’t be a one way conversation.
By letting them talk we pick up hints as to what type of person they are. I had a funny experience with the foreign president of a large well known global manufacturer here. I arrived early for the meeting, as you do in Japan, was shown into a large conference room and was patiently sitting there waiting for the president to arrive for the meeting. As he slipped effortlessly into his chair, he dexterously skimmed his business card across the table, like he was dealing me a poker hand. That was a hint. He was obviously brand new here and hadn‘t picked up anything about Japanese business culture as yet. I started with an effort to engage him in some very light small talk, to get to know him. He stopped me after about ten seconds of this and said “let’s get down to business”. I concluded he was a “time is money” Driver personality type and that I could be very direct with him and make suggestions which would be best for the firm.
Normally though, we conduct aimless conversations at the start of typical Japanese business meetings. This is fine because both sides are feeling each other out and the key is to make sure that this isn’t one-way traffic and that we are giving them plenty of chances to talk from their side. This sounds easy, but the temptation is to often project ourselves too strongly, trying to create a powerful, professional image with the buyer. The key is go in bursts and if you find your burst in getting too long, then switch the focus to them and off yourself. Some classic questions directed toward the buyer will be “How long have you been in this role”, “Are you originally from Tokyo?”, “Are most of the team back in the office now or still working remotely?”. The main course will kick off soon enough, but we need to get them talking, so the question content and answers aren’t that important at this stage. We can then bridge from these simple conversations into the needs of the firm and where they are heading in the business.
The other time we should be very careful is at the end of the sales process, when we are getting to agreement on the solution and what we can do to help. Often we don’t know when enough is enough and we keep layering on information to really nail down the sale. They have agreed and actually the best advice is to shut up about the solution and start talking about the next steps to get the execution piece underway. However, we can often start adding things which pop into our head at this point, to try and reinforce their buy decision. These contributions usually don’t add much value and in fact may snag the sale entirely. Too little information is bad, but too much information is also bad. We need to tell them enough to get agreement and not one skerrick more. We may inadvertently flag some issue which hasn't been an issue until we foolishly raised it.
It is a good thing to assure them that they have made a wise choice and to try and avoid any “buyer’s remorse” but be careful about how much we say. Just broad brush comments are fine, such as, “I am sure that this new solution will make a real difference for the organisation and we are here to do the follow-up to make sure it works for you”. That is enough, without getting into any more detail about the spec or the features etc. Avoid “overselling” where we keep piling on the value after the sale has been agreed. I know it is so tempting to add more, but let’s restrain ourselves. They have said “yes”, so we can move to the follow-up components and focus the conversation on those next steps. This is much safer and the buyer will be happy to be hearing about the concrete stages to come, so that they can organise things from their side.
If you find yourself blathering away and adding no value to the proposition then reset. Stop over-selling and drop the chitchat. We want to pivot into the delivery part of the cycle and we should only talk about that. It requires discipline, because we love to talk and we love our solution and before you know it we are off again. Try very hard to make sure that after the agreement they are doing more of the talking than us and keep the balance there. We will get ourselves into a lot less trouble if we do that.
If you are a student of sales, then you will know all about SPIN Selling developed by Neil Rackham, based on his 1970s and 1980s research involving 30 researchers who studied 35,000 sales calls in 12 countries. The acronym stands for S- Situation, P- Problem, I-Implication and N-Need Payoff. The concept was not to be just packaging up the details of the solution and then jamming it down the throat of the buyer- the preferred method of most salespeople at that time - but to become a trusted advisor, someone who would act as a consultant to the firm to help them improve their performance.
The consultancy part required an analysis of the client’s current situation and gaining clarity around what was the problem inhibiting their growth. Rackham’s insight was that this wasn’t enough to be successful in sales. We know that the human condition leans in favour of pain avoidance more than gain. For example, if I wrote two articles, one titled “How I Made $20 million” and another titled “How I Lost $20 million”, the latter is bound to get more attention than the former. This is where the Implication component of the formula comes in – what will be the downside, if the firm doesn’t solve this problem.
Drawing out the implication is key, because the easiest decision for any buyer is to do nothing. Keeping the same supplier is easy, making no changes inside the firm is easy, trying to incrementally improve what is already being done is easy. The key to success with the implication question is in how we ask it. It is also the most complex part of the formula. Asking about the client’s current situation and what are their problems are relatively straightforward questions.
If the implication question is done too aggressively then it will fail. For example, “Aren’t you concerned about going bankrupt (or losing market share or running out of cash) if you don’t fix this problem, which you told me was holding the firm back?”. Another too strong question would be, “Aren’t you worried about your own job security if you cannot overcome this problem?”. Buyers will not react well to what sounds to them like a sad attempt at blackmail. They don’t like the hard sell approach in Japan and this will backfire if attempted here.
