ONhance:

Training, Coaching & Consulting Solutions:

• Change Management
• Leadership & Coaching
• Sales Growth

The ONhance Concept:

The name ONhance is a play on words, representing the core role we play for our clients, which is ‘Shining the light ON opportunities to ENHANCE the way you do business.’

Our vast experience allows us to support our clients in identifying the root causes of the challenges they face, analyzing the impact of those challenges, and implementing high-impact change and growth initiatives that deliver faster and more sustainable results than traditional training or consulting solutions.

The ONhance Approach to Change Management, Leadership and Sales Growth:

The ONhance concept was developed by our founder, Zane Inglis, and is grounded in 30 years of real-world business experience. ONhance methodologies are formulated on the best practices and success stories Zane has created over the past 2 decades delivering high-impact projects, contributing to a growth of over US$500 million.

• 6500 Professional Trained
• From 25 Countries
• Across 30 Industries
• 25 Years Doing Business in Japan and Across the Asia Pacific Region
  

According to a Harvard Business Review Study, 70% of Change Project Fail

1. Lack of clarity in vision and purpose: When a vision lacks clarity and fails to resonate with employees, it becomes challenging for them to envisage success or recognize how the change personally benefits them, thus hindering their commitment to the project.

2. Ineffective and inconsistent communication: Inadequate or inconsistent communication, using of convoluted terminologies tends to result in misunderstandings, confusion, and employee resistance to change.

3. Lack of leadership: A common challenge in change management is the lack of clear buy-in and support from middle management. This can significantly hinder the change process, as these managers play a pivotal role in translating the vision into actionable plans and ensuring their teams are aligned with the change objectives.

4. Lack of training and coaching: Companies often fail to provide comprehensive training and coaching to equip their teams with the necessary skills to execute the strategies required to achieve the change vision. This results in employees struggling to understand their roles in the new paradigm and, consequently, failing to effectively deliver the desired outcomes.

Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve, “90% of newly learnt knowledge will be forgotten within a week, without reinforcement”.

1. Lack of needs qualification: Sales training is commonly implemented without adequate confirmation of the actual developmental needs of the target sales team. This leads to training that fails to address the true causes of under performance.

2. Off the shelf approach: Training content is often implemented without being tailored to the specific developmental needs or the Go-to-Market model in which the target team operates, making it seem irrelevant or inapplicable to the target recipients.

3. Overly complex methodologies: Many sales training programs use overly complex methodologies that may overwhelm sales personnel. These rigid programs often fail to consider the dynamic nature of sales, where adaptability is crucial. 

4. Insufficient follow-up: Research has shown that one-off classroom training has limited impact on behavioral change without systematic, ongoing follow-up. Companies often fail to invest in up-skilling their sales managers with the coaching and leadership skills necessary to reinforce training concepts and ensure their team members are able to effectively apply them in order to deliver on sales growth expectations. 

Senior Partner

Takuya embarked on the first decade of his career in Business Planning and Strategy at DENSO Corp, an automobile parts manufacturer affiliated with Toyota. Alongside this corporate experience, he also boasts a robust background in education, where he facilitated courses in Finance, Accounting, and Economics at TAC, a prep-school for professional qualifications.

In 2016, Takuya took the helm of a pivotal project, focusing on the recruitment and training of dedicated instructors at Recruit Management Solutions. More recently, he served as a facilitator for the “How to Read Financial Statements” course at Toshin Business School.

Since 2021, Takuya has been channeling his wealth of experience into the Corporate Training and Consulting sector, specializing in Leadership, Communication, and Strategy Development. Takuya is recognized as Japan’s leading facilitator of the Lego Serious Play corporate training program.

Senior Partner

Born of French and Cameroonian heritage, Marie has cultivated a rich and diverse life experience spanning over 25 years across Africa, Europe, and Asia.

She possesses a distinctive expertise in change management, offering support for strategic initiatives such as reorganization and digital transformations within Finance, HR, and Customer Service domains. Her experience extends across both private and public sectors, ensuring comprehensive insight and adept handling of diverse organizational needs.

Marie has studied psychology and neurosciences to better address resistances and support teams through change. In Japan, Marie is focused on helping multinationals develop healthy collaboration and a global mindset for enhanced agility, alignment and engagement. 

What is Value Selling?

