Episode #138: Be Careful Of Friendly Fire When Selling

Sales is usually a solitary life. You head off to meet customers all day. Your occasional return to the office is to restock materials or complete some processes you can’t do on-line. Japan is a bit different. Here it is very common to see two salespeople going off to meet the client. If you are selling to a buyer, it is also common to face more than one person. This is a country of on the job training and consensus decision making, so the numbers involved automatically inflate.

Even in Western style operations there is more of a tendency to send more than one person to the sales meeting. Often, there is a need for a technical person or someone with highly specialised knowledge to attend the buyers meeting. This can present some issues if there is no plan for the meeting. I was coaching a salesperson recently who related a horror story to me. The person in question is relatively new to sales, so still finding their way. A more experienced salesperson from a different division was joining the meeting. The intention was to provide more than one solution to the buyer.

Without any prior discussion, the accompanying salesperson offered 70% off the pricing in exchange for a volume purchase, in order to grow the relationship. Hearing this, I was so shocked, I nearly blew my coffee out through my nose. There are so many things wrong with this vignette. These are both salespeople on a base and commission arrangement. One salesperson is hacking into the commission of the other, for a product line-up they don’t represent. This is outrageous behavior. If you are in that meeting and your partner blurts out a combustible like that, you cannot reel it back or reduce its lethality. It is stated, out on the wild now and you have to live with that statement having been uttered by your side.

This was first meeting too, so the damage is even worse. Now the client automatically discounts any rack rate or stated pricing by 70%, because that is what you have trained them to do. When you are in a first meeting in Japan, it would be reasonably rare to even get into pricing. The first meeting has some fixed requirements. The first is to build the trust with the buyer. They don’t know you so they are suspicious. They are not sure if your word can be trusted, whether you are smart enough to deal with them or if they like you. This takes a good chunk of time to achieve.

You also have to understand if there is any point in talking at all. Do you have what they need. In order to make that judgement, you need to be asking them questions. What are they doing now? Where would they like to be? If they know that then why aren’t they there already? What will it mean for them personally if this goes well? We have to be running a scanner over them to understand their needs and then match it up with our catalogue of solutions. All of this takes time. We usually only get an hour with the buyer in Japan, so we need to grab as much information and insight as we possibly can and then high tail it out of there. Back at the lab we brew up the perfect solution and craft it into a killer proposal. Now we go back and present the solution. They may want us to email it to them, but with every fibre in our body we resist that option. We never ever want to be sending an unprotected proposal to the buyer. It needs us right there alongside it, to underline the value attached to the pricing and deal with any questions or misunderstandings which may emerge.

We only talk price in the second meeting and we never start with a discount. We offer the set price and this is the anchor that sets the terms of the discussion. We may drop the price in exchange for a volume purchase but by 70%? That is the stupidest thing I have heard in a while in sales. As it turns out, I know the guilty party in this case, so it is even more shocking. They should have more common sense. The problem is they state it and there is nothing you can do. Common sense is not common. The horse has bolted for our hero in this story but we should all take note.

Don’t expect that the people accompanying you to have common sense, especially if they are selling a different line of product from you and they have no skin in the game concerning a heavily discounted sale of your offering. Before the meeting, set the ground rules, just in case. “When we get to my line-up explanation, I will be the one making the offer and that includes pricing. When I state the price, absolutely do not speak. The number will generate some tension in the room. Do not release that tension by adding a comment or a justification or anything else. Be silent as the tomb”.

Fix the way you will both handle the components of the meeting before you get anywhere near a client. Be very direct with what you want. This is your livelihood derived from your commission we are talking about here. Don’t let an uninterested party destroy your pricing arrangements. Once they shoot their mouth off it is too late. You have to get to them before hand.