Episode #393: Missing The Real Needs When Selling In Japan

I had a meeting with a client I have been chasing for business for the last ten years. They have had the same President right throughout and we get on very well, but this has not resulted in any business coming my way. Over the years, I had been introduced by him to his various HR people, and that is where it has always floundered. Maybe they had their own internal solutions and didn’t need us or the HR people didn’t like me or didn’t like the President trespassing on their turf. Actually, I have no idea why we have never been able to crack the code, but finally, I thought we were getting somewhere.

I was to have yet another meeting with the President from last year and it kept getting postponed and postponed. Finally, we had our meeting in January and he said wait until June and we will continue the conversation. I was somewhat surprised when his assistant reached out to me to have that June follow-up meeting before I did the follow-up from my side.

I expected he would be in the meeting with the new HR head he had recently hired, but he did not appear. They had three executives there for the meeting, including one based outside Japan who was visiting. Naturally, I had notes for the January meeting and I was working off the basis that this meeting was a continuation of the previous meeting direction with the President.

So, I get straight into outlining the solution for them based on my understanding from my previous discussion with the President at our January meeting. That was a mistake. I assumed he had briefed them on our talk, but it gradually dawned on me that wasn’t the case.

My approach was wrong. What I should have done was to first ask them what they understood the situation to be around what the President wanted. I didn’t do that and so wasted a lot of time and effort early in the meeting barking up various wrong trees.

I could see this genius, transformational idea of mine, wasn’t going anywhere. They kept asking me rather tactical questions. This totally confused me because the President had been operating at the strategic level. In the course of them getting frustrated with me not getting the picture, they explained the problem from their point of view. I was floored.

The things they wanted were the most basic requirements. I couldn’t initially get my head around what I was hearing, because it didn’t correspond with the image I had in my mind. This firm has been around a long time and they have been very successful. They have many branches and, therefore, I assumed, they had all the basics well and truly nailed down. Their ducks were in a row, I thought, but not true.

Being a 112-year-old training company and being here since 1963 in Japan, I have a huge curriculum resource at my command and can operate at the most basic or sophisticated levels. In other words, I could give them what they want once I understood it.

I was reflecting on why this meeting was initially so hard. I see that I had a direction for them in my mind based on the meeting with the President and I forgot to do the sales basics with them. I assumed we were advancing on a previous conversation going on to the next level. I was operating above the fluffy white clouds and they were down a deep mine shaft.

What I should have done was to expect that the busy President had not briefed them at all or not to a very distinct degree. I should have ignored what I thought was happening and should have dealt with what I had in front of me – three people I didn’t know and should have assumed that I had no idea what they wanted. I wish I had been that smart.

If I had started that way, it would have been obvious to me that I needed to focus down on the basics for them. This hand it over phenomenon from the President to the working level staff is a common enough thing in business for busy senior executives. I will make it my rule from now on to ignore what I think is happening and check to see what they think is going on and what they need to fix their issues. I promise to do better.