Content marketing has been around for many years now and is an accepted way of appealing to clients.  Thought Leadership and Intellectual Property are given away for free to establish our credentials with the buyers.  If we show how knowledgeable we are, prospective clients will choose us over our rivals.  So for many years now, blogs, books, podcasts, magazine and newspaper articles, videos, Medium articles, social media posts, white papers, surveys and numerous other tools have been at the vanguard to prove we are experts in our fields.  This has required a lot of hard earned experience and an ability to communicate that experience to others.  Then ChatGPT turns up and opens up a floodgate of content for people who are vying with us for the client’s attention. 

ChatGPT is a vast curator of knowledge from the entire world and it is unbelievably fast at churning it out.  How can one person compete with that?  Our rivals can go to ChatGPT, then tweek the content and pass it off as their own efforts.  Our clients probably cannot tell the difference.  In a lot of cases, perception is everything. If the buyer sees you are pumping out vast quantities of content, they will conclude that you are an expert in this area, even though the chances are strong that they will never even read the content or not very much of it.  ChatGPT can become the great equaliser between competing firms in the content marketing department. 

This is real for me.  I have 6 books published, 1779 Podcasts and 652 Video show episodes released, over 3000 articles on LinkedIn, etc. I am sure others will also have substantial resources released out into the wild to prove expertise in certain areas. What can we do about all of this?

The answer is differentiation. ChatGPT and other similar engines are good at collecting and synthesising information.  At this point, it is generated in a quite recognisable style and tends toward the generic.  ChatGPTso far, is not great at distinguishing the quality of the content.  It also makes things up and lies, which the industry has cleverly marketed as “hallucinations”. I quite like “bald faced lies” as the preferred descriptor.  How can you trust a machine which cannot differentiate between fake and real content and can only collect and collate it?

Because it is synthesising vast amounts of content, the style tends to be a bit utilitarian and dull.  This is where we have an advantage still.  We have examples, stories, happenings we have witnessed first-hand from our specific component of the industry and we can include these in our content. The specificity means it is hard for ChatGPT to collect the information as this is personal to us and we have never published it anywhere as yet, to be swept up and homogenised by the machine. There is also a gap between when we publish it and when ChatGPT can get its hands on it.

 There is also our style.  A competitor telling ChapGPT to write something in the style of Dr. Greg Story is certainly possible, but all they are doing is reinforcing my content and my expertise.  Dr. Greg Story also has 100% control over his style and he can vary it as well with no qualms or permissions. I try to write my content such that someone reading it will recognise the style as mine.  I write in a very informal style, often using slang and I quite like idioms and alliteration.  These are not complete moats which will deny people from copying me, but how many people in my industry are going to try and reproduce me?  You have to be interested in Japan, leadership, sales, communication, presentations and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  That is an incredibly small circle of rivals. For most of us in business, this will be the case - we will have relatively few rivals in the content marketing world in our specific area of expertise.

Even for famous authors and influencers, there have always been copycats and people trying to rip their stuff off and yet they are still going.  For all of us, we see so many attempts to fool us with social media spewing out constant phishing attacks, deep fakes, etc., but we want the real McCoy.  We get upset when we are fooled into buying something that is not what it is supposed to be.  If we get a ChatGPT fake version of a favourite writer or thought leader’s content, are we going to be happy?  Are we going to be satisfied with an avatar or a deep fake trying to pass itself off as someone we admire in an attempt to fool us?

If you cannot write and have a limited intellect or parsimonious business experience, then ChapGPT will certainly be of help.  The problem is after people meet you, they find you cannot write and that you have limited intellect or parsimonious business experience.  You get the meeting through subterfuge of clever repackaging, but the reality is still the reality.  Either you have the real goods or you don’t.  If you have them, then you don’t bother with ChapGPT fakery and trying to pass yourself off as something you are not.

Will ChapGPT and all of the other machines out there get much better?  Of course they will, but for most of us in business, this won’t detract from the hope I have offered in this article. We can be more confident about what we are doing in content marketing, because what we are doing is the real thing, in real time.

 Usually in Japan, we meet more than one buyer. In Western meetings, it is more likely to be a one-on-one situation.  Sometimes the buyer boss will bring others to the meeting and they are there to represent their functions and report back what has taken place.  The danger is we just focus on the boss and ignore their henchmen.  These hangers-on have important roles to play in the decision-making process about the purchase, so it very unwise to ignore them and spend all of your time just addressing the boss, assuming there is only one decision-maker present.

In bigger meetings, it becomes much harder to gauge who is who.  It is not unheard of in Japan, for the most senior person to say very little during the meeting and they may even look like they are sleeping.  The other tangent we can go off on, is focusing on the English speaker, imagining that they are a key decision-maker.  In large companies, that is rarely the case. They are just considered a technician by their colleagues and they may have very little influence on the buying decision.

