Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (26) : Ron-sanのビジネストリップ物語の始まり - シンガポール

ここからはRonさんのビジネストリップ物語、80か国以上を訪問、の話です。

目的はもちろん海外の営業拠点での営業のトレーニング。

それまでのいすゞ自動車にはないRonさんならではのトレーニングを行いました。

最初のトレーニングは1985年のシンガポール。

私がアジアに初めて目を向けたのは、1994年、米系のコンサル会社にいるときでした。

その後、半導体装置の会社の海外営業に移り、シンガポール初訪問は1997年でした。

中国系がビジネスの実権を握り、マレー系、インド系が安価な労働力を提供といった構造でした。

では、Ronさんのビジネストリップ物語の始まりです。

Chapter #9: TRAVELING & TEACHING IN THE 1980’S

Singapore

As I mention earlier, my first training business trip was in Singapore on April 26-29, 1985. That is where 20 years of international travel to give seminars started.

As I look back, that was not a particularly good seminar, but it was far better than what Isuzu Motors ever did before, to develop its sales network international. So, simply put, I had an easy act to follow. In some cases, previous training was not even understandable, not to mention helpful. So, that is where the rocket took off.

Singapore is a city-state, a country of one city at the south of Peninsula Malaysia. It is a major trading port because of its location. It used to be a colony of England and therefore English (British English) is the most commonly used language. About 80% of the population are Chinese with a small percent of Malay and a smaller population from Indian.

Historically, being a British Colony, it was the ideal place to import machinery and finished goods from England and export raw materials, mostly natural rubber, tin and palm oil from Malaysia to England.

In recent years, as it is on the oil route from the Middle East to the United States, it is a major stop-over for tankers and has developed its own petro-chemical industry. With its extremely high level of education and being multi-lingual, it also is very involve in the computer and electronic industry.

It is very close to the equator, and therefore is very tropical with a lot of rain.





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Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (25) : Ron-sanのセールス・トレーニング（さわりだけですが）

Ronさんのライフワークとなった海外営業。Ronさんの自伝の中では、いすゞのトラック販売向けに開発したセールス・トレーニングの説明が続きますが、ここではさわりだけをご紹介します。

Chapter #8: WHAT SALES TRAINING IS

Ronさんが20年間言い続けてきたこと。

When I look back, I wonder why my training carried the value it did and was as durable as it was. A song is only on the charts for a few weeks, and here I am saying the same thing for almost 20 years.

”ゴール自体が大事なのではない”
After doing all the studies on selling and writing on the subject, I came up with ten steps to selling. Each step is an activity or series of activities. We have all heard the expression, “We are goal oriented, not activity oriented.” Well, I can’t disagree with that statement, but it is not compete. It ignores the activities required to achieve the goal you want to achieve. I believe once the goal is set, all the attention should be on the activities required to achieve the goal. 90% of one’s attention should be on the activities required to achieve the goal, not the goal itself. The goal should be set initially and occasionally evaluated to confirm its value. Other than that, all the attention should be on the activities as I see it. If highly successful activities have been developed, evaluated and proven, one should use them as much as possible. An example is Toyota’s production system. The production lines are set up so the production worker does not have to think. They just follow very precisely determined activities. Well, I developed selling activities with that same belief in mind.

”自分でどうにもならないことを嘆いても”
Too often I hear sales managers pressuring sales people about making their sales target and to make their assigned quotas. They talk about the competition. They talk about inflation and pricing concerns. They talk about new technology challenging the current product range. They talk about the strength and/or weakness in the economy. They talk about supplies and importing problems. Discussions on these subjects can go on for hours to no conclusion. For a retail sales person, all of these factors are totally out of his control, and he walks out of the room with a sales goal but feels completely helpless.

誰もが実施できるセールスプロセス
So, I tried to write a sales training seminar on activities that will be most helpful to produce the sales goals set. I wanted to write activities, I as a sales manager could order someone to do. I cannot order someone to sell because of the factors above, which are out of a salesman’s control. Each of my 11 steps is within the person’s control.



