Podcasts about greg story president

Salespeople don't set the price of what they sell.  This is usually an obscure outcome decided by someone else inside the machine.  It might actually be an elaborate process, where multiple variables are carefully calibrated, mathematical formulae are applied and a price is arrived at.  Or, it might be a slightly moist index finger boldly thrust skyward to come up with a number.  The latter is often the case when arriving at pricing for services. Regardless, the salespersons task is to sell at that price.  This is where we get into trouble.   Salespeople are total wimps when it comes to price.  We have learnt that getting a sale is what counts and price is an obstacle in that process.  If we are on a fixed salary and bonus or base salary and commission, the two usual cases in Japan, we get paid when we make a sale.  Do we know the profit margin attached to each sale? Usually no and actually we don't often care either, as long as we get paid.  We are just happy to (A) not get rejected by the buyer and (B) get a win, however small. Our self-esteem is totally tied up with getting sales, modest in size or otherwise.   The instinct of the salesperson then is to make the price as malleable as possible.  Offering a discount seems to get the buyer in a good mood and more likely to give us a yes.  This reduced price immediately impacts our commission and if we keep doing this, will also impact our bonus and job security, as we don't bring in enough revenue relative to the target.   The key problem is that the salespeople often don't believe in their own product or service.  Because of this they can discount with gay abandon.  This is a short-term gain for long-term pain.  The ability to meet the price requirement is a critical piece of the salesperson's skill set.  Dropping the price may be easy, but we never build the skills to really succeed in this profession.  It usually is a path to our removal by the sales manager, who understands we are unable to sell.   Amateur salespeople, when they don't believe in the price, start right off the bat with a discounted price. They say stupid things like, “normally the price is x but I am going to offer it to you for y”.  Or, “if you buy two, I will drop the price by x”.  The client hasn't even requested a discount, begun haggling, attempted to massage the ask and yet lo and behold, a miracle has just popped up without warning.  This tactic may be misinterpreted by salespeople, who don't know what they are doing, as building trust and a good relationship with the client. That is a false dawn of hope on the part of our intrepid hero or heroine.   Thanks to volunteering an unprompted price cut, the client now understands that your firm are a bunch of liars who say one thing, but do another.  They also know you are a tricky bunch who are trying to snow buyers with your fiction pricing magic.  They don't see the gratuitous lower price as a bargain.   They see that as the starting point in a negotiation to drive the price even lower.  By having a listed price and immediately offering a lesser price, the buyer feels you cannot be trusted because you cannot even defend what you say is the value of your offering.     By dropping the price so quickly, the whole question of perceived value is brought into fundamental disrepute.  There is no fixed price for this sale and therefore no equivalent particular value attached to it either.  We are now in the Wild West of selling, where there the only rule is the right of force and the buyer has the Gatling Gun and we have a water pistol.   The salesperson's job is to pour on the value explanation and show why this pricing is fair and reasonable, fully justified and easily defensible.  If they do need to meet the client's restricted budget or need to allow the buyer to save face with their bosses, then any discounting should in the first instant be attached to volume purchases.  If they buy more then the price can be adjusted.  The amount reduced should be as smallish amount, as part of the first offer.  Remember, we are now off the paved highway and are hacking our way through the dense brush of a negotiated agreement, where there are no maps, no signposts and no 5th Cavalry about to come to the rescue over the sand dunes.   If the price point is to be assaulted, then the reductions should be small and fought heroically all the way.  Do not go for round number drops or large number drops, go down in dribs and drabs.  The client will feel much better knowing that they got a legitimate discount against the usual price, because they extracted that right out of the salesperson's hide, rather than the salesperson rolled over right from the get go.  When that happens, they doubt everything about you and your company because your pricing seems bogus.   Never drop your price.  Defend your price with value.  Resist reductions all the way down and extract some form of quid pro quo against volume purchases.  If you buckle, you will be destroying the brand, the brand positioning and the credibility of the firm.  You may lose some sales.  These are usually people who cannot afford you anyway.  If you believe in the value of what you are selling don't give in, defend, show value, fight, fight, fight.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.     About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

The customer is Kamisama (God) in sales in Japan.  We hear this a lot here across all industries and sectors. Sometimes however, the buyer can more like an Oni (Devil) when they deal with salespeople.  Bad behavior is bad behavior regardless of the source, but when you are trying to sell a company on your product or service, do you just have to suck it up?  Actually no! Unless you are in a very small market segment, where there are only a limited number of buyers, then as salespeople we have choices.  If the former is the case, then I suggest changing industries and getting out of that negative bad behavior environment.  Life is short and good salespeople have highly transferable skills.  If you know what you are doing, you can probably work in almost any business, as long as there is no requirement for highly technical knowledge. The Japan winner of the worst sales environment is the pharmaceutical industry selling to doctors.  Unlike the rest of the advanced world, where patients use the internet to educate themselves about medical conditions, before they see the doctor, Japan is still stuck in the pre-1990s. Japanese doctors consequently, still consider themselves vastly superior to everyone else, from patients on down.  At the absolute bottom of the pile are drug salespeople.  Being forced to wait around for hours, fawning over the doctor, being spoken to like dirt, cleaning their Mercedes, arranging all types of incentives to get them to buy your drugs, have been the fodder for legendary poor buyer behavior forever.  Conflicts of interest have emerged recently as a concern and there are many more restrictions now on entertaining doctors.  The flow of goodies is being restricted and so the salesperson doesn't have as much in the way of ame (sweets) to offer anymore. They still get plenty of muchi (whip) from the buyer though.  Japan has a powerful hierarchical system in place in society.  You have been busily networking, creating new opportunities.  The company President you have just met tells one of the staff to get together with you the salesperson.  You might be thinking, this is looking good.  Not necessarily. What often surprises me about HR people and other underlings in Japan is how they run their own show, regardless of what the President may want.  Recently, I had lunch with a multi-national company President here running the Japan operation.  The President is dynamic, articulate and a great presenter.  After the lunch, as promised, the President sent an email to the HR person instructing them to get together with me to discuss training for their company.  I follow up with the HR person many, many times, but never get an answer.  It has become obvious they do not care what the President said, they have their own views on how to run the training and we are not going to fit into that plan.  On another occasion, I had met the Japanese President at a networking event, followed up, got a meeting and in the process he introduced me to the HR people.  In the meeting, the President suggested they take a look at what we offer.  Many, many emails and attempted contacts later, no response from the HR team for  follow-up meeting. Going back and telling the President who introduced you that, in fact, they have no power within their own organization is a bit of a delicate conversation.  Even if you raise it, you have just said that the Emperor has no clothes.  They do not thank you for pointing out their underlings are in rebellion and they themselves are impotent.  I am still working on a solution for this contradiction. Another annoying activity is being asked to spend time to put together a proposal and quote on a product or service, but there is absolutely no intention to buy from you.  This is often driven by internal compliance regulations that require three quotes. They have already secretly selected the provider and your job is to provide the paperwork to make sure that happens and the compliance box is ticked.  We were contacted by a large company recently asking for a proposal on a particular piece of training.  Efforts to meet the client to discuss the needs etc., were rebuffed because they said they were so busy – just send the proposal, it will be fine (!).  This is a tricky one, because you don't know if you are the patsy here or if they are in fact so very busy that is why they need your help.  To test the system in these specific doubtful and dubious cases, I never follow up from my side after sending over the proposal.  I know, I know. This sounds like a very bad sales effort on my part and I should be fired, but it is a technique to reveal who we are dealing with here, time wasters or genuine buyers.  If they are really interested, then they will get back to me with either more questions or an order.  If stony silence is all we get, we know we have been royally used to assist a competitor's sales effort.  That is a double ouch right there, isn't it! It is not always black and white though.  In another case the President was a graduate of our programme and told his HR Director to get us to put together a proposal  on some training.  This is exciting and you think “we are looking good”.  The President knows the quality and the results from first hand experience and has the authority to make this happen. Or so it seems.  In this example, I actually get to meet the HR people and their internal client.  I followed up to present the proposal to them.  “No, we are very busy, just send it”.  Warning signal right there.  I pushed back, “actually I need to explain it for you”. Further stalling, “No, just send it”.  The pricing by the way, was very close to their indication.  Eventually you send it, but now you begin to suspect this is revenge on the President for daring to enter their world of authority.  What looked like an inside track to a positive decision, gets derailed as the internal buying entity flexes muscle to show their independence.  Applying my standard rule, I do not follow up further and just wait to see what happens.  There was no response from their side, so again few options available, other than to tough it out. These things happen in business, but the key point is do not take it personally.  Sales is a roller coaster ride of ups and downs and your emotions are always under attack.  Accept that sometimes you will get played by the buyer, but keep a record of the incident.  Every six months give that company  a call to see if your nefarious counterpart is still working there.  People are much more mobile in Japan, compared to many years ago and there is a good chance the evil, malicious puppeteer has moved on.  We should not deal with that particular buyer again, but we can try to deal with the company. There are usually many buyers in your market and many who you have had no contact with as yet, so there is little need to deal with bad buyer behavior.  As the old saying goes “fool me once it's your fault, fool me twice it's my fault”. Action Steps if you are in an industry where buyers habitually treat salespeople very badly then switch industries Just because the people at the top like you, don't think that means anything in Japan. Keep working on those who actually execute the work. If the buyer just says “send it to me” get worried, you may be the patsy for unknowingly assisting a rival's offer Keep in touch with the company, the “problem child” may have moved on Never forget “fool me once it's your fault, fool me twice it's my fault” Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules. About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan. A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer. Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Prospecting For Golden Clients   Do you have a clear image and understanding of your perfect client?  Authors often mention about writing for their avatar.  This is their imaginary reader.  They have a clear picture of whom they are writing for.  They know their reader's hopes, fears, aspirations, behaviors, goals and idiosyncrasies.    In sales, prospecting to find your Golden Client is a bit like discovering your life partner.  We have to go out and meet a lot of potential partners, until we find the person who just clicks with us.  We find we get along very well together – we are simpatico, share common interests, have great communication and are on the same wavelength.   Clients are our partners too.  Partners in the sense that we are looking for a long- term relationship.  Our chief objective is to make re-sales.  Not to make a “sale”, but to generate consistent orders year after year.  This can only occur when the mutual trust has been built.    If we have distilled what our perfect client looks like, then we have a much better chance of finding such a buyer.  Now our perfect buyer may need to grow into that category.  It is rare to find someone who is perfect from the outset.  The “test and see” strategy in Japan almost ensures that the first orders and interactions will be limited, as the buyer tests us out, to see if we are reliable.    This is done for self-protection in business.  The distribution system in Japan is often convoluted and there are many outstretched hands involved.  This means there are also many interlocking relationships, constructed on years of obligations and counter obligations.   As a new supplier, we are caught up in this web of mutual responsibility.  