China-based businesses are all trying to improve quality control on the factory floor and boost customer satisfaction at the retail level. For Chinese sales professionals, the key to success is combining customer service and quality control. We’ve already discussed what Value Added Sales means to the Chinese sales professional — using your experience, knowledge and intelligence to increase the value of your product or service.

But is there really a connection between Value Added Sales and Quality Control for Chinese sales professionals?

Yes – link between the two is Customer Satisfaction. That is how China sales managers should be measuring the quality of their sales efforts. Customer satisfaction in China, however, is not an accident or a by-product of good sales management. To be successful, the China salesman must make customer satisfaction his main goal.

A good business goal has 3 characteristics:
1) It is possible
2) It is quantified
3) It is unified and consistent.

China sales managers and professionals must remember that a sales goal is not a wish. It is not enough to say, “I want to be the top salesman in Shanghai”. Sales goals must be feasible. A good way to start setting goals is to aim for a certain percentage improvement over the previous period’s sales, or to compare yourself with other members of your sales team. This is called “benchmarking”, and helps you compare your performance to some reasonable standard.

But having a benchmark is not enough. The next step is to analyze and QUANTIFY your goal. The more specifically quantified your goal is, the better chance you will have of being successful. Don’t just say, “I want to sell a lot”. Decide to make X number of cold calls, have X number of meetings with new prospects, make X number of presentations and close X number of sales. Quantifying your goals means that you must understand your Critical Success Factors. What are the most important steps in making a sale? Is it to locate new prospects? Give sales presentations? Attend networking events? Look at the most successful people on your team or in your industry, and see what they do. The sales process is different for every industry, but if you analyze the process carefully you will find that your CSFs include: finding new prospects, presenting your offering, or closing deals. Consider where you need the most attention, and make that part of your goal. Don’t forget – analyze and quantify! Put numbers on your goals, or they are just wishes!

Finally, China sales professionals need to make goals that are consistent and unified. It is much harder to hit a “moving target”. You will have the most success if your goals are unified with your department and company goals. If your company is focusing on a particular type of market or client, than you should probably have similar goals. There are so many opportunities in China that sometimes salesmen simply react to their immediate environment. Make sure that your goals are consistent with your company’s larger goals.

Next: China Sales and Win-Win Negotiating

I often get called in to work with Shanghai-based sales and purchasing teams on their negotiating skills.

Chinese HR departments tend to focus more on negotiation training than those in other places. Where a western manager will arrange for sales training or leadership & development programs, Chinese managers feel that their teams need to sharpen their communication and deal-making skills.

This is great – up to a point. Most of the teams I work with, however, are made up of mid-level managers in large, bureaucratic MNCs (multinational corporations) – and they simply don’t have the latitude or organizational power to change the deal terms they are discussing. In other words, they want to learn how to negotiate and close deals – WHEN THEY ARE UNABLE TO COMPROMISE OR CREATE.

It’s probably not too surprising to hear that most of the time and money spent on this sort of training yields unsatisfactory results. Participants are always very interested and engaged in the training – but quickly revert to stonewalling or cajoling to convince the counterparty to agree.

There are only two possible solutions to this waste of resources. First, we can all decide to grant every salesperson and purchasing manager complete autonomy to make any kind of deal they want during a negotiation. Since this is unlikely to become a trend, a second option is to introduce the notion of “internal negotiation” to the China-based operation.

Internal negotiation is the process of bargaining with your own company’s senior management to put together the best package and set realistic goals for the deal on the table. Some Chinese staffers feel that this is inappropriate and disrespectful – but it is actually an important aspect of business communication. If you are not sharing your ideas, impressions and experiences with supervisors then you are not fulfilling your responsibilities as a manager.

Many Chinese sales and purchasing professionals are engaging in internal negotiations without even knowing it. Counterparties who are unable to show flexibility or compromise often end up going back to their bosses with ultimatums, complaints or delays from dissatisfied partners. If you are the one reporting on impasses and bottlenecks then you are not really a negotiator – you are a messenger.

A more effective approach is to carry out internal negotiations in advance. Since your boss (and his bosses) probably won’t feel that this is the best use of their time your first attempt at negotiating will be to convince them to listen to your ideas and suggestions

Sales training in China has made me a tougher buyer. One thing I no longer have time for is a sales person who tries to sell me something different before I have made a decision on his original pitch.

Sell one thing at a time. That’s my advice for young Chinese salesmen like the person I met with yesterday. We started out talking about advertising services for one of my client’s websites. I wasn’t yet closed on the first idea he offered and the guy was already proposing three other products. He would have done much better if he focused on a single strong pitch that actually met my true needs. How could he know which product would have the best chance? Well, one technique he might have employed was LISTENING TO ME WHEN I EXPLAINED WHAT I WANTED!! Instead, he turned the meeting into a guessing game where he kept throwing out pitch after pitch. Some of his ideas weren’t bad – but he lost all credibility after he switched industries for the third time.

