Episode #160: Nine Major Mistakes By Japanese Salespeople

We see Japan as a modern, high tech country very advanced in so many sectors. Sales is not one of them. Consultative selling is very passé in the West, yet it has hardly swum ashore here as yet. There are some cultural traits in Japan that work against sales success, such as not initiating a conversation with strangers. Makes networking a bit tricky to say the least. We train salespeople here in Japan and the following list is made up of the most common complaints companies have about their salespeople’s failings.

1. Only talk to existing customers because you are scared of finding new buyers

Japanese people are risk averse and everyone here prefers the devil they know to the angel they don’t know. Staying in the comfort zone of the known customer is preferred to trying to create a new relationship with a buyer they don’t know. Measurements systems and incentive schemes definitely need to include the number of new clients achieved as well as the overall revenues, if you want to grow the business.

2. Pitch your product range, without having any idea about what the buyer needs

Diving straight into the company brochure or the product catalogue, the nitty gritty details is favourite here. The trouble is they want blue, we don’t know that because we haven’t asked what they want and we keep showing them yellow.

3. Don’t seek permission to ask questions

Why don’t Japanese salespeople ask the buyer questions, to find out what they need, like the rest of the universe? It is considered rude by the buyer. That is a cultural aspect that can be overcome if permission to ask questions is asked for first. Why don't they do that? Because they are trained by their seniors who never asked questions and just went straight into the detail of the spec. The salespeople need training to learn how to craft the permission request.

4. Let the buyer control the sales conversation

In Japan the buyer is not a lowly King but an almighty GOD, whose penchant is to destroy pesky salespeople’s presentations. Salespeople here don’t know how to control the sales conversation, because they don’t know how to get permission to ask questions and control the direction of the conversation.

5. Don’t uncover the buyer need at all

It is almost impossible to hit a target you cannot ascertain. If the questions to ask need are not there, it is impossible to work out whether you have what the client needs or not.

6. Only talk about the spec and maybe the benefits of the spec but never talk about how to apply the benefit, show evidence where this has worked before and then go for a trial close.

When salespeople dive into the detail, they get stuck there. We don’t buy the spec. We buy the things the spec does for us. We need to draw out what are the benefits the spec delivers but much more than that. Few Japanese salespeople even get to the benefit explanations stage. We need to show how the benefit when applied in their business will improve their business and we back that up with evidence of where this has worked before.

7. Don’t have any clue how to properly handle objections

Japanese salespeople suffer the same objections as everyone else, “your price is too high” etc., but they have no way of dealing with them. On the job training taps out pretty quickly when we get down to the finer points of sales ability. The simple answer is professional training because this the difference between the pro and the mug.

8. Always drop the price to gain the sale

It is shocking to think how much money is being left on the table by salespeople when they get price objections. Just dropping the price by 20% is common and it doesn’t have to be like this. If you know how to handle these types of pushback, then you can do a deal and either defend your value or reduce the amount of discounting.

9. Don’t ever ask for the order

So many meetings end with a big fat nothing. The salesperson left the client “buy or won’t buy” bit quite vague and not clarified. Always ask for the order. The worst that can happen is you are told “no” or “we will think about it” but always ask. Don’t make the client do all the hard work, ask for the business.

Sales is not complex. It is a serious of basics that need to be performed professionally. Take a good look at what your Japanese colleagues are doing and see how many of these nine you uncover.