I Have Lived in Asia for 50 Years & The Majority Years in Sales. Eight Insights of What I Have Learned Selling in Asia.

By Michael J Griffin

4-min read

This week I celebrate my 50th year of living in Asia. I came to Malaysia as a US Peace Corps Volunteer and stayed! Most of these years I have been in the Asian Arena of B2B sales as salesperson, a sales manager and a sales productivity consultant. Here are eight insights of what I have learned.

1.  My success in sales and as a leader is the result of the support, mentoring and teamwork of many fine people I have worked with. We have ridden the waves of Asian Age of Growth from the 1980’s till now. I am blessed, humbled and thankful for those who believed and grew me during this 50 years. This week thank those who have supported your sales and career success.  

2. Research over the past 50 years demonstrates that the core B2B selling skills have not changed over these years. I learned the Professional Selling Skills of Xerox in 1980 and they have been the foundation of ethical relationship selling to achieve Win3 outcomes for the customer, you and your sales organization. Our Consultative Selling Skills training embodies these crucial B2B sales elements and what we have learned from our Asian sales experience.

3. Dr. Maxwell’s Law of the Chain sums up “The strongest or weakest link in any sales organization is the motivation and competence of the sales manager.” Finding, hiring, and developing high performing sales managers gives the best return on investment to any sale organization.

4. When Sales and Marketing Departments collaborate with each other to serve their customers’ success, their sales success and profit grows rapidly. I have found though the collaboration between these two departments is usually weak and strained, leading to hinderances in sales revenue growth.

5. Since the rise of the Internet and now A.I. the customer now has the upper hand in the sales process by having global access to information about you, your competitors, markets and pricing. Customers are usually more prepared than salespeople during a sales meeting. Secondly, Korn Ferry has found customers are spending only 17% of their buying time meeting with salespeople. Salespeople who are well prepared show the customer they are experts who care leading to a competitive advantage.

6. In B2B selling situations, selling to committees are the the norm. Selling skills are not enough. Sales people must develop and master “Discernment and Discretion” when communicating with the different customer - committee personalities. I have found coaching and training your salespeople to communicate by recognizing and adapting to relating to customer DISC communication styles is foundational. But high performing salespeople have excellent Q2 – EQ or high emotional intelligence, and CQ or Cross Cultural Competence, across ethnic and corporate cultures. These two Q2 competencies are what gives global high performing salespeople the discernment and discretion to sell and exceed sales goals above average salespeople.

7. Many organizations seem to delegate crucial sales functions to the HR department: screening sales or service applicants, finding sales managers, obtaining sales training that gets results. Rarely do HR managers understand how to sell, manage sales productivity, and find excellent salespeople or sales. This can lead to suboptimal sales productivity. My suggestion is to keep the sales functions, processes and decisions of attracting, hiring and training salespeople and sales managers under the wing of the sales department with healthy HR department collaboration.

8. “CRM never closed any sales” is a common quote. Technology certainly can boost the speed and effectiveness of sales teams. Never buy technology and force your sales team culture to fit the technology, but, purchase and use technology to drive the efficiency, speed and success of your sales teams to meet or exceed revenue target and cement customer loyalty.

My 50 years in Asia of sales successes and failures has really “sharpened my (sales) saw” as Steven Covey as stated. I would be happy to meet with any of you, not to sell my ELAvate solutions but to share our sales experiences in Asia to learn from each other. Call me for a coffee!

Michael J Griffin
ELAvate Founder and CEO
A Grateful Person Living and an Expat in Asia!!!
michael.griffin@elavateglobal.com
+65-91194008 (WhatsApp)