Episode #250: Leading Your External Partners In Japan

For many companies it makes no sense to fund their own sales force in Japan. The money, expertise and time available within the organization is insufficient to the task, so a partner is required. This could be an equity partner or a distribution alliance. The penalties for getting this wrong though are high.

Poor partner selection can ensure your product or service never gets anywhere in Japan by design. The big player looks attractive as a distributor, but they are partnering with you to kill your business. They have a preferred product or service and the last thing they want is for you to disrupt the market. The best way to do that is partner with you and then just idle the business. They know it will take you years to figure it out, if you ever do.

When the agreement period for the partnership is set long, the pain is sustained and there is nothing you can do about it. Desperate or ignorant company representatives sign long contracts with insufficient milestones. Ideally what you want are clear performance targets in the agreement, which if they are not met, would allow the contract to be ended. Expect strong resistance on this idea.

The poor levels of due diligence on these types of partner arrangement are astounding. When talking to business people, I am always amazed at the number of supplier partnerships which occurred because the foreign seller happened to sit next to a Japanese businessman on the plane.

Even presuming you didn’t get stuck with an evil partner trying to kill your business, the case often occurs that they are killing your business anyway, through incompetence. They might be well minded but still incompetent. The partner’s sales team’s interest in your offer can be an issue. Basically, they aren’t interested. Japanese sales people prefer to visit clients and collect orders for established products, rather than having to actually sell anything. Your product by definition is new. The preferred methodology is to get you to take a whack on the price, as an incentive to get clients to buy it. This is pure laziness on the part of the partner’s sales organization.

Selling from a value perspective is key, because Japan is a tough market to raise prices in, once you start low. The buyers have fixed their mental temperature at a low level and resist your efforts to raise the temperature. Often we may assume that the partner’s sales organisation can sell. That would be too generous. Usually, salespeople in Japan are either poorly trained or under trained when it comes to selling.

This is where you need to provide some training for their sales team on how to sell. You might think that all you need is to train them on the product features etc., but that is too optimistic. They won’t be much good in designing questions for the buyer to attract interest in your product. They won’t go much beyond an introduction of the features. They won’t sally forth into the sunny uplands of benefits of the features, the application of the benefits, the evidence of the application and chancing their arm with a trial close. They won’t know how to deal with objections when they come up and they won’t ask for the order. Apart from those small details they will be fine.

Getting sales people who already handle a multitude of other products to become interested in yours is a struggle. However by providing value, such as excellent training that benefits all of their job, they feel a sense of appreciation. It needs to be set up though. Don’t rely solely on the leaders of the partner organization to do this for you. You need to speak to the salespeople directly about how much you admire their work, how committed you are to seeing them succeed and explain why you have introduced this broad based training, beyond just the product specs.

You might be thinking that the partner’s sales managers can lead the team but again, you are being too generous. Like many countries, sales leaders are selected based on a bunch of reason which having nothing to do with leadership potential. In Japan, they may be the most senior or they might be the best sales person. These leaders also need proper training, so make sure they get it. Put them through the same training as the sales people, so that they know what they can expect from the salespeople in terms of knowledge and capacity. Also give them better training on how to lead. This will be a revelation for them, because they will have been thrashing around for decades unsure of what they are supposed to be doing as a professional in sale’s leadership.

Expect all of this will be resisted by the partner organization and ask yourself why that would be? You are paying for it after all, so what is the problem? Good question isn’t it. Welcome to Japan!

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years.

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.