Episode #15: You Don't Want Sales

Clever, shallow, smooth as silk, glib, “rat with a gold tooth” salespeople are the scourge of the earth. They are focused on your money and how quickly they can separate you from it. There are no barriers to entry or qualifications to enter this field of sales work. Riff raff need not apply but quite often they do. Some will tell you anything, they live for today and like a shark, are constantly moving around in order to feed. Snake oil purveyors to the naïve and trusting, create an unsavory image in the minds of our buyers.

So, how do honest salespeople get anywhere when the image of the profession is so negative. Movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, people like Bernie Madoff, etc. - it goes on and on convincing us that we are permanently potential victims of scammers, charlatans and confidence men.

By the way, we are all in sales today. You might have friends in one of the “professions” thinking sales has nothing to do with them, but they are no longer above the fray. Lawyers are competing for clients just as voraciously as dentists, architects, engineers, doctors and everyone else who spent long years slogging through varsity. The company title might be vague, such as the popular “business development”, but the sales activity is the same, usually without the prerequisite sales skills.

The key point to differentiate yourself from the shady carnival barker type, sales pond scum and assorted lowlifes giving the rest of us a bad name, is to stop focusing on sales. Instead focus on the re-orders.

This mental shift is fundamental. A sale can be a one-time thing, a transient satisfaction of a temporary itch. In some cases that may be all that is needed. This is the long hard road of sales though – constantly prospecting to find new clients, having a pipeline that is razor thin and precariously teetering between feast and famine. Not recommended.

The re-order concept is totally relationship based and is linked to the idea of the lifetime value of the buyer. A client may only buy, say $10,000 worth of your product or service and that seems a small amount. However, when that client continues to buy from you, year in year out, that $10,000 purchase becomes a sizeable amount.

One of our clients only sends a few people along to various public courses we hold during the year. However, they have been doing this every month for forty years! If we only looked at the contribution on a quarterly or annual basis, we would not appreciate the value of this client to the business. Did we know it would keep going for forty years at the start – no and that is the point.

There is a degree of trust that brings the business to you, without you having to go and hunt it down. Clients want to work with you because they feel safe and secure. They know the value you provide and they know your word is your bond. Sometimes, it may be a long time between drinks before the follow up order appears, but it will eventually appear.

For example, another of our clients bought one year, did nothing the next year and then has continued to buy for the last two years. Altogether that client represents over a million dollars in total revenues. We would prefer they bought every year but in this profession of sales, we all know the client is never on your schedule. The re-orders are what makes a business not the single sale.

So what is the key to gaining the trust and providing the value over the long -term? I believe the concept of kokorogamae (心構え) or “true intentions” is the key. This is a Japanese word describing a mental outlook which appears in many traditional activities - calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, martial arts, etc. I discovered kokorogamae through my study of traditional Japanese Shitoryu karate-do – the Way of Karate.

In business, your true intention is to be a long-term partner in achieving the client’s success, on the basis that the more successful they become, the more goods or services you will need to provide them, as they grow and expand their operation.

If your true intention is to build trust, then there will be no attempt to snow the client at the first meeting, to lure them into a false sense of security and scamper off with their money. Instead you will tell the client what you do, who else you have done it for and some evidence about the results achieved for them. Evidence not bombast is always a constant theme in your client conversations. Fast talking salespeople invariably are an “evidence free zone”.

So are you capturing enough evidence of the results you have provided, aligned with the value achieved behind those results? If you are not, then start looking for ways you can amass that evidence. It might be getting a testimonial from the client, some statistics on their sales volumes prior and following the delivery of your product or service. It might be a self-assessment done before and after, to draw out the difference you have made to their business.

To build trust, you will bring insights you have gathered, that spark those valuable client “we hadn’t thought of that” moments. You don’t just string together a bunch of statements, assertions and claims about your widget’s features. This is typically what untrained salespeople do. They blag on about the detail of the spec or the content or the whatever it is they sell.

Rather you ask questions enabling you to best analyse whether you in fact have a suitable solution or not, for the client’s issue. If you don’t have it, you say so immediately - you don’t prevaricate or equivocate. No trying to strong-arm the client into buying something that ultimately won’t provide them with value. If you can’t be of service to this client, then your job is to go find someone else you can serve. Hanging around to make a sale that won’t work is a time bomb. It will go off after the client realizes there are no results emanating from their interaction with you. Your trust factor is now down to zero, the reputation of your company is smashed and they will never speak well of you to other potential clients. Heaven forbid they should do so on social media!

Trust is built when your questioning skills are such that the client feels safe in the knowledge that your really understand what are their business needs. Most salespeople are poor listeners, but clients really want to know you have heard them, rather than you having been engrossed with what you will say next. You introduce the solution’s features, the benefits of the features, the applications of the benefits and the back up evidence to support what you are saying. You execute on the order from the client, as agreed and you deliver value at every point possible. You do this every time.

What you do after the sale tells the client everything and this determines whether this will be a long-term partnership or not. If something goes wrong you fix it immediately, you don’t become mealy-mouthed about what was happened and you hand back the money without hesitation. Salespeople defending the indefensible happens far too often and destroys all trust. If you are wrong admit it, fix it and make sure there is no repeat of the problem.

When I was involved in trade, the Japanese client’s container didn’t make it on to the ship as originally planned. The day before the ship sailed, the overseas supplier told us that they would miss the departure. From the exporter’s point of view, no problem, just stick the container on the next available ship. The client was furious. One of my sales staff was holding the phone away from her head and everyone in the office could hear the buyer meltdown underway.

Yes the next ship would arrive soon, but the buyer had already promised supply to their key clients and now they would show their unreliability. Many years of buyer trust would be destroyed. Needless to say there was no further business for that exporter, so a big opportunity lost through a casual attitude to service and a lack of understanding of the client’s needs.

Ask yourself, are we really fully on top of the follow-up mechanisms in our business, especially when we are so busy running around beating the bushes trying to spark the next sale? Are we managing our time sufficiently well enough that we don’t allow errors and mistakes to arise because we have forgotten some vital step? I find when I am too busy mistakes arise and they usually arise at the worst possible time! Sometimes we need to slow down a bit and get the basics right, before we sally forth into the next deal.

No trust or no value – then no re-orders. It is simple and complex at the same time. The salesperson’s job is to demonstrate the trust and supply the value. Ask yourself, are you really doing that? Are you actually on top of it? You say “Yes” – fantastic, good for you. By the way, if I rang them right now, would your clients agree with your positive self-assessment?

If your “true intentions” are correct, then value and trust will flow accordingly and so will the re-orders. Let’s work hard on getting our kokorogamae correct.

Action Steps

1. Think lifetime value of the client
2. Focus on the re-orders rather than just a sale
3. Understand we are all in sales today
4. Have a correct kokorogamae and be a long-term partner to grow the client’s business
5. Validate claims with evidence
6. Use questions to properly understand the client’s business
7. Don’t argue with the client, be accountable and fix problems immediately

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

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

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 podcast “THE Leadership 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.