You have done an excellent job as a salesperson, hitting your numbers and getting a strong reputation as a “producer”.  The big bosses like the cut of your jib and decide that they will promote you into the role of player/coach to lead the sales team.  No training is provided of course. It assumed that as you know how to get results, you can just sprinkle your pixie dust on the rest of the crew and clone those good outcomes. 

The first thing you discover is that what made you awesome, is different to what will work for the rest of the team.  “Do what I do” sounds highly reasonable, except they are not you and it doesn’t seem to work for them.  You have your own clients too, so you are pretty busy trying to get the revenues in the door. The amount of time you have to spend leading the sales team is limited.  They keep producing at the same rate, you now have a lot of non-sales stuff to get done as well and your workload seems to keep going up.  The annual targets keep going up too and in two years time, you find yourself fired, because your team didn’t get to their number.  You are held accountable and so you are replaced. The same cycle then kicks in again for your successor.  None of the big bosses lost their job by the way. 

You found you were stuck between your role as a leader and your role as a producer – you found you were twixt and tween two contesting goals.  So, what is the sale’s leaders job then when you have your own targets?  Leverage is the key to success here.  If we can help our team members be more successful, then we will be able to hit the team target.  We absolutely need to provide opportunities for training the crew.  It could be formal training aimed at substantially raising sales capability and technique or something simpler.

By the way, the time to ask for a training budget is when the bosses first offer you the job.  This is the moment of the most influence with the training budgeting decision.  Having sales training professionals come in substantially speeds up the process and in the long run, saves you a lot of time and effort. Once you start the job, you may find the hierarchy just expects you to get on with it and they are not prepared to financially support your success.  They are in that “harvest” rather than “invest” mode.  So push them hard to support your success.  The worst result is they don’t agree, you turn down the job and they put someone else in that role.  You will just keep producing and getting paid well for doing so. In two years time the job will be available again. However, if you still want to take the offer and step up, even if you are unsuccessful getting any training budget out of them, there are still some things you can do.

You personally may have benefited from the stars aligning for you in sales and you may have never had any training either.  As the leader you need to study sales and understand the basics.  Your personal flair or talent no doubt, will not have been sprinkled across the team and they need to absorb the basics.  To do that you need to master the basics first yourself, so that you can educate yourself, to be able to teach them.  Have everyone read an excellent tome on selling and form a type of reading club.  This is a cheap and good idea. It gets everyone on the same page and it creates a common vocabulary of sales.  This will make the communication of concepts and practices much more effective.  You will have a number of critical points to check on, to see if they are doing their sales role professionally. It will also assist to align the direction of the team.

Role plays at the start of the day, to practice on each other, are a vastly better idea than letting salespeople practice on the clients.  These role plays need to be supervised however and the salespeople need feedback in order to improve.  Tell them what they are doing that is “Good” and then tell them how they can make it even” Better”.  This type of positive feedback is vastly superior to criticising people. If you ignore this advice and you prefer to critique your people, you will find you are either driving up their resistance to you or driving down their confidence to do the job. 

Visits with the salespeople to their clients, to watch them in action, are also a good practice.  Obviously, there is a limit to this, because of the time involved, but from time to time, this is a good idea.  In this way you find out their issues and after meeting the client together, you can give them good/better coaching feedback to help them improve.

The temptation is to see all of this as taking time away from your own sales.  That is true, but if we understand leverage, then we can trade our time for bigger, scalable results.  If we have ten people in our team working eight hours each, they collectively put in eighty hours a day.  As a group they will always be able to sustain the work hours being put in, compared to what we as an individual can do.  How many twenty-hour work days do you think you will get through, before you start to have major psychological and physical issues? If we can get their eighty hours a day working well, then the scale capacity comes into our favour. It will justify the time we give up for them in multiples of revenue return.

There was an excellent effort on display here.  A salesperson was using LinkedIn to find potential buyers and conducting energetic prospecting activities to reach out with cold emails.  A total waste of time though.  We all get tons of these cold emails on social media and we religiously delete them and move on, because we are busy, busy people.  I asked how many of these emails had been sent out? The answer was “hundreds”.  While I applaud the commitment, it is always better if it produces results.  The obvious next question from me was “how may responses did you get?”.  You all know the answer don’t you – none.

The email being sent introduced the salesperson, the company and what they did and mentioned if they had any questions to reach out.  My immediate question was “What is the hook?  What is the element of this email which will hook the interest of the reader, such that they will keep reading and actually respond?”.  There was some fairly benign information in that email, but nothing addressing any possible issues facing the reader. 

