Episode #307: What About The Deals We Lost

Why do so many deals fail to close even when the solution is good?

Across U.S. research highlighted by sales coach Victor Antonio, salespeople close about 40% of the deals they pursue. The remaining 60% feels like rejection — but most of it isn’t. Only 20% of lost deals go to competitors. The other 40% don’t buy anything at all.

That “silent 40%” is the real opportunity for B2B sales in Japan, especially inside Japanese companies (日本企業 / Japanese companies) and multinational firms (外資系企業 / multinational companies) operating in Tokyo (東京 / Tokyo) and beyond.

Mini-summary: Most “lost” deals aren’t lost to rivals — they’re stalled. Understanding why they stall is the first step to recovering revenue.

Victor Antonio’s breakdown points to two hidden blockers:

1. Price shock: About 10% freeze because the price feels scary, even before they properly evaluate the value.

2. Value uncertainty: The remaining 30% don’t move because the value doesn’t feel compelling enough to justify change.

This is where sales teams need to separate price from value. Buyers don’t calculate value the way sellers hope they will. Buyers measure value in their own terms: reduced costs, faster delivery, smoother integration, improved competitiveness, or less personal risk.

Mini-summary: Stalled deals usually come from price fear or unclear value — not direct competition.

A consistent sales challenge in Japan is that many teams don’t actually know what the client values. Not because clients hide it, but because sellers don’t uncover it.

Common patterns we see in sales training (営業研修 / sales training) with Japanese firms:

• Sellers rush into specs, data, and features too early.

• Questions are asked shallowly, then abandoned too quickly.

• Buyers drop hints, but salespeople don’t “dig deeper” to find the real gold.

Why does this happen? Because professional selling isn’t deeply institutionalized in Japan. Much instruction still relies on On-the-Job Training (OJT / on-the-job training), which often becomes “the blind leading the blind.”

Mini-summary: Many Japanese sellers talk about what they offer before truly understanding what buyers value.

To unlock stalled deals, the seller must design questions that reveal how the buyer defines success. Here are powerful directions:

• “What do you consider value in a solution like this?”

• “How will you measure the gain if this works?”

• “Which outcomes matter most: cost, speed, integration, or customer impact?”

• “What happens internally if nothing changes?”

These questions shift the conversation from a product pitch to a business diagnosis. That’s the core of consultative selling we teach in Dale Carnegie Tokyo.

Mini-summary: Deep value questions create clarity, urgency, and movement in deals that would otherwise stall.

Even when buyers like the solution, they may resist because implementation feels heavy.

Victor Antonio highlights a key reality:
Buyers compare the effort of change to the size of gain.
If effort feels bigger than the gain, no action happens.

You gave a perfect example from the Japan Market Expansion Competition (JMEC / Japan Market Expansion Competition): you received a strong business plan but discarded it because implementation effort outweighed likely returns.

In Japan, perceived effort rises fast because:

• HR teams are overloaded and fear extra workload.

• Internal alignment takes time and political energy.

• New suppliers add coordination cost.

Mini-summary: Deals stall when the buyer expects the work of change to be too painful relative to the payoff.

Why does internal coordination in Japan slow decisions so much?

A major Japan-specific friction point is the ringi system (稟議制度 / ringi approval system) — where multiple divisions must review and approve before change happens.

Even when your offering is strong, the buyer may think:

• “This will trigger meetings.”

• “Too many stakeholders will resist.”

• “It’s safer to do nothing.”

So the seller must ask about friction explicitly:

“If you decide to implement this, what internal friction points might come up — and how can we reduce them together?”

This question may not yield full honesty in meeting one. But repeated gently over follow-ups, it uncovers the blockers that actually control progress.

Mini-summary: In Japan, internal approval friction can outweigh solution quality unless sellers surface and reduce it early.

How should sales presentations change to prevent future rejection?

Many sellers get trapped in the “features → benefits → evidence” tunnel and forget the friction layer.

A stronger approach is:

1. Diagnose value first.

2. Quantify gain in the buyer’s terms.

3. Identify effort/friction together.

4. Co-design a low-friction path forward.

When you reflect on deals that didn’t happen, you build predictive power for future calls — and you can head off rejection before it surfaces.

Mini-summary: Winning more deals isn’t about pitching harder; it’s about reducing buyer friction and clarifying value.

• Most lost deals don’t go to competitors; they stall due to value uncertainty or implementation friction.

• Japanese sales teams often miss value drivers because questioning is shallow or spec-focused too early.

• Buyers act when perceived gain clearly outweighs perceived effort.

• Asking about internal friction (including 稟議制度 / ringi approval system) keeps deals moving.

Founded in the U.S. in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has supported individuals and companies worldwide for over a century in leadership, sales, presentation, executive coaching, and DEI. Our Tokyo office, established in 1963, has been empowering both Japanese and multinational corporate clients ever since.