Episode #281: Read The Vibe When Selling

There is a saying in Japan, Kuki wo Yomu, which means read the air or be aware of the atmosphere or subtexts in the meeting. In sales, we need to be on high alert all the time for what is the atmosphere prevailing with the buyer at this moment. What are any changes we are noticing during the meeting and what sort of changes do we want to see.

I was talking to a salesman about a call he and a colleague had made on a buyer. The buyer was an existing client and this was just a meet the new guy introduction meeting. There was no need to pitch, as they were already a buyer. My friend had briefed his colleague that no pitch was required, as it was a meet and greet occasion. That didn’t stop the colleague though, as he ploughed in trying to sell the already sold buyer. The reaction on the part of the client was surprise and a touch of incredulous confusion. The brand of the seller was not advanced on that occasion, as the buyer wondered, “what is wrong with these people?”.

Why didn’t the colleague get it? Why did he pitch, when there was no need? Is this issue something you can fix through training? That is a good question and to some extent it is similar to the question “can you fix stupidity through training?”. Probably not. This same colleague has a track record with this type of behavior apparently, so he is obviously not learning as he flits along, from one disaster to another. If you do not seem intelligent to the buyer then they don’t want to know more. Basically, they won’t buy from dumb people.

There will always be a portion of any population who are dim. Some of these dim people wind up in sales. From the buyer’s point of view, we salespeople are all tarred with the same brush, until they can differentiate us from the dim people. There is not too much that can be done about dim people in the sales profession, except to try to keep them away from buyers as much as possible.

The other issues however relate to ourselves. We may be dim at times as well. We may be missing signals during the meeting and also be barging in, with both barrels blazing, when we shouldn’t be. How can we successfully read the air and better align ourselves with what the client is thinking? This is especially tricky in Japan, because often the buyers are master poker players, hiding or minimizing their body language and facial expressions. They become very hard to read. We have to be really watching them like a hawk and look for any telltale indications that they like or don’t like something we have said. Easier said than done by the way.

We can get caught up in what we are doing, when we are in the moment of presenting our solution, we can miss these important signals. If our brain is on fire with what we want to tell them, we may imagine we are listening to the buyer, but it may be self delusion. We may only have what we want to say in our own mind at that moment and therefore may not be concentrating enough on the people in front of us. Are we listening with our eyes as well as our ears?

There are things called “tells” in poker games, where the opponents peg a certain behavior indicator with a line of decision making. The idea is to work out the “tells” of your opponent, so that you can predict their actions. For example, they may have a habit of rubbing their left ear when they are bluffing. They may not even be aware of it but you will want to know that if you want to call their bluff. There are “tells” in body language, breathing, eye line, posture, etc., that can give us a hint on how our buyers are reacting. If you don’t know Japan well, at first, these signals may be lost.

I am not talking about the obvious ones like sucking the air through the back teeth, which clearly indicates what you are proposing is a difficulty or an impossibility for them or drumming their fingers on the table with impatience to see you out the door. I am talking about more nuanced and subtle signs that can be simply missed. Even if they are missed in the beginning, at least start practicing trying to link up what you see in front of you, with how things are going in the meeting. Over time, the connection between all of these “tells” and the results start to collide and you get a better idea of what you are actually witnessing.

The key point is everyone has certain habits, which are linked to how they are thinking or feeling. When we are dealing with buyers, we need to be scouring their reactions to give us early warning signals of resistance or doubt. We need to read the air in the meeting, especially when we are dealing with a buying group. There will be different stakeholders in that meeting, who will have different views on how attractive your offer is to their self interests. You need to be watching very carefully for internal resistance, so that you can assist your champion inside the buyer company to prevail against any possible opposition.

None of this is a walk in the park in Japan, but we have to raise our sensitivity to our buyer’s reactions. We can’t get lost in that beautiful sound, which is our own voice and in the warm embrace of our own ideas. We have to see everything that is in front of us, all the way through the meeting. We need to find out how to hit any hot buttons that will generate enthusiasm for our solution. We need to learn how to shut up, listen and watch instead, for clues on what is really going on. Learn to read the air if you want to make sales in Japan.