As our interview topic today will be on “Establishing System for Early Sales Completion”, what are the reasons and background that make you consider doing so?

Mr. Matsukura: Considering the market situation from now on after consumption tax has raised, walk-in number will definitely drop as a result.

Along with the change in organization structure which put more emphasis on performance of new graduates, I think it is necessary to make a complete transformation of the sales system from now on.

So the complete transformation here is “Establishing System for Early Sales Completion”

Mr. Matsukura: Yes. LiB Consulting provided the solution I had been looking for. There has always been limitation in salesperson’s individual contract rate.

For example, it is possible to achieve 20% contract rate through individual self improvement. However achieving 30% it another story and very unlikely.

Therefore when I first learn how approach as organization as a whole can achieve high contract rate, which could not be achieved by individual improvement from LiB Consulting, I immediately agree with the concept.

Could you tell us more about the concept by LiB Consulting?

Mr. Matsukura: Contents in the concept which impressed me was “Sales Strategic Planning to Eliminate the Causes of Remaining Units”

It will be easy to understand if you imagine how could “remaining units” occur in real estate project (graph 1). Looking at the balance between walk-in number and sales ability, in general case, walk-in number is the highest when project is newly opened then gradually drops afterwards.

In contrast, sales ability starts low at the beginning and progressively improves as sales opportunity and talks with customers accumulated. Most of the time, sales ability reaches the peak when project has been started for a period of time.

As a result, by the time when salespersons have a clear image of how to successfully sell product, project has fallen into the dilemma of no walk-in customer to sell to anymore. Thus this gap between walk-in number and sales ability is the actual cause of remaining units.

In different words, developing maximum sales ability at the beginning when walk-in number is the highest would prevent project from ending with remaining units (Graph 2).

This is impossible to achieve by solely individual ability. It is necessary to fundamentally change the way of thinking from individual ability approach to challenging by leveraging on organization power (graph 3).

As the project progressed, are there any difficulties you have faced?

Mr. Matsukura: To succeed in this project, it is vital to maintain consistency from marketing plan to sales and build collaboration from various divisions.

Prior to the start of sales, it is necessary to plan from how house layout should be designed, what marketing activity should be executed to how sales scenario should be planned considering customer’s characteristics.

Thus all divisions from marketing, sales and architect design must collaborate with one another. Yet this method is new to our organization, the collaboration starts out slowly. Beginning with marketing team as a center, then few members from management team and architect design join the that central team. Other divisions were just observing on the activities.

Are there any adjustments have been made to encourage more collaboration?

Mr. Matsukura: We always try to involve people by one mean or another. In order to involve other divisions, we start from sharing customer information with them and continuously sharing project progress from time to time.

For example, knowing what is the current sales progress and status of each customer and also sharing good and bad examples (in contacting with customer in advance before sales starting day).

We gradually create the sense of “Team Sales” by sharing the progress of each customer’s interest towards the project to members who do not have direct contact with customer. Eventually, all members start to feel that “we all do this together”.

What did you to in particular to build customer’s interest and create purchasing urge before sales start”

Mr. Matsukura: Even in meeting with LiB Consulting, we had been earnestly discussing on “how to match the wave of walk-in with sales ability”.

We determine “Special Pre-sales Event” as the start of sales and try to increase purchasing urge as high as possible before the actual day.
In general case, sales starting day is the day we meet customer for the first time.

But we plan to make contact at least 2 times before the actual day with customer whom we have contacted once at registration.

Getting acquaintance with customer, understand customer’s characteristics and preferences and also evaluate customer beforehand allows salesperson to be able to plan sales scenario for each individual customer in advance to ensure contract signing on the actual sales starting day.

How was the outcome of the sales starting day?

We have got 50% contract rate on the sales starting day. We had set goal and plan for customer to make contract within that day.

LiB Consulting supported us throughout the day and was our guest speaker. Since it is the “Special Pre-sales Event”, it is important to make customers feel special and privilege. In stead of only explaining about the project.

We provided customer the information on how to buy a house smartly and the perfect timing to buy to create strong reason for buying and at the same time create the sense that they are specially selected. As a result customers were even more earnestly considering buying our projects.

Moreover, when participating along with other customers, once there is someone signing contract the event is designed to create the atmosphere of group psychology which urges other participants to also want to do the same.

At the end of the day we have got successful contract rate at 50% which existing way of individual sales style could not achieve.

So after that first sales starting day, everyone must have highly felt the sense of achievement.

Mr. Matsukura: One of our salespersons said that it was the activity that he completed decisively the most since he joined the company. Another one mentioned that we should have done this earlier.