The Sales Japan Series

Why Western sales revolutions haven’t reshaped Japanese selling practices

Sales gurus often argue that “sales has changed.” They introduce new frameworks—SPIN Selling, Consultative Selling, Challenge…

Why trust is the ultimate driver of long-term sales success in Japan

Salespeople everywhere know that trust is essential for winning deals, but in Japan, trust is the difference between a one-off sal…

Why mastering client conversations in Japan defines long-term sales success

When salespeople meet new clients, the first few minutes set the tone for everything that follows. This “transition zone” b…

At the age of sixteen, I was wandering around the streets of a lower working class area in the suburbs of Brisbane, working my first job, trying to sell expensive Encyclopedia Britannica to the punte…

It is seriously sad to be dumb.  Nothing annoys me more than when I finally realise something that was so obvious and yet I didn’t see what was there, right in front of my nose.  We talk a lot about …

When we think of team selling, we imagine a room with the buyers on one side of the table and we are lined up on the other.  There is another type of team selling and that is taking place before we g…

 was studying an online learning programme from Professor Scott Galloway, where he talked about Appealing To Human Instincts.  His take was from the strategy angle, but I realised that this same fram…

Group crowdsourcing has been around since cave dweller days.  Gathering a crowd of prospects and getting them to buy your stuff is a standard method of making more sales or starting conversations whi…

Japanese salespeople should love to hear “that sounds pricey” from buyers.  Why?  Because they know that this statement is the most common objection to arise in response to their sales presentation a…

Japan’s image as a sophisticated country with a solid, unique traditional culture is well placed.  For example, every year around 130,000 Shinkansen bullet trains run between Tokyo and Osaka, bolting…

Selling to a buyer in-person and selling to the same Japanese buyer online are worlds apart. Yet how many salespeople are succeeding in making the transition? Are your clients seeking virtual sales t…

You manage to get the appointment, which at the moment is seriously job well done.  Trying to get hold of clients, when everyone is working from home is currently a character building exercise.  You …

Salespeople have sales tools which often are not thoroughly thought through enough.  These can be flyers, catalogues, slide decks, etc.  They can also be proposals, quotations and invoices.  Usually …

I hear some people say translating terms like “nemawashi” into English is difficult.  Really?  I always thought it was one of the easier ones.  Let's just call it “groundwork”.  In fact, that is a ve…

Minato-ku or the “Port Area” is a central part of Tokyo, which used to be harbourside for goods being delivered to the capital in ancient times.  My three barbers’ stories are tales of customer servi…

There is no doubt that the pandemic has made it very fraught to find new clients in Japan.  The new variants of the virus are much more contagious and have already overwhelmed the hospital infrastruc…

Japan is a very hierarchical society.  I am getting older, so I appreciate the respect for age and stage we can enjoy here.  Back in my native Australia, older people are thought of having little of …

When we read commentary about how we should be recruiting A Players to boost our firm’s performance, this is a mirage for most of us running smaller sized companies.  If you are the size of a Google …

If we try to hide the bad news for the buyer will that work?  How long with it work for?  Bernie Madoff died in prison, his wife left in a perilous state, one son dead from suicide and the other from…

If we try to hide the bad news for the buyer will that work?  How long with it work for?  Bernie Madoff died in prison, his wife left in a perilous state, one son dead from suicide and the other from…