Preparation is essential to making a job successful.
When I was young, I was a poor salesman. I moved from one section to another, and finally I was assigned to a cut-and-sew company where I was known as the devil’s section chief. I was in a state of self-doubt.
I was in a state of self-doubt and was told, “Go to the cut-and-sew factory in Yoshino, Nara, for training! I was told.
From morning till night, I ironed and visited subcontractors, where the factory manager would often say, “Eight minutes for set-up! If you reply to a sample confirmation like that, the arrangements will go awry! We can’t guarantee delivery time!
Our sewing work is all set up and done in eight minutes! Your section chief doesn’t understand how a factory works! He would often yell at us, “Eight minutes for setup.
He would often yell at us, “Arrangement is the eighth part of the work.
Arrangements mean preparation in advance. Work does not start without arrangements.
When I was not doing well in sales, I was often told by my seniors, “It is important to put in the root of the problem.
You need to lay the groundwork with your clients, with your suppliers, with your bosses, and with many other places in order to get the job done right.
The term “laying the groundwork” was also created because of how much “advance preparation” is necessary. The word “nezawashi” was born from the fact that successful transplanting of a tree requires digging around the tree, cutting most of the roots except for the main roots, and allowing hairy roots to grow out of the cut areas before transplanting the tree.
Professional craftsmen of the past knew how important advance preparation was, and so the term was born.
I think it is safe to say that in all of our jobs, not just sales, there is no such thing as a job that is done haphazardly.
When proposing a project, we need to be able to predict what sold or did not sell last year, what the current situation is for this fall/winter season, and what kind of products will be in high demand for the next summer collection, otherwise our business negotiations with our clients will be out of focus.
In business negotiations with customers, you have to read what they want.
You need to find out what they are feeling inconvenienced about and what they want from us, and then narrow down the list of what they want. If you talk on and on about something they do not want, the customer will get fed up and label you as someone who cannot read the air. The next business meeting will not move forward.
It is difficult to predict what the other party will request without careful preparation.
I was often told by former advisor T that Mr. Y, who was called the mirror of sales at the time, was a great reader.
When a customer said, “I don’t know what I want,” he would say, “This and this should be the products you want,” and the customer would say, “I see! and they bought them, and the products sold well. The customer naturally becomes Mr. Y’s fan, and the next business meeting goes much smoother.
I think the reason why this happens is because Mr. Y has been studying hard to find out what products are selling well in the market, what products will sell well in the future, and what products will sell well in this kind of sales space but not at this kind of price. He then considered the customer’s sales route and gave appropriate advice. That’s why it’s incredible that I know the products they want better than they do. I knew them better than they knew themselves, because I had prepared well in advance.
Sometimes a casual remark can upset the other person.
For example, a customer may say, “Your product is so good that if I buy it and copy it, it will sell well elsewhere,” without knowing that the company even publishes a notice in the newspaper saying that “copying products is a crime. What if he said something flattering and optimistic like, “Your products are great, and if I buy and copy them, they will sell well elsewhere. That statement alone would probably lead to a suspension of business.
Know what kind of company you are dealing with, provide them with information that they will find attractive, recommend products that they will want, and propose plans that will stimulate their interest. I think these are the basics.
If the business meeting does not go well, you leave the meeting early and go on to the next topic of conversation or to the next request. We start preparing for the next step. The courage and wisdom to narrow down the list will be the key to success in planning and sales, and if all we do is explain our planned products, we are no better than an order taker.