248: Ask Don't tell

<p>In the West, we have all been trained in consultative selling for many decades. The buyers are used to salespeople turning up and asking a lot of questions to find out if there is some way they can help the buyer, through providing their solution to solve buyer problems.  The act of asking of questions is never even thought about, because that is how it is done.</p> <p> </p> <p>In Japan, they don’t really have professional salespeople, because here they have pitchpeople instead.  They ask no questions, just turn up and give their pitch.  They roll out the flyers or the brochures and go straight into the nitty gritty of the detail and the spec.  They want to throw enough mud at the wall to see if any of it sticks. This is what the buyers have been trained to expect as well – no questions, just a pitchfest.</p> <p> </p> <p>If you are coming out of the Western sales environment, you are going to be using consultative sales techniques and start asking the buyer a number of questions.  This is a problem.  In the West, we say the buyer is King.  In Japan, the buyer is not King, but God.  By the way, God doesn’t brook any questions from impertinent salespeople.  They are insulted to be asked questions.  God is used to getting the sales pitch and then destroying it, to make sure the risk factor has been fully minimized.</p> <p> </p> <p>You can ask questions of the buyer in Japan, but you can’t just blunder your way in there and start blasting forth from the get go with probing questions.  Fully boned up on American style sales methods, I remember applying these questioning techniques in Japan, in my early sales career here. I was met with stone cold, motherless silence by the buyers.  In short order they were changing the subject and calling for my pitch.</p> <p> </p> <p>To ask questions in Japan, you need to set it up first.  Here is how you do that.  You begin with a bit of chit chat to break the ice at the start of the meeting.  Next you describe what it is that you do.  Then give an example of a similar company’s