Customer-centric: Value selling is a customer-centric approach to sales that prioritizes understanding the unique needs and challenges of individual customers. It aims to provide tailored solutions that align with customer objectives and deliver tangible benefits.

Emphasizes value over price: Value selling shifts the focus from competing on price to demonstrating the superior value of a product or service. It involves showcasing how a product or service addresses specific pain points and contributes to a customer’s success.

Solution-oriented: It involves presenting the product or service as a solution to specific problems or opportunities, emphasizing its long-term benefits, cost-efficiency, and overall return on investment.

Relationship building: Value selling fosters long-term relationships with customers by providing ongoing support, delivering value throughout the customer journey, and ensuring that the customer achieves their desired outcomes.

Why is Value Selling an Impactful Approach to Growing Sales?

Differentiation: Value selling helps a company stand out by focusing on what makes its products or services unique. This differentiation is a powerful tool for gaining a competitive edge and capturing the attention of potential customers.

Higher customer satisfaction: By addressing customer needs more effectively, value selling leads to higher customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, refer others, and become loyal advocates for your brand.

Improved profit: Value-based sales often allow companies to command premium pricing, as customers recognize the extra value provided. This can result in improved profit margins and revenue growth.

Long-term growth: Value selling is oriented toward building long-term customer relationships, which can lead to a consistent stream of revenue through upselling, cross-selling, and customer retention.

Sales reps become part of your value: Competent sales representatives, skilled in selling with value, become integral to the value their company offers. They act as value ambassadors, not just selling products or services but also providing valuable insights. By helping customers uncover needs they were not previously aware of, sales reps can deliver tailored solutions that consistently exceed initial customer expectations and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Common Causes of Hesitancy to Approach New Customers:

Fear of rejection and lack of confidence: Sales representatives may be hesitant to approach new customers due to the fear of rejection and a lack of confidence. This fear can be a significant barrier to proactively seeking new business opportunities.

Sales reps often lack confidence in demonstrating the value of their solutions: Salespeople may lack the confidence to effectively communicate the value of their solutions, especially when dealing with higher-priced products or services. This lack of confidence can hinder their ability to close deals with new customers, particularly when faced with challenging price objections.

Solutions:

Provide training: Offer training programs that focus on helping sales personnel clearly understand the unique value your company provides. Equip them with skills and value propositions that address common price objections and effectively communicate the benefits of your solutions.

Cost performance: Train your sales team to showcase the cost-performance advantages of your solutions compared to lower-priced alternatives. This approach helps potential customers see the long-term value and return on investment.

Highlight the long-term benefits: Teach your sales representatives to shift the customer’s focus from the immediate purchase price to the long-term return on investment. Emphasize the economic benefits and added value that your solutions bring over time.

This multifaceted approach builds sales reps’ confidence when approaching new customers. It equips them with the knowledge, tools, and strategies to effectively address customer concerns and objections, making them more successful in selling to new customers.

Common Causes of Sales Rep Reliance on Discounting to Close Deals:

Ineffective qualification of customer needs: Many customers may not have a clear understanding of their own needs when assessing new solutions. This can lead to a situation where they perceive themselves as experts and may believe they have more technical knowledge than the sales representative. This knowledge gap can hinder the customers ability to comprehend the true value your solutions have to offer.

Lack of awareness: Companies often fail to fully analyze the comprehensive impact of the challenges they are trying to overcome. This includes assessing factors like the cost of internal time wastage. Without a complete evaluation, customers may struggle to gauge the true value of the solutions being offered.

Cost-consciousness: Increasing cost pressures and budget restrictions can cause customers to focus primarily on lower-cost solutions, rather than considering solutions that provide the greatest long-term return on investment.

Solutions:

Enhanced customer needs qualification: Provide sales reps with training to improve their ability to uncover and understand their customers’ real needs. Enhancing their questioning skills will enable sales representatives to delve deeper into the challenges customers seek to address. This skill is particularly essential for overcoming price objections and approaching customers who may be hesitant to consider new solutions.

Cost-performance: Develop compelling case studies that effectively illustrate the cost-performance of your solutions. These case studies enable customers to visualize the tangible benefits of your offerings and establish trust, especially if the studies demonstrate your success with recognized companies in their industry.

