Welcome our global distributor #3 : Haruko MINAMI, Advisor

The above-mentioned proposition by Sonora’s Founder & President triggered DMC to have made up their mind to visit Japan. Its purpose was to teach DMC to be an expert in Sonora’s acoustic anechoic chambers and those technologies, which enable them to accurately approach potential customers mainly in North America.

Also, DMC needed to learn and understand the differences between Sonora’s anechoic chambers and the anechoic chambers they manufacture.

Above all, to learn Sonora’s management philosophy should have been a key takeaway for DMC in order to conduct their sales activities on Sonora’s products.

This happens often anywhere in the world. The deal is completed simply by acting as an intermediary in the name of an agent or trading company. They make a profit by introducing a fee, which is added to the product price by 10-20%, and issue a quote to the customer.

This may seem like an easy business, but this business model never ever grows them up.

Without any knowledge on products they sell, but pursuing only to calculate a commission and handling fee, then it’s clear that they reach a ceiling sooner or later.

I later learnt that the reason why Sonora’s Founder & President has decided to teach DMC the entire process of manufacturing, designing, constructing and selling an acoustic anechoic chamber as early as possible, since he might have had an intention to convey his passion for the product he had created from scratch as the founder, and his passion towards the whole industry of the acoustic anechoic chamber as well.

As a reminder with self-reflection, I also learnt a great lesson in my past tough experience when I worked as an advisor-consultant to a Swedish company.

I was supporting their sales promotion of the solar cell producing equipment in Japan at that time and was in charge of enquiries coming in from Japanese companies, but they did not lead to actual business negotiations. No matter how hard I tried to explain the state-of-the-art technology, I was told,

Then no further action nor feedback from them were done.

At that period, there was definitely a demand for mass production of solar cells in Japan, and their technical capabilities as a venture company were perfect, so it was too hard for me to find what was missing.

One day, when I attended a gathering of Swedish companies at the Swedish Embassy in Japan,
I confided my annoying matter to the sales manager of one Swedish company who happened to be in attendance.

After listening to my explanation, he asked me the following question.

I couldn’t find the words to reply. Then the sales manager said with a smile,

Could I really love such a huge, inorganic equipment?

Afterwards, I spent lots of time searching for answers.

Then I realized that, as go-between, what I needed to convey was the passion of the engineers who invented and developed the equipment.

The founder quit a Swedish major company he was working for and started his own business in his garage, just like Steve Jobs. The first solar cell he made had a hole in the middle like a donut, because the first small equipment had been converted from cheap CD and DVD manufacturing machinery.

By thinking about what thoughts and feelings the founder had in order to create the equipment, 

I managed to develop a kind of attachment to it, which not only enabled me to subsequently realize business negotiations, but also to become a go-between to build good relationships with customers.

In order to build such a bridge to convey exactly such passion this time, I came to Sonora HQ in Tokyo from Osaka for the DMC, who was coming to Japan from Canada for training in January 2024.

Incidentally… DMC is also a venture company by a young founder, who looked for a hotel for us in the Shinjuku area convenient for commuting to Sonora’s HQ in Seijo, but having left it up to AI.

The best recommendation by AI was finally…a hotel located in the center of Shinjuku-Kabukicho, a famous area for lots of male host bars…

< to be continued >