In larger meetings, it is always good to work the entire room and try and engage with everyone.  If you are using an interpreter, this should make no difference.  Address each person on a one-on-one basis in English and let the interrupter catch up with what you have been saying.  It doesn’t matter about the time lag, if the interpreting is being done consecutively.  The fact that you are looking at and speaking directly to that person will have the desired effect.   

Most Japanese businesspeople understand a lot more English than they let on as well and for various reasons may choose to not speak in English, when in fact they can do it well.  You might be asking why is that?  Part of it is hierarchy and roles for the meeting.  Usually, one of the better English speakers will be tasked with being the interlocutor for the buyer.  The others are there to hear what is going on, as they represent their Divisions or Sections, but are not required to speak.  They also may choose to use the interpreter when they get into some questions because that lag gives them a lot more thinking time. 

Another reason is they either are a bit shy about their own proficiency and don’t want to embarrass themselves or the opposite.  If they are very good, they don’t want to show everyone else up and embarrass others who are not so good, particularly if the latter are the more senior people.  You often discover at the end of the meeting, as you are heading for the elevators, that many of them have perfect English. This is always a bit of a shock, because you were humming along thinking they couldn’t understand what was going on in English.

We know that there will be a consensus reached about the purchase and so every section has a part in the final decision and that is why we have to work the entire room.  We don’t ignore the boss, but the leader is expecting others to do the due diligence and then make a recommendation, which by the time it gets to the inner circle at the top, it has been agreed upon across all affected areas and will become a fait accompli.

In smaller meeting, say three people, it is easy for us to concentrate on the most senior person, but again that is a mistake.  The boss has brought these other people with them for a reason and they need to be included as well. Even the most junior person needs to be included, because often they are given the grunt to work to evaluate the offer.  These more junior people will often ask the questions, because they know they will have to come up some type of report on the matter.  We need to draw them into the discussion and find out what angles they are most interested in and then try and connect with them along those lines. Usually after the meeting, we will communicate with these people rather than the boss.

They have a reporting function, so it is very important to follow up with them and find out what type of information they need and then proceed to give it to them.  They are often in more command of the details than the boss as well, so they are good source of information and a good destination for our information. They can become a strong internal champion in this process and we should work toward that outcome.  They can also give us good guidance on what we present and how to present it, because they know their internal systems perfectly, which for us will mainly remain a mystery for the most part. Bosses can be moved around to a new post, but these more junior people tend to stay in one place longer and they can be a valuable ally across time.  In a few years, they may in fact become the boss and we have built up a strong connection with them, where the trust has gradually been cemented.

When dealing with multiple buyers in a sales call, treat everyone as a decision-maker, because they are.  Don’t ignore the boss of course, but don’t cosy up to the boss and ignore the others either.  That will be a mistake and the whole room will recognise you are clueless about how things work in Japan.  Not a great start for a salesperson here.

 Every professional salesperson has a set script of how the sales call will run.  Amateur salespeople just turn up and don’t try to direct the action.  Having a set script means we know what will happen during the call, what the stages will be, what we will say at certain points, what we want to know from the client and how the call will conclude. 

We have already worked out how to be charming in the small talk component of the call at the very start and how to get the client to do the talking, so we can gauge their personality style, allowing us to adjust our own style to better suit them.  We know when to bridge into our credibility statement, so that the client will know they can trust us and that we are totally unlike all of the unprofessional salespeople they have dealt with thus far. 

We will move on to the questioning phase to try and understand if we have what they need or not.  If we do, then we introduce our solutions based around what they have told us and nothing more.  We will ask for the order to test their reaction and if we get objections, then we know how to handle those calmly and smoothly, again asking for the order.

This is how it is supposed to run.  Sometimes however the client doesn’t follow the script.  In a few instances, the buyer has been so well conditioned by the salespeople they have met, that they directly ask for the pitch, so that they can evaluate the offer.  This is bad.  Pitching when you don’t know what they want is flying blind and very ineffective, but sometimes you have to just suck it up and get on with it.   

In these cases, we have to use our experience and try and anticipate what similar companies like this one have needed.  It may be that we have some all-weather solutions which will basically suit everyone and these would be good places to start.  We shouldn’t show them too many solutions because we want to get them to tell us what they need.  Actually if what we are pitching isn’t on the mark, then the obvious next step is to get them to tell us what would be on the mark.  We can get to the same point we want to reach, but we have to take a time wasting detour. 

Another variety is more problematic and this is when the buyer doesn’t know what they need.  They may already have internal solutions and the firm is geared up for those, so they haven’t explored what is also available in the market.  It may be that they are the intermediatory for the group, who will be the actual users of the solution, so they are not at the coal face themselves in this case. We have to throw a wide net to try and cover off their needs.