Failure in any one part of the system jeopardises the livelihood of everyone in the food chain and so people take this relationship building very seriously.  Once burnt they are very shy to try again, so we have one shot to make a new client and we had better not blow it.   So our perfect client may actually have to grow in scale to become our perfect client over time.  In the beginning, we may only see small orders which based on satisfactory performance by us, will be able to grow in importance.  This is the theory anyway.   Now this gradual scale increase idea raises a problem.  Which are nascent perfect clients and which are buyers just pushing hard for all they can get from us?  At the start this is sometimes hard to determine.  As sellers, we tend toward being especially accommodating in the beginning, because we want to grow the business with this new client.  This makes perfect sense, but we should always have our BATNA at the ready, to wield whenever needed.   Our BATNA is our “best alternative to a negotiated agreement”.  This is our walk away position.  If we get pushed unreasonably hard on price, we need to be thinking where is the point where this new client is less than perfect.   In fact are they meant to become a non-client, because they are too demanding, too cheap and too problematic?   Sometimes the buyer tendency is to play the “new client” card as hard a possible. They want to force concessions. Then despite all the rhetoric and agreement about this being  a one-off, once in  lifetime special introductory arrangement, they then set that number as the new low bar.  Against this standard all further future discounts are measured and negotiated.  This is not a partnership.   We need to have a clear view of who we want to partner with and make sure that there is that level of compatibility. There needs to be win-win outcomes aplenty.  We can have the correct approach to clients but not all clients reciprocate.  Desperation drives bad decisions and bad partnerships.  Life is short.  So it is better to take our time and make sure this client is someone we want to be dealing with for a long time.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.     About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Do You Have To Be A Saint When Leading In Japan?   Leadership can be broken up into two main activities.  One is making sure that the processes of the operation are all delivering what they should, when they should and where they should.  This is relatively straightforward, because usually all the processes are known and the people doing them have done them before and know what to do.  There are clear measurements around quantity, quality, and timeliness, so we can keep track of how we are doing.    The other aspect of leadership is building our people.  This means constantly skilling up to meet the changing demands of business, to make sure they are highly engaged and producing both effectively and efficiently. We need innovation in business to move forward and the people reporting to us are usually great sources of innovative ideas - if we are able to get them to care.   How we make the operation run smoothly is a choice.  We can be a tyrant and brutalise our people, using fear, retribution, punishment and potential banishment to oblivion, as tools to get conformity to our will. This can even be physical.  I saw a snippet on Japanese television recently of a Korean company, K-Technology's CEO Mr. Yang Jin Ho, beating his male ex-staff member by slapping him across the face, making him kneel on the floor and then belting him on the top of his head. Mr. Yang recorded the beating as a souvenir, which has now gotten out and gone viral on social media.  This is extreme and when you see the video, it seems incredible that this could be happening in this day and age.  Yet there are still versions of this floating around in Leadership Land, where the attacks may be more verbal, rather than physical.   In this type of environment where the fear factor is the main leadership card being played, you can guess that the “building the people” part has gone completely missing from any consideration.  The same for getting innovative ideas from the troops.  Everyone will have their head down, trying to be as small a target as possible and just doing their job and no more.   Now we may not be a tyrant or a demon like Mr. Yang, in the workplace, but we could be clinical, cold, outcome driven, extremely “business like” in the sense of no warmth for and no interest in our people.  We may be highly efficient, fully focused on getting the results and the people are just there to make sure that happens.  We are not there to mollycoddle them.  We are not there to be their friend.  If we want a friend, we will get a dog.    Everyone is an adult and they know what they need to do to make the numbers.  If they want to get ahead, they should take full responsibility for developing themselves and that has nothing to do with the boss.  We pay them, so we expect results type of philosophy. Is this bad?  Do we have to be a saint, to be indulging our people, rather than rigorously holding them accountable?   Yes, we have to be a saint or as close as we can get to it.  There are 1.64 jobs for every candidate looking for a position in Japan and it will only get worse from a boss's difficulty of hiring perspective. Recruiting people is becoming more expensive in terms of the costs of finding a replacement and the disruption of someone leaving.  There are lots of hidden opportunity costs we must pay, when there is a break in the work production process.  Keeping our people becomes only more important, so the people and communication skills of bosses are paramount in a way they have not been in the past.  Hard skills aren't enough and are not an excuse anymore for not doing what is needed in the 21stCentury workplace.   We need to take a greater interest in them as people.  This may be hard when you yourself are extremely independent, self-reliant, driven, mentally tough and need no positive feedback or support from anyone. You tend to see the world the way you are, as opposed to how your people are and how they see the world.  This gap can be pretty big.  If you want to keep your people, then you need to change.  If you can't be bothered to change in this market, then you will see recruiters lifting your people out of your organization at a rate of knots.    Communication and people skills are the two areas usually requiring the most reengineering.  Is this easy?  No!  But understanding the “build people” role makes the difference.  Your role is defined, it is part of what a modern leader needs to do, so you can't just squib it.  Disengaged people do no contribute anything to the innovation process.  They don't care about the company, so they don't care about making it more productive, through their creativity contributions.  This usually means there is a lot of untapped potential inside organisations waiting to be released.  Our job is to create a greater sense of engagement and identification with the company's competitive advantages through innovation.   There is no shortcut here either.  Each person has their own agenda, motivation, desires, dreams, goals and the better the boss understands that, the easier it is to know how to align the firm's agenda with the individuals.  It is not manipulation, but getting a good overlap between what the individual wants and what the company wants.  When we get the staff member's WHY and the company's WHY to line up, then the leading bit gets a lot easier.   How would we know all of this?  We need to want to talk to our team members, to want to help them, to want to be saint like. This is the starting point.  Put their interests first and work from there. If you can't do that, no problem, you won't be around for long, so it will all become a theoretical exercise anyway. Your replacement will pick up the torch and carry the organisation forward in your stead.  It will be out with the old and in with the new.  Which one do you choose?   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Building Expert Authority With Buyers   “You are who Google says you are” is a quote from Timbo Reid, the host of the “Small Business Big Marketing” podcast which I follow.  His point is people check us out before they meet us, using search engines like Google.  In sales, buyers will also peruse our company website, search us out on Google and probably look us up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  What are they going to find there?  Are we in photos on Facebook, doing something stupid, fully fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol?  Are we conscious enough of how our personal brand is being perceived?  Have we got business enemies who are posting damming claims about how we didn't pay them or how we ripped them off.   Our lives in sales today are open books.  We can't miss the point that we need to control what gets written in the pages of that book.  If you have Facebook posts that are not consistent with the professional image you want to portray, then delete them all.  If it is really bad, delete the whole thing and start again.  When we look at the photos of you in your profile page, is it you with a straw hat and a cocktail in hand, in some sand and surf setting, rather than you in a suit?  Is your LinkedIn profile some pathetic job resume?  Are you raging against the other political party on Twitter, upsetting the other fifty percent of the population, including your buyers?   Personal branding in sales is gold.  Before we even get to have the meeting with the client, we want to create an image in their mind of someone who is serious, trustworthy, reliable, expert, credible, friendly and easy to work with.  This will create itself and morph into something we don't want to project to clients, unless we step in and take control of our public image.  The rule in sales is to avoid subjects like politics and religion.  This is obvious, but we may have firm views on these things and our public record is there for our clients to see.  We may be losing business opportunities because of our very privately held but widely, publically broadcast ideas on these subjects.   Have you done an audit on yourself lately?  Do a search on your own name, using a number of popular search engines and see what it throws up.  Take a good look at your Facebook and LinkedIn pages and see what you are projecting to the world about you, as a potential business partner for buyers.    It shouldn't just be from a defensive posture.  What can you do to project expert authority to buyers, by what you present on social media etc.  Post blogs about your area of expertise, offering good insight and advice to buyers of your product or service.  It doesn't have to be hundreds of blogs, but it should also not be a barren wasteland of nothing.  Extended blogs can become articles which may be suitable for publication in magazines. These can get picked up in your Google search and they add to your personal brand as an authority in this area. You can push the articles out through your weekly newsletter to clients or through your social media.  If you produce enough blogs, these may become an eBook or a hard copy book.  Again your expert authority is being highlighted and you are going to be seen as an expert in your field.   You may not like to write or maybe you are not very good at it.  You can always record what you want to say, get a transcript of it and work on editing that.  If you need to, there are plenty of editors and ghost writers available to help you polish it up.  I remember seeing an article written by a fellow I know and it was very good. I was surprised because he never seemed that articulate.  I found out later I knew the guy who had ghost written it for him. It doesn't matter. People don't care that much, they take what they see in front of them and it is either good or it isn't.  You are still making these points and it all supports your personal branding.   You can also use audio for podcasting.  This is not for the faint hearted because once you start, you have to be committed to keep going.  You also have to release episodes with reliable regularity.  You can tell the client on one hand that you are a reliable supplier and then have show episodes released at crazy intervals, that show zero ability to be consistent. Not good.    You may prefer video and that is cheap and easy today, compared to years ago, when you needed lots of equipment, a camera crew, a sound crew, video editors etc.  Today you can broadcast using Facebook Live and have no crew and no editing.  If you want to be a bit fancier, buy a device holder that screws into a tripod, buy an external microphone and set you phone or iPad and just hit record.  You may not even bother to edit out the bits of you pushing the start and stop button or get someone else to push them for you.   Video is good because it shows you in action and attracts more trust.  We can see your eyes and read your body language, to gauge if we can trust you or not, before we bother to meet you.  It allows us to demonstrate our expertise on a given subject and add value to others in the same industry.  If you know a bit about editing or have access to editing help, you can add an intro and an outro to brand yourself even better.  You can also inject slides into the video to show graphs or text to support what you are saying.   We are seizing control of our public image and we are stuffing it full of expert authority.  We know we are going to be found anyway, but we are proactively deciding just what will be found.  We are assembling content in various forms that appeal to buyers. Some like to read text, others like to listen to audio and others want to see us on video.  We marshal all of the social media available, our email list and enlist the cooperation of others who will share our content to get the greatest bang for the buck.  A little bit of planning goes a long way to setting up the sales meeting and selling the client before we even meet. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