When I buy a B2B service, I want to work with an expert. Salesmen who try to be all things to all people usually end up looking like amateurs or scammers. Listen to your prospect, think about your product offering and propose a business solution to your prospect’s problems.

After he is already satisfied with your first transaction you will then be in a much better position to up-sell him to new and better offers.

Always know that job you are looking for, and talk about it during the interview.

I was recently working with a big client at an industry trade show. My client is interested in hiring some new salespeople, and the owner asked if I could talk to a few candidates who were at the show.

The first person I spoke with was a young, entry-level European. I asked what he wanted to do with his career and he went on and on about what jobs he was interested in, what careers were most appealing and what economic mega trends would have the biggest impact in the coming century. All very interesting – but he never mentioned SALES, which was the one and only industry I cared about. This young man really told me why I shouldn’t hire him – he was too lazy, inexperienced or disorganized to figure out that he should be describing MY job opening and why he was such a good match,

The second person I spoke with was just the opposite. She had no opinion or plan whatsoever. I asked what she wanted to do for a living, and she just kind of stared at me. I assume that he expected me to take the lead and ask here a serious of specific questions, but that wasn’t necessary. I had already learned that she wasn’t aggressive or proactive enough to do the job I needed to get done.

The third person I met had a little bit more of a clue about how to handle a screening interview. He had obviously spent a few minutes reading our brochure or looking at our website, because when I asked him what he wanted to do he practically recited our help wanted ad. He described my client’s company – and then explained how he could assist our sales efforts in Shanghai. Wasn’t his performance a little boring and fake? NOT AT ALL! Every hiring manager wants to hear that you’re the perfect candidate – at least at the initial screening meeting. There’ll be plenty of time to find out about flaws and problems later on. For now, I just want to pick one or two people who look like they’ll fit in.

A hiring manager has a problem that he needs to solve as quickly and effectively as possible. If you waste his time during your first meeting, then he thinks you will waste his time afterwards as well.

Prepare for every job interview by knowing as much as you can about the position they are trying to fill and the characteristics of the person they want to hire. Don’t worry about being boring or unoriginal at this phase of the process. If you tell a sales manager that you want to sell or a marketing manager that you want to do research, you may get offered a job on the spot. If, however, you tell the sales manager that you want to make strategy or tell the marketing boss that you really can’t decide between graphic design and accounting, then you are going to look like an inexperienced lightweight.

For China Sales professionals who are training to be a more effective Value Added Salesperson, customer satisfaction is going to be one of the more important goals. Win-win negotiating is an important tool for achieving customer satisfaction. But every Chinese manager and sales professional knows that all systematic plans require feedback. That leads us to the question of how do we measure our progress as we work towards becoming Chinese Value Added Sales professionals?

Well, obviously the number of sales we make and contracts we sign is a good thing to measure. The only problem with measuring nothing but sales is that you don’t always know if you are responsible for the results. What if you are doing a great job, but the sales cycle is very long and you aren’t seeing any immediate results from the Value Added Sales approach? Or if your product is “hot” in Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing just now, and you are signing lots of contracts in spite of problems with your Value Added Sales techniques?

That’s why China Sales Professionals need to know which Critical Success Factors (CSF) to measure. CSFs are the factors or interim results that are important steps to making or losing sales. In other words, CSFs are indicators of how well the China salesman or manager is doing in the sales process. Even though customer satisfaction is your primary goal, it is not your ONLY goal. Every salesman and customer service representative in China will have different tests to see how effect they are, but here a few ideas

First, look at your sales relationships. How do your prospects regard you? Are they initiating contact with you, or are you calling them? Are they returning phone calls? Are your prospects and clients calling you to ask for your advice in helping them improve their business, or are they calling to clarify deal terms and prices. There is nothing wrong with clients asking about pricing – but always remember that your ability to add value depends on being an important resource in some aspect of your clients’ business. If you can’t help them earn more or save more, then you are not really adding value. A good way to measure your effectiveness is to keep track of who is reaching out to speak to you, and why? The more conversations you have about improving your clients’ profitability, the more effectively you are adding value.

Are you building long-term, value-added relationships with decision makers or members of the Decision Making Unit (DMU)? In China, many young salesmen tend to focus on the long term relationships they already have (i.e.: college friends and personal network of relationships), but don’t do enough to build long-term professional relationships with prospects. Chinese sales people must always remember that it is much more profitable to do repeat business with a client than to always look for new prospects.

Another powerful CSF in China is client referrals. Are your past and present clients sending new prospects to you? This is a very important question, since client referrals are the basis of a powerful professional network.

