266: Selling In Japan Is Different

<p style="font-weight: 400;">This is a pretty big subject, so I will pick up a few of the more noteworthy differences.  In the West, salespeople, for the most part, are involved in an occupation for which they have received no training.  They are thrown into sales, to sink or swim.  If they don’t sell, they don’t eat, because of the sales commission structures.  Total commission based remuneration is a normal thing in most countries or at least the pay structures will have a very high “at risk” component.  In many cases, this drives desperation and salespeople saying anything to get a sale, in order to last another week in the job.  Cold calling potential clients is a big part of finding new buyers and a lot of attention is placed on prospecting and pipeline building activities. </p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Japan is quite different.  There are very few salespeople here in 100% commission sale jobs.  The simple reason is because they don’t have to.  Anyone on that type of pay scale is in a very low level job and are usually pretty young people who not very well educated.  The touts you see on the street outside clubs in Kabukicho in Shinjuku or in Roppongi or Akasaka will no doubt be on high commissions and very low base salaries.  The societal status attached to those in commission sales is also very low and so it is very hard to find anyone who wants to do it.  In Japan, you don’t want your daughter to marry one of them.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Like the West, most Japanese people have no training in sales apart from a perfunctory On The Job Training exposure.  I say exposure because it is rather more cosmetic than concrete.  Your boss or one of the more experienced salespeople, will take you with them to visit a few clients and then bingo, you are out there on your own.  Your boss and the others in the firm went through the same process, so no one thinks anything about it.  This is a brilliant system for reproducing mediocrity, generation after generation.  In both cases of untrained Western and Ja