Episode #62 Le Sales Killer

Getting buyers to hand over their hard won cash is a daunting task in many ways. We salespeople love a challenge though, so we often conspire to make it harder than it has to be, by killing the opportunity in front of us. Semantics is a critical study area for salespeople, because how we say things makes such a huge difference. There are ways of framing questions and making statements that work better than the alternatives. We need to master those techniques. There are also certain words we should permanently strike from our vocabulary list. It should be obvious that sales training roles plays must be conducted in the language of the buyer, Japanese, but for many large companies mysteriously, they still train in English. That’s weird!

Before we get into this week’s topic, here is what caught my attention lately.

Japan is legislating to allow in large numbers of foreign blue collar workers to overcome the current labour shortage here. Social harmony is a critical key to Japan’s success and not everyone is so happy with how this change is being handled. A Kyodo news poll showed sixty five point eight percent of voters were against the Diet’s passing of the bill to accept foreign blue collar workers. The plan is to bring in three hundred and forty five thousand one hundred and fifty foreign migrant workers over a five year period. The Abe Cabinet’s approval ranking dropped from forty seven point three percent down to forty two point four percent as a result of the Government driving the bill through the Diet. In other news, we know japan is a nation of hard workers.Health ministry data shows that a majority of cncer and heart patients worked in ome form while they were undergoing treatments in hospital. Nearly eight two percent of cancer patients surveyed, said they worked from their hospital, including issuing job related reports and making preparations for their return to their jobs. Of those who worked, ninety one percent had used smart phones to conduct work from treatment locations. Naomi Sakurai, Director of the Cancer Survivors Recruiting Project said, “patients think they‘ve caused trouble for their places of work and think they must do their jobs even while in hospital”.

This is episode number sixty two and we are talking about Le Sales Killer. Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.

What we say and how we say it matters. It matters in life, in families and in business- especially in sales. Sales talk is very semantics driven. By the way, the classic Hollywood big talking salesperson is an archeological artifact, a dusty relic, now banished to the tombs. Today, salespeople have to be articulate but not glib, concise not flowery, evidence based not barrow-boy spivs.

Japan presents a challenge with developing salespeople. Invariably, they are the undereducated graduates of OJT or On-the-Job Training. This will work for certain technical themes, but not for the broader art of sales. Attempts by foreign corporates to rectify this problem are often laughable. Bosses who don’t speak Japanese or don’t have a sales background or even worse lack both, send in the English speaking instructors from the corporate APAC hub, to dole out the sales medicine. It is always snake oil.

Sales training for salespeople must be based on the reality of selling to clients in the client’s native language and culture . If the clients are Japanese, then the training has to be done in Japanese, because what we say and how we say are so culturally and linguistically specific, there is no way you can satisfactorily train this in English.

This doesn’t stop people from trying though. The snapper is when they add to their woes by using the HR people from Singapore or Hong Kong, the usual hub centers in Asia. These are staff who invariably are smart, sharp, rapid fire Chinese speakers of accented English. They facilitate from the global corporate sales textbook and have never sold a day in their life in Japan. What a sham when there is no instructor understanding of the subtleties of the Japanese language or the opportunity to coach the sales roles plays in Japanese.

Even more sadly the English language comprehension levels of the local staff max out at 60% in the morning sessions and drop precipitously to 10% to 15% by mid-afternoon. I know, I have sat through these types of sessions with my Japanese colleagues. They wilt in the afternoons, eyes begin to glaze over, as that wall of solid concrete advances forward and hits the frontal lobe of the brain.

Let’s stop wasting time and money and get this done properly in the language of the client. There are plenty of sale’s fails anyway. The first big fail is lack of preparation and anticipation of the issues facing the client. Because of this gap, the language being used is vague and often meandering. Salespeople should complete a mini-SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis on the industry and the company, to flag potential problems requiring solutions and direct the discussion to the elements of the greatest interest to the buyer.

In a court of law, you can’t lead the witness, but in sales that is our job. Take the buyer to conclusions they hadn’t reached before because of lack of insight or information. Of course, we need to be asking good questions, to find out what the buyer needs and using SWOT analysis allows us to get to the key points faster and builds more credibility.

Blocker words are another killer of sales success. This is directly related to a lack of discipline on the part of the salesperson. They go shooting their mouths off, without engaging their brains, and in the process out flood stupid words that scupper the deal. What are these blocker words – some common ones include: “sort of”, “a few”, “kind of”, “sometimes”, “more or less”, “about”, “some”. All vagaries to which no useful sales evidence can be attached. We should speak with authority and certainty, because clients want our full belief and commitment, so that they can trust what we say is true.

Words like “price”, “cost”, “contract” are also poor selections. These words create an image of money going out like a flood, but no value coming back in. We should be speaking of “value” and “investment” instead. Your parent told you to be careful about signing a “contract”, so let’s sign an “agreement” instead. Simple semantic switches in emphasis, but these make a big difference to what clients hear.

Salespeople also often talk too much. They love people and they love to chat. Too many words begin to pop up into the conversation, which add no value to the sales process. Being concise is the key mantra here. Pare back the dialogue to only words which are relevant, project value, are laden with evidence and which build trust – everything else has to go. You want the buyer talking not you, so shut up and listen to their answers to your carefully crafted questions.

Getting people to hand over their hard earned cash is hard enough and using poor communication skills makes it even harder. We need to train people properly and monitor their sales conversations to make sure they are achieving the maximum success possible. We can be our own worst enemies sometimes, so let’s get our act together and be more professional in our sales life.