Voicing the Role of Sales in Japanese Society
With the end of the last call yesterday, my sales experience in Japan has officially topped two and a half months. Even though I am still without a single success to my belt, it feels as if, at least from a socio-cultural standpoint, I am starting to see what exactly is the role of a salesman here in Japan. In an IT company whose success is largely defined by aggressive sales rather than technical innovation, understanding the place of sales and its practitioners in Japanese society would be not only necessary but fundamental. In a previous post , I already established that sales skills are obviously not a cookie-cutter ability applicable in the same way to every country out there. But I am coming to realize that what is more important for the difference in sales across countries is social status and function rather than sheer approach and methodology. People would tend to listen to salesmen if the salesmen are perceived to carry more of a social significance, rather than just so