Sunday, January 14, 2007
Asian Selling Game???
It may seem odd that someone should raise such an issue at this stage where the world is globalizing rapidly with western technology, skills and culture seemingly sweeping through the world and gaining dominance especially in the domains of business and organizational management.
Japan made important contributions in the area of Quality and Lean Management or what is popularly known as the Toyota Management System.... most of which has since been subject to western interpretation and acculturisation.
The Nordic School of Management gained some prominence in presenting its empirical findings that businesses were using a wide range of relationship strategies to improved their market performance and sales but this too went in the same direction as the Japanese.
In my frequent visits to China in recent years, I am beginning to discern a some "reinterpretation" of Western sales techniques. Time will tell whether these would become distinct trends or are mere temporal customisations.
Selling to the Affluent...
The argument that as people become more affluent they also tend to become more global ... learn to adopt and enjoy what is seemingly best internationally, i.e. develop global culture, attitude, taste...is certainly persuasive. Hence the assertion that there is little difference selling to an up-marketing globally oriented Chinese or Asian vs is western counterparts.
In this respect, it is interesting to note such "global persons" has in the last decade certainly become more Asian... more aware and appreciative of Asian ways and culture. Western sales literature is already focusing more on the positive effects of "relationships" where they use to viewed it mainly as nepotism, cronynism, favouritism. Asian ways have moderated "western thinking" , but once again, western literature is increasingly being filled with contributions by western writers on how to be Chinese, speak Chinese, cook Chinese and practice the Sun Tsu's Art of War!
Selling to the masses....
Will there be distinctive Asian ways to sell to the mass market, or will the whole world be like be like the proverbial "Shakespearean crowd" swayed by mob sentiments triggered by the mass media? Those that have seen how people in a "sophisticated and educated" society like in the USA behave on Black Friday will bear witness to the power of the media in shaping mass consumer behaviour.
General Principles vs Practice
Some principles and precepts like those relating to gaining AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) are probably to Sales what the 10 commandments are to Christainity... they identify the universal and indisputable rules. Yet in matters of application it may differ across cultures.
"Thou shall not kill" may be reinforced through capital punishments in some jurisdications whilst not in others. In the west passion is often viewed as a stronger mitigating factor for cmurder than in Asia where emotional control are upheld as a basic requirement of good citizenship.
Objectives and Scope
It is thus my hope that this blog will stir many comments that will provide examples of these differences in practices and applications, if not in general principles and precepts.
Qualifications
My main concern is that this blog may be bogged down by difficulties in classifying a practice as being Western or Asian. Take myself as an example, I have brought up in what I would consider a home environment that is largely Confucian, educated in Christain schools, married into a Christain environment... and worked in sales and marketing in multinational companies for the better part of my 30 years working career. I would seriously doubt if a "mad-chinaman", like myself could truly make such distinctions.
In a recent workshop I presented a sales practice which I found unique in the city of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. To both my astonishment and delight, a somewhat elderly participant hailing from Finland interjected with the claim that he remembered many business in his hometown adopting such practices in teenage days. Deeper discussions revealed that many situation factors that existed in Finland then resembled those in present day Hohhot.
Open, unconstrained discussions
So do not be too constrained and caught up with verifying or arguing whether an observed practice is western or Asian in origin, or be partisan in any way. Any observed sales practices that seems unusual to you would certainly deserve mention on this blog. Hopefully it will trigger a response like that from the Finnish gentlemen.
The ultimate goal is to learn
It is through such discussions that we will truly learn to properly adapt sales principles and practices to different environments to optimise sales productivity. Whether the world will eventually evolve a multicultural set of sales and marketing principles will indeed be interesting discussion but probably less useful than an appreciation of how different sales principles practices amy work best under different situations.
Japan made important contributions in the area of Quality and Lean Management or what is popularly known as the Toyota Management System.... most of which has since been subject to western interpretation and acculturisation.
The Nordic School of Management gained some prominence in presenting its empirical findings that businesses were using a wide range of relationship strategies to improved their market performance and sales but this too went in the same direction as the Japanese.
In my frequent visits to China in recent years, I am beginning to discern a some "reinterpretation" of Western sales techniques. Time will tell whether these would become distinct trends or are mere temporal customisations.
Selling to the Affluent...
The argument that as people become more affluent they also tend to become more global ... learn to adopt and enjoy what is seemingly best internationally, i.e. develop global culture, attitude, taste...is certainly persuasive. Hence the assertion that there is little difference selling to an up-marketing globally oriented Chinese or Asian vs is western counterparts.
