Listening to a young salesperson in his first sale’s role talking about being nervous to present to a high powered, senior company President, made me think about that. As we all get older, we forget about our younger “age and stage” evolutions in business. Somehow, we imagine that in those days, we were exactly as we are now. A conversation like that got me reflecting whether I was the same, when I was starting out in sales? I probably was, but it has all coalesced into the mists of time and I frankly can’t pinpoint any of the emotions I may have been experiencing. It raises the excellent question though, about how we in sales should regard the buyer?
Japan makes it very easy. The buyer is not King, but GOD and that is that. GOD knows it too and so likes to run the show when the salesperson turns up. Some enjoy pushing salespeople around as well, just to emphasise how sublime they are. None of this is likely to end in a sale, so why put yourself through this nonsense. We would all do better to find a kinder, gentler more cooperative GOD as buyer. In a word, someone “normal”.
In my view, there is absolutely no place in sales for the buyer to be running the sales call. That is our role. The seller’s job is to seize hold of the responsibility for the sales call and run that meeting along tried-and-true lines, which will result in a win-win outcome for everyone. In Japan, the first order of business is to build rapport with some initial small talk. Japan, as a culture, is brilliant at this, so for Japanese salespeople, this is like breathing – they don’t even think about it. If you are awkward in social contexts, shy or introverted, then this may present some substantial problems. The simple answer is it won’t fix itself, so this barrier requires communications training and practice and really, it doesn’t require that much complexity.
The point is to get them talking so that we can conclude which personality style they are and so better temper our approach to suit how they like to operate, rather than how we like to do things. A simple question such as, “How long have you been with the firm?” is enough to get them talking or, “How long has your office been in this location?”, are good enough starters. The point is, we want them doing the talking early, rather than us blathering away.
If they are a Driver type, they will be all “time is money”, be brief and want to get down to business. If they are Expressive types, they will talk about the big picture. Either way, they are bound to be assertive and confident. If they are Analyticals, then they will be into facts, statistics, evidence, proof, numbers, etc. If they are Amiables, they will want to get to know us better as human beings and they will check to see if they are comfortable with us. Those in the latter two categories are likely to be less assertive, rather quieter and more reflective than those in the former category. Once we know which basic style they prefer, we can switch our communication style to match theirs. Our basic personality remains the same, but we start speaking in a different language.
The next step is to seek GOD’s permission to ask questions. In Western business meetings, this step isn’t necessary and we can just wade in with questions. In Japan, that is often not the case. They have trained the Japanese buyer to expect a “pitch”, which they can then destroy, in order to eliminate any potential risk from this purchase decision. If we have our correct kokorogamae or true intention sorted out, then we should have no fear about asking questions. We always have in the forefront of our mind that we are not after a sale. The re-order is the goal, so the leaping off point is totally different. Is there a match between what they need and what we have? If there is no synergy, then we need to extract ourselves and go find a buyer who we can serve. Our kokorogamae informs us we are here to help the buyer succeed and in their success, will be located our success. This can sound rather trite, but so many salespeople are there for themselves and the buyer is just a glorified ATM, from whom they can extract money.
If we have the right intention of helping the buyer to succeed, then we should have no fear of the buyer, no matter how prestigious the firm, no matter how stratospheric their title, no matter how much dough is involved. We will quickly know from their response to our questions if we can help them or not and if we can, then we are “duty bound” to do all that we can, to see their business succeed. The metaphor I like is – in a business, not medical sense – we have the cure for corporate cancer. Like a medical doctor we are duty bound to make sure as many cancer patients as possible get the cure. This is the same in sales - our solutions are the cure for their corporate ills and we must do our best to help them. If that is your mentality, then rank, seniority, position power on the part of the buyer all become irrelevant.
