Usually, we meet our contact in the company through a cold call, a referral or networking and we sit down and have a talk about the needs of the organisation. If we are doing a professional job, we will have explained what we do, mentioned a client we have done work for and the success they achieved as a result. We will then suggest that “maybe” we could do the same for this company too, but in order to know if that is possible or not, we ask if we can ask a few questions. Once we have received their permission to ask questions, we can go deep on the issues facing the company and they will tell us.
In the next stage, we will start suggesting solutions which are matched to their needs or we will say we are not a match and go and find a client who is. At this point it sometimes comes out that our contact in the company is all in favour of fixing the issue, but they are being hamstrung by others in the organisation. These could be line managers or senior executives further up the chain.
In Japanese organisations there will be multiple decision-makers. Each division which will be impacted by the buying decision will conduct their own due diligence to see what it will mean for them. As each Section Head clears the decision, they will put their seal on the proposal document and it will move up to the next level, to the Division Head. The Executive committee will review the Division Heads approval of the decision and then it becomes official and things can start happening.
That is a tremendous number of people involved in the decision and the person we are sitting across from is just one individual in the chain of command, who may or may not even have the ability to put their seal on the piece of paper. As salespeople, we may never meet anyone else inside the decision-making system and we rely on this person to help us steer agreement through the machine.
The trust build with our contact that we are sincere about helping them is critical. We have to make sure they are confident we are credible and reliable to do what we say we are going to do. If things go badly, it makes them look bad and may negatively impact their movement upwards within the organisation.
I was selling mobile telephone antennas steel towers in Japan, being sourced from Australia. We were able to install them for 30% of what the local suppliers were able to offer. It was a first for imported steel towers, so there was a lot of complication. The company I was selling to was a joint venture and the people came from various shareholding companies into the organisation. Some of them brought their preferred local suppliers with them, so it was a battle to get the Australia towers through the decision making process.
My champions fought hard and managed to get the deal done. This was even in the face of the local supplier dango or cartel group banding together to try to undercut the import pricing to destroy the deal. Their idea was to drive the Australian suppliers out of the market, so they could put the prices back up to what they were before. Fortunately, the buyer saw through this strategy and wanted to permanently change the supply chain to substantially reduce the cost.
The first few deliveries went well, until the Australian side thought they would switch production to Malaysia to save money. Then the quality problems started and in the end the business stopped completely and the Australian were out of the market forever.
It had a negative impact on my champions inside the company who had fought so hard for the deal. I saw that promising business end and my relationship with my champions was in tatters. It taught me a valuable lesson about mutual responsibilities and reputation. On our side, we had let everyone down and the trust was destroyed. My name was mud.
When we are dealing with the contact inside the company, who we are hoping to make our champion to help us navigate this deal through the buyer organisation to get an agreement, we have to keep in mind the risk we are bringing to them. My champion inside the buyer organisation got burnt when supply failed to meet expectations and the contract was torn up. I don’t know how they finally fared, because they wouldn’t talk to me anymore, which I took for a very, very bad sign.
It wasn’t my decision to use Malaysia for production but that is not how the champion looks at it. I am their guy and I failed them, so in their eyes, I bear all the responsibility for this deal and how it eventuates. I still feel bad about what happened, because we are talking about people’s careers here.
The point is we need to find our champion, protect them, take care of them and make this deal a winner for them within their own organisation. If we start with this in mind, we will make the right decisions and our personal brand will also be protected in the marketplace.
