The Sales Japan Series

A miraculous thing often happens when I am meeting clients for the first time.  We have had our meeting, I am closing up my organiser where I have been taking my notes, I am getting ready to leave, w…

Have you ever paid for something that you found was very good and which you used for many years.  You will have forgotten perhaps the price you originally paid, but you have not forgotten the quality…

“In our business, at our size, we have to be the speedboat, we cannot be the oil tanker”, is a key mantra for my Franchise company.  Why is that the case?  I am the only non-Japanese in the firm and …

The ferocity of competitors depends on a number of factors.  Are we in a commodity market where price and supply capacity determine all and it is a race to the bottom?  Are we in a narrow band market…

In the good old days we could have multiple public personas in sales.  We could be the professional salesperson, but that image was entirely separate to our family life.  We could enjoy boozy celebra…

For the last two and a half years business networking has been dead.  The usual suspects who hosted live networking events migrated everything online, so you become totally restricted in your ability…

In our presentation training classes we ask the participants, “how long does it take for you to make a judgment about someone you are meeting for the first time?”.  How about you?  How long do you ta…

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 …

Useless salespeople who cannot sell get fired.  But are they really useless or are their sales managers useless or their companies useless?  There are some industries which are notorious for the up o…

Japan just devours data, statistics and information.  When you visit some scenic spot, there will be an amazing level of data available about that venue.  The announcement on the subway train when y…

Tension is a good thing in business, because this is how we get things done.  There is an issue which needs solving and either we fix it ourselves or we outsource the specifics to someone else.  Ther…

The phrase “I was ghosted” is a new addition to the sales lexicon but the problem is ancient.  You meet someone at a networking event, have a positive conversation and then you follow up with them.  …

What would the buyer’s agenda be, during the sales call?  “Don’t take too long, because I am busy”, “Don’t waste my time with stuff I don’t need”, “Don’t erode my cash flow”, “Don’t rip me off”, woul…

We have all heard that business advice to “work on your business, not in your business”.  When we are the owner of the business we can sometimes forget this, because we love doing the sales ourselves…

The famous Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi often referred to the importance of the basics in the American Football game, the blocking and tackling.  Being an Aussie and a Rugby fan, I sort of …

If you have ever watched one of those nature documentaries about the piranha fish, they can strip an animal of its flesh in seconds.  The way they do that though is totally different to a shark.  Gro…

The sales process has a number of stages we must pass through. One big one is gaining trust.  We need to explain who we are, what it is we do, where we have had success before and suggest we could do…

I do a lot of coaching for salespeople and there is a common theme which continuously arises, which reveals why they are not getting sales with their clients.  They get very deep into the weeds of th…

I was contacted by an international training organisation about facilitating training for their clients here in Japan.  They solemnly announced they do “value based” selling.  Well I think all good s…

A bloody war in the Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, global oil and gas prices surging, grains in short supply driving up food costs, rare metals shortages, inflation taking right off, increased spendin…