How To Get Speaking Gigs To Promote Your Personal Brand   A businessman reached out to me after attending my recent speech on “The Seven Deadly Fails Of Selling In Japan”, which I gave to the American Chamber of Commerce here in Tokyo. He wasn't interested in hearing about how to sell in Japan, but he was frustrated that he was too low profile in his industry.  The consequence of being invisible in your industry sector is that people don't look for you or find you very easily.  Having people call you up to help them in their business is the preferred way to get new business. It is vastly superior to spending time and money running around trying to find buyers yourself.  Great! How do you do that?   This gentleman's business was in a very defined niche and there were rivals who were dominating that niche. They were getting the lion's share of the business as a result.  He was sick of getting the crumbs and wanted to raise his profile so that his phone would start to ring.  His enquiry to me was about doing our High Impact Presentations Course, so that he would be a more skilled presenter.  However, he mentioned he also needed to engineer the speaking spots as an expert authority, to use these speaking skills we are going to impart to him.   This “get found by buyers” aspiration is all part of our personal branding efforts.  One mental shift we have to make though, in this world of content marketing, is to understand that we are all publishing companies now, as well as being in our mainstream businesses.  By this I mean, we have the ability today, to project our ideas around the world and very inexpensively, to an extent never imagined before.  We can start by writing or talking if we can't write.  Writing blogs or recording blogs and then transcribing them into text is a good starting point.  Great Greg, but what do I write or talk about?   In your area of speciality, there will be problems facing your buyers.  You already know what they are, because when you meet your clients, this is what they talk about.  Just give yourself fifteen uninterrupted minutes sitting there with a pen and some paper. You will soon be able to come up with the most important issues in your industry.  These points can be fleshed out further into blogs.  As I mentioned, you may prefer to talk about the issues and then transcribe them.  It doesn't matter.  Get the IP (Intellectual Property) out of your head and on to paper.  You could weld all of these issues together into a longer article. This would be suitable for publication in an industry magazine. The various Chambers of Commerce also usually have their own magazines and are always looking for good content.    Submit your article for publication and expect that they will edit it for you.  This activity gets you in front of the readers, both those who actually read what you have written and those who only noted the headline and your name.  The latter outcome is also fine because you are building an association of a topic and your personal brand.  Often these organizations have an on-line version of their magazine and you will appear in that too.  This is handy for getting picked up by search engines.   Take that same article now and go back and break it up into single issue blocks.  Each of these is a blog post in itself and so add an intro and a conclusion. Load them up to your website, blast them out in your email newsletter, post them on all of your social media.    Contact event organisers who run conferences in your industry and suggest yourself as a speaker. Send them a copy of your long article, preferably once it has been published in a magazine, for extra credibility. They will be very happy to hear from you, because they are always looking for presenters.  In some cases, they might want you to pay to appear. This might be doable or prohibitive, depending on the event.    When potential clients or event organisers want to check you out, they will do a search on your name. These blogs and articles you have written, which are pieces of evidence of expertise on this subject, will pop up. It looks better to have a number of relevant posts, than just one long article, so try and populate your feed with multiple examples of good content.  You don't have to go crazy and post hundreds but more is better than less.   If you find there are podcasts on your subject, contact the podcast hosts and suggest you do a guest spot. If you have a lot of material or can consistently source great guests, then start your own podcast.  You may not broadcast it every day or every week, but you will need some degree of frequency and regularity to get any traction. You can use social media to publicise your podcast episodes.  Again, this activity can be referred to buyers or conference organisers, as proof of your expertise.  The search engines start to attach all of this activity to your name and when people search for you, up comes all of this expert authority.   These days shooting video is super easy.  Facebook live videos take away all editing and you can send them out later through social media.  Or you can shoot video on your iPhone or Ipad.  The camera quality today is excellent.  Just buy a frame to hold your device, screw the holder into a tripod, attach a separate microphone, stand about a meter away and you are off to the races. In iMovie you can edit the content and then upload it to your YouTube channel.  You can take the transcript of the video and use it for articles and blogs.  You can imbed the video itself into social media posts and add the text back in as well. The audio can be stripped out and used in your podcasts or posted in social media with a link.   All of this is multi-purposing. It creates more chances for you to be found.  When you are found, people can gauge the level of expertise you have on a subject and then make a judgment about whether they want you to speak at their event or not.  Even if you don't make it to the stage at the event, your chances of getting found by potential clients goes right up.  What does it require?  Not much money but it does take time and effort.  The best time to start all of this was yesterday and the second best time is now! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Sales Poor Performers   Are you failing in sales or do you have sales staff who are not making their numbers?  Sales is a brutal, metrics based activity where there are no hiding places or at least none that can be sustained.  Eventually, the numbers show if you are making it or you are not.  What happens then?  In the West the usual next step is you are fired and a replacement is found.  Japan is a bit different.  The social and legal bias is against firing people for poor performance.  In the case of large companies, the management is expected to move that failing salesperson into another job, where they can do better.   Smaller companies don't have that same pressure, because the courts know that survival can be impaired by underperformers.  The herd must unite together to survive, even if it means releasing one of the number. Nevertheless, internally, the other members of the team expect that the failing salesperson be given some sort of vague chance to right their ship of sales.  They don't like seeing heads lopped off, because they always feel that “but for the grace of God there go I”.   Whether it is you who are failing or one of your staff, then what should you do?  The issue usually lies with the work style of that person. What they are doing today is the product of what they have been doing for a long time and so they expect that to work. The issue often arises that when you shift companies or even industries, what worked before is no longer working.  As human beings we are sometimes so programed to keep repeating what we know and what we think will work, that we become blind to the reality.   In smaller companies and in gaishikei(foreign multinationals) the whole age and stage hierarchy gets mixed up as well. Suddenly you find your boss is younger than you or oiks, a woman or both!  For older men, this requires a level of flexibility that they have never had to find in their previous work life.  If the old dog can't learn some new tricks the gaishikei bosses will be quick to disappear them.   We have to develop higher levels of self awareness and understand that what we think is correct may not fit this situation and therefore need to find a new truth that works for us.  Smaller companies don't have other spots to move failing salespeople around to, so usually it is one last chance or imminent departure.   In the current market, where it is very hard to hire salespeople, especially English speaking salespeople, then a degree of patience is required on the boss's part.  Even if this person is not performing well enough, they are knowledgeable about the products and the clients and so have a base from which to improve.  Once the sale's problem child is fired, then we have the difficulty of finding a replacement at all or finding one who is actually better than the last.  In a tight market you tend to take what you can get and hope you can train them to be better.  Do you actually have the means of doing that though?  Who will train them?  What amount of onboard training will they get.  In small firms everything is lean so the training component tends to be Spartan.   If there are age and gender issues then the salesperson has to realise they have to suck it up and get used to this brave new world of work, which is not how it was back in the day of their long departed youth.  So what. Either learn to fit it or it will be out on your ear.  From the boss's side, at least giving people a chance to come back from the precipice fits in well with social values in Japan and the rest of the team will prefer that to casting them into oblivion.  The retention of your other performing team members is a key job of the boss in this 1.68 jobs for everyone looking world, in Japan.  People observe how you handle poor performance very minutely and forensically.   No easy answers anymore, to the poor performance conundrum in Japan.  The bad news is that is isn't going to ever improve, so we all have to navigate our way around these issues in more creative ways than before.  The failing salesperson has to reinvent themselves and we bosses have to do the same.  The market punishes those who are not able to move with the times and find the flexibility needed to thrive and survive. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Creating Your Personal Style When Presenting   When we are writing, we can create a style of our own.  The way we use certain vocabulary, the phrasing we apply in our sentences, the types of subjects we tackle.  What about when we are speaking?  What would we like to be known for?  When people hear we are speaking, are they saying to themselves, “I need to attend that talk”?  The answer to can we create our own style is definitely “yes” and you don't have to look far for role models.   Simon Sinek launched a new career off the back of his now famous TED talk, emphasising the WHY behind what we are all doing.  Anthony Robbins is famous for his massive amounts of energy and self confidence when presenting.  Rowan Atkinson for his sly and dry wit. Brian Tracy for his very science based approach to his subjects.  Zig Ziglar for his storytelling. Locally here in Tokyo, Jesper Koll has a distinct use of casual dress, powerful rhetorical questions, data (and colour!) saturated slides and references to when Germany will win the next World Cup.    One aspect of building a following is getting numerous, sustained gigs over long periods of time, so that you become well known, like Jesper.  There are many economists in Japan, but few performers like Jesper. He can mix it up, combining dry economics with pizzazz, to make the whole event enlightening and entertaining at the same time.  I am a fan and I always attend.   What about the rest of us, who for many reasons, don't get that many chances to speak publically in a year?  How can we build a brand?  The first thing is to decide what you would like to become well known for?  Is it your sparling wit, your cutting analysis of complex problems, your supreme confidence on what you are saying, your expert authority, the quality of your data?   Generally speaking, we will have a relatively small number of content areas we will cover.  For example, I never hear Jesper speak about Japanese politics because that is outside his specialized knowledge.  In my case, I cover three topics – sales, leadership and presenting.  That is a bit unusual, but as we are a training company, it makes sense because these are our core areas of expert authority.  I write blogs, shoot video and speak on these subjects.  Here is a hint, you can do the same thing.  Your blogs can be thought leadership pieces or data heavy contributions or considered commentary on a subject.     Some friends say, unkindly, that I have a good head for podcasts, but I shoot my videos anyway. Audiences search out content in different places, so it makes sense to try and meet them where they are looking. Good head or nay, I choose to get my content out there.  It is often through our blogs and videos that we become known for expertise or interest in different subjects.  When people are looking for a speaker, they can see the quality of what we can do and this may inspire them to invite us to speak.  The impetus is on us though, to make it easy to be found.   If you are a witty type, then certainly be witty when speaking.  This is a natural extension of you and it is congruous with your presentation style.  If you are not witty, then spare the rest of us from failed attempts at stand up comedy, when speaking on business topics.  Cautionary note to Aussies and Brits – avoid all of those culture centric sardonic witticisms. They rarely translate to broader audiences.   If you have access to excellent research and quality data then make this something that you are known for.  Jesper is a well established economist in Japan, so he can easily access his own original research data and other worthy published sources.  When you go to his talk, you know you are going to get some new information. This draws a fan base of repeaters like me.  We can do the same, because in our different lines of business we come across golden nuggets of information, which are not so easily available to all the punters out there in audience land.  We can become known for the quality of our content.   The delivery is the key though.  Boring people are not attractive and won't build a following, no matter how good their information is.  So don't be boring!  Engage your audience when you speak, speak clearly and confidently.  I remember reading one of Anthony Robbins's books about how he sought out speaking spots, as many as possible, when he first started. He did this to short circuit the learning curve for himself.  I am sure many of those early speeches were horrible, but by getting the repetition done, he could find ways to become the speaker he is today.  We should do the same and grab every opportunity to speak however humble it may be.  We can improve and become better at our speaking craft and we should be committed to doing so.  The last thing the business world needs is another boring presenter! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.enjapan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.        