The implication question has to be subtle and considered. For example, “I am sure that over time, you can solve this problem you have outlined for me. I guess the question then is can the organisation afford to wait for that long or is there a greater benefit to making some changes now, to reap more immediate rewards?”. This is a good question because it doesn’t say the buyer’s company is stupid or that the buyer is stupid or that they are not capable to fixing their own problems. It just raises the issue of time and of course in business time is of the essence, so it is easier to conclude that taking action now is the wiser course.
We are still faced with the problem though that although the buyer knows they should act, the inertia drag is so strong they still don’t do anything about it and just procrastinate on taking any steps to fix the issue. When we see that this is what is going on in the mind of the buyer, we have to join them there and push them to take a more urgent approach, without tipping the scales too far toward panic. We can now say, “Change is always hard, however we know that progress requires change and there is always a big advantage to be gained over competitors who cannot make any changes. Rivals however may stir and steal a march on us and we don’t want that do we? Increasing market share because of internal agility translates into better financial outcomes and quickly justify the changes needed to reap the greater rewards. When we think of it, on balance, doesn’t it make sense to take the opportunity presented now, to gain the tangible benefits available?”. We have to drive in a sense of urgency around the decision to buy from us, otherwise they just never get around to making it happen. Japanese buyers in particular are very sensitive to what their competitors are doing and do worry about being outfoxed by their rivals.
Certainly questioning skills are an important tool in the salesperson’s toolbox, but the implication tool in particular, is one which must be fully mastered. The delivery is key and this requires practice and always remember never practice on the buyer! Clients vary in personality style, so we have to be sensitive to how we communicate with the buyer. Some prefer a more direct approach and others want to have a cup of tea and get to know each other first. Very detailed buyers enjoy data, proof, testimonials, evidence while others find all that boring and prefer the think in big picture terms. The important point is to know who we are talking to and then adjust our delivery to suit the way they prefer to communicate.
In many sales organisations, sales scripts are a way of harmonising the messaging as well as getting newbies up to speed. ChatGPT can come up with a sales script within about one second. We just need to design the question we want answered intelligently and it will do all of the work. When you have to listen to sales people using sales scripts on you, the conclusion is ChatGPT must surely be able to do a better job, because the bar is set so low. Of course there are scripts and there are scripts, so the breadth of possibility is vast.
Even the best designed script will fail in the hands of idiot sales managers. I blame the managers for the sins of their staff, who have to deliver these scripts and do so in a pathetic fashion. When you can hear the cadence is someone reading the script to you, then you know you are dealing with an idiot-led organisation. If the manager was doing their job then this would never happen, but sadly it does and it negates any potential the script had to identify business.
The other challenge with scripts, be they AI generated or not, is to match the content with the client’s situation. Hopefully, we are going to try and join the conversation going on in the mind of the buyer with our first approach. “How are you today” is a pet peeve of mine as an opening volley in cold calling. As soon as I hear that line my toes curl up and I brace myself. I know what comes next won’t be intelligently constructed or useful to me. I have problems. What can this caller do to help me with my problems?
When we programme ChatGPT properly to work on the various problems the buyer may be having, then we can get a range of scripts to suit the situation. The list of problems is not hard to put together – lack of revenues, costs too high, can’t get or keep staff, stiff competition in the market driving down pricing, not enough differentiation in our solution, the buyer is happy with the current supplier, etc.
We will have to work a bit more on the scripts to personalise them for each buyer, but we can get a start using the machine. The other key part is the delivery, because the buyer doesn’t get their side of the script to follow and they can be unpredictable regarding what they might say. As salespeople, we have to be able to pivot on the spot and deal with whatever the buyer sends towards us. ChatGPT is of no help when we are live and the process is fluid.
An area it may be able to help is the designing of the solution explanation. When we get a chance to talk about what we can do for the buyer, we usually start with the details of the solution – the nitty gritty. Some of this nitty gritty is of more value than other parts and we should be seeking help to design for that rich vein of information which will delight the buyer. The next stage up is to outline the benefits to the buyer and this is where the machine helps us to get a nice list of these and we can use this as the base from which to select elements to impress the buyer. We have to feed it the information first though, so if we know this stuff, then why do we need the machine to re-work it for us? Can’t we just use what we have come up with?
The organisation of the evidence could use some ChatGPT love. Ideally, if we can do it we can organise our data based on the industry sub-set and the solution chosen and then match these with a satisfied client who took our solution, executed on it and reaped the rewards of doing so. Once we think about this structure the complexity increases very quickly. That is where programming the machine to absorb all of this data and then spit it back out in a tangible format can be helpful. We have to command all of this data at our fingertips because in the to and fro with the buyer, all of this will have to be coming out of our heads. The machine will consolidate the information, but we still have to absorb it and be ready to draw on the relevant parts, for the buyer sitting in front of us.
