＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I previously wrote articles about “Japan’s excessive quotas” and the “movement to correct quota-ism,” but what should management be like for companies that have abolished or broken away from quota-ism?
This time, I would like to consider this question.
1. Create customers (fans) rather than making numbers
When you fall into the trap of quota-based sales, you inevitably end up with an unreasonable sales attitude. You sell products in line with the company’s sales policy.
Nomura Securities used to have something called “recommended stocks.” Salesmen would desperately sell the company’s recommended stocks to customers. As a result, many customers would buy the recommended stocks, and the stock price would rise.
However, if you take one wrong step, this can become akin to market manipulation or manipulation.
Even now, you often see advertisements from investment consultants (?) who say, “We’ll tell you only which stocks will skyrocket,” but this is also a fraudulent method in which they get a large number of customers to buy a specific stock in a short period of time, driving up the stock price, while the consultants themselves sell off the stock. As a result, the stock price plummets and many customers suffer losses.
The opposite case is one I heard from a senior colleague at work. During the height of the bubble economy, the senior colleague tried to buy a golf membership, but was turned down by a membership dealer he was familiar with, who said, “It’s better not to buy golf memberships now, so we won’t sell to people we know.” I wrote about this story in detail in my article on the “Bubble Era.”
During the bubble era, when banks were actively providing “one-room apartment construction loans” to landowners, some banks refused to provide excessive loans to customers, saying, “We are also being kind by not lending.” This is not limited to “one-room apartment construction loans,” but can be said about any borrowing for overly strenuous businesses.
If you build a relationship of trust with your customers, they will become your fans. Even if you are unable to generate immediate results, they will be your long-term fans.
2. From a top-down relationship to a relationship of trust
In the relationship between superiors and subordinates in a company, a hierarchical relationship still exists, but if there is no trust, a truly heart-to-heart relationship cannot be built.
I wrote an article about “one-on-one” communication before, but a superior who does not communicate in this way cannot be said to have earned the trust of his subordinates.
3. From management to motivating subordinates to grow
In companies that have abolished quotas, “sales target numerical management” should no longer be necessary. Therefore, I think that in the future, managers will need to shift their focus to motivating their subordinates to grow. The above-mentioned “one-on-one” communication is also very effective for this.
In reality, however, it is likely that companies will have to adopt “management by objectives (MBO),” a method of achieving organizational goals and improving employee motivation by respecting the autonomy of each employee and allowing them to achieve their own personal goals.
This way, employees will voluntarily study the features and selling points of their company’s products, rather than being forced to do so from above, and will be able to sell the best products to each customer.
If quotas are abolished, the issue of how to evaluate personnel will remain, but I believe that in order to successfully run a company after abolishing quotas, it is essential to create a new system that is fair and acceptable.
4. A good story from a Toyota salesman
Here’s a story about a Toyota salesman I heard from an acquaintance of mine.
The company my acquaintance works for has a close relationship with Mazda, so he had decided to buy a Mazda car, but one day a Toyota salesman recommended a Camry to him.
During the conversation, the salesman expressed understanding that it would be difficult for my acquaintance to purchase a Toyota vehicle due to the company where he works. Nevertheless, he encouraged him to take a test drive, saying, “Just one test drive would be fine, so I’d like you to experience the quality of the Camry.”
Moved by the salesman’s enthusiasm, my acquaintance says he was able to take a test drive of the Camry and experience its quality firsthand. He said he felt good thanks to the salesman’s unobtrusive attitude and the quality of Toyota cars.
And finally, he said, “If the day ever comes when you are able to buy a Toyota car, please consider us.” There was no pushy salesman at all, so it left him feeling refreshed.
It was a “nice story” that I think is how a salesperson should be.
