On my first trip to Japan the Executive Director of Nissho Electronics, our distributor, met me in the lobby of the Palace Hotel. He wanted to welcome me to Japan and take me to dinner.
Over dinner I was given my itinerary for the week. At quick glance I saw we weren’t spending much time together and no time was allocated to discuss how to expand distribution, but I wasn’t going to question him. Thought there must be a reason.
Here was my itinerary…
Day 1: Work with Logistics Team… “wear your Levis”
Day 2: Meetings with Customer Support & Hardware / Software Eng.
Day 3: Customer visits with sales team lead
Day 4: One hour meeting with Executive Director
Day 5: Wrap-up meetings with executive sales team
On Day 1 I unboxed and tested five computers… four of the five were DOA. Upon returning to the hotel I called our VP of Manufacturing to report what I found.
On Day 2 I heard more about poor quality and lack of timely responses to technical questions.
On Day 3 I visited current installations and made prospect calls with their number one sales person. He didn’t speak much English, but we understood the art of selling so we communicated.
On Day 4 the Executive Director asked what I learned…
On Day 5 my meeting with the executive sales team was delayed… seems the Executive Director doubled our monthly order that morning ($500,000) and sales team had been told to get selling!
Lessons Learned:
Over dinner I was given my itinerary for the week. At quick glance I saw we weren’t spending much time together and no time was allocated to discuss how to expand distribution, but I wasn’t going to question him. Thought there must be a reason.
Here was my itinerary…
Day 1: Work with Logistics Team… “wear your Levis”
Day 2: Meetings with Customer Support & Hardware / Software Eng.
Day 3: Customer visits with sales team lead
Day 4: One hour meeting with Executive Director
Day 5: Wrap-up meetings with executive sales team
On Day 1 I unboxed and tested five computers… four of the five were DOA. Upon returning to the hotel I called our VP of Manufacturing to report what I found.
On Day 2 I heard more about poor quality and lack of timely responses to technical questions.
On Day 3 I visited current installations and made prospect calls with their number one sales person. He didn’t speak much English, but we understood the art of selling so we communicated.
On Day 4 the Executive Director asked what I learned…
- Confirmed there were design issues and computers were becoming damaged in transit… manufacturing was expediting corrections.
- Saw specific examples of additional quality problems and technical support issues… manufacturing and customer service has received details on what needs to be corrected..
- Provided a hand drawn organization chart (with names & titles)… they don’t make these available to so he was impressed that I figured it out.
- And last, I asked him to double his monthly orders “Japanese-style”.
On Day 5 my meeting with the executive sales team was delayed… seems the Executive Director doubled our monthly order that morning ($500,000) and sales team had been told to get selling!
Lessons Learned:
- By taking time to get dirty I was able to learn first hand why they weren’t selling… it wasn’t them, it was our poor quality and customer service.
- By listening and taking care of problems, before talking about increasing sales, I built trust… and with trust came rapid expansion and 65% of the Japanese market.
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