Finally, what do your clients think about YOU? What is your reputation within your professional community? Are you known as a problem solver? The “go-to guy” who can answer the important questions? Or are you a competent, steady team player who is reliable and keeps his promises?
You don’t want people to think of you as unreliable or unfocused. You CERTAINLY don’t want to be known as someone who doesn’t keep his promises or worse, tries to cheat his clients.

Many of us THINK we are in the first category. But if you want to survive in the competitive world of China sales, than you need to make sure that your clients’ Point Of View matches your.

You’ve been working on that RFQ or proposal for weeks. It’s 45 pages longs, with charts, diagrams, photos, facts, figures and lots of details. It was a tremendous effort, but it was worth it. This report will show the leaders of your company how valuable and important you are – if they read it.

That’s right. “If they read it.” Just because it’s important to YOU doesn’t meant that it’s important to THEM. You may be impressed with how thorough and detailed it is, but your boss just thinks it’s LONG (and probably boring!). How do you get him to read it?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could take out all the technical details & boring parts and just give him a simple summary that explains, “This is why you should care about my idea!” Well — you can, and you should. You are going to write something called an “Executive Summary” that explains all the important ideas quickly, clearly and simply.

Writing an Executive Summary

An Executive Summary is an independent “stand-alone” document that explains the business motivation supporting a larger proposal or report. It explains all the important business issues and conclusions contained in the complete report – but none of the technical details.
Think about a sales proposal for a new factory project. To cover all the necessary information and answer all the technical and financial questions, the report must be quite large and detailed. It will be used by a variety of people doing many different jobs within the company. Engineers, production people, marketers, salesmen, investors, contractors, and just about everyone else involved in the project. Sales proposals and other comprehensive project proposals are like a blueprint for a new business. They are extremely detailed and technical.

But does your boss – or HIS boss – really need to read all those technical details? Your company probably has a very simple business reason for considering this project. You either need to produce more things for less money, or you have a new investment opportunity, or you want to expand your market. Whatever the reason for doing this project, it can probably be described in a few simple sentences. That won’t tell whole story, of course, but it will tell the reader what you are writing about, and what your proposed solution is.

An executive summary is NOT an introduction to a long report. (You still have to write an introduction, so don’t forget it!) It is a separate document that can be read all by itself. A good executive summary uses graphs and charts to send a message quickly and clearly.

Imagine your company- or your client’s board of directors gave you 5 minutes of their time to explain why the company should invest ten million rmb in a new factory in Wuxi. What would you tell them? Well, if you are smart you’ll start by talking about how profitable it will be. Then you’ll talk about the costs and the schedule. Next you’ll explain about the benefits of this plan and the potential drawbacks. You’ll also describe the risks. If the new project involves any partners, you will of course describe who they are and what they will be contributing. 5 minutes goes by quickly, but if you can explain this basic information than the board will know all the main facts and can decide if it is worth their time to learn more.

An executive summary is the same thing, but written out. It should be brief – a maximum of two pages, though some people prefer one page. It should completely but briefly describe the important business points of the larger report and allow the reader to decide if he agrees with the idea or not.

Business Rationale only

This is the document that your boss’ boss will read – and probably the ONLY document – concerning this project. Focus only on the business reasons supporting your conclusion. What do the Big Bosses care about? Profit and loss. Expenses and schedules. What is supposed to happen – and what can go wrong. Tell them how much money they are going to make, how they are going to make it, when it will happen – and what may go wrong. If what you are saying makes sense, then they will read about the interesting methods and the cool technology you plan on using.

Show it first, Write it last

The executive summary should be the first part of your report that the reader sees (right after the table of contents). But it is not the first thing you write. When you are putting together a complicated proposal or report, your opinions may change as you uncover more and more detailed information. You will learn more about the subject and about the options that you are proposing and rejecting. If you try to write you executive summary first you will be building in many inaccurate assumptions. Wait until AFTER you have already developed the perfect plan that takes into account all possible contingencies and possibilities. Then sit down and summarize your findings into a persuasive executive summary.

Be Factual – But Persuasive

The people that you most need to convince are the ones least likely to read the entire report. Remember one of the uglier rules of large organizations – many people can say “NO”, but only a few can say “YES”.

If your executive summary is not convincing or persuasive, there is a good chance that the top people in your company will decide to save themselves a lot of time and effort by just saying no. Even if your summary is convincing and well-written, most readers will never go on to read your entire report.

The most common situation is that someone reads your executive summary and then goes to the part of the main report that applies to them. The COO will use the executive summary to get a general overview of the project, and then skip directly to the technical section. The CFO only cares about the financial parts.

That’s why it really is worth the effort to write a good summary. This is your only chance to sell the project, because if the executive summary doesn’t grab them, then they’ll never even look at the report. So take the time to consider the reader’s point of view and do everything you can to persuade him that this project benefits him. If the winning argument is in the executive summary, then you’ll win. If the winning argument shows up for the first time on page 23, you lose.

