DJ Selects: How to Sell Without Salesmen in Japan – Daisuke Sasaki

Corporate accounting is not usually the first thing the comes to mind when you think of disruptive technology, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Daisuke Sasaki of Freee, however, is changing the way accounting is done in Japan from the bottom up. Bringing change to a conservative industry, however, is not easy. The fact is that in the accounting industry almost all users and stakeholders would rather muddle though with a painful system they know than try something new. Daisuke’s solution, of course, was to expand the market by growing the user-base. To go after new customers who have never used any of the existing accounting software products, and would be horrified by them if they tried. Daisuke also took the radical (for Japan) step of relying almost entirely on inbound sales, focusing on marketing and social media to generate demand and often simply refusing requests for sales calls. That strategy is paying off. Freee’s user base is booming and the incumbents are now scrambling to catch up. We also talk a lot about how Japanese industries are particularly susceptible to stagnation and technological dead ends, and what might be a huge change coming in the way Japanese companies run their HR department. It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.