The Sales Japan Series

  How To Disagree But Still Keep Your Customer     The Customer is King.  How do you say "no" to the King?  In ancient times, if you said "no" to the King, you would lose your head.  Keep your head - learn how to say "no" to the King in the modern era.  It is even worse in Japan because the customer isn't King, the customer here is God! However, the customer is not always right.  Sometimes they ar...

  Survival Tips For Stressed Out Salespeople?   When we are under stress our concentration and productivity levels are much lower than normal.  Sales has to be one of the most stressful occupations on the planet.  It is an emotional roller coaster, where we go from one meeting feeling elated, to being totally depressed after the next meeting.  We are swinging in the breeze between making our targe...

  In Sales We Need To Create Super Re-Order Customers     Here is an important mantra: We don't want a sale, we want the re-orders. That task however is getting harder and harder.  Customers today are more educated, better prepared and have more alternatives than ever before.  Satisfying a customer is not enough – we have to exceed their expectations and provide exceptional customer service.  Cust...

Sales Bad News Travels In Threes   Our financial year ends in August and we are up over 20% on last year's revenue results. I should be ebullient, chipper, sanguine, fired up for the new year, but I am not.  Is it because we are back to zero again, as we all face the prospect of the new financial year?  That sinking feeling of , "last year was hard and here we go again, but this time with an even...

Why No Omotenashi From Some Chinese Retail Services In Tokyo?   This is a controversial piece today, because I am singling out one race, one group in isolation.  It is also a total generalisation and there will be exceptions where what I am saying is absolute rubbish.  There will be other races and groups, who are equally guilty as well, who I am not singling out or covering, so I am demonstrating...

Why We Mess Up Customer Service   Poor customer service really irritates us.  When we bump into it, we feel betrayed by the fIrm.  We have paid our money over and we expect excellent customer service to come with the good or service attached to it.  We don't see the processes as separate.  In this Age of Distraction, people's time has become compressed.  They are on the internet through their hand...

Typical Japanese Salespeople's Objection Handling Issues   Getting pushback, rejection, disinterest when you present your solution to the client's problems is the natural state of things.  Getting a sale is an exception.  That is why the best salespeople are exceptional.  There are so many ways to fail in sales, it is no wonder that getting to a '"yes" answer is so hard.  One of the common questio...

Generating Your Own Leads In Sales   Marketing plays a key role in generating leads.  They are trying to maximise the accuracy of the segmentation of the data base, to make offers that resonate specifically with different segments. They are producing content marketing pieces that will spark leads through the SEO route.  Buying ad words to get pay per click activation from buyers, searching for you...

Stop Slamming The Square Peg Into The Round Hole When Selling   One of the most dangerous people on the planet is the salesperson who doesn't listen well enough to the client's needs.  They miss the key cues, misunderstand the problem, can't override their fixation on what they want and do most of the talking during the sales call. They wonder why getting an agreement to buy is so hard.   One of m...

Really Understand Your Expectations Of Your Sales Team   We hire people and they don't perform as we expected.  The time passes and the numbers are not rolling in.  We thought they would be more proactive and more skilled at getting new business.  We fire them and start over again.  Except that in Japan, you can fire them, but replacing them is a different and difficult matter these days.  Recruit...

Presenting Manufactured Products   Industrial products are rarely sexy.  They tend to be very technical, specification heavy and chunky.  They are normally being presented in a catalogue of products. The pricing, quality and the after sales service tends to be the differentiator with the rival suppliers.  The salespeople presenting these often boring, utilitarian products, are also usually do so i...

How To Use Sales Progression Bridges With Clients   We have a defined sales cycle in our interactions with our clients.  We build the trust, ask the key questions to understand need, present the solution, deal with pushback and ask for the business. Of course, there is the pre-meeting preparation and the post meeting follow up, but the actual sales call runs through this cycle.  Between these key...

The Mental Game Of Sales   There are two players in this mental game of sales.  The buyer and the seller and they are playing with entirely different strategies.  For the buyer, the idea of a salesperson symbolises risk.  Can they trust this person?  Their experience and a variety of media images, have coalesced to ensure buyers are always sceptical about people trying to sell them stuff.  As we s...

Keep Selling After The Sale   The sales agreement is followed by the delivery of the product or service.  In some cases they are immediate and in others there is a time delay.  It is often the case that after the agreement to buy has been achieved we move onto the next deal and a new client or opportunity.  In the prospecting phase we can become extremely busy running around town beating the bushe...

Be Careful Of Friendly Fire When Selling   Sales is usually a solitary life.  You head off to meet customers all day.  Your occasional return to the office is to restock materials or complete some processes you can't do on-line.  Japan is a bit different.  Here it is very common to see two salespeople going off to meet the client.  If you are selling to a buyer, it is also common to face more than...

Storytelling In Sales For Fun And Profit   Salespeople are brilliant on telling the client the detail of the product or service. When you think about how we train salespeople, that is a very natural outcome.  Product knowledge is drummed into the heads of salespeople when they first join the company.  The product or service lines are updated at some point, so again the product knowledge component...

Customer Service: Problems and Solutions   Things go wrong.  Deliveries don't turn up or are incorrect.  Dates and deadlines are missed.  The quality promised doesn't eventuate or live up to the promise. Internal communication isn't working well so the coordination of the delivery of the service is confused.  One part of the organisation oversells the deal and the other bit cannot deliver on the i...

Why Everyone Hates Salespeople   We don't deserve it, well most of us don't deserve it, but there is a very strong negative perception of salespeople.  Pushy salespeople, dishonest salespeople, bait and switch salespeople, disappearing after the sale salespeople, the list goes on.   We only meet that client once, but they have met so many dodgy salespeople in the course of their careers.  They hav...

Why Japanese Salespeople Won't Question The Buyer   Consultative selling, value selling, insight selling, etc., all rely on one crucial factor to be successful. That is the use of questions to get enough information to make sure the buyer hears what they need to hear, in order to choose that salesperson to buy from.  This problem is not exclusive to Japan.  There are failing salespeople scattered...

What To Do When You Screw Up The Delivery   Sales is the front of house part of business but often the delivery of the product or service is done by someone else.   They say that the real measure of the service culture of a company is the decision by the guys on the loading bay not to drop the customer's package.  They are not highly paid, the job is pretty dull, boring and thankless.  If you can...

Attribute Selling For Salespeople   We all know that selling ourselves is the first key sale we have to make in order for the client to buy our services or products.  How do we do that without being boorish, a windbag or coming across as if we are desperate?  Selling ourselves requires subtlety and nuance.  We have to weave this into our sales talk with the buyer in a way which is not obvious or o...

Emotional Selling   "We buy based on emotion and justify with logic".  We have probably all heard that before, but when we are selling what do we do about it in practice?  Actually, we spend the vast majority of our sales interview time with the client, focusing on the logic bit.  If we are hopeless as a salesperson, then we are pitching the product straight away, with absolutely no idea what the...

Product Knowledge In Sales   It is an obvious thing that we need good knowledge of our product to instill confidence in the buyer, underlining that we are a reliable partner.  We need extensive product knowledge so that we can mentally sift the right solution for the buyer, from amongst the many possible alternatives which exist.  Actually, we make the product purchase decision for the buyer.  It...

Taking A Hit On The Price   We all hate having to take a hit on pricing.  We establish a price based on the value we provide.  Clients however can take no great notice of that and just plunge right in, demanding a big discount.  The rationale behind the requirement for a discount is often related to what they think it should cost or is a negotiating ploy to drag you down into the mud and blood of...

Helpful Selling   As salespeople, we can become very focused and tunnel vision like, when it cones to dealing with our clients.  This is especially the case when they are existing clients.  We get into very narrow territory, when we discuss possible solutions to help them achieve their goals.  This process continues for many years and then one day you hear they bought a service or product you have...