China sales teams used to worry about PRICE — not competitors. That is changing quickly as markets in China’s major cities have matured radidly and grown more sophisticated. Now competition is the key variable — and price is just one weapon in the China sales professional’s arsenal.

You can’t fight an enemy you can not see, so it is important to understand WHO your competition really is. Sometimes they are right in front of you — but sometimes they are more indirect. But always — the most dangerous opponent is the one that has not appeared yet.

When you do competitive analysis in China, you need to asses 3 types of competitors.

1) Direct
2) Indirect
3) Potential

The direct competitor sells what you sell to the same people that you talk to. He is the opponent you know well.

The indirect competitor affects your business, but the connection is not always clear. Subways and taxis compete — in this kind of indirect competition. Distributors can compete with factories, banks can compete with insurance companies, and shippers can compete with wholesalers. To find the real connection requires experience and anlysis.

Potential competitors are the ones who have not arrived yet. It may be a big chain of retailers from Indiana — or it may be three science students in Wuhan with a cool idea. But they’ll be ready soon, and they’re coming for you and your business.

Young Chinese salesmen have two general methods for dealing with objections to their sales pitch. Some give up right away while others act like they are playing badminton and try to swat it back.

Let’s take another approach. Let’s let the prospect talk and EXPLAIN what he wants.
Objections are nothing more than the prospect being honest. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Once he tells you about his true feelings, then the real selling can begin.

Listening is NOT waiting for the other guy to shut up so that you can talk.
The key is getting to the heart of the REAL issue that he objects to – and he wants to tell you. He’ll start with, “no time” or “no money” and then start filling in the blanks. But the average China sales professional doesn’t give the prospect a chance – he swoops in and tries to counter every comment and observation as it comes up.

Jumping in with lightening quick retorts may be very clever – but it’s not very smart. If you wait for him to tell you what he really thinks, you’ll close more deals.

More and more of my clients are complaining that they are having trouble making effective presentations to western buyers and decision-makers. I’m hearing similar complaints from westerners. Why the sudden problems? More Chinese salesmen than ever are pitching deals and ideas to international businesses. At the same time, western buyers in China are getting more experienced — and less patient with poor presentation skills.

Here are a few tips:

1) Have a sales message that goes to the bottom line. Decision-makers don’t like mystery stories that save the exciting developments for the last page. Start with the end of the story. If you think your product or servuce concept will earn your client an additional US $10 million after 18 months, start there and explain how. We all know that the Chinese economy is growing. We all know about the potential of the Chinese market. We want to know the specifics about how you plan on grabbing a piece of it.

2) Stop using “I’m Chinese” as a competitive argument.There are 1.3 billion Chinese people in China. Don’t say “This is China” to answer questions about your product, service or price. The international buying community has gotten much more sophisticated about the dynamics of the China market. I have been living in China and working with Chinese entrepreneurs for 5 years. Whenever a potential client in Shanghai or Beijing tells me that his competitive advantage is that he is Chinese and therefore knows about the China market, I immediately start to lose interest. Chinese salesmen and Chinese business owners are competing against other Chinese businesses. International investors know this, and so should you.

3) Don’t talk about the benefits of a long-term relationship while they are still deciding on the first deal. Concentrate on demonstrating that your product or service really adds value. That is what you need to get through the first meeting. Issues like business philosophy, values and character are important, but they don’t come into play until AFTER you have proven your business idea makes sense.

You have been working on a new prospect for a while, and not you think it is time for him to make a decision. But how do you move him to sign the contract? Cut price? Bring in your boss? Offer more services?

Sometimes closing a deal is as simple as saying, “When would you like us to schedule the delivery?” The point is – if you wait for him to ask for the deal, you may be waiting for a very long time. You need to take the initiative – and ASK FOR THE ORDER.

Sometimes you are dealing with a “motivated buyer” who needs to buy your product. He will ask all the questions and move quickly to the negotiation. Most times, however, you must ask for sale. This is the conclusion of the sales process and the beginning of the negotiation. We call it “closing the sale”.

A close can be as simple as saying, “would you like to buy it now?” This direct approach works better with simple products than with sophisticated services, but the idea is similar. Most times you will not get the sale unless you ask for it.

One approach that is easier for many Chinese sales professionals to handle but still fairly direct is to offer the potential buyer a better deal if he decides to buy quickly. “My manager says I can give you 10% off if we sign a contract by the end of the week”. Another approach is called the “take-away” close, where you tell the buyer that someone else has already bought the last one. This frequently motivates the buyer to decide that he desperately needs the item — which the salesman then finds.

If you can close a sale, then you are a successful seller. If you are talking to a lot of customers but not closing many deals, then you should consider changing you closing technique.