Value propositions: Create visually impactful value propositions that clearly showcase the impact of your solutions in terms of time and cost savings or productivity improvement. Ensure these value propositions are comprehensible to budget owners who may lack detailed technical knowledge but play a crucial role in decision-making. Ideally, your sales reps should present the value propositions directly to the decision makers to ensure they fully appreciate the true value you have to offer. 

Research data from CSO suggests that, on average, 60% of deals are never closed, and 25% of managers are dissatisfied with their sales teams’ forecasting abilities.

Common Causes of Poor Sales Forecast Accuracy:

Lack of qualification guidelines: The absence of formalized guidelines results in each sales representative assessing the needs and potential of their opportunities based on personal instinct and experience. This practice leads to significant discrepancies in assumed value, closing probability, and the time required to complete each deal. Consequently, this affects the reliability of the data in your sales forecast.

Lack of standardized ranking systems: Without a standardized ranking system, your team may tend to overestimate the probability of closing their opportunities. This can result in lower-than-anticipated win rates and push a significant percentage of deals beyond the estimated closing date.

Lack of qualification skills: Sales professionals who provide inaccurate sales forecast data are often lacking the fundamental skills required for accurate lead and opportunity qualification. A lack of questioning skills is one of the most common reasons for poor deal qualification. This results in sales representatives basing their forecasts on instinct, assumptions, or vague information they failed to qualify properly through effective customer probing.

Overly optimistic: Without proper training and guidance, sales representatives may frequently inflate the probability of success for the leads and opportunities in their pipeline. This inflation can be due to excessive optimism or pressure to meet performance targets that aren’t realistically achievable. 

Solutions:

Develop formalized qualification guidelines: Qualification guidelines are a vital tool to ensure all of your sales reps are evaluating the potential of their deals based on the same standardized criteria. Ideally, involve your team in the development of these guidelines to gain their buy-in. Qualification guidelines should encompass budget-related questions, including the needs of key decision-makers and influencers. Encourage sales representatives to engage with these critical stakeholders to identify the key factors that will influence the customer’s decision making process.

Develop a simple and clear opportunity ranking system within your CRM: Establish a ranking system with predefined criteria that must be met before adjusting the probability or progression of a deal. These criteria should require factual information or specific commitments from customers and should not rely on individual sales representatives’ instincts.

Provide training to enhance qualification kkills: Offer training that enhances questioning skills to ensure your team can ask the necessary questions outlined in your qualification guidelines. Consider using role-playing to assess sales representatives’ ability to ask effective qualification questions. Additionally, have managers observe their sales representatives in real selling situations to evaluate their abilities under the pressures of real-world sales scenarios.

Conduct key opportunity coaching: Equip sales managers with the coaching skills necessary to conduct monthly key opportunity review sessions. During these sessions, managers should evaluate how sales representatives have qualified their key opportunities, ensuring that deals are assessed and entered based on facts and data rather than instinct and assumptions.

Unique and Challenging Aspects of Selling in Japan:

Convoluted distribution networks: Unlike many other markets, Japan maintains a multi-layered distribution network between manufacturers and customers. Even when a manufacturer’s sales representative successfully develops and closes an opportunity directly with an end user, the customer often requires the transaction to go through a wholesaler or distributor. In some cases, distributors actively hinder manufacturers from directly approaching end users without accompanying distributor representatives.

Customer is god mindset: In Japan, customers are generally perceived to be of higher status than sales representatives. This results in sales representatives lacking the confidence to push back against irrational or unacceptable customer requests. It also leads to hesitancy among sales representatives to seek clear commitments, resulting in assessments of needs or probabilities based on instinct or ambiguous non-verbal communication.

Extremely high customer expectations: International companies often face challenges in meeting the exceptionally high expectations of Japanese customers. This can make it difficult to compete with domestic manufacturers who are are willing to sacrifice profit to meet customer expectations. 

Fear of change: Fear of change can result in customer hesitancy to try new solutions and sales representatives having a fear of  approaching new accounts.

Ambiguous communication and lack of clear commitment: Relying on non-verbal and passive communication styles can lead to difficulties for sales representatives in gaining clear commitments from customers. Likewise, customers are often too polite to express disinterest in a sales representative’s solution. This politeness results in both parties wasting time in multiple sales meetings before the sales representative realizes there is no actual opportunity. It’s common for sales representatives to provide quotations as a means to advance the sale. Although the customer has no intention of purchasing the solution, they often accept the quotation out of obligation, creating a non-existent opportunity in the sales forecast.