Ronさんは、このセールス・トレーニング・プログラムを世界各地で展開していきました。

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (24) : 残りの人生の目標が明確に！

Ron-sanは、いすゞ自動車にて海外営業トレーニングプログラムの開発に従事し、また、川崎に引っ越し、地域のコミュニティに加わることにより、残りの人生のゴールを見つけたと記しています。30代後半です。

営業トレーニングでの気付き
Over the years, although vehicle models have changed, basic sales techniques, sales management and general management have changed very little. Also, those principles are very universal and can apply in many countries and cultures. There are modifications required, but they are very slight considering the total concept.

Furthermore, as I studied how sales were made in many markets, I learned there is never one best way. What is best in one region might not be in another. Obviously a salesman would not telephone his customer if none of the customers had telephones. He would not send out advertisement if the customers could not read.

営業トレーニング成功の要因
I had no idea to this day why my presentations and seminars were so popular. I would guess it has something to do with my personality and the ability to communicate with people who have a wide range of education levels. Also, for some reason, my sense of humor seems to be successful in many wide and diverse groups. I guess that was just a gift from God. I know that my goals of globally interacting and understanding people were on the right track.

Moving to Shinkawasaki Park City　いすゞの社宅からマンションへ引っ越し。
Also, during those years we moved out of Isuzu Motors’ company housing and bought our own condominium. Finally we were in the position to create a nice neighborhood environment. We had a sport club and tennis courts in the complex. Also, there a full range of activities we could get involved in like Japanese summer festivals.



Summer Festivals in Shinkawasaki Park City

残りの人生のゴールが明確に。
Finally, my life’s purpose was showing itself, and I was overjoyed with both personally and professionally, as I had finally clarified my goals and activities for the rest of my life.

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (23) : 初舞台はシンガポール。大切なのは学ぶ姿勢！

RonさんはGMのコンサルタントやトレーニングから多くを学び、いすゞのトラック販売用の営業トレーニング・プログラムを開発。
1985年、ついにシンガポールで最初のセールスセミナーを開催。Ronさんのグローバルな仕事の始まりです。

当時、私も念願叶い1983年の末から米国IBMサンノゼ研究所に家族と共に赴任。
米国人の向上心、独立心の高さに感銘を受け、その後の人生に大きな影響を受けました。

GMのコンサルタントと関係者からの学び
There was a Japanese domestic market GM Consultant from Chevrolet, Gardner Glenn, who was trying to improve Isuzu’s sales in Japan and spent time in Chevrolet’s training operation in the United States. When I approached him, he thought we could complement each other very well, as I was a Japanese speaker, and he had just arrived from the US with little background about Japan. Through our many discussions, he provided me a wealth of material from GM’s old training programs. That was just the raw material I needed to write my own international commercial vehicle and car sales training program.



Also, Gardner had recruited the John Williamson Company to provide seminars in Japan. John Williamson owned a group of dealerships in the southern part of the United States. At that time, they had 22 dealerships and an in-group training center in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, there are mega-dealers owning hundreds of dealerships, but in those days dealership groups were rare.

米国のトレーニングに参加し大きな収穫
John Williamson invited me to his training center to attend one of his normal US domestic 2-week salesmen courses and spend a week observing a dealership of my choice. That was very productive three weeks, as I then had all the material and techniques I needed to do it all myself. Also, I received, for free, great material for a dealership sales manager seminar, my second program.

Over and above that, I read a dozen books on basic salesmanship.

As I had worked in Isuzu’s overseas sales promotion department and was a pretty good Japanese speaker at that time, I had a pretty good understanding of the Isuzu products, particularly the trucks. What I did not know, I could learn very easily by going into Isuzu’s Engineering and asking about it. One of the functions of sales seminars is to help the retail salesmen sell and to do that, they had to know the features and user benefits of buying the vehicle. Therefore, teaching about the product was critical and not just teaching basic salesmanship.