Stress In Business In Japan   We know that stress is a killer.  Stress is something that sits there under the surface and it effects our health and our performance.  It runs deep and can well up in us.  We are not fixing it or diminishing it, we are just suffering it.  Japan can be stressful place in business.  Decisions take a long time and the client is never on your timetable.  You expected that payment, but it didn't turn up.  You discover that the invoice had to be in by the 15thof the month, but no one bothered to tell you that.  You are not getting paid and now cash flow issues arise.   Currency movements have now had a strong impact on your profitability and this wasn't factored in fully, when you did the business plan.  Regulatory barriers are making it hard to supply the market.  The buyers prefer the devil they know, to the angel they don't know, and that angel means you.  So how do you break into this market when nobody knows you? Then you have the problems of running your own team.  People are getting older and have all sorts of personal health issues or issues around taking care of their own parents.  You have recruit and retain issues with younger staff.  The list just goes on and on.   What do we do about these things?  There are many things blinding us to the real issues.  We are battling through a fog of confusion most of the time.  We have to cut through that and work out clearly just what is the problem.  Unless we can identify the problem, we have little hope in fixing it.  This isn't as easy as it sounds, because there could be many factors at play, but which are the really key ones?   The key here is to write them down.  Somehow the act of writing helps us to refine what we are thinking.  We need to get them into priority order.  That also forces a higher level of thinking about what we are facing.  Are there any threads or similarities?   Having sorted that out, we now have to dig a bit deeper and look at what are the causes behind these problems.  We can identify the symptoms, but what are the root causes of the troubles we are suffering? This again needs some analysis and often we are not operating with a lot of numbers we can rely on, to pick out the threads of the root causes. We often have to go on instinct and this is an imperfect science.   Having ascertained what is causing the problem, well what can we do about it?  We start digging deep for solutions, for ideas, for innovations which will provide us with a way forward.  This is a brainstorming process and the object should be to throw up as many ideas as possible.  We do this on the basis that even a crazy, impractical idea might be the trigger for a really great idea.  The excellent idea may not have emerged with out the stimulus of the crazy idea in the first place.   Having drawn out a broad range of possibilities we now need to whittle these down to the best ideas. We start evaluating the consequences of taking possible actions on these ideas.  We will distill the best solution in this way and now we have created a roadmap for ourselves.  Through action comes clarity and the solutions flow forth.  We need to get the battle plan into priority order for the execution piece.  We are trained to execute and once we get a plan together, we can start to move forward and get out of the hole we have been lodged in for some time.   Dale Carnegie wrote a whole book on this subject, called How To Stop Worrying And Start Living.  He was thinking that we needed to find a way through the worry stage and get out of that hole we have dug for ourselves.  If we don't do this we will see our stress mount up.  Once we find that way, we get on the front foot and we can exercise more control over our attitude and our circumstances.  This means we can start living in a full and complete way, because we have thrown off the yolk of stress and we are now tapping into our full potential.   If you find alcohol isn't doing it for you or you find yourself worrying while at yoga, maybe get the book and read it.  Today we know the connection between stress and illness and we can't take it lightly. The likelihood of our lives becoming less stressful in the future is slim, so we are better off finding ways to deal with it today. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

How To Rehearse Your Presentation   We have planned our talk, all we need do now is deliver it.  We have designed it, starting with the key punch line we will deliver in the first close of the speech, before we get to the Q & A.  This is the essence of our message and it is from this key idea that we have derived the key talking points we want to make, that will be the “chapters” of our speech.  In a thirty minute speech we will probably get to three to four of these, depending on the amount of depth we need to get into.  Finally, we develop the opening and then do the final close design for after the Q & A.  With this outline, we start to see if this will work in reality.   We have fleshed out the construct, have inserted stories into the talk to back up key points and have a first draft.  Now designing something on paper and then giving it out aloud are quite different beasts. We often find that when we run through the talk aloud, the logic of the order isn't strong enough or the points seem a bit unclear.  Unless there is some special reason to do so, we are not reading out the draft like a complete script.    We have sketched out speaking points, to which we will talk.  These are the bare bones of the talk and this is what we use for the initial run through.  When we do the speaking run through of the draft, we may find that additional or better points occur to us and this is when we do our editing.  Some parts may be weak in promoting our argument, so we need to spend a bit more time bolstering those.    As we are not reading it, we will find that we will vary the content in the delivery every time we give it in rehearsal and probably in reality.  Nothing at all wrong with that.  Only we know what we are going to say, so there are no content police to catch us out on any variations from the original.  It actually doesn't matter too much, because invariably we are refining and further polishing the speech.    So naturally this means we are running though the actual talk a number of times.  How many times?  No one answer here, but I would reckon we are talking probably between three to five times. If we have a thirty minute talk we have clocked up two and a half hours in rehearsal time quite easily.  Most busy businesspeople lack two and half hours for practice , so it is more likely to fall into the three times maximum category. Obviously the more often we give it before we bring it to an audience, the better but we have to be realistic about our time availability.  The three times realty is vastly better than the usual occurrence, which is zero rehearsal.   As we are practicing and further polishing the construct, content and quality of the stories we are going to be using, we will get a better sense of how long all of this will take. The usual no practice version of public speaking leaves most people with absolutely no clue as to how long they will need for the talk.  Most are more likely to overshoot than undershoot.  When we go too long, we run into trouble with the constraints of the occasion.  The organisers start subtly telling us to “get off”.    This practice run through is when we realize we have to prune our work of art and this is extremely difficult.  Some parts may need to be dropped altogether – oh no!  This can be painful because we love all of or children and can't bear to lose any of them.  Nevertheless, we have to be showing some tough love to our draft presentation, otherwise we can't get it finished in the time allotted .    We don't want to find ourselves in the position of having to shunt the end together in a whirlwind of download that baffles the audience and leaves everyone with the impression that we are so disorganized, we can't manage to put together a thirty minute talk.   If we have the time and resources, having others listen to our speech is good but this is often difficult. By the way, limit them to good/better feedback, because otherwise they will straight to negative critique and you won't like that at all.  If we can't do that, then videoing the talk so we can see ourselves is very good. All you need is your phone or ipad and a holder thingy attached to a tripod and you are in business and no film crew required.  If that can't be done then use the voice memo on your phone to play back how it sounds.    When I am traveling to give talks, I find the Hotel room with the lights out allows the windows in the room to become a mirror and I can see myself pontificating, gesturing, pausing and delivering with aplomb.     Time is the killer when it comes to rehearsing.  Remember the trade off though – 90 minutes of your time, versus eternal damnation as a hapless and hopeless presenter, who has just publically incinerated their personal and company brands. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Worry In Business In Japan   There are so many things we have to worry about in business. Do we have enough cash flow to pay the bills, will we have enough left over to get to the end of the next month.  Can we meet salary, do we have enough to pay our taxes, can we meet our supplier's payment invoice requests.  The one thing that will bring a business down and eliminate it is not enough cash flow.  Once that becomes insufficient it is game over.  So we need to preserve cash and that means you need a really accurate tracking system.  You do not want any nasty surprises about cash flow.   We worry about our clients mix.  Do we have the right balance of those we are farming, that is to say the regular buyers of our products or services.  They may not grow much but they are regular and sound repeat business.  We also need new clients though to replace the ones we lose and to expand the business or we need existing clients to spend more with us. This is the gross revenue side of the business.  As we all know, you only need a couple of consecutive months of poor revenue flows to have cash flow problems, so the regular sources of business are very important.   Then there is expenditure side of things.  We need to keep our fixed costs conservative, although that is not so easy in Japan. We want to see our variable costs/fixed costs ratio moving in the right direction.   Another area of prominence at the moment is retaining staff.  We are seeing a drying up of hires in Japan, as the population decline makes it harder and harder to hire new people.  If someone leaves, you are looking down the barrel of 18 months before you can recruit and train the replacement to get up to the speed of the person who left.  This means the retain part of our companies activities becomes very important.   The younger generation are becoming more aware that they are in demand and they unlike their parents, can move from job to job, with no stigma attached.  The grass always looks greener on the other side to them and so they will up and be moving to your competitor, unless they are properly managed. They are the first free agent era of workers in Japan.  This has never happened before, this is all new and there is no road map on how to navigate our way through these societal changes.    Many of them have a very starry eye view of work and so when they start working for a firm they realise this isn't as glamorous as imagined, in fact a lot of what they have to do is boring and the boss isn't all that great either.  If they walk out they have taken all your training with them to a competitor. You have just lost your investment in them, plus they are very hard to replace, so you could be short of staff for some time.   The experienced workers are getting older as people want to keep on working and because we want them to keep on working.  As they get older they have various health issues so they can't make it to work some days as they are sick.  They also face the health issues of their parents.  They have to take them to hospital or they need to stay at home some days to take care of them.  All of this is dislocating the work flow, but this is the new reality and we have to be geared up for dealing with it.  This means we need to have a lot more flexibility than before about work hours, working from home, giving people enough sick leave and recreation time to recover.   So what do we do about dealing with all this worry. Here are a few ideas to adopt to get on top of all of this.  Firstly, get clarity about what is the real problem.  When are worried we have a lot of things flying around in our brain.  We tend to be unable to get focus.  We need to stop that.  So call it out.  What is the absolute worst thing that could happen?  Name it, isolate it, focus on it.  This gives us a clear target, gives us clarity around the problem.  Next accept that it will happen.  Don't go into denial or delusion.  Expect this will hit and hit hard. Face it.  Having done that, now work on what you can do to minimize the damage.  This helps us to move to a positive mindset around the fix rather than the problem. All of that mental white out we were facing lifts and we see a way forward, this gives us hope and improves our spirit and motivation.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Respect In Business In Japan   Respect in Japan may be more similar to concepts in European countries rather than new world countries like the USA, Canada or Australia.  Age and stage probably carry more weight in older civilisations than in these bold new upstarts.  In Japan, a low ranking minion in a big company can have more status than the President of a small company.  The President will show a lot more respect than what we would associate with the status of the person working for the bigger player.  The individual has position power, purely on the basis of the company name. This is especially the case when the smaller company is a supplier.  The small company President will be very differential to everyone in the buyer team, no matter their rank.   Inside large companies there are many aspects of the power relationship that spill outside of the corporate headquarters.  Staff are living in subsidized company housing and there is a complete hierarchy amongst the wives based on their husband's rank.  Often the section head's wife will be the Queen Bee bossing the other wives around.  I guess this is probably a bit like the military in many countries, where families live on base.  Rank and power are institutionalised in Japan and we should understand that, when we are doing business here.   Position power in Japan is often disconnected from actual personal capability.  The higher ranked person may in fact not be particularly competent, but they are shown respect anyway.  In a country where you are promoted on the basis of age and stage rather than performance, this is bound to happen.  In societies which have a performance basis for moving up through the ranks, then age counts for little in terms of respect.  Actually, in youth culture societies like my own Australia, age is seen as a minus. Only the young know anything and the elderly are not given much respect or credence.  Japan is the exact opposite.   In Japan the position is respected.  Even if you are not shooting the lights out in performance terms, people will still show respect because of the position you hold.  In our cultures, the respect is shown for personal ability rather than age or stage.  The Japanese language also has a form of polite honorific language which is carefully calibrated to handle all of these different levels of status.  You get that wrong and there will be trouble.    When I was studying here in Japan the first time in 1979, I was talking with an older lady who was a Professor at my university.  I wasn't using the correct keigoor polite language to respect her status above mine.  Actually at that time, I was happy to be able to string a sentence together in Japanese.  How did I know I wasn't using the correct keigo?  The way she replied to me, while absolutely correct, was dripping with ice and her body language joined in, to school me on my impertinence.  I knew I had said something the wrong way, even if I wasn't quite sure just what that was.   In business, Japanese buyers don't expect you to have any Japanese, so if you try and you are not using the correct honorifics, they won't be mortally offended like my good Professor.  The truncation of ability and status in Japan means you have to keep your wits about you. If you are in a meeting and there are some younger bright sparks there and they are really engaging with you, don't ignore the older people sitting there saying very little. They will be senior, respected and will be consulted.  You can't ignore them thinking you have the ear of the decision makers.  Especially be careful of giving the fluent English speakers too much credence.  They are seen as language technicians by the hierarchy and often have no decision making power at all.   If you are going to a meeting with the client, be respectful toward the receptionist.  In the hierarchy between your two companies, she may rank above you.  The young woman, and in Japan it is usually a young woman, who brings in the coffee or tea to the meeting room is another one you should show respect to.  Do not imagine that you are some big shot from overseas, who is pretty important and you can ignore the underlings like you do at home. In Japan, and actually everywhere, show respect for people doing their job, regardless of their rank and what you perceive as their status power.  You will do better here if you do, because it is noticed.   Longevity is respected in Japan, so someone who has spent their whole life devoted to the company is shown respect regardless of how capable they may be.  By contrast in our cases, we are zigging and zagging our way up the ladder, trying to get to the big job.  In the West, if you spend longer than five years with a company, the question is raised - what is wrong with you?  People wonder if you are a dud.  If you had any ability you would have moved to a higher position in another company by now.    Not the case in Japan. If you mention you have been with the same company for many, many years that will be seen in Japan as a good thing, as a positive.  You have been reliable, steadfast, consistent and loyal in the Japanese world view. Like Europe, craftsmanship is respected in Japan.  Someone doing the same thing for decades is respected as a master of their trade, a skilled expert.  If you have spent many years with that same company certainly mention it, it will enhance your status in the buyer's eye.  Japan is highly risk averse and salespeople who come across as solid, reliable, predictable and consistent are going to be more highly evaluated.  Be one of them. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.                