There is always a high degree of personalisation of the messaging for the buyers and no machine will be able to handle that requirement in real time. The base of the information pool or the examples or the alternatives are certainly things we can always use help with. We should always keep in mind that just because we have the ability to tap this fountain of wisdom and knowledge, that we shouldn’t always do so. The buyer should be talking 80% of the time and we just 20%. The temptation is for ChatGPT to turn into a professor and make us “talkers” rather than “questioners”. Introducing who we are and what we do and explaining how the solution works are three excellent occasions for us to be talking and the machine can help us out here.
Like all technology the intelligence is in what we feed into the machine. This is where we have to try and educate it on addressing what we want for our buyers. This takes practice but the upside is the speed of production is basically instant, so we can invest time to keep polishing the input questions.
We have found the prospect. It might have been through desk research then a cold call or a chance business card exchange at a networking event. We have decided they probably need our solution, because they fit into the ideal client persona profile we carry around in our heads. If we have been artful, we will have managed to secure a meeting, be it online or more preferably, in person. After some preliminary small talk to gauge some sense of what personality style they are, we switch up our communication to match their preferences. We make them feel comfortable with a stranger and we very skilfully seek their permission to ask questions about their current situation and their aspirations for the near future. Once the buyer GOD has bequeathed this entrée into their needs, we are on our way to make a decision regarding whether we have what they need or not. If there is a match, then we will move to the next stage around explaining how we can satisfy their need with our solution content.
Now comes the moment of truth. Will they believe what we are proposing is in their best interests and will deliver the outcomes they seek? Naturally we have to go through the details of the solution so they can get an idea of what we can deliver for them. This must be exhausting for a lot of salespeople because this is where they flag and drop the ball. They go on and on about the facts, the details, the nitty gritty and nothing else. Those salespeople with some training don’t stop there. They move into explaining what all these various details will deliver for the client, in particular detailing the benefits. This is where the next round of salespeople drop out, thinking they are done enough and are expecting this is a strong enough launching pad to secure the order. They would be wrong.
A theoretical benefit isn’t convincing. What the client really wants to know is what this benefit will do inside their company, inside their business. Every business thinks they are special, unique, distinct, different and that our standard solutions are never going to satisfy their exact needs. This is where we start painting word pictures of what will be different inside the company with our solution onboard and helping them to succeed. We have to become master artists of the word picture to bring the dream we have proffered to reality.
You would think this would be enough, but it isn’t. Buyers have had all manner of tall tales and grand promises made to them in the past and they are all card carrying members of the Sceptics Guild. What they seek is proof positive data, real world relevant case studies of where these elaborate promises have been translated into real outcomes in the past. They want evidence.
By definition, this evidence has to come from prior clients who have been consumers of our solutions and who have benefited in ways which match this client’s situation. Ideally they would be a close competitor, in the precise same industry sector, with a very similar range of issues and problems to be overcome and who had breathtakingly great results. Is this easy to find?
No it is not and often we are limited in our thinking about finding the match. We are digging into a chest of memories of other deals and trying to extract the doppelganger. We don’t have to be doing it this way. Why are we only tapping our clients list for evidence, when the company has been around for many years in most cases has had hundreds of clients on the books over that time? Part of the problem is the way sales teams are organised. Being on commission doesn’t breed teamwork, in fact, it often breeds a zero sum game, toxic environment where someone else’s success gets you fired.
Let me digress for a moment and tell you a funny story about executive expectations. Our bosses had been off on a boozy off-site and the next Monday announced that they wanted the members of the sales team to nominate other competitor highly successful salespeople who they could approach to hire into the firm. What was the result? Nothing of course, because who would be that crazy to invite a serious high performer into the team, who will no doubt get you disappeared at the first hint of a downturn.
The consequence is we don’t share our evidence and we all run around in isolation, little bare islands of evidence, when if we combined everyone’s evidence together we could have a rich continent to work with. Get together and share. Nominate the client, the industry, the problem, the solution and the outcomes. Instead of having evidence from the thirty or forty clients you have been working with, you could have many hundreds of pieces of evidence. No, they weren’t your direct clients, but that doesn’t matter, because your firm provided the solution and got the results. You know the solution and have experience with similar results for your own clients. In fact, you know enough to own the information as if it were your own.
The sceptical buyer wants assurance that what you are saying works and they want evidence from other firms. So let’s be smart about it and combine our resources and build up a library of evidence cases which we can all draw on. Our competitors will all be the “frogs in the wells, who don’t know the ocean” and we will crush them in the marketplace.