To be fair, the motivation to take any action will vary from reader to reader, so you cannot accurately gauge what that will be, when sending the email.  However, there are common issues which companies face in their industry.  When we are working with buyers in those industries, we note there are some common themes and one of these can become our hook.

We can improve this salesperson’s efforts and success rate substantially with a few tweaks.  Firstly, we are going to put the potential buyer’s name in the subject line, rather than some boring title which screams “I want to sell you something”.  We all get hundreds of emails a day.  However we are more likely to check the email which features our name before we look at the others.  If I see a subject line with just “Greg”, I cannot resist clicking on it to find out what this is about.  Obviously if I were writing to a Japanese potential buyer, I would write “Suzuki san” in the title, as that is more polite and I don’t have any relationship yet, which would allow me to write their personal name.

I would also send this email at around 1.00pm.  When we get to work in the morning there are tons of emails from the night before piled up. Throughout the morning, new ones turn up, flooding our inboxes.  We probably take lunch around 12.00pm-12.30pm and so do all of those people sending us emails, so that when we come back from lunch there has been a slight break in the email traffic.  Our email therefore rises to the top section of their inbox, featuring their name in the subject line. There is a much higher chance of them seeing it and clicking on it as a result.

After the typical Japanese aisatsu or greeting (“The Sakura blooms will be early this year and are a nice signal of the warmer weather arriving”), we very briefly explain in the email who we are and what we do.  For example, “Dale Carnegie is a global company specialising in soft skills training.  In Japan, we have been doing that for the last 60 years”.  That short, simple sentence says a couple of things – we are global which means we have scale.  We only teach soft skills (and every company needs soft skills capability for their people).  The 60 years in Japan is a sign of longevity, credibility and that we have a proven track record here.

We now immediately mention a trend (the hook) we are seeing amongst this person’s competitors.  We would say, “Lately we have had a lot of enquiries from companies looking for solutions for ‘x’ problem”.  This is a good start, because it tells the reader what their competitors are doing and it raises the possibility that being in the same business, they may also have a need for this ‘x’ solution.

Now we add in some evidence.  We talk about a similar client to them and the result for their business after we worked on their issue.  We say, “A client similar to you had this ‘x’ issue and we worked with them using our ‘y’ solution.  Within three months, they saw a 45% rise in their quality and an 80% reduction in customer complaints”. 

Obviously, these numbers have to be real.  If the client calls you out for the proof to back up these claims, you can’t be floating results around which are pure fantasy.  Lying to buyers from the very start of the relationship is a really dumb move from every angle.  If you don’t have concrete numbers, just say, “the client was really delighted with the results”.

Having offered the hook of another buyer getting results, we now make the point, “Maybe we could do the same for you.  I am not sure, but in order for me to understand whether that is possible or not, let’s get together.  How is next Tuesday or is next Friday better?”. 

We don’t say, “we can definitely do the same for you”, simply because we have no idea yet.  We don’t want hard sell tactics, because the delete key will get hammered. We don’t know their situation at this stage and our objective is to get them to respond to our email.  We are only trying to get the meeting.  At that meeting, we can ask all manner of well designed questions, which will reveal if we can actually help them out not. 

We also have a call to action at the end.  We suggest some possible days to meet using an alternative of choice approach.  Maybe neither of those days are doable.  That is okay, because what we want is to get a response, start a dialogue and then fix a day and time which works for them. 

So putting the whole flow together, it would be physically well spaced on the screen to look like this: 

“The Sakura blooms will be early this year and are a nice signal of the warmer weather arriving. Dale Carnegie is a global company specialising in soft skills training. 

In Japan, we have been doing that for the last 60 years.Lately we have had a lot of enquiries from companies looking for solutions for ‘x’ problem.

A client similar to you had this ‘x’ issue and we worked with them using our ‘y’ solution. 

Within three months, they saw a 45% rise in their quality and an 80% reduction in customer complaints. 

Maybe we could do the same for you. 

I am not sure, but in order for me to understand whether that is possible or not, let’s get together. 

How is next Tuesday or is next Friday better?”. 

I like to space the sentences so that visually they seem light, easy to access and quick to scan.  People are time poor and a solid thick, heavy duty paragraph has them reaching for the delete key immediately. 

Cold call emails are always going to be a tough gig, but this idea will certainly go a long way to helping get a response from potential buyers.