Rhetorical Questions When Presenting   Are we talking at people, to people or with people when we are presenting?  The “talking at” part is easy to pick.  There is no attempt at rapport building with the audience.  No stories and lot and lots of data dump going on. Technical experts love this type of presentation, because they can spend all the time sharing the data.  Because they are an “expert” then they feel self justified to tell people stuff.  They don't put much value on this presenting lark, because it is hardly a serious activity and people are here for the information – right?  “All style, no substance” being the ultimate putdown of skilled presenters by this techie crowd.  Detail is layered upon detail and density is never thought to be an issue. Especially when it comes to their slides, which are so dense, as to be impenetrable. Jargon is preferred too because that cuts down the need for explaining what you are talking about and overall, less words are needed.  The point is not to persuade anyone but to hammer them with detail.   The “speak to people” presenters are more capable of building rapport.  They are keen to get their message across and are careful about how they do that.  They do try to engage with their audience.  They think about the slide design to make sure it is it sharp looking yet easy to understand. They avoid jargon because they know it breaks the audience into an “us” and “them” divide.  They are also aware that it also can come across as pretentious and somewhat condescending.   They are conscious they are up on stage and they want to impart valuable knowledge to the audience.   The “speak with” presenters take things further.  They get there early and try to meet the participants as they come in.  They engage with them and find out their interests and motivations for joining this talk.  They take some of these conversations into their talks and reference the people they have been chatting with earlier.  “Suzuki san made an excellent point to me earlier about ….” They know by doing this they can dispense with that mental barrier between those doing the speaking and those doing the listening. The audience and speaker have become one.  They try to get the audience physically involved by asking them to raise their hands in response to their questions.    The “speak with” presenter does all of these things of the “speak to” presenter and more.  They know that if they speak in a conversational tone this makes it easier to draw the audience in.  They use their eye contact to connect with members of their audience, so that they feel they are almost having a private conversation.  They wrap their key points up in stories to make them easier to remember and to understand on the first telling.  Where possible, they try to make those stories their own personal experience.  They are adding a degree of authenticity and vulnerability, without it becoming too much. They know where to draw the line to make the point, without the delivery becoming too clingy.   They use a mix of rhetorical questions and real questions.  A rhetorical question is posed not for the purpose of extracting an answer, but to grab the attention of the audience.  We know that audience concentration spans are becoming shorter and shorter.  Sometimes we are being ignored and we need to corral everyone mentally back into the room. The beauty of a rhetorical question is that the audience are not quite sure if they are required to come up with a response, so it creates a bit of tension in the room.  This tension is enough to grab their attention.  Real questions can't be used too often, as the act becomes tedious and creates a feeling of “ I am being manipulated” in the audience. Rhetorical questions however can be used quite a bit more, because there is no response required.  It helps us to guide the audience's thinking along a glide path of our choosing, because we control both the context and the direction of the discussion.  Framing the questions frames the debate.   So if you see your audience flagging, getting distracted or surreptitiously whipping out their phones under the desks, then hit them right between the eyes with a rhetorical question to get their full attention again.  In the battle for audience attention, it is a zero sum game.  Either they are listening to what we have to say or they are escaping from us.  We need powerful weapons to keep them focused on us and not the myriad distractions on offer. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Nemawashi Or Groundwork In Business In Japan   Nemawashi is a very important word in Japanese.  It is made up of two words “ne” which means root and “mawashi” which means to wrap around. Or wrapping up the root. A good translation however is “groundwork”, usually associated with a decision or a meeting.  In Japan they can move 15-20 meters trees from one location to another.  They dig down, cut the tap root, bind up the root ball, get a big crane, put the whole tree on a truck and transplant it to another place.  Quite amazing.   That nemawashi represents preparation before the tree gets moved.  In business the same things apply.  We want a certain decision to be taken so we prepare to influence the direction that decision will take.  We might be dealing with a client or within our company.  Japan doesn't leave anything to chance.  Prior to the meeting, you meet with the other people who are going to attend the meeting and you try to get their agreement with what you propose.  In this way, the decision is taken before anyone gets in the room.  The meeting itself is just there to formally approve what has been decided beforehand.   In a Western context, we would make the decision in the room.  Everyone would turn up expecting that there will a discussion, some debate and final decision will be reached during that meeting.  In the Japanese case, they will already have made the decision, so if you want to influence the decision you have to start early. It is no good leaving it until the meeting itself, because that will be too late and the decision will have already been taken.   If it is a client company, you need to work with your internal champion to get the decision makers to agree with what you want to happen.  Usually the decision you want is that the client uses your product or service. As an outsider you won't be in the meeting, but you have to help your champion to be persuasive with everyone when doing the groundwork or nemawashi.   Give them the data, the evidence, the testimonials, whatever it takes to make the case solid when presenting it to the people who will be in the meeting. Don't leave it too late, because it takes time to get around everyone and have those discussions before the meeting is held.   Are the other people in the meeting who want a different decision or outcome doing their own nemawashi? Yes, absolutely they are. This is why you have to prepare your champion to be effective making the argument in your favour.  They can get the meetings, but they need your help to be persuasive.  The quality of the preparation has a big impact on the final result of course.  You need to get them to nominate who is in the meeting and get an idea of what will encourage them to be in agreement with the decision you want. Your champion should have a game plan for each person and that should be put together with your help.   If you understand nemawashi represents the idea of preparation, then be well prepared.  As pointed out, don't leave this process to the last moment. You need to give yourself time to allow the nemawashi system to work in your favour.  You also need to anticipate the arguments of the other side and head those arguments off at the pass.  You are working through your champion, so the preparation becomes even more important in these cases.  Does it mean you will always prevail.  No, you will win some and lose some, but you will place yourself in the best possible situation to get a win.  If you had no idea about nemawashi you can probably begin to understand why the decision you wanted went against you.  From now on though become part of the Japanese decision-making process and exert influence from within.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.            

Gaining Buyer Trust When Doing Business In Japan Trust is a big issue in Japan. The people we deal with in companies are salaried employees, who have probably been with that same company their whole career.  There is an escalator system here that carries you upward over the many years of your career.  “Steady as she goes” is the mantra.  They are primarily interested in gradually moving up inside the firm by making no mistakes. The best way of not making a mistake is to do nothing new or risky.  Their aversion to risk precludes trying anything that might have a negative impact, even at the expense of denying the company significant business opportunities. There is little reward inside companies in Japan for risk taking and a big downside if things go wrong.  Everyone knows this, so everyone operates the same way – very cautiously. So when we approach a Japanese company, we have to think about how we can take away the risk for the individual we are dealing with. It might be testimonials from happy customers, statistical evidence, money back guarantees, warranties, escape clauses, etc.  This timid buyer attitude toward doing new things is summed up by the saying that Japanese buyers "prefer the devil they know to the angel they don't know". By definition you are the angel they don't know, because you are offering a new product or service or an alternative to what they are using now. And you are foreign. In the distribution system in Japan, there is a very complex food chain to work through. There are many layers and if you don't deliver, as you said you would, when you said you would, you endanger the whole interlocking food chain. Space is at a premium here, so there are not the massive warehouses full of inventory being held, as maybe we see in other more spacious countries.  Everyone is trying to get by with as little inventory on hand as possible, but with the backing of a stock supply system that is totally reliable and highly efficient.  No Japanese company want to see their distribution system set on fire by a new player, they don't know well. The people they are dealing with now, whom you wish to supplant, have shown they can supply when needed and all present and correct each time.  Therefore buyers are very conservative about introducing a new, untested supplier.  You imagine you have a strong price point advantage, which will tip the scales in your favour and help you to muscle your way into the market.  Not always true, because price is only one point of comparison being made by buyers, when weighting alternatives.  For example, when you are competing in the marketplace with the big Japanese trading companies, they take the risk away by providing very long payment terms. They will have a much higher price than what you can supply, but their offer is less risky. The company can land the product, sell it and then pay the trading company later. Your discounted price requiring immediate payment can't compete with that risk free arrangement.  You are in a hurry to get the Japan business going.  There is a lot of expectation back at your HQ and you are the one designated to make this happen.  Sadly, deals rarely get done in one meeting in Japan, so expect multiple meetings. That may mean multiple trips to Japan if you are not based here. Bosses back home don't get that. “What do you mean you didn't do a deal while you were in Japan?  You just wasted the firm's monies on that trip, with no result, except for some nice sushi meals you had while you were there swanning around on the company's dime”.  The bosses may not get it, but things take a lot longer here, because companies have to gain consensus internally, about making a change to their supply arrangements. They are risk averse remember and doing nothing is the safest course of action.  It might take years in fact, before the buyer is comfortable to give you a try.  This happens in my own training business here all the time. Companies we met four years ago, finally send one person to trial the training. It can drive you nuts, but this is how it is and if you want to play, then you have to pay. Western companies being driven by quarterly earnings and the stock price, have a hard time with Japanese long play timeframes.   Gaining trust is done step by step.  Ask for a small piece of their business to show your credentials.  Make it as low risk as possible.  They can test you and few times and then if they like what they see they can increase the volumes.  That is a much better proposition than an all or nothing approach of we went for it but we didn't get the order we wanted.  You may not like it or agree with it, but slow and steady does win the race in Japan.  And nobody cares what you think sunshine. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Powerpoint Free Presentations   Visuals on a screen are very powerful communication tools when presenting.  Being able to show graphs can really drive home the point. If numbers are not so easy to follow or accessible, then proportion differences, trend lines, bars, pies, colours can be persuasive.   Explaining complex sequences with diagrams is good too.  This makes the potentially confusing more accessible.  Photos are really great for presentations.  “One picture is worth a thousand words” was used in an advertisement way back in 1918 in San Antonio Texas, although the base idea has been around for centuries.  Images are powerful communicators.  Just the image by itself or with one word, or a line of text are also spicing up the speakers communication effort.   The problem is everyone is doing it.  We all have our power point deck ready to go when we present.  We are not differentiating ourselves from other presenters.  Often the slides on screen don't actually add much to the presentation either.  There is a herd mentality going on here.  They say in banking, that it is acceptable to fail conventionally, but not by doing exotic stuff.  The same in presenting.  It is fine to be boring and dull, as long as you follow the railway track of what ever other presenter is doing.  If that boring shtick suits you, then keep doing that.  By the way, let me know how it is working out for you.   If you want to stand out amongst the average, the Lilliputians of Presenting, the nondescript and forgettable don't always go for the slide deck.  Mix it up a bit.  I saw Howard Schulz of Starbucks fame, give a presentation in Tokyo.  He had one slide.  That was the Starbucks logo.  He was able to talk with just that image in the background and he kept the interest of the crowd.  He spoke about something he knows a lot about – his company.  We actually know a lot about our subject matter too and we can do it with out any slides.   One downside of slides is that it seeps the audience attention away from the speaker.  We are shifting our eyes away from the speaker to what is on the screen.  This is often compounded as an error, by some helpful “know nothing” who switches the lights off at the same time.  