Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.23 営業のあるべき姿は？

STEP #3 QUALIFYING & COUNSELLING:営業のあるべき姿は？

質問力と傾聴
Asking questions and listening is extremely powerful! People often think talking, presenting and persuading is power. I think the opposite. We all have opinions we love to talk about. There is always the new theory that someone wants to kick around.

But if a person has the discipline to hold back on his own opinions and theories and get the other person (friend, customer, family member, whatever) talking, it can be very powerful. It gives you the data you need to know to learn what to say, when and how to say it.

Qualifying and counselling is all about determining what the other person wants. In a sales situation, it is determining his needs, wants and ability to buy. This step in the selling process is the most important and where most mistakes are made.

Too many people go right into their product presentation having no idea what the person is looking for, needs or if the person has the ability to pay for it. Sales people love to talk and at this stage, that is the last thing the salesmen should be doing. It does take discipline.

営業のタイプ
I know of three types of salesmen, the ORDER TAKER, the HARD SELLER and the CONSULTANT.　

The ORDER TAKER（御用聞き営業）treats people like shoppers and will process a purchase if requested. He does not know the customer, his own products that he sells or what the customer’s concerns are. In this case, for a very expensive product, the customer feels insecure. With a lack of information, there is fear that the wrong product is selected, which will badly affect his life or business.

The HARD SELLER（押しの強い営業） treats people like opponents and tries to win the sale at all cost. His only interest is making the sale, not solving the customer’s problem. In this case, the customer feels defensive. When pressure is felt, the customer responds with pressure. Both attack each other instead of solving the given problem.

The CONSULTANT（押しの弱い営業？？） treats people like clients, learns their needs and application. The salesman “qualifies” the person as a customer. Then he selects and presents the product, which will satisfy those needs. The result is satisfaction, even if the sale is not made. All effort is placed on solving the problem. This puts the customer at ease and his confidence builds with the information and advice received.

Before making any recommendation or giving a product presentation, first the salesman has to determine the customer’s needs wants and ability to buy.

He determines the customer’s dominant buying motives (the real reason he is there to purchase something). The dominant buying motive is the first response the customer gives when the salesman asks what he is looking for in the product. He may give several reasons, but his first response is usually the most important reason to buy for him.

顧客に語らせる。そのための質問を設計するのが『理詰めの営業』
The sales person should ask open-ended questions (questions which require an explanation to answer, not with a simple “yes” or “no”). By using open-ended questions, he keeps the buyer talking about 80% of the time.

顧客を知る
He should listen intently by trying to reduce all internal (other things he’s thinking about) and external distractions (noise, music, view of others, etc.). He should seek the person’s underlying attitudes and hidden motives, avoid premature judgements, give full attention to the person, and look for non-verbal clues to his feelings.

The sales person should determine what the buyer is mentally focused on. Does the person focus on great details or does he/she just want to know the overall concept of the subject at hand (your product, service or simple ideas)?

Armed with the information the sales person gets, he can determine in detail what to suggest or recommend.

Uploaded by Nobi Saito

Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.22 第一印象を良くするには

STEP #2 MEETING & GREETING:

How do you make a good first impression? That is what this step is all about. Here are some things to think about:
1. Before you meet someone for the first time, drive all other thoughts, worries, or ideas from your mind. We are all thinking all the time. When we approach a stranger (or customer), or when someone approaches us, we should drop our own thoughts for a few seconds.
2. Pinpoint the concentration on the person (or customer). Doesn’t it feel good when someone gives you his or her undivided attention? That is the feeling you want to create in the people you meet.
3. Try to observe the person’s gestures, voice, posture, expressions and behaviour and determine if he is a talkative person or quiet person.
4. Then, match your behaviour to that person and make him feel comfortable.
5. Smile, hold eye contact, and listen to how he is feeling.
6. Determine the impression you want to make by your clothing, posture, what you say and how you say it.
7. Learn the person’s name and use it often.

Those are the things I recommended to salesmen when visiting customers. We all like to be free to act, talk and dress the way we like, but when it is business and someone is paying us to be there, it might be better to follow the above steps. You’ll be more successful.



Uploaded by Nobi Saito

Global Interaction & Understanding - A Personal Journey : No.2１ 見込み客を見つける

STEP #1 FINDING PEOPLE:

見込客を見つける
No matter what the product is, if a sales person meets or makes contact in some form (telephone, email, visiting, whatever), with a lot of people with a need for that particular product his chances of selling will increase. He must have a steady schedule of contacting a lot of targeted people.

生まれながらのセールスマン
We have all heard the expression “a salesman is not made, he is born”, meaning a person has to be born with certain talent or character to be a good salesmen. In some ways that is true. I have run into many people, which do not have the personality to continually meet strangers every day. When they try, it simply exhausts them.

“Order Taker“と営業の相違
Most sales people just respond to customer requests and don’t seek business. They put up a false front and take sales orders when they come in. They are only order takers and not sales people. These people only process orders as they come in. They do not seek sales or people who have needs for a particular product. They rely on advertising, showroom traffic, product reputation, etc.

乗用車販売とトラック販売の相違
Over my career, I have noticed a great deal of difference between car sales people and truck sales people. The car people are in the showroom waiting for the customer to come in. The truck people are out wondering around truck repair shops, delivery areas, and goods receiving spots, along major truck routes and in restaurants when truck operators eat. As I would present to groups as large as 25-30, I would always have a mixture of both in the room. Both are successful if they are meeting a lot of people. If they are not, some different action plan must be put in place. As my selling has always been international, with long distances between my customers and me, after learning who to contact from the Internet or other sources, my initial contact method has been through email or FAX. From there I followed up with a telephone call and then a personal visit.

顧客リストの作成・活用
So, my sales action plan was built on what I had taught for many years beforehand. It involves, finding a prospect list, using direct mail, telephone prospecting, building a referral source, setting up prospect planner files and setting up current customer files.
Setting up customer files has been a powerful activity. It sets the stage for activities from getting a prospect list right through maintaining contact with the customer long after he has bought the product. It has really made me organized, motivated and active every working day. In the early days, I used and taught a customer card system, but today there are excellent computer programs that can really do all the work for you. All you have to do is put in the data. It’s beautiful.

My prospecting activities (finding customers) have been so successful that I have at least twice outsold the production capacity available of Unika Company Limited which is the company I worked for after I left Isuzu Motors which I will talk about later in the book. On those occasions, my activities had to change from finding customers to apologizing to customers for delays in deliveries.



Uploaded by Nobi Saito