244: The Craziness Of Sales In Japan

<p>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 through the countryside at speeds of up to 285 kilometers an hour and boast an average arrival delay of 24 seconds.  Think about that average, sustained over a whole year!  Such amazing efficiency here is combined with basically no guns, no drugs, no litter, no graffiti, very little crime and the people are so polite and considerate. If you step on their foot in the crowded subway cars, they apologise to you for getting their foot in the wrong place. If you drop your wallet there is a close to 100% chance of you getting it back, intact. Considering all of the above and with the biggest concentration of Michelin three star restaurants in the world, no wonder Tokyo is the best city in the world to live in.  Once Covid is contained, put Japan on your bucket list folks, you won’t regret it. Yet sales professionalism is still so far behind, by Western standards.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am going to make incredibly broad, general statements here, but actually they are true for most salespeople in Japan.  How do I know this?  We have been teaching sales training here since 1963 and these are the things companies consistently ask us to fix.  Let’s highlight a few things which may surprise you about sales in Japan.</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>Asking for the order is avoided.  Saying “no” is culturally taboo, so the best way to avoid having to say it or to hear it, is to save everyone’s face and leave the outcome deliberately vague.  There are shelves of books in English on how to close the sale,  many are in translation, but not a great take up here as yet. </li> <li>When the seller meets any resistance from the buyer, the first reflex is to drop the price by 20%. Western sales managers would be apoplectic if this was the default objection handling mechanism.  Here defending your price, through explaining the value, is thrown overboard