Now the screen has won all the attention because the speaker has disappeared into the darkness, the void, and only their voice is apparent like some pre-recorded content for the light show.  The entire repertoire of the facial expressions and body language available to the speaker have been neutralised.   The screen based presentations have the advantage of being milestones and markers along which the presentation can flow.  You don't have to remember what comes next, because all you have to do is push a button. This is a quite handy.  You can put something up on screen and talk to the point and this flow will progress logically and smoothly.  When you are free-forming, you are up on the high wire and have no net.  We have to remember though that only we know the order.  If we mess it up and put one bit in the wrong place only we will know. The audience will be oblivious for the most part and we can just blatantly carry on, as if nothing happened. So the downside is not that great.   You can still keep your order by writing out your speech, as a full speech or as points.  This is your navigation to keep the speech on track. The key is not to read it out to the audience.  Talk to the points instead.  We want our eyes fixed on the audience members throughout. That means eliminating any and all distractions.  Ideally, we don't want our eyes dropping to glance at a page and then having to look up again.  It is not the end of the world if that happens, as long as you keep the glancing bit quick.  Better to think in silence with your chin up and looking at your audience, than with your head down scanning a piece of paper on the rostrum.   So save yourself a lot of time worrying about the finer points of slide deck creation and instead concentrate on the key messages you want to get across.  Also when delivering with no bright screen in play, the audience has nowhere to go, but to look at you.  Make sure you return the compliment by looking at them throughout the talk.  Eye contact, eye contact, eye contact is the rule. Giving an audience a change from the usual makes you memorable.  By contrast, you seem quite at ease up there on the high wire.  The audience members know they can't do that, so the respect factor for you goes right up.  Your talent and skill as a speaker stands out more powerfully and the contrast with the punters out there, chained to their slide deck, becomes more pungent. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Getting Change In Business In Japan   Getting change anywhere is a difficult process, but Japan is a special case.  Often in business, we represent the change.  We are the potential new supplier and that means a change. They have been doing business with someone else and we want them to stop doing that and do business with us instead. There are many currents underpinning Japanese culture and its resistance to change. I have been training in traditional Japanese karate for 46 years and part of that process is learning set sequences called kata.  These are fixed moves that cannot be varied in any way.  There is one way to do the movement and our job is to replicate that same movement thousands of times until we have perfected it.  There is no possibility of doing it a different way - in other words no change is possible.    This is a powerful metaphor for many things in Japan where there is only one way of doing things and it cannot be varied.  This is prime change resistance in action.  I find this at home too.  My wife is Japanese and there are certain things which must be done a certain way. Being an Aussie I am pretty flexible on trying to do things in a different way, but she brooks no variation.  There is a certain way specific things must be done and that it is that.   This in the culture and here you are trying to break into the market.  By definition you are a change and there is a change resistance already here in the culture to start off with.  Anything that represents a change for a company has to get signed off by all of the stakeholders.  This is the famous ringi seidosystem of everyone applying their chop to the piece of paper to show they are in agreement.   There will more resistance to change, than enthusiasm for something better.  Part of this issue is no one wants to take responsibility if problems arise, so the safest path is to say "no".  Hence, a change in suppliers is not easy here. Risk aversion means they have worked out who is the most reliable and consistent partner in their supplier relationship.  They are the low risk option, they have track record, they have built credibility over a long time.    You however are new. Maybe you are reliable maybe you are not.  Who knows, so no change is a better path forward for people who don't want to be accountable. So we have to come up with ways to eliminate or mitigate the risk.  in our case as a training company we only ask one question - are you satisfied?  If the answer is no, then no debate, no haggling, the training is free and there is no cost to the company apart from the time they have invested.    We do this because we have to make it easy for the line manager or the HR managers to give us a chance to become a new supplier of training services to this company.  What about your case?  What can you do to take away the risk of doing business with you? Remember we are dealing with individuals who are super deep in their comfort zone.  They have reduced risk in all aspects of their life.  They are seeking the maximum efficiency, at the lowest cost and the fastest speed.    I am the same.  I get up at the same time, catch the same train to work, choose the same carriage because it will be the closest to the stairs or escalator at the other end.  I eat in the same twenty restaurants within a kilometer of the my office.  This comfort zone is a resister to change. It encourages us to keep doing the same things over and over.  We are doing the same thing in business - the fastest cheapest, safest way of doing things. That refinement makes it hard to break in when you are the Angel they don't know.  The opportunity cost of continuing with the same supplier, the Devil they know, and not gaining from a new supplier is not easily considered.    The individuals we are dealing with are worried about themselves and not getting any trouble. So the same things get done the same way with the same results.  This is just fine with them. Underperformance won't get you fired here, mistakes can.  We are new, we are a comfort zone expander, a pattern disruptor and so we meet resistance.    To persuade the company that we are the better option, all risks considered means we have to be working on more than just our champion inside the company.  There are so many people who can say no, we need to make sure we are working on them too.    It is possible to have change here, because we do get new clients.  It just takes a long time and is difficult.  It is not uncommon to create a new client we met four years, three years, two years ago.  We have been in business for 106 years, 55 years in Japan, but potential new clients still want to test us with a small amount of training first.  Japan needs patience and extended time frames, if you want to overcome the inherent resistance to change. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Customer Service When Doing Business In Japan   Japan is probably the leading country in the world for customer service.  These are seriously picky, picky consumers here.  If you are dealing with consumers then you had better have your quality act together.  They will not tolerate poor quality.   Their expectations are extremely high and they will complain vigorously if those standards are not being met.    It is often hard to understand.  I grew up in Queensland in Australia and it is famous as a production center for tropical fruit, like mangoes.  I planted and grew a mango tree in my yard and it produced beautiful mangoes.  What you would pay for an entire box of mangoes is what you will pay here for one Miyazaki mango.  But that Miyazaki mango will be perfect, absolutely perfect.  No blemishes, no marks, perfect symmetry and the taste is sublime.  That coming from a proud native Queenslander is high praise, I can assure you.   Now in Japan they will pay for quality and this is the difference.  In the rest of the world people are more concerned with volume. In Australia, they would rather have the box at that price point, than the single perfect mango.  So our concepts about what constitutes quality are fundamentally different.    Remember that most Japanese rent or own their very small apartment, so they can't actually acquire lots of stuff, because there is no place to put it.  So you want to have the best of what you can afford, given the space limitations.  And there are few parks or sporting facilities, so they have selected two major leisure activities - eating and shopping.  They are well prepared to spend money on both.  They are quality conscious and demanding as a result.  So the consumer quality expectation transfers across to service provision as well.  Service in hotels and restaurants must be conducted at a high level.    If you are in the B2B area, then there are so many layers of distribution that the relationship between the layers become very important.  They don't hold a lot of stock each so the replenish part must be working well.  Everything is “just in time”, like the Toyota system of car production.  If you delay delivery then you are disrupting the whole system and everyone will complain vigorously up the food chain until it gets to you.  You don't want that.  The mutual dependencies here work because everyone understands the importance of quality and timeliness.   The level of quality provision is so high that the buyer expects to receive more than they are paying for.  They expect to be getting advice, very fast follow-up, that you be available all the time to answer their questions, etc.  So speed of reply to emails and phone calls become more important.  In many countries if you send an email and you don't get answer until the next day or the one after, most people are okay with that.  In Japan if they send an email to me in the morning and there is no reply, they are ringing me to find out the information.  This is again that interconnectivity phenomenon.  Everyone has promised something to someone else down the food chain. They have to keep reporting that everything is on track.  In this regard Japanese buyers have an insatiable appetite for information and reporting.    Ironically when they come to make a decision, they take an age to get there.  Things drag out interminably, nothing seems to be happening, time passes, we grow old and then suddenly the decision is reached and all hell breaks loose. Now everyone wants everything yesterday and they expect you to provide that level of service.  We tend to be "less is more" in the West and Japan is "more is better".   They like to keep in touch to a degree we can't imagine.  For example, we get gifts for Oseibo at the end of the year, gifts for Ochugen during the middle of the year. They send me X'mas cards, new year cards, start of summer cards.  They do this to keep in touch and remind you that they are there to serve you.  I am expected to be doing the same to my buyers as well.    People will drop in unannounced without an appointment.  One of my staff will come to me and say so and so is here to see you.  I think to myself “did I forget an appointment”, so I check my diary and there is no appointment.  They are just dropping by to say high and remind me that they are here to serve me.  They expect this as well from me with my buyers. This is not how we do business in the West, so it is quite a different expectation here about what it means to have a business relationship.  Japan sees Western business as "dry" and they prefer "wet".  This is the contrast between efficiency and empathy in business.  They are higher on the importance of EQ than they are on the IQ.    This is all very time demanding in a time poor world.  But that is the expectation and you have to understand the point.  You cannot over communicate with Japanese companies. Their tolerance for communication is very much higher than ours.    If you create a problem for the buyer you better get down there with a gift and a deep bow of apology. When you are trying to break into the market it is tough because you are fighting against all of these established relationships which have stood the test of time and which have demonstrated their reliability and trustworthiness.  You turn up with your airy charm and a bunch of promises.  If you screw it up, you are out sunshine. There are very few second chances in Japan for anyone - domestic or international.  On the other hand once you get in and demonstrate you are reliable then, they tend to keep using you going forward. How To Select Data For Presentations In Business In Japan   How much is enough data in a presentation?  How much is too much?  Generally speaking, most presenters have a problem with too much, rather than too little information.  Your slide deck is brimming over with goodness.  And you just can't bring yourself to trim it down. After all the effort you went to assembling that tour de force, you want to get it all out there in the public arena.  You have spent hours on the gathering of the detail and making the slides, so you are very heavily invested in the process.  You want to show the power of your thought leadership, your intellect, your insights, your experience.   Here is the danger though. We kill our audience with kindness. The kindness of throwing the entire assembly at them.  They are now being buffeted by the strong winds of new data, new information, new insights, one after another.  The last one is killed by the succeeding one, and it in turn is killed by the next one. We go into massive overload of the visual senses and the memory banks are being broken through, like a raging river spilling its banks.  Are we self aware about what we are doing?  No, we are caught up in data mania, where more is better.  We can't thow that graph out because it took a lot to create it. We need to have that extra bullet point, even though it is not adding any extra dimension to the presentation.    We have forgotten our purpose of doing the presentation and are now firmly fixated on the mechanics, the logistics, the content and not the outcomes we want.  There are different key purposes with a presentation: to entertain, to inform, to persuade.  The majority of business presentations should be to persuade but are often underperforming and are only hitting the inform button.  This is because the presenter hasn't realised that with the same effort and drawing on the same data resource, they can move up the scale and be highly persuasive.  Data, data, data just doesn't work though   At the end of the session the audience is shredded.  They cannot remember any of the information because there was way too much.  They cannot remember the key message, because there were too many key messages.  They walk out of there shaking their heads saying “what hit me?”.  Was this a success?  Did we convert anyone to our way of thinking?  Did they leave with any valuable takeaways so that they feel some value from attending? Or did they leave dazed and diminished?   So as presenters, we have to be like Mari Kondo with her housekeeping advice - keep only the bits we love and throw the rest out.  We have to make some hard choices about what goes up on that screen and what remains relegated to the depths of the slide deck reserve bench.  We have to winnow out the key messages and whittle them down to one central message.  We need to take that key message and assemble a flotilla of support with evidence, proof, data, comment, etc., to support it.    We need a good structure to carry the presentation.  A blockbuster opening to grab attention.  A limited number of key points we can make in the time allotted.  Strong supporting data and evidence to back up the key points. We need to design powerful close number one as we finish the presentation and also a powerful close number two, for after the Q&A.   We have to keep the presentation itself short and snappy, rather than long and laborious.  We want to leave them tonguing for more rather than leaving them feeling sated or saturated.   We want them to get our key message and have it firmly planted in their brain, so they get it, remember it and believe it.  That is different to stuffing the fire hose down their throats and hitting the faucet to turn it on full bore.  But this is often what we do, when we lead with data.  Always remember when it comes to presenting, less is more baby!  You can always flesh out the points more in the Q&A and after the talk, for those most interested in the topic.  We want to impress the audience not bury them under detail.  Getting the balance is the presenters skill and art and that is why there are so few presenters who are any good.  Plenty of room at the top folks, so come and join! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