Solutions to Improving Sales in Japan:

Encourage clear and concise communication: Promote the use of precise communication by asking close questions to gain clarity and requesting specific examples or data, instead of relying on ambiguous terminologies such as “soon,” “a lot,” or “not often.”

Don’t assume, ask for clarification and commitment: Encourage sales representatives to request clear commitments from customers at each stage of the sales process. Instead of the traditional Japanese approach of merely saying, “Please buy my product,” guide them to ask questions such as “Is this something you would consider as an option?” and seek specific, detailed responses. This approach enables more accurate assessment of potential business opportunities.

Empower your team to say No when necessary: Educate your sales representatives about the importance of providing profitable solutions. Help them understand that, at times, it’s better to decline a customer’s request, even if it means losing the business, rather than agreeing to something that risks failure or delivers unprofitable results.

Encourage your team to believe they are experts: Provide Japanese sales representatives with the confidence to believe that they are the experts who possess a deeper understanding of their solutions compared to their customers. Encourage them to act as business partners who can educate and inspire their customers to select the right solution that offers the best overall return on investment. This approach shifts them from a subservient role and ensures they provide customers with effective solutions based on their real needs.

Overview:

Together with your project leaders and senior management, we create a compelling vision for success, followed by strategies and action plans to turn that vision into reality

Actions and Deliverables:

• Vision crafting: Collaborate with your leaders to form an inspiring and clear vision for success.
• Strategy and action plans: Support managers to develop customized strategies to achieving the project vision.
• Highlight benefits: We ensure your employees clearly recognize the benefits achievement of the project vision will bring your company, your customers, and your employees.

Overview:

We deliver impactful training and coaching to equip your employees with the practical skills and the mindset needed to meet your growth objectives. Additionally, we provide them with practical tools and streamlined processes designed to enhance productivity and grow your business.

Actions and Deliverables:

• Competency enhancement: Conduct training and coaching to improve skills and mindset.
• Tool and process adoption: Equip employees with tools and processes to enhance productivity.
• Alignment with growth objectives: Ensure employees understand and embrace the organization’s change and growth expectations.

Whether you’re a senior manager seeking to drive growth and innovation or a mid-level manager looking to enhance your team’s productivity and engagement, ONhance has the practical solutions and real-world experience to help you achieve faster and better results than traditional training methods. At ONhance, we’re dedicated to developing your leadership and coaching skills to ensure your organization delivers the growth and results you are striving for.

Leadership & Coaching Solutions

Senior Leaders

• Executive Coaching
• Vision & Strategy Development
• Succession Planning
• Enhanced Leadership & Coaching Skills
• Task Management & Job Profile Development
• Collaboration & Innovation
• Team Building & Communication
• Engagement

Mid-Level & Front-Line Managers

• High-Impact Leadership Skills
• Strategy & Action Planning
• Enhanced Leadership & Coaching Skills
• Performance Evaluation & Constructive Feedback
• Collaboration & Innovation
• Team Building & Communication
• Engagement

• Facilitation available in English or Japanese

The CORE Value Selling model empowers your sales team with the to ability to uncover more opportunities, effectively demonstrate the true value of your solutions, and close more business. This practical framework equips your sales personnel with the tools, competencies, and confidence needed to meet your sales growth expectations.

Sales Growth Solutions

Senior Sales Manager

• Executive Coaching
• Sales Performance Analysis
• Vision & Strategy Development
• Succession Planning
• Enhanced Leadership & Coaching Skills
• Task Management & Job Profile Development
• Collaboration & Innovation
• Team Building & Communication
• Engagement
• New Product Launch
• Trade Show Planning
• Value Proposition Development

Mid-Level & Front-Line Managers

• High-Impact Leadership Skills
• Strategy & Action Planning
• Enhanced Leadership & Coaching Skills
• Performance Evaluation & Constructive Feedback
• Collaboration & Innovation
• Team Building & Communication
• Engagement
• Field Coaching for Sales

Sales Personnel

• CORE Value Selling Sales Process
• Sales Skill Training
• Presentation Skills
• Action Planning
• Enhanced CRM Adoption
• Workshops, Role Play, Field Coaching

Sales Support Functions

• Enhanced collaboration between Sales and Support Functions, such as HR, Marketing, Inside Sales, Customer Support, Field Service, Supply-Chain, etc.

Facilitation available in English or Japanese