Episode 10 Sales Training

Almost always turned away at the reception, but never discouraged.
Started our business from scratch, with only my wife and myself on board.

It was April 1979 when I left Nishishiba Electric to start my own business. We decided to base our business in Tokushima, where my wife Hatsuko’s parents lived, and to sell office computers (then called “off-comp”) to local businesses. Our sales contract partner was Japan Business Computer Corporation (current JBCC Holdings).

I have mentioned several times that Hatsuko’s father, Akira, worked at a local bank, and he had a relative who was a Toshiba executive. It was through him that we were introduced to Mr. Kazuzo Taniguchi, the founder of JBCC, which led us to this contract.
When I told Mr. Taniguchi that I was interested in becoming a distributor for JBCC, he asked me this question.

“By the way, Mr. Ukigawa, do you have any experience in sales?”
“No, not at all. At Nishishiba, I’ve been doing system design work exclusively.”
“Then, do you know what a delivery slip is?”
“What, a delivery slip? You mean, the paper you receive at the cash register in the supermarket?”

I was judged to be completely useless as a sales representative, so I was assigned to JBCC’s sales office in Osaka for three months of sales training prior to moving to Tokushima.

Hatsuko and I rented a room in Tenjinbashi-suji, in the heart of Osaka, and I began my training for office computer sales. Thankfully, Mr. Taniguchi told me that if I received an order, I could book it as my company’s sales, so I was fired up and ready to go for it.

But I soon confronted a harsh reality. One day, the sales representative in charge of my training took me in front of a building.

“I want you to do walk-in sales to every company in this building, from top to bottom.”

I was told to make sales pitches to each and every company without an appointment. However, I had no time to hesitate. I did as I was told and visited each company one by one, but the results were disappointing.

“May I please meet with the chief of the general affairs department?” I said this and bowed my head, but I was almost always turned away at the reception desk. Such days continued for a while. I spent my days doing walk-in sales from morning to night.

In very rare cases, there were some companies that would listen to me for a little while. “I’ve got it!” I thought to myself, and happily talked about office computers, only to receive a curt response in the end. “Thanks for your explanation, but…….” They would not even try to discuss business with me, let alone place an order. That was the honest truth.

However, if you ask me if my heart was broken, it wasn’t. Confidence is what breaks my heart, and I had none at the time.
If I could talk to the receptionist for even a few moments, it was a small step forward for me. Further, it was a big step forward if I could get the person in charge to take a look at the office computer catalog and discuss it with me. I had nothing to lose. When I think about it that way, I was convinced that there must be something I could gain even in the seemingly meaningless days of doing walk-in sales. Having these thoughts, I lived each day to the fullest.

That being said, for my wife and I, Tokushima, not Osaka, is the place to do real business.After talking it over with Hatsuko, I decided to cut short the training after two months and go to Tokushima.

We named our company “JustSystems”, meaning neither big nor small, but just right. Our headquarters was in the reception room of Hatsuko’s family home. We have started our business from scratch, without anything that appeared like an office. I became President and Hatsuko became Managing Director. Hatsuko and I were the only those on board. We thought it would be great if we could have around 30 employees someday.

Our headquarters was located in the family home
of my wife Hatsuko.