How To Select Data For Presentations In Business In Japan   How much is enough data in a presentation?  How much is too much?  Generally speaking, most presenters have a problem with too much, rather than too little information.  Your slide deck is brimming over with goodness.  And you just can't bring yourself to trim it down. After all the effort you went to assembling that tour de force, you want to get it all out there in the public arena.  You have spent hours on the gathering of the detail and making the slides, so you are very heavily invested in the process.  You want to show the power of your thought leadership, your intellect, your insights, your experience.   Here is the danger though. We kill our audience with kindness. The kindness of throwing the entire assembly at them.  They are now being buffeted by the strong winds of new data, new information, new insights, one after another.  The last one is killed by the succeeding one, and it in turn is killed by the next one. We go into massive overload of the visual senses and the memory banks are being broken through, like a raging river spilling its banks.  Are we self aware about what we are doing?  No, we are caught up in data mania, where more is better.  We can't thow that graph out because it took a lot to create it. We need to have that extra bullet point, even though it is not adding any extra dimension to the presentation.    We have forgotten our purpose of doing the presentation and are now firmly fixated on the mechanics, the logistics, the content and not the outcomes we want.  There are different key purposes with a presentation: to entertain, to inform, to persuade.  The majority of business presentations should be to persuade but are often underperforming and are only hitting the inform button.  This is because the presenter hasn't realised that with the same effort and drawing on the same data resource, they can move up the scale and be highly persuasive.  Data, data, data just doesn't work though   At the end of the session the audience is shredded.  They cannot remember any of the information because there was way too much.  They cannot remember the key message, because there were too many key messages.  They walk out of there shaking their heads saying “what hit me?”.  Was this a success?  Did we convert anyone to our way of thinking?  Did they leave with any valuable takeaways so that they feel some value from attending? Or did they leave dazed and diminished?   So as presenters, we have to be like Mari Kondo with her housekeeping advice - keep only the bits we love and throw the rest out.  We have to make some hard choices about what goes up on that screen and what remains relegated to the depths of the slide deck reserve bench.  We have to winnow out the key messages and whittle them down to one central message.  We need to take that key message and assemble a flotilla of support with evidence, proof, data, comment, etc., to support it.    We need a good structure to carry the presentation.  A blockbuster opening to grab attention.  A limited number of key points we can make in the time allotted.  Strong supporting data and evidence to back up the key points. We need to design powerful close number one as we finish the presentation and also a powerful close number two, for after the Q&A.   We have to keep the presentation itself short and snappy, rather than long and laborious.  We want to leave them tonguing for more rather than leaving them feeling sated or saturated.   We want them to get our key message and have it firmly planted in their brain, so they get it, remember it and believe it.  That is different to stuffing the fire hose down their throats and hitting the faucet to turn it on full bore.  But this is often what we do, when we lead with data.  Always remember when it comes to presenting, less is more baby!  You can always flesh out the points more in the Q&A and after the talk, for those most interested in the topic.  We want to impress the audience not bury them under detail.  Getting the balance is the presenters skill and art and that is why there are so few presenters who are any good.  Plenty of room at the top folks, so come and join! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Recruiting Staff In Business In Japan Demographics are accentuating a talent shortage in Japan.  The supply of young people has halved over the last twenty years and is on track to halve again between now and 2060.  The number of young Japanese studying overseas peaked pre-Lehman Shock in the low 80,000s a year.  It dropped down to low 50,000s and has crawled back up to around 60,000 going overseas to study each year.   The flavor of their overseas experience has also changed.  Many more are going for short stays, so their level of English isn't as good and their cultural immersion isn't as deep.  This is a function of cost and also the greater concerns for personal safety in a world where terrorists roam major cities, killing innocents without warning.  This trend to go abroad less and for shorter periods is ironic because the minds of the corporate titans in Japan are now more focused globally.  Their companies  need young Japanese staff who can handle the world beyond the seas surrounding Japan. They know that they have to acquire businesses and expand in markets offshore to survive the consumer population decline.  They have to head outward. Matrix organisations have Japanese staff here leading foreign staff scattered around the world. The opposite is true too. Japanese staff here are reporting to foreign bosses located overseas.  This is new.  In the old days it was a simple model of the Japanese expat disappearing for five year to be forgotten by everyone and then HR wondering what to do with them, now they are back and pushing them into some nondescript job.  The levels of English being produced by the educational system in Japan is underwhelming.  You really have to wonder how long this is going to take to be fixed?  The system is failing young people and making sure they hate having to learn English, instead of helping them gain a facility with the language.  The Government is introducing English earlier into the system, now starting in elementary school and they are bringing in more foreign native speakers to work in the schools.  This is all good, but the benefits of this won't be seen until we have all retired from business and are on the links playing golf everyday. This is a crazy world where English capability is needed right now at the precise point that the young are opting to stay in Japan and not study overseas.  It is hard to argue with their logic, the food is seriously excellent here, there are no guns, no terrorists and no major drug problem. Everything is pretty comfortable here.  I like it and so do all the youth of this country.  Why put yourself under the pressure of dealing with foreigners with your poor English?  Better to stay here in Nippon and relax. The recruiting companies are having a field day, charging 35% plus to locate new staff for you.  If you are a mega corporation then this is probably a fleabite.  If you are a small–medium operation this looms large.  For example, a $100,000 a year position will cost you $35,000 to place. That number will get your attention every time.  When you include the social insurance and other costs associated with employing staff you add another 15% to that first year cost, which will total not $100,000 but $150,000. There are job boards, and there are recruiter/job board combinations, but regardless, none of this is cheap. In Japan young people are encouraged by their families to join very large corporates.  This seems a safe and stable selection process.  Getting them to quit their current job and come and work for us runs into opposition from their parents and even the spouse's parents as well.  If you are a major brand it might be acceptable.  If you are a small medium sized company they have never heard of, it seems risky. Foreign corporates might be angels, but in Japan everyone prefers the devil they know instead. So to encourage people to join us we must accentuate our flexibility.  Not requiring people to work overtime or stay until 11.00pm at night is well regarded. We can be more flexible than the big Japanese corporations.   Usually, there will be a base and bonus arrangement.  In the West the bonuses are performance based.  The bonuses in Japan are paid in summer and winter and are more a delayed salary payment than a true bonus.   Western companies can pay for performance though and this is a good differentiator.  In Japanese companies everyone gets paid the same and move up through the ranks together, regardless of individual performance.  It is more revolving around when you entered the company, how old you are, what rank you hold, etc.  It is very formulistic and everyone moves up together in lockstep.  So to get people to come on board you need to pay people more to compensate the risk of joining you.  And English speakers, the declining resource, come at an additional premium. One group which may become more important will be the Dai Ni Shin Sotsu group.   These are young people in their mid to late twenties who want to change their companies.  The percentage is running in the low thirties at the moment but it has been in the mid forties in the recent past. They have spent around 4 years with the company, have been trained by them and then they walk out the door.  They are hard and expensive to replace.  So we really need to work diligently at keeping the new recruits inside the company.  This is the skill of the leader and if they don't have the skills, then you will see your good people walk out the door.  This means your middle managers are going to be critical to the equation, when it comes to retaining the people you have spent some much time and treasure recruiting. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules. About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan. A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer. Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Getting Paid In Business In Japan Nothing happens in commerce without a sale being made. Great to know that, but what about being paid for the sale? Now, in some countries this can be an issue.  We find ourselves swimming with sharks who are transactional in their thinking and have no hesitation in ripping us off.  Fortunately, Japan isn't in that category.   We have rule of law here in Japan, plus a very healthy moral code.  Japanese people abide by the law, they line up nicely for trains and buses, there is hardly any road rage, they consider others and they don't take other people's belongings.  You are not going to get your bag or phone stolen by some expert Japanese gang who have the lift sequence down pat.   You see those videos from foreign countries, where they work as team, one distracts you, one lifts the bag off your shoulder, one then receives the bag and makes off with it, one scouts for the constabulary. This isn't a fear here in Japan. If you drop your wallet, the chances are the wallet, cash and credit cards etc., are all intact at a police box because it has been handed in.  I have had that experience.  Or you might find it sitting on a ledge, in a prominent position so you can easily find it when you go looking, after discovering you have misplaced it. I dropped some a key holder near my house and sure enough, even a few days later it was still sitting there for me to find. Now this is not a nation of 127 million saints.  Yes there are yakuza, petty criminals, housebreakers, con men and other assorted scoundrels operating here.  However, it is a lot better than most other places and this spills over into the way business is conducted. We have been operating our business now for ten years and have never had a bad debt.  You will get paid in Japan, unless you are particularly unlucky. The issue here isn't so much about getting paid, as it is about when you get paid.  Cash flow is always of strong interest to small and medium sized companies and the timing can be crucial at different times.  If sales haven't been all that great and the expenses are as high as ever, not getting the payment when you expect it, can put pressure on the cash flow.  Run out of cash and you are out of business pretty promptly.  Reputation for reliability in business is very important here. Lose that and people won't work with you ever again.  You are toast. Counter intuitively, the worst payers in Japan are the biggest players.  The giant multi-nationals have clever CFOs who have worked out they can screw the small guys and make them wait for 60 days or more before they have to pay them.  This is might against right and you have to take it, if your want to do business with them.  We take it. Japanese major corporates pay you in thirty days for the most part.  Japanese domestic companies sometimes have tricky conditions though.  If your invoice isn't received by the 12thor the 15th of the month, then it won't get paid until the end of the next month.  Or they will not accept an invoice, until the goods or services have been received, so no payment in advance possibility.  Or they find a minor mistake in the way you have captured the company name or the name of the person on the invoice is wrong and the accounting department won't accept the invoice.  You have to re-issue it and the whole payment process timings starts from that date.  Very picky at times, but all of this adds up to delays around when you get the money. So when starting a business relationship with a buyer you have to ask the key questions: do you have any protocols about advance versus subsequent payment; do you have any specifications about by which date in the month the invoice has to be lodged; how long are your payment terms?  You need to know these things for your own cash flow planning. The good news is you will get paid in Japan and the bad new is you may not get paid as fast as you need it. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