Arguing with buyers is a slippery slope to sales oblivion.  “I told him off and made him fly straight”, is a leap into seller delusion.  In Japan, the buyer isn’t King, but GOD.  The seller is in no position to tell the buyer anything here, let alone start arguing the point.  The upshot is that Japanese salespeople, for the most part, are very weak in the face of the buyer’s remonstrations.  We often hear from our clients that they are concerned that their salespeople don’t stand up for the brand, the deal, the price and just roll over straight away whenever the buyer pushes back.  This raises a prickly point about how do we counter buyer assertions, which will make our sales job difficult or impossible, if unanswered?

We will always know a lot more than the buyer about our firm, our goods and services and our capacity to become a trusted partner for them.  They will get things wrong for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes they will hear something in the market from our rivals, disparaging our financial state or our quality guarantees.  Maybe they are just suspicious of salespeople, based on hard won experience and they will challenge everything we purport.  Maybe they are analytical personality types, who won’t consider any numbers short of three decimal places and are hard to convince.

When we get the pushback, it triggers a primeval, emotional chemical reaction where the brain starts pumping adrenaline into the body for flight or fight.  Because we need to make this sale, we always choose fight.  What comes out of our mouth next is critical and we absolutely cannot leave that to whim or chance.  We have to be in total control and choose our next words extremely carefully.  GOD doesn’t brook impertinent salespeople arguing with them.

If the buyer is mistaken in what they say, there is no point in trying to correct them directly.  Never say, “no, that isn’t the case, in fact….”.  We are better to take the scenic route and go around the claim.  We know that what they have said is factually incorrect and that we can prove it.  The way to introduce some truth into the discussion is to ask them a “what if” question. This would be, “What if “x” wasn’t the case, would that make it easier for you to consider the widget for your firm?’”.  What we want them to do is to admit that if “x” wasn’t a problem, then they can proceed to consider our offer. 

Once we get that grudging admission, we can then lay on the evidence and proof.  Again, we need to be circular in our language.  “For example, “I understand the issue with “x” and based on research published in “y”, it seems to indicate that this previous flaw has been resolved and is no longer an issue.  As far as our other clients go, we are getting feedback that they are very happy with the new version and are not experiencing any problems.  Does that help to remove this “x” issue from your concerns?”.

Another approach would be to use the weight of numbers against them.  We can say, “We have supplied “x” to over a hundred clients so far and for the last two years we haven’t seen any reoccurrence of that previous problem, after we issued a new and corrected version.  It would seem the previous problem has been well and truly resolved.  Are there any other issues beside this one, which are a concern for you?”.  We just gracefully glide past that issue they raised and move them along the sales cycle, to expose any other issues which until now may have remained hidden.  The presumption is that if there have been no issues for other clients, then this client can relax about it too.

What if the client objects to the new pricing, especially if the pricing has gone up of late? We need a solid strategy for dealing with that pushback.  As with any objection, we cushion first to stop the chemical reaction in us brimming to the surface and we start arguing that the price is just fine and dandy, thank you very much.  We just say something quite neutral such as, “budgeting is always a critical element in business”.  That little aside gives us time to regroup mentally and think carefully about what we say next.  The only thing we should say next is, “May I ask you why you say that?”.   We don’t yet know the context of their objection and we cannot answer them, until we have that vital information.

Once we know the detail of their concern we can work on the angle of approach.  We might agree with it. “Yes, the prices have gone up quite quickly and it is not just us, the whole industry is reeling from the war in Europe raising energy input costs, combined with the supply chain confusion and the subsequent major uptick in costs to get things to Japan.  At the moment this is where we all are, but it won’t last forever and in the future we can get back to some greater normality.  In the meantime, we have supply and you have mentioned to me that you have a need and demand for our widget , so shall we proceed?”.  We are using a “third party” argument here to indirectly say, “it isn’t us being greedy, this is just how the world is and we all have to accept it, including you, the buyer”.  We make ourselves a small target and instead stress the macro-economic environment as being the trouble source.

The key is to have thought all of this out before the meeting, so we are never caught cushion less, flat footed and struggling for a suitable answer to the buyer.  If we are well organised, we never need fear buyers who push back hard and seem spoiling for an argument.