Again, we have to draw on our experience with what generally has been a common need in this industry.  I had this case recently with a tech company.  They had quite elaborate internal solutions of which they were profoundly proud and at first blush, it felt like they were fully sorted and didn’t need anything from me.  The people I was talking to were the HR team and again their role is removed from the coal face of the divisions doing the actual work.   

We have had other tech clients and there tends to be some consistent issues with tech teams where they need training and so I decided to just hone in on a couple of these, knowing full well they have their own internal solutions.  The HQ sponsored solutions are always limited though, compared to what a specialist supplier like us can provide.  There is always a gap. Also, often with multi-national companies, there is the fact that the centrally driven solutions are delivered in English, which is not ideal for Japan.  We can bring that local cultural and language delivery piece which they need and which is always more effective.

I always have my product Flyers on the seat next to me, out of sight of the buyer and will only show them the content I think will resonate with them. I am curating their needs, based on what I know and will only add more content when I get a sense of a requirement.  This keeps the conversation very focused and I don’t overwhelm them with solutions, such that they become immobilized.  I know that I can always come back and add more content as we get a better picture of need and the whole shooting match doesn’t have to be rolled out in this first meeting.

It is still unfulfilling to do it this way, compared to hearing their specific needs but sometimes we have to be flexible and play the long game.  I always say to myself they may not be a buyer today, based on my current solutions, in this market, at this stage of the economic cycle, given the internal machinations of the firm, but one day they could be a buyer.  If all I can leave them with is a feeling that this guy can be trusted, then I have achieved quite a lot and perhaps one day I will get the chance to serve them.

Salespeople are always desperate to make a sale.  There are targets, quotas, KPIs aplenty and the pressure is unrelenting.  When you are in a downturn, a recession, a pandemic etc., which are driving down sales, the desperation becomes even more intense.  Getting meetings at all is considered a win and we go for it, regardless of whether the buyer is qualified or not.  Telling your Sales Manager you are seeing a potential buyer feels a lot better than telling them you are seeing no one and a five percent chance of a deal is more attractive than a zero percent chance.  Self-delusion is like a balm in tough times.

Desperation tends to drive bad behaviour and deals are done which shouldn’t be attempted.  Long-term reputations are sacrificed on the altar of short-term gains.  We push clients into buying things they shouldn’t buy, knowing it won’t deliver the outcomes they seek.  We celebrate in the short-term about getting some numbers on the board and we regret what we have done at leisure.  Trust and reputation in sales are worth a fortune, but we can squander that fortune through bad choices.  Once the word gets out that you cannot be trusted then the end is nigh for your sales career.  The social media world has sped up the revelations about untrustworthy behaviour and bad news travels at internet light speed.

Badly behaved salespeople will move around from one firm to another, but the stench follows them and eventually they have to move again and again until they run out of runway and have to depart Dodge.  These are the people who make the profession so difficult for the rest of us.  When we meet clients they have that fear that we are a loser and we will dud them, so eager to part them from their company’s money.  B2B buyers are worried about the long-term impact on their careers, rather than just the amount of money which has gone up in smoke and they are unforgiving and remain that way forever.

The other side of the coin here are clients who look for weaknesses and who can smell the salesperson’s desperation.  They sense they can drive the price down to oblivion and they start playing that game of “sport negotiating”.  This means that a sale gets done, a number goes up on the board, the Sales Manager is temporarily assuaged, but the brand and the salesperson’s reputation have taken a hammering.  Now there is no real price for the solution and it becomes whatever the buyer wants it to be.  Once you get into having special pricing for a buyer, there is little chance of going back to full pricing and you are now trapped in a funnel of death, where the profitability is close to zero or even negative.  That buyer will just keep working you over because they enjoy torturing salespeople.  It is a game for them.

I had a client who I liked, but he was a bad man.  He was very handsome and charismatic and I really got on with him at our first meeting.  Where possible, I try to make my clients my friends and I thought I had found a new friend here. He suddenly nominated what my solution would command and as this was the first time to work with him, I went with it.  I immediately regretted what I had done.  I subsequently realised that this was going to be the price for all subsequent engagements and there was no differentiation across the quality of what we were providing against our much cheaper competitors.  I refused to work with that company anymore, because that pricing was very bad for the brand and frankly I considered it an insult.  So much for my newfound friend.  He subsequently left Tokyo and went overseas, probably never to return and I won’t be in any hurry to meet his acquaintance again.  He was a non-client, but I couldn’t see it at the time.

Another client was a sports negotiator and we wound up haggling over pennies on the price.  We got down to a substantial discount and very close on the number, but he pushed me to go even lower and I just said no, I wasn’t going to go any lower. That deal never happened because I realised he was another bad man and he was toying with me, for his egotistical gratification. 