In this respect, it is interesting to note such "global persons" has in the last decade certainly become more Asian... more aware and appreciative of Asian ways and culture. Western sales literature is already focusing more on the positive effects of "relationships" where they use to viewed it mainly as nepotism, cronynism, favouritism. Asian ways have moderated "western thinking" , but once again, western literature is increasingly being filled with contributions by western writers on how to be Chinese, speak Chinese, cook Chinese and practice the Sun Tsu's Art of War!
Selling to the masses....
Will there be distinctive Asian ways to sell to the mass market, or will the whole world be like be like the proverbial "Shakespearean crowd" swayed by mob sentiments triggered by the mass media? Those that have seen how people in a "sophisticated and educated" society like in the USA behave on Black Friday will bear witness to the power of the media in shaping mass consumer behaviour.
General Principles vs Practice
Some principles and precepts like those relating to gaining AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) are probably to Sales what the 10 commandments are to Christainity... they identify the universal and indisputable rules. Yet in matters of application it may differ across cultures.
"Thou shall not kill" may be reinforced through capital punishments in some jurisdications whilst not in others. In the west passion is often viewed as a stronger mitigating factor for cmurder than in Asia where emotional control are upheld as a basic requirement of good citizenship.
Objectives and Scope
It is thus my hope that this blog will stir many comments that will provide examples of these differences in practices and applications, if not in general principles and precepts.
Qualifications
My main concern is that this blog may be bogged down by difficulties in classifying a practice as being Western or Asian. Take myself as an example, I have brought up in what I would consider a home environment that is largely Confucian, educated in Christain schools, married into a Christain environment... and worked in sales and marketing in multinational companies for the better part of my 30 years working career. I would seriously doubt if a "mad-chinaman", like myself could truly make such distinctions.
In a recent workshop I presented a sales practice which I found unique in the city of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. To both my astonishment and delight, a somewhat elderly participant hailing from Finland interjected with the claim that he remembered many business in his hometown adopting such practices in teenage days. Deeper discussions revealed that many situation factors that existed in Finland then resembled those in present day Hohhot.
Open, unconstrained discussions
So do not be too constrained and caught up with verifying or arguing whether an observed practice is western or Asian in origin, or be partisan in any way. Any observed sales practices that seems unusual to you would certainly deserve mention on this blog. Hopefully it will trigger a response like that from the Finnish gentlemen.
The ultimate goal is to learn
It is through such discussions that we will truly learn to properly adapt sales principles and practices to different environments to optimise sales productivity. Whether the world will eventually evolve a multicultural set of sales and marketing principles will indeed be interesting discussion but probably less useful than an appreciation of how different sales principles practices amy work best under different situations.
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It is thus my hope that this blog will stir many comments that will provide examples of these differences in practices and applications, if not in general principles and precepts.
The following story was related to me by a former American business partner. He was finalising a quote (I believe it was an insurance product) for a corporate client in Hong Kong. The details are not clear, but there was a competitor prepared to undercut whatever price he was going to offer. In the end, he won the deal ...
... by raising the price of his product!
Doesn't make sense? The final price matched a 'lucky number' that was immediately understood by his client.
Colin
The following story was related to me by a former American business partner. He was finalising a quote (I believe it was an insurance product) for a corporate client in Hong Kong. The details are not clear, but there was a competitor prepared to undercut whatever price he was going to offer. In the end, he won the deal ...
... by raising the price of his product!
Doesn't make sense? The final price matched a 'lucky number' that was immediately understood by his client.
Colin
Thanks for you comments and interesting story. I certainly hope more people will share their stories.
Your story tells us that the buying decision is never rational as we think.
That's why often a young sales person does better because he does not have so many hangups about what works and what doesn't from experience.
I learned this working with many college interns in my career day... One is really worth mentioning.
This is in a mail order selling situation. We normally had some guidelines on the cost we spent per mailing pack which was correlated with the price of the product or offer.
The intern suggested breaking the rule...have a real impressive and expensive kit to sell a low cost product.
It worked wonderfully.
So I learned that we can often use a BIG HAMMER to knock a SMALL NAIL!
Your story tells us that the buying decision is never rational as we think.
That's why often a young sales person does better because he does not have so many hangups about what works and what doesn't from experience.
I learned this working with many college interns in my career day... One is really worth mentioning.
This is in a mail order selling situation. We normally had some guidelines on the cost we spent per mailing pack which was correlated with the price of the product or offer.
The intern suggested breaking the rule...have a real impressive and expensive kit to sell a low cost product.
It worked wonderfully.
So I learned that we can often use a BIG HAMMER to knock a SMALL NAIL!
My take is that ... Sales automation systems, diary and digital organizer systems developed by major global vendors have to some extent unified selling systems.
Culture local styles remain important in the area interpersonal transactions, especially face to face contacts.
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Culture local styles remain important in the area interpersonal transactions, especially face to face contacts.
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