There are many non-Japanese speaking business people doing deals with Japanese companies. They may be flying in for meetings or may be based on the ground here. Even those locally based may not have sufficient fluency to conduct a sales meeting in Japanese, even though they make speak some level of Japanese language. I don’t know if I would call myself “fluent”, because I know how complex the Japanese language is and I know that often I cannot always understand everything being said in the meeting. Having said that though, I have sold multi-millions of dollars worth of goods and services to Japanese buyers, so something must be working.
The further you get out of Tokyo, the higher the degree of requirement for a Japanese business level capability. The situation is improving though, as younger people are generally better at English than their parents, regardless of where they are living in Japan. So the provinces are certainly not a wasteland of opportunity, but be prepared for more problems finding someone to be the counterparty with sufficient English to hold the meeting. The flip side is the rarity of speaking with a foreigner is attractive to a lot of regionally based business representatives. In Tokyo, talking in English to a foreigner is a bit blasé and nothing that special. In Ehime, the reaction will quite different.
The key to any sales success is your kokorogamae - your true intention. If you are fully focused on the buyer succeeding and want to be a trusted partner, one who is gripped with a burning need to foster the relationship so that there are continuous re-orders, then the counterpart will feel that. Most Japanese can read English much better than they can speak it. This presents the opportunity for you to marshal your resources and provide a clear picture of what you offer, why it is going to be a benefit to the buyer and a ton of detail on the how. If this has been translated into Japanese then excellent work. However, even if it hasn’t, getting it to the buyer ahead of time will give them a chance to familiarise themselves with your company and your solution.
In my experience, Japan has an unlimited appetite for data and information. The risk aversion current is so strong here that surrounding oneself with lot of data is like putting on your armour to protect yourself from making a mistake. So come packing heavy with data and keep giving them data throughout the interaction. Think a baroque rather than a zen like approach.
Following up in writing to clarify what was discussed is also an important tool to make sure we all understood what was decided. This is particularly important for the next action steps. When expectations are blurry and misunderstood, the trust element takes a whack, which we certainly don’t want to see happen. I have a very poor memory. In fact, as I get older it is becoming worse. A long time ago I read this little gem “The faintest ink is superior to the best memory”. I take copious notes of all meetings, so that I have a record to consult on what needs to happen next.
These go into my organiser which can then be filed by month and notes can be located to check what was decided. I wasn’t always this well prepared. I remember making a business trip back to Japan from sunny Brisbane and visiting a client in Nagoya after a year had passed. In fact, the person I had been dealing with had been rotated into another section and I met two new people. In that dense, smoke filled tiny meeting room, sitting on a super low couch, in front of a super low table and sipping my cheap, bitter, green tea, I was astonished when they brought out this very thick binder, which extensively detailed everything we had discussed previously. That was the day, I realised I needed to be better organised if I wanted to succeed in selling stuff to Japanese companies.
If possible invite the counterparty for a meal or drinks at night. This is a bit harder than it used to be, because of compliance rules, but it varies from company to company. In the good old days they would invite you with the sole purpose of enjoying great food and booze on the company’s dime. It took me a while to work out it wasn’t my charm and charisma which was generating these offers for a good time together after work. A lot of budgets for that type of entertaining have gone by the wayside, so you should invite them and pay.
The other thing to consider is working on your English ability. “What? I am a native speaker, what do I need to work on?”, you may be asking. Immediately purge your English of all idioms, especially sporting idioms. During the daytime, “play it with a straight bat” (only those from countries who know cricket, will get this meaning and now you know what it feels like to be left out of the context of the point, when idioms are being thrown around with gay abandon).
Leave your attempts at humour until the counterparty has had a sufficient amount of alcohol to get your dubious jokes. Don’t be sardonic, as an attempt to be self-depreciating or be sarcastic or be a smarty pants about anything you are discussing. Use simple terms and often frame them so the point is easy to navigate. For example, “there are three key factors which make our manufacturing process highly effective. Firstly,…”.
Also, slow down the speed of speech. I suffer from this precept because I am an enthusiastic guy and I get excited about how great our training is in both Japanese and English and I have to constantly remind myself to slow down. It is a good practice to make summaries of what has been discussed or agreed on the way through the conversation, rather than waiting to the end. You can say, “Let me just capture where we are at the moment. We have agreed to do …”. As mentioned before, put what was understood and agreed in writing and send it back to the counterparty, so that everything is kept clear.
The more Japanese you can speak and the better you can speak it, the wider the Japan world becomes for you, but it isn’t closed off, if you are not there yet. Try some of these ideas and I am sure you will find your communication and business improving substantially.