How To Read Faces When Presenting In Business In Japan People staring at you intently when you are presenting can be unnerving. This is especially the case when we are already feeling nervous to begin with. If some of those faces in the audience look particularly hostile, then the level of inner tension can be reaching danger point. We are stressing ourselves in reaction to how we perceive the audience and what we imagine they are thinking about us and what we are saying. “Don't judge a book by it's cover” is ancient wisdom and the same is the case when presenting. I was in Osaka a number of years ago, giving a presentation in Japanese to 100 salespeople in the travel industry on why Australia was such a great education destination for Japanese students. The idea was that I would inspire these salespeople to recommend education destinations in Australia, in preference to other competing countries, after I had fired them up with my passion for the idea. I can still remember the scene. It was a long hall and everyone wearing dark suits, mainly men and a big venue.  On my left side, about half way down, was sitting one guy who had a really angry face. Even from that distance I could tell he looked angry.  He didn't seem to buying anything that I was saying at all.  At the end of the presentation, he leapt out of his seat and came straight down to the front where I was standing. I had just come down off the podium to exchange business cards with members of the audience. I honestly thought he was going to punch me! Instead he started thanking me profusely in Japanese for my presentation, said it was really great, he really learn a lot, etc., etc.  I felt like saying, "if you liked it so much why didn't you tell your face!" I also realised that what I took for an angry face, was in fact a face deeply concentrating on what I had been saying. Now Japan throws up a few challenges in this regard, because Japan is quite a serious place, with a lot of serious people, whose faces we may misread.  Whenever I write or speak about presenting, I am always making the point to keep eye contact with each person for around six seconds and to look at people in all six pockets of a room. Those in the front, left, middle, right and those at the back again left, middle, right. We do this in a random, unpredictable way to keep audience interest in our presentation. Having said that though, not everyone is equal. If you are nervous about speaking to groups, inside those pockets pick out the people who are nodding in agreement with what you are saying or who at least have a neutral face. To maintain your confidence do not look at anyone who looks angry, doubtful, quizzical or hostile.  Ignore them completely to concentrate on those who are with you. This will help build your confidence when speaking and over time you won't need to do this but in the early stages it works quite well.  Actually thinking about it, I am totally confident presenting, but I still continue to ignore people who look hostile, because I have no particular interest in engaging with them. The part of the talk where the hostiles get to be a problem is usually during question time.  If you have been trained in how to handle Q&A, you never worry about hostiles in your audience, because you know you can handle anything they throw at you. If the whole audience looks hostile, well tough it out and keep going, bracing yourself for the Q&A where you can expect a lot of pushback. By the way we teach how to deal with hostile Q&A, so let us know if you would like to learn the secret. One key point – always specify how much time there is for questions, so that you can make a graceful departure and leave the venue with your head held up high.  If you don't, it looks like you are a scoundrel and a coward trying to flee the premises, because you can't take the heat.  We don't want that as our final impression do we.  They can disagree with you as much as they like, but you have to end the proceedings looking like the cool, calm professional you are. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

How To Brainstorm In Japan   Japan can only copy! This once upon a time was what we heard about Japanese innovation.  It was used disparagingly as a dismissal of Japanese capacity to innovate.  Well Japan is excellent at copying for sure.  There is a level of attention to detail here that is mindboggling.  Part of the issue was that over centuries of isolation Japan had become incredibly skilled in kaizen - small steps of improvement. The breakthrough ideas were happening somewhere else. This is an important observation, because when we are trying to come up with new ideas, we have to remember that we don't want just ideas that improve on what we did in the past, if possible, we want to leap past our competitors and go on to the next stage of development.   Japan is not the only place where we have seen this phenomenon.  Nokia was innovating by producing better and better phones.  Steve Jobs introduced an innovation, the smart phone, that killed Nokia off and let Apple dominate the global market.  The rental market for DVDs is getting killed by streaming services like Netflix.  Maybe we cannot come up with a game changer on a global scale, but we can certainly do better in pushing the innovation capacity within our firms.   There is no doubt that the way we do brainstorming does impact the success of the effort. The standard model is for the boss to wield the marker pen and write the ideas up on the whiteboard. The ideas are requested and here is where a fatal error is often made. The boss starts to comment on the ideas as they arrive: "we tried that before and it didn't work, next", "that is a silly idea, totally impractical, next", "no I don't like that idea much, next". All of these comments are crushing the perpetrators and they will retreat deep into themselves and take no further part in the brainstorming. They will be lost as part of the team generating ideas.     Japan doesn't handle personal criticism very well, given the drive for harmony in this high density living environment.  Shredding someone's ideas publically is the death warrant for further idea generation for that individual.  We will eliminate a lot of potential good ideas this way and have the noisy few, who agree with the boss, monopolise proceedings.  I hope they are really, really smart.   The key point here is to not do it this way. Instead let the ideas flow freely without any critique, judgment, evaluation or appraisal. The objective is to get as many ideas out as possible. Now of course some totally impractical and crazy ideas will pop up. Well they must pop up in these circumstances, where we have said anything goes. The joy of a crazy, unusable idea is when it gets changed slightly and is transformed into a genius idea. This wouldn't have happened though unless the first crazy idea had been proffered.   Also don't ignore the deep thinkers. They will be digesting an idea, not say anything and find the airwaves are dominated by those around them who can think fast on their feet.  This pushes them even further into the background because they consider it a crime to be putting up flakey, half thought through ideas. We are always time poor so we push the session forward unaware we are dropping ideas off the table at a rapid rate of knots.  The session is ended and these deeper thinkers are left sitting there with a bunch of quality ideas which are never captured.   Japan has plenty of great ideas and the key is to creating the right environment where these ideas can be nurtured. Fairly simple thing you would think but pen wielding, critiquing bosses still rule in Japan. Let's change that down at your shop!  We need to eliminate the instant idea critique, the hierarchy of who started at the company earlier than the others, who is older, who is more senior.  Japanese staff will always defer to others they consider their “betters”, because that is how you get on in Japan.  To get change in Japan you need enormous energy, discipline and patience.   If you want innovation, you have to give people the freedom to put forward their ideas.  To do that you need a system that allows ideas to be generated in silence to shut down the idea bullies, that go through multiple rounds until all the deep thinkers ideas have been captured and which separates generation from the judgment of ideas.  We have to keep telling everyone we are after idea volume in the first instance, not perfection.    Old habits die hard though, so you need the session facilitated by someone who can keep everyone in line.  When the critique comes too early that person needs to be told to hold that thought and remind everyone how this works.  Others can't bear the silence, because they have gotten all their ideas out quite quickly and now they want to talk.  They need to be told to stay silent, no matter who they are, and allow the others to get their ideas out too. This is a new way of doing things, so expect resistance. If we want better ideas, then we need better idea generation technologies and this new methodology represents a change.  Expect detractors, but push on because this will be so much more powerful than what is currently masquerading as idea creation, you will never go back.   So get the ideas out first and then do the selection and judgment in the second phase. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Being Persuasive In Business In Japan   Business schools are teaching put up your conclusion first in the Executive Summary and then the evidence and argument follows in the main body.  If we are writing something for others to read, then this is absolutely terrific.  If it is a report on a market's potential or how the product launch fared, this makes a lot of logical sense.  Busy people want the punch line delivered quickly, so they can allow themselves the opportunity to move on to more pressing needs. If we are talking to people, trying to win them over to our way of thinking, then this is rubbish.  Don't ever do this, because you are setting yourself up for trouble.   We do it though, don't we. We offer up our conclusion at the start and wonder why that didn't go according to plan.  We don't get immediate acceptance, as we had expected. Here is the problem in the real world.  When we tell people our conclusion, we are now up against a wall of critics, one-uppers, debaters and dilettantes. We have exposed our argument to the world, but we have left it to hang out there with nothing to defend it. You might be thinking, “no, the defence comes straight after, as we get into the evidence”.  You are so optimistic!   In fact, as soon as the opening conclusion is stated, the audience has stopped listening to you completely.   They are thinking they are smarter than you and don't need to hear anymore.  They are fully concentrated on the clever thing they are going to say, to demolish your recommendations.  Their minds are buzzing with their counter arguments, their views, how to make themselves look good  and alternative proposals.  They can hear white noise in the background, which is actually you speaking, but they are not focused on your content, because they believe what they have to say is much more important.   To avoid this scenario dump the business school model and reverse gears.  When you want to persuade someone of some recommendation you are making, start with the evidence first.  Do it in the form of a short story.  It shouldn't be too long and you are forbidden to start rambling.  Keep it tight, taut and on point. The story needs to be rich in word pictures.  We need to be able to see the scene you are describing in our mind's eye.  We need to bring in people they will know, describe locations they are familiar with and create a time sequence through reference to seasons or business milestones during the year.  They cannot intervene or tune you out, because they have no idea where this story is taking us and they are forced listen to you.   We need to promote the context behind the recommendation we are making.  By creating the scene, the audience will be coming to their own conclusions about what needs to happen.  The context is telling them that logically XYZ should happen.  This is the same conclusion you came to, based on the same evidence you are giving them and you tell them XYZ should occur. Immediately we have done that, we go into the outcome or benefit that your proposal will generate.  So the order runs this way: context, recommendation then benefit.   Because it is short, we won't lose the audience and that is why we have to practice this delivery. In any short presentation each word becomes very important, so we have to trim the talk of all fluff and surplus words.  If you try to make it too involved and go down a number of rabbit holes, you will lose the audience, who will become impatient and tune you out.  So we have to give enough powerful evidence, without getting bogged down in the gritty details.  Those gritty details can come later, but the key driver initially, is to get people to agree with your general direction.   The context first approach is great because while people can disagree with your conclusions they can't disagree with your context.  Usually they won't have as much command of the context as you have, so it is hard to debate with you over the background details.  They also have to wait until they get all the relevant information before they know what you are proposing.  They can't cut you off because they don't know if this is going to positive, negative, or about the past, present or future.  They have to hear you out before they can say anything. Genius!  Actually it is magical and this is why this construct of context-recommendation-benefit is called The Magic Formula. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

Educate Yourself In Sales   There are almost no sales courses at Universities.  Maybe, in the USA somewhere, a University is offering something on selling, but it would be a rare bird amongst the academic ivory towers.  By the way, who would be teaching this course and what do they know about the real world of sales? We can graduate with a bachelor degree, a masters degree or a Ph.D. in a wide range of business related subjects and never do one course on how to sell.  Why is that? Selling is a process enveloped in a philosophy. You can teach that.  We know, because as a training company, we do just that.   Okay, so you didn't get any courses at varsity on selling.  What about inside your company?  Nothing happening there either?  Are you in a Darