 It Is What It Is
It’s easy to take for granted what you know in your bones to be true. I was reminded of that when I recently read Eric J. McNulty’s excellent article “Your People’s Brains Need Face Time” in which the author makes a convincing argument for periodic face time as a way to keep our increasingly virtual and disbursed work environments operating smoothly. Japanese know this intuitively. They thrive on face time and long Japanese work hours manifest their need for collective engagement. “Dry” Americans, “Wet” Japanese Years ago I’d often hear Japanese disparagingly refer to Americans as “dry”. In particular, our attitude towards relationships are dry. Cut-and-dry if you will. Americans, they said, don’t abide by the bonds of duty and obligation that characterize Japanese relationships. There’s truth to that. We Americans often shed relationships as quickly as we form them. Japanese, on the other hand, can be ponderously slow and hard to get to know because they are reluctant to form new relationships. Americans are fast friends. Networks are rapidly built creating virtual bridges strong enough to be used to transport the heaviest of commercial loads. It’s an on-demand system ideally helping both parties accomplish the desired objective. Then when the objective is met, the bridge is re-tasked for another use. Neither approach is right nor wrong, just culturally specific and important to know how to navigate. Smooth as a Gravy Sandwich Japanese companies work well because of their heavy investment in face time. McNulty says that by bringing people together in the same space, “Team members are reminded of their colleagues’ humanity and learn to respect and better understand each other in ways that don’t materialize when they only engage remotely.” That’s very wet, very Japanese. When you spend time with others you see them for who they are and deal with them differently than if your relationship were virtual. The difference in cultural expectations means that Americans don’t need to rack up the legendary amount of face time that Japanese do. However, as McNulty implies, a little can go a long way. A Balancing Act For those who do business in the US and Japan it’s important to understand the relative importance each culture places on face time. In America sharing an after work dinner with a customer or a colleague is becoming increasingly rare. In Japan, that American quick and easy style of bonding is equally hard to find. I’ve found that reaching across the cultural aisle and doing the unexpected can be transformative and rewarding.
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 I’ve been told that cold calling is dead in Japan but I’m here to tell you that it’s very much alive in the United States. I believe that the effectiveness of a phone call has increased in direct proportion to the amount of unsolicited e-mail sent, and that’s a lot! Most people avoid rejection, and let me be clear, if you cold call you will experience rejection. Some people take it personally but for better or worse, e-mail is impersonal so a lot of salespeople prefer to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet. However, if you’re willing to take the risk, cold calling can be very rewarding.
There are multiple ways to cold call, so let me be clear what I’m referring to. In my book, cold calling is picking up the phone and calling someone you’ve never met before but whose needs you’ve prequalified and who in your estimation can benefit from what you are promoting. A cold call is only as effective as your ability to answer these questions: Who buys your product? What similar things are they purchasing? Why do they purchase it? When and how do they make those purchases? In other words, the “warmer” you can make your “cold” call, the more success you’ll have. Do your homework. Know as much about your prospect as possible. Know the product or service you’re selling and how it benefits your prospect. American companies have become very lean in the past ten years. These days, most companies have fewer employees and those employees have broader responsibilities than in the past. That means people have less time to waste on unsolicited calls. I have a 20-second rule. If I can’t capture the prospect’s attention in the first 20 seconds of the phone call, I never will. Putting together a short, concise, effective introduction is hard. Delivering it is even harder. For a non-native English speaker, working in a foreign culture, it is next to impossible. Developing a good 20-second pitch requires knowing what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. But that is only half the task. Engaging your prospect in a non-threatening way to maximize the potential for developing a long-term relationship is the other half. For those of us who use cold calling as a valuable sales tool on a regular basis, these obstacles are simply puzzle pieces that need to be fit together. It’s big challenge and like all challenges, the bigger it is, the greater the reward! |
AuthorKevin Crowell Archives
May 2017
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