Episode #167: The 106 Centimeter Cold Caller

Salespeople are world class whiners. They are the most creative group amongst all professions for coming up with excuses about why they can’t meet their targets. The sale’s life requires a constant stream of new buyers. Marketing is permanently inhabited with ne'er-do-wells, who are sabotaging the sales department’s efforts with underdone campaigns and inept promotions. When the leads are few and far between, desperate measures are called for and the chief villain of the piece is cold calling. Everyone will assure you that you can’t cold call in Japan.

Salespeople everywhere are delicate blossoms. They get a rocket from their boss about their poor results and try to cold call potential clients over the phone. They get total, irreversible rejection and quit phoning after the third call. There is a variety of cold calling which is even more debilitating and that is tobikomi eigyo (飛び込み営業). You have probably seen some seriously stressed out younger person in your reception hall of your office, hanging around looking totally out of depth and out of place, getting the bum’s rush from the most lowly person on your company’s totem pole. That was a tobikomi eigyo salesperson, someone who just drops by unannounced and devoid of an appointment, always unceremoniously shown the door.

Invisible Sales

Imagine if you were so short, that the receptionist can’t even see you unless she stands up and peers well over the counter. Or, that the typical unmanned reception phone and organisational chart are at such a height and depth, that you can’t even use them. This presumes you can even get into the building, in the first place.

Toshiya Kakiuchi was born with a brittle bone crippling disease that confined him to a wheelchair. He applied for jobs, found the going tough, then one day a firm which built websites, accepted him as an employee. He expected to be seated at a desk, building websites in the safe bosom of the office. His boss told him off to the sales department. “You have to get out there and cold call offices door to door, tobikomi eigyo style, looking for companies who need a website”.

Seated in his wheel chair, he was only 106 centimeters tall, found that most buildings were difficult to access because of vertiginous stairs. His sales comrades were seeing 40 or 50 companies a day and he was only seeing 5, if he was lucky. Yet, in a short space of time, he became the top salesperson in that company.

After his talk to the Economist Conference Network event, I asked him about how he managed it. With only a limited number of calls he could make in a day, he had to really make every post a winner. He found a way to turn his disadvantage into an advantage. We have tobikomi eigyo people coming to our office every month, trying to sell us one thing or another. Like everyone else, we send forth the lowest person in the chain of command to shoo them away (nicely of course, because we are Dale Carnegie!). Do we remember any of them 30 seconds after they have moved on to the next company’s reception area? No. Kakiuchi san, though, is definitely memorable, distinct, differentiated. You are not going to forget him turning up to you office. He told me that he had to just keep going back again and again. Eventually he would get to talk to a decision-maker who could buy and they did buy.

Stop Whining

So, for all those able bodied salespeople out there whining in their suds about how tough sales is, stop it right now – you have nothing to complain about. Takiuchi san found a way through by differentiating himself, by having grit and stick-ability to keep going back despite being constantly rejected. He was physically weak but mentally tough.

Today he runs his own company Mirairo that researches, designs and consults on the needs of the disabled. He has produced an app called Bmaps that tells the disabled where there are stairs, elevators, physical barriers on their route to their destination. His book Barrier Value (バリアバリュー) tells his story of how he overcome his challenges. With our aging population demographics, we will all be needing his companies services in the future, as our hips and knees weaken and those stairs are looking like Everest.

So salespeople, don’t complain about cold calling. Read Takiuchi san’s book and reflect on how lucky you are, with so much sales opportunities right in front of you.