Episode #296: When Is Too Much, Too Much In Sales

The most common complaint we get from clients about their sales team is that they are too passive. They are great at farming, but not great at hunting, growing the size of the existing business and finding new buyers. “It is as if they were working for the buyer and not for our company, because they bend over backwards to keep the client happy. Maybe too happy”, is not an unusual comment. On the other end of the scale is the American style hard sell effort which takes no prisoners, brooks no hesitation and keeps pushing until a deal gets done. For Japan, that will never fly, so we need something in the middle.

Where is the line though? When is too much, too much? Some schools of thought are that you need to push until you get regular resistance, because that is the point where you realise you have taken it to the limit for Japan. This whole equation is complex. Ultimately, I believe we need to become the trusted partner of the buyer. When they feel we are working to help them succeed, we are on the right track, without forgetting who we are working for and who pays our salary and commissions.

In my view, weak salespeople just fold in the face of every client demand, no matter the consequences for their own firm. This is especially painful when it comes to revenues. Many times, these salespeople are earning commissions on what they sell, so you would expect that their own self-interest would dictate that they do not discount too heavily to win the business. Unfortunately, because they don’t have skills around explaining the value, they cave and drop the price every time, even though it hurts them financially. Their view is that they would rather have a client gained at a big discount, because finding new clients is so much harder.

Generally speaking, in Japan starting low and then trying to elevate the buyer’s appetite to pay more for the existing solution doesn’t work all that well. Once they get you down to a low price that then becomes the ceiling, not even the floor, for them no matter how hard you explain this is a once in a lifetime case, a rarity, an exception, an instance of the planets in the Milky Way aligning once every thousand years. They just see that as the ceiling and then try to work you lower. When I was selling solutions from Australia, I had to tell the Aussie suppliers not to go in with their “best price” in Japan, because they would then be on the back foot trying to defend it, as they came under assault for more discounts.

I used to do a lot of networking at events in the good old days before the pandemic. We might finally be getting back to some of that in Japan, wearing masks and trying to avoid super spreader events. You need a thick skin to use networking as a tool for gaining clients. Foreigners can be brutal. We have a 50/50 split between multi-national and domestic clients, so I attend a lot of foreign chamber sponsored events. I was walking into an event and this guy refused my business card when I offered it, because he said he was only there for the information and didn’t want to meet anyone. Ouch! At another Chamber event, a businessman saw me heading his way and started complaining “You are always spamming me!!”. Ouch! At another event when I caught the attention of a potential client, to engage him, the guy he had been talking to, snidely noted “Here you are Greg, always stealing people’s attention”. Ouch!

What is too much? Whenever people complain that I am doing too much networking, or networking too hard, internally, I have a little smile to myself. Usually, the people making these comments are not in sales and have no idea how hard it is to land a new client. I had one of my staff come back from a Chamber networking event very upset. They were telling me that someone there was badmouthing me. What do you do about this type of thing?

My answer to these few critics is simple. I try to explain that as a sales leader, I don’t ask my team to do prospecting that I won’t do myself. I try to lead from the front, as a role model and example. I continue to explain to them, “that is why I am working hard to find new people we can help, because we know what we do can make a difference in improving their businesses”. Then I lower the boom, I hit them with the big one, I smash them when I say, “Wouldn’t you want your sales leaders and sales teams making the maximum effort to find new buyers, to expand the range of companies you can serve?”.

There is really nowhere to go in response to that argument. If they still say “it is too much”, then you can respond with, “does that mean your competitors are inactive and you have the market to yourself and you don’t have to constantly keep pushing for new business?”. Very few people can withstand this line of reasoning. Secretly, they are flooded with shame, shortcomings and guilt because they know their sales teams are passive, maybe great farmers but timid hunters and they wish their people had more of our grit and determination.

What about the damage to the brand? This is a concern. In business, getting a bad reputation is bad anywhere, but in Japan bad news travels at hyper speed. Even worse, amongst the multi-national company leaders, we foreigners are living in a small village here in Tokyo and again you don’t want mud being attached to your name. I recall one prominent person here posting a note on LinkedIn, asking about the whereabouts of another well known personality, because they owed them money. That kind of stuff takes your breath away and sends a cold shiver up your spine.

The reality is the worst that critics, rivals and the jealous can say about you is that you were aggressive or pushy or unreasonable or annoying. One person saying that is just that one voice. If multiples of people are going around condemning you, then you have a major problem. Frankly, if you operate with integrity and have a passion for helping other’s businesses succeed, then these outrageous slings and arrows will bounce off you.

I would rather be pushing, striving, working hard than worrying about what nobodies have to say. The people we serve well will know our value and values and they are the people to refer us and to keep using us. This is the key audience for us and we shouldn’t be shy about trying to grow their number. For salespeople this Winston Churchill quote is apt, “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life”. Also, remember Thomas J. Watson of IBM fame noted, “nothing happens until something gets sold”. That is our job – to keep the wheels of industry turning by selling solutions which transform people’s careers and businesses.