When you meet someone once in a sale call, it is hard to get a full sense of the individual you are dealing with and you assume the best in people. Which for the most part is the correct approach. It was a reasonably sized multi-national firm and looked promising as a client.  As a firm they may be promising, but he was not the counterparty to work with.  He was transferred out of the country to a new post and I doubt I will be seeing him again either and “good riddance” is how I feel about it.  He was a non-client, I finally worked it out and I terminated him.  Yes we lost the deal but we maintained the brand and the pricing and guess what – other clients were happy to pay full price, because they appreciated the value.  There is always another potential client and you need to draw a line in the sand and not tolerate bad people masquerading as potential clients.

Did I tell either of these two characters that they were bad people and I was not going to take their crap anymore?  No. That is not an option for the sales professional.  We can think it, but we cannot articulate it.  We have to suck it up, drop them off the client list and keep moving to find a better client.  We are seeking to do better business with nicer people.  We keep a permanent record in our minds though, to never deal with them ever again.  We also refine our ability to spot non-clients in the future and we become better at testing which category they are in, from the early stages of the relationship.

Buyers don’t know us at first, so all they have to go on is the brand and our personality.  If the brand is a powerful selling point, great, but for many smaller companies that is not something which is going to make the sale for you.  A lot of Japanese salespeople rely on the brand. They never learn how to do sales as a professional and instead decide to transform themselves into glorified order-takers.  If you ask them to go out and find a new client, they will recoil in fear and horror because they know they cannot do it and actually have no clue where to start.  This is why salespeople need sales training and why not doing it is one of the most expensive decisions, a leader will ever make.

 A senior business executive I met recently shared that when he was younger, his company’s policy in sales was to only approach buyers who they could be introduced to by a mutual acquaintance.  What a tremendous waste.  If they had invested in some sales training, they could have been able to target all companies in their area of the industry and make a lot more sales.  Naturally, cold calling, approaching people you don’t know are all difficult, but that is the job of the salesperson.  That is why you get training. An order taker is simply not a salesperson, in my view.

 One of the dangers of trying to sell yourself to the buyer is we do too much talking.  We are keen to show our expertise and the benefits of our solution and before you know it, we are doing all the talking.  Naturally, when the buyer tells you their problem and you have a solution, you have to give them confidence that they are talking to someone who can help them. Often we are excited about the potential of our solutions to help the buyer and off we go, blah, blah, blah. 

 That happened to me the other day.  I caught myself going blah, blah, blah and realised, “wait a minute buddy, you are doing all the talking here and you need to shut up right now and get them talking more”.  It is so easy to have this happen, if we are not keeping a close leash on ourselves.

 There is a difficult line to draw here around how much is enough.  In the initial section of the sales meeting, there will be some small talk and this is where we can try to convince the buyer that we are the one to become their trusted partner.  The trick though, is not to go on and on about ourselves, but to talk about the benefits our other clients have received from the service or product.

 Talking about yourself positively without sounding arrogant and boastful is also a difficult line to tread.  It is natural for the buyer to want to know if you are a serious person in this area and someone they can trust and rely on as a partner.  It would be good if we were given rails to know where not to go, but the conversation is totally fluid so that is not possible.  Overall, we say that the ratio should be 80% the client doing the talking and we the seller are at 20%, however that balance may be flipped at the start of the conversation.  We may do most of the talking at the very initial exchange. As we get into the questioning phase, they will be doing most of the talking and we are just asking intelligent questions to draw out things, which are obvious to us, but which may not be obvious to them.

We have to be careful here too, otherwise it can sound condescending or manipulative.  Talking down to buyers is pretty dumb, but that doesn’t stop salespeople from doing it, especially when the sellers are legitimate experts in an area and the client may be less so.

 The questioning skill actually has a manipulative aspect to it, as we draw the buyer to a realisation about their need that we have identified. Of course, it cannot come across like that, so again the line is not clear and we have to traverse that tricky balance.  Getting the client to self-discover is the best solution.  Sounds straightforward, right?   However, it takes a high level of communication ability to help the buyer get there without it coming across as a trap we have set for them.  This is where very high-level questions come in. 

 The ideal reaction is the buyer is saying to themselves, “we haven’t thought of that” or “we haven’t prepared for that”.  Either of those reactions are gold and will cement the seller’s place as a trusted advisor for the buyer, pointing out issues and problems, even before they arise.

 We plan the sale around the questions we will use and the solution explanation we will employ.  Do we do enough planning for the small talk at the start and how we will come across?  Are we doing enough role play practice with our colleagues before we set off to see any clients to make sure we have the right balance?  I doubt it and we could all do a lot more in this area and that includes me, too.