シンガポールで最初のセールスセミナーを開催
After a year of study and writing, I conducted my first sales seminar in Singapore, in 1985. It was not the best seminar I ever gave, but I learned a great deal from that program and from that point the seminars improved and improved. While I was teaching, I was probing the best salesmen as to what made them so successful. I not only shared their thoughts with the whole group, I took that knowledge and used it to improve the future seminar.




First sales seminar, April 1985

世界各地でセミナー開催
From that first seminar, my training activities exploded, and I started traveling worldwide, particularly in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. I gave seminars in Europe only a few times and a couple of times in Canada. But, most of the time I was working in the jungles and desserts of the world. As of this writing, I have traveled to over 80 countries worldwide.

それにしても、何故、GMをはじめとして米国のメーカーは、日本市場で生き残れなかったのでしょうか。
ヨーロッパのメーカーであるメルセデスやBMW、フォルックスワーゲンなどは一定のマーケットとステータスを築いてていますね。
ブランド戦略の違いでしょうか。気になり始めました。

Ron McFarlandのPersonal Journey (22) : 人事部で燻っていたRon-san、自ら道を拓きます。

いすゞ自動車の人事部に配属されたが、今一つハッピーではないRonさん。
そんなとき、セールスプロモーション部門から英文資料の作成を頼まれます。

この仕事を通じて、いすゞ自動車の海外営業を分析し、弱点を発見します。さらに、・・・

I was not happy with my assignment in the Isuzu Motors Personnel Department and was always looking for ways to get more into the international business. It came first when I was asked to help with English written material in the Overseas Sales Promotion Department.

I was asked to spend every Friday in that department to rewriting English speeches, slide presentations, corporate catalogues, product presentations and video narrations. So, I had two desks and two bosses with very different assignments coming at me.

Through all the English rewriting, I learned the features on all of the overseas cars, trucks and other products. Armed with what I learned in business school, I could see some of the things that were lacking in Isuzu’s overseas sales promotional activities and the weaknesses in many of their overseas sales activities. Furthermore, learned most of the people in the overseas sales departments had weak selling skills. They were only able to process orders as the purchases came in from customers around the world. This was a source of friction between Engineering and the Overseas Sales Departments. The sales organization was separated by regions of the world and sales channels.

There were three main overseas sales channels, the IMODC channel, the GM channel, and the Isuzu channel. This is not counting domestic Japan, which in those days was about half the business.

The IMODC channel stands for Isuzu Motors Overseas Distribution Corporation. It basically distributed to the smaller countries of the world and was a joint venture with GM with Isuzu owning 51% of the shares and having management responsibility. The GM channel was made up mostly of GM’s overseas assembly plants in which Isuzu sold to in the CKD (completely knocked down) form. The Isuzu channel was its own network, mostly in Asia. Some of the countries had assembly operations; some only had dealers that imported completely built up vehicles.

いよいよ国際ビジネスのチャンスが。
After being with the company for about three years, my chance to get into international business came. I was asked to go over to the Isuzu Training Center and help them write an English training manual about 1-2 days a week, as they were asked by top management to provide training to dealers around the world in the same fashion as they did for Japanese domestic dealers. So, I then had three desks to work from on different days of the week.

When I got to the Training Department, I learned that not only did they not have a training program for me to improve on. What they did have would not be acceptable in overseas markets. On top of that, even if they could use the material no one wanted to or was qualified to teach overseas. What they were trying to do was to build a case that overseas sales training could not be done in Isuzu Motors.

As the English training job in the Personnel Department was pretty well established, I only went there occasionally to set up classes. Also, the Overseas Sales Promotion job was changed to an as need be basis. That left me open to spend all my time to develop sales training program for overseas dealers’ salesmen.

そしてGMのコンサルへアプローチ。この積極性が大切。
For me though, that was a job I wanted very badly. I had the teaching background and experience. Also, I had a business education and experience. What I needed was a good sales program for vehicles. So, I approached the GM consultants within Isuzu.



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