Before I joined the group in charge of developing countries, there was a person in charge named Mr. Nohara. He wasn’t as sloppy as he was saying, but he was loud and often said: “Again, is it tempura tonight? It’s been three days in a row.” “I have to entertain customers this week. It’s really hard to take customers to see Tokyo or go shopping.” “This year But it will be over in a month. I’m really in trouble. I have to get an invoice for advertising expenses from the agency. ”
When I said to Mr. Nohara, “Entertainment with tempura is a big deal,” he honestly said, “Mr. Sato, once a week is the best, but …”.
I also asked: “Are you sending the advertising costs to the agency? Are you not spending the costs for yourself?”
Then he returned as follows. “Mr. Sato, I can’t spend the advertising money for myself.”
A few months later, I became the manager of the developing country regional group and invited Mr. Nohara to my seat. And I said to him: “From now on, spend your advertising money for yourself. Never send an invoice for your advertising money to a distributor.”
Then, Mr. Nohara replied, “Mr. Sato, I don’t understand what Mr. Sato is saying. Please explain a little more concretely.”
I explained to him. “First of all, when budgeting, ask what kind of sales promotion the agency plans to do this year. For example, if they want to display and sell the equipment in the *** exhibition, you also go on a business trip. And you should also work with the agency. By planning an exhibition, you will be able to experience various things and make a big difference to yourself. Then, please grow up with yourself. ”
Then, Mr. Nohara replied that he understood well. After that, Mr. Nohara changed steadily. In this way, he began to hold ultrasonic seminars in various countries.
I put another idea into practice.
Until now, when a new product was developed, service personnel from each country were called to the factory to study.
However, the salesmen of the sales agents in each country only gained knowledge from the materials and the servicemen who studied in Japan.
At first, I invited excellent salesmen from ASEAN countries’ agencies to Japan as a reward and created an opportunity to study.
At first, I rented a conference room at the Shinbashi Dai-ichi Hotel to educate salesmen.
It gradually evolved and expanded, becoming a distributor meeting.
Actually, this sales agent meeting has been an idea for a long time, but when all the agents meet, it is thought that different prices will be known to the agents, so it could not be realized.
However, for the first time, I held an agency meeting in the ASEAN region in Penang, Malaysia in three days.
We had education and discussions with the presidents and salesmen of each country.
Then, as expected there, the problem that the price of CT to them was higher than the price for Singapore came up from the Indonesian agency.
The price at that time was given by Kobayashi maneger who was stationed in Singapore.
So everyone’s eyes were on Kobayashi maneger.
Kobayashi maneger couldn’t stay there and returned to Singapore.
I apologized to everyone there.
He declared that all prices would be the same from now on, unless the conditions are different.
I arbitrarily named this the Penang Declaration.
Kobayashi maneger later wrote a letter to the head of the Tokyo headquarters about this and blamed me.
I was called from the top, but openly explained the background. <supplementary explanation>
I thought the prices should basically be the same, but I didn’t know how to do that.
But I solved it two years later.
Mr. Begere of South Africa taught me the idea of ​​a standard price for Siemens.
That is, all the price lists of distributors in the world are the same.
Then, each distributor is offered a discount rate.
That way, we don’t even have to create a price list every year.