In Japan we usually need a couple of meetings with the client to get the business.  In Meeting One, we build the rapport and trust, we explore their needs and try to understand if what we have is actually what they need.  We are tremendously disinterested in slamming any square pegs into round holes and wasting our precious sales time. If we have understood their needs and we can help them, then we set up Meeting Two, right then and there, to come back with our proposal.  In some cases, we might have a simple requirement and we can provide the pricing and terms on the spot and try and do the deal while we are in the first meeting.  Usually anything with big numbers attached to it needs a proper proposal, because various sections of the buyer’s company will need to conduct their due diligence on the deal, so there are multiple decision-makers involved.

How much detail should the proposal include?  Some salespeople in Japan work on the basis that Japanese clients are always hungry to devour as much data and information as possible, to make sure they reduce the chance of making a mistake.  So they have a long and very detailed proposal for the client to wade through.  This is a very tricky equation.  We are in danger of diluting our key points by over-powering them with too much information.  On the other hand, as noted, there is always more than one person involved in the decision and some people will be data vampires who want to suck up as much information as possible.  So we have a number of audiences for our work and how do we keep them all satisfied?

One answer is to keep the main body of the proposal fairly simple and clean – we don’t bog it down in endless detail.  The heavy lifting detail can be moved to an accompanying document or we sequester it at the end of the proposal, as a separate entity for those who need lots and lots of information.  We know that the Analytical personality style will be looking for numbers to three decimal places and these types are usually in the technical fields or are to do with the money side of the business and we have to cater for them too.  Driver and Expressive personality styles will not be interested in so much detail – they want to get to the point and keep moving, because they either see time is money or they dislike getting into the weeds.

Because we know that our document will get moved around it is a good idea to assume some of the readers won’t know anything about who we are and what we do.  So, a small section outlining the company background and the scope of work we cover will be a good little addition aimed at people we will never meet,  The people in the room with us know about us of course, but we shouldn’t assume they are going to tell all of the other readers everything they know about us.

We can consider some additions and deletions for the proposal.  Additions would be ancillary services or products which the buyer might like to consider.  You get this on Amazon and other shopping sites, where they tell you what other similar buyers also bought as a way to add to the shopping cart while they have your attention.  We can do the same and add in some additional suggestions which may help the buyer.  In our case, we might be talking about a training course and we might add in as an optional extra some one-on-one coaching as well.  They won’t have mentioned it in the original conversation, but we put it in the proposal and price it, as a way of stimulating their thinking.  If they don’t want it, then they can just take it out and we only price the main service. 

A deletion would be scope creep.  If we are not specific enough, buyers will agree to our proposal and then assume it also covers a bunch of other stuff, all of which costs us money, but which was not covered in our original pricing.  Without going crazy, we need to delineate what we are going to include for the price and what is not covered, but which could be included for an additional payment. 

Payment cadence is also a good thing to mention.  Perhaps you want to receive payments on the way through the project, is if is stretched out over time and you cannot get paid up front.  Some big companies are very happy to screw the little guy and will force you to agree to 60, 90 or 120 day payments.  Their CFO has done a calculation of how much they can make extra by not paying us in a timely manner and force us to wait to get paid. It is a good idea to stipulate your payment cadence terms in the proposal and make it clear from the start.  Sometimes you just have to suck it up if you want the business, but it is a better idea to try and fight for better payments terms from the get go.

After a while we will come up with some templates which work well and we can keep polishing the process.  Some salespeople like to use PowerPoint slides and others like to use a word document – I don’t think it really matters too much.  One exception - please, please please,  don’t cram all of the information which should be spread over ten slides into two or three slides and make the whole presentation a gigantic mess.  There are specialist software packages for proposals, but that strikes me as an additional expense I don’t necessarily need, but there may be some value to them.  

We should automate the process as much as we can so that we don’t have to keep building every proposal from zero.  There will be some common features which we won’t need to alter. We can build up probably 80%-90% of the content, which will become a set piece for every proposal, as we discover what works best.

I hate having to send off a proposal unescorted, naked, into the world, without any protection.  “Send it to me” are nasty words, I never want to hear.  That is why in Meeting One, we set the date and time for Meeting Two, because we need to be there to walk them through that proposal.  We need to be using all of our ninja level body language reading skills to see how they react to different parts of the proposal.  Left to their own devices, they will go straight to the pricing page and decide it too expensive, because they haven’t read anything in the rest of the proposal which justifies the price.  We have to be there to guide them through the value, before they get to the pricing.

Take another look at the proposals you are handing over to clients.  Are the contents and presentation being maximised or have bad habits crept in and inertia is now ruling the process rather than clever thinking?