Our Solution Provision

Konnichiwa, Japan fans. In today's show, we're going to talk about solutions. Za eigo desu. Soredewa igimashou. So let's get going. This is the fifth year of the Sales Japan series podcast broadcasting around the world from the Beverly Hills of Japan, Minato-ku, here in downtown Tokyo. It is chic central. I'm your host, Dr. Greg Story, your corporate coaching and training guy committed to your success, the president of Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo, Japan, and the three-time best-selling author of Japan Sales Mastery, Japan Business Mastery, Japan Presentations Mastery, and now my new book in Japanese, Za Egyo, is available on Amazon in this podcast. So I want to help you to survive COVID-19. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your family, friends, and colleagues. We are not being sponsored by Libsyn, but we value your privacy, which is why we have our podcast hosted by Libsyn, who, unlike many other podcast hosts, have a strict policy that does not allow access to your private information by anyone. Here is our daily podcast lineup on iTunes. Mondays, the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show. Tuesdays, the Presentation Japan Series. Every second Tuesday, the Businesses Touches in No Oshie Show. Wednesdays, the Sales Japan Series. Thursdays, the Leadership Japan Series. And every second Thursday, the Business of Pro Podcast Show. Fridays, the Japan Business Mastery Show and Saturday's Japan's Top Business Interviews. Now this is episode number 274. Today we're talking about our solution provision. After having asked the buyer a lot of questions about their current situation and where they want to be, we know if we can help them or not. It isn't a given that we can. Only we will know if we have the right solution for them. We can provide a wrong or partial solution. The client will not, however, get the outcomes they need. Yes, we grab the dough in the short term, but our business reputation will get slammed and our trust quotient out in the marketplace will be eclipsed. We must always keep in mind that a deal is a deal, but reputation and trust are permanent assets. If we cannot provide the right solution, then we should tell the client we cannot help them. There is a cadence for us to follow when presenting the solution for the client's problem. We go through five phases. We cover the facts, benefits, the application of the benefits, provide concrete evidence, and then do a trial close. Number one, facts. often never get beyond this first level explaining the facts, data, features and the spec associated with the solution. They get bogged down in the micro detail. Now these details are important because we have to provide the buyer with confidence that what we are saying will work. These facts have to be provable and we need hard evidence to back them up. Often the buyer will pull us into the morass of the micro detail, because they are analytical personality types and love the numbers. However, we have to remember that the buyer is not buying the process. They are buying the outcome from the process. Number two, benefits. Having explained the details of how the process works and the features of our solution, we need to describe the benefits. What does this feature provide in the way of results for the buyer? What will be different and what will be better as a result of buying our solution? A certain weight, color, dimension, process, etc. are just details. They do not do anything by themselves until they are linked to the outcomes the buyer is seeking. If the details don't deliver what the buyer needs, then we are having the wrong discussion. The content of our description of the solution and what it will do for the client has to line up perfectly with what they require. out more when we come back from the break. Our show today is brought to you by our public programs, but we also do custom made in-house classes. Now we do them in our super safe classroom. We do them live online and we do them in Japanese and we do them in English. Our show today is brought to you by our Dale Carnegie course running on the 2nd of February. On the 8th of February, we'll have our Confident English program. On the 14th of February, we're doing the Leadership Training for Managers. And on the 16th of February, we're doing the three-day version of the Dale Carnegie course. Check out our website, www.dale-carnegie.co.jp. Get my best-selling books, Japan Sales Mastery, that's the Bible for selling in Japan, and Japan Business Mastery, and my new book, Japan Presentations Mastery, and they're all available on Amazon. If you like learning by watching videos, then we have over 1,000 there for you at Tokyo, Japan, Dale Carnegie TV on YouTube. We release three TV shows every week on YouTube. the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show. That's the premier business show in Japan. It comes out Mondays. Fridays, the Japan Business Mastery Show. And Sundays, Japan's top business interviews where I interview leaders in Japan from SMEs all the way up to the corporate captains of industry on one topic, leading in Japan. Every second Thursday, we release the Business Pro TV Show. And don't forget, you can email me at greg.story at Dale Carnegie dot com. Welcome back. Number three, applications. We know the knowledge by itself isn't as important as the application of the knowledge. So it is with applying the benefits of our solution. We need to go into detail of what the solution will mean for the buyer's company. What things will it help eliminate? What things will it help expand? What will it improve? having an inert benefit is meaningless. What happens inside the buyer's business when that benefit is applied to their enterprise? This is where the rubber meets the road, as we say. What will be different after we have applied our solution? What can they see on a daily basis Yes, they will help them to do even better than before. This explanation process is absolutely critical. It works extremely well if we have fully understood their business, the market in which they operate, and where they are in relation to their competitors. Number four, evidence. Just because a salesperson says so, doesn't mean the buyer believes it. This is where we need to be able to refer to where this same solution has benefited a similar company, in a similar situation, in a similar industry. The closer we can get the example we are using to the buyer's reality, the more convincing the example becomes. This is an important stage as it will give the buyer more confidence that we know what we are doing, having done this before and have achieved good results. company is specific, so there will always be differences with the comparison company. This is where storytelling comes in as we bring the drama of the solution to life. We tell the tale of what happened in our example through the people involved. Number five, trial close. Once we've gone through these stages, we test whether the client has understood what we have said. We try to flush out any hesitations or objections so that we can deal with them. It isn't a complex step. We just ask, how does that sound so far? And then shut up and wait for their answer. That question is enough to find out where we are in the sales cycle and whether we can ask for the order. We should never fear objections or clarifications. We should fear the opposite. If they don't say anything, start to worry, it may be that they don't care because they have already deleted our solution as a possibility. Objections, questions, etc. shows interest. This allows us to add more pinpoint proof to how a solution will help them achieve their desired outcomes. steps are all required and required in this order to convince the client to buy the conversation is unlikely to be this neatly ordered however we must keep the discussion on track and address each of these points in this cadence to be successful and get the business thank you for joining the sales japan series if you found the program useful please work on your karma and share it with your family, friends, and colleagues. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. Immediately apply what you've learned today. Use it and go out there and survive. Remember, I'm your corporate coaching and training guy in your corner, committed to your success here in Nippon.

The Five-Phase Sales Solution Cadence: Facts, Benefits, Applications, Evidence, Trial Close

 When you’ve done proper discovery—asked loads of questions about where the buyer is now and where they want to be—you earn the right to propose a solution. But here’s the kicker: sometimes the right move is to walk away. If you force a partial or wrong-fit solution, you might “grab the dough” short-term, but you’ll torch trust and reputation—the two assets that don’t come back easily. 

 Below is a search-friendly, buyer-proof cadence you can run in any market—**Japan vs **United States, SME vs enterprise, B2B services vs SaaS—especially post-pandemic when procurement teams want clarity, proof, and outcomes, not fluffy feature parades.

   How do you know if your solution genuinely fits the buyer (and when should you walk away)?

 You know it fits when you can map your solution to their stated outcomes—and prove it—without twisting the facts. If the buyer needs an outcome you can’t deliver, the ethical (and commercially smart) play is: “We can’t help you with that.”

 In 2024–2026, buyers are savvier and more risk-aware. They’ll check reviews, ask peers, and sanity-test claims through AI search tools and internal stakeholder scrutiny. In high-trust cultures (including Japan) and high-compliance industries (finance, health, critical infrastructure), a wrong-fit sale becomes a reputational boomerang. The deal closes once; the story travels forever.

 Do now: Write a one-page “fit test”: buyer outcomes → your capability → evidence. If any outcome can’t be supported, qualify out fast. 

   What does “facts” mean in a modern B2B sales conversation?

 Facts are the provable mechanics—features, specs, process steps, constraints—and the proof that they work. Facts aren’t the goal; they’re the credibility scaffolding.

 Salespeople often drown here: endless micro-detail, endless Q&A, endless spreadsheets. Yes, analytical buyers (engineering-led firms, CFO-led committees) will pull you into the weeds—but remember: they aren’t buying the process. They’re buying the outcome from the process. Bring facts that de-risk the decision: implementation timelines, security posture (SOC 2/ISO), uptime/SLA history, integration limits, and measurable performance benchmarks. Then move on before you get stuck.

 Do now: Prepare a “facts pack” with 5–7 proof points (not 57 features). Use it to earn trust, then pivot to outcomes. 

   How do you turn features into benefits buyers will actually pay for?

 Benefits are the “so what”—the measurable results the buyer gets because the feature exists. If you can’t link a feature to an outcome, it’s just trivia.

 A weight, colour, dimension, workflow, dashboard, or AI model is not valuable by itself. It becomes valuable when it improves a KPI: reduced cycle time, fewer defects, higher conversion, lower churn, faster onboarding, better safety, tighter compliance. This is where classic sales thinking still holds up—think **SPIN Selling and the buyer’s implied needs: pain, impact, and value. In a tight 2025 budget environment, “nice-to-have” benefits die quickly; “must-have” outcomes survive.

 Do now: For every top feature, write one sentence: “This enables ___, which improves ___ by ___ within ___ days.” If you can’t fill the blanks, drop the feature from your pitch. 

   What is the “application of benefits” and how do you make it real inside their business?

 Application is where benefits turn into daily operational reality—what changes in workflow, decisions, and results.This is the “rubber meets the road” layer.

 Don’t just say “we improve productivity.” Show where it lands: which meetings get shorter, which approvals disappear, which roles stop firefighting, which customers get served faster, which errors are prevented, and what leaders see weekly on dashboards. Compare contexts: a startup may care about speed and cash runway; a multinational may care about governance, change management, and multi-region rollouts. A consumer business might chase conversion and NPS; a B2B industrial firm might chase downtime reduction and safety incidents.

 Do now: Build a simple “Before → After” map for their week: processes eliminated, expanded, improved—and who owns each change. 

   What counts as credible evidence (and what “proof” actually convinces buyers)?

 Credible evidence is specific, comparable, and close to the buyer’s reality—same industry, similar scale, similar constraints. “Trust me” is not evidence.

 Bring proof that survives scrutiny: reference customers, quantified case studies, independent reviews, pilot results, and implementation artefacts (plans, timelines, adoption metrics). The closer the comparison company is to the buyer, the more persuasive it becomes. This is also where storytelling matters: not...