The sales process has a number of stages we must pass through. One big one is gaining trust. We need to explain who we are, what it is we do, where we have had success before and suggest we could do the same for the buyer’s firm. Permission to ask questions is another key step. When you think about it salespeople are incredibly rude. We hardly know them and yet we start asking questions about corporate secrets around our failures, lack of progress and barriers to success. Salespeople are looking for a match between their solution and what we need. Nevertheless the process can be confronting and that can be why it is sometimes very hard to get any useful information from the buyer. Salespeople need to ask permission first “to ask a few questions” , in order to delve into the depths of corporate despair and failure and thereby learn if they have the solution this company needs.
One part of that questioning process can get very personal. We start by trying to get a fix on what the firm is doing now, where they want to be and why they are not there yet. Next we ask about their self-interest. This is a sensitive subject in Japan. Sales is all about what we say and how we say it. The semantics of language is important and this is one area where it is critical we get that equation right. We need to know this self-interest information for later when we present the solution. Of course, we are looking at the interests of the firm and how what we are doing is going to help the business. We are dealing with people though and we all have our own individual motivations. We want to connect the solution we are providing with the buyer’s direct personal interests and this is the highest level of appeal we can aim toward as the seller.
In Western companies, this isn’t such a big deal. If we ask, “If this solution is successful, what will it mean for you personally?”, then we will get a very straight answer. They will tell us, “I will get a big bonus”, “I will get promoted”, ”My boss won’t fire me”, etc. The Western ladder of corporate success is up to you to climb and consequently people are very focused on themselves and “what is in it for me”. So being asked a direct question about the correlation between this solution success for the firm and the link to their personal self-interest is nothing to be shy or squeamish about.
Japan is quite different. When we ask, “If this solution is successful, what will it mean for you personally?”, it can be greeted by some degree of confusion. Generally, Japan has a weaker linkage between personal performance and promotion. In larger firms, it is usually a case where you move up the career ladder based on age and years of service to the firm. The summer and winter bonuses are actually deferred salary payments rather than recognition of outstanding work, so any focus on getting a big bonus is a non-starter.
I have found that when I ask this question, I have to repeat it because the buyer’s brain is not thinking of any connection between their individual work and a direct reward. When they finally get my drift they demure. I don’t ever recall any Japanese buyer saying things like, “I will get a big bonus”, “I will get promoted”, “my boss won’t fire me”, etc. Instead they will say “The team will be happy”, “the company will benefit”, “everyone will feel satisfied”.
Actually, it doesn’t matter what they say. We don’t care whether they are connecting at an individual level or at the group level. All we want is them to make a connection and we need to store that away in our mind for later, when we present the solution.
One important thing to remember is after you have asked the question, SHUT UP. This type of question creates a certain amount of tension. You actually want that tension to be there because that is how you get the answers you seek. If you are with another person from your team, brief them beforehand to keep them their mouth shut and do not say anything which will release the tension and allow the buyer to escape from our question. The first time that happened to me, my Japanese colleague couldn’t take the tension in the room and added something after my question. It was a disaster. fixin before my eyes, I saw all the tension drain from the room, the buyer just evaded giving me the answer I was seeking and we didn’t get the deal. I vowed that would never happen again and so I am always prepared now if I have to attend a meeting together with someone else.
After discovering what the buyer needs, we then present the solution. In Japan, that usually means we come back for a second meeting and take them through the proposal. We will go through specific stages of the sales process at this point. We will outline all the key features. We will then connect the benefits to those features and we will talk about the application of the benefits inside their firm. We will offer some evidence where the solution has worked before with a similar firm and which relates to their position in the firm as the executive, the financial, technical or user buyer.
Here is the important part. Just before we start all of this explanation of the nitty gritty of how our solution will work, we do the summary statement. We assure them that our solution will solve the specific problem they are having and we relate back to what they told us about their personal interest in seeing this process succeed. It doesn’t matter what they said. If it was “a big bonus” or “the team will feel good”, it doesn’t matter. We can say, “you mentioned that if this project was successful, you would get a nice bonus, well this solution will deliver the outcomes you want”, or “you mentioned that if this project was successful, the team will feel good, well this solution will deliver the outcomes you want”.
What we are doing is telling them that we have exactly what they need. It will deliver on the primary interest of the firm in fixing their key issues and it will satisfy the thing which they nominated was most important for them personally.
The point is we are trying to link the decision to purchase with what is in their mind as something which is Important to them, as well as being in the best interests of the firm. We could just stress how this helps the company, but it is more powerful to connect our solution to their personal motivations, however they have framed them. There is no incorrect answer in this case, because whatever they say we take it at face value. Maybe they just told us something pap to satisfy us. It doesn’t matter, because we are tying the bow on the previous conversation and telling them we are listening to you, we believe you, we are here to get you want you want, we are dedicated to helping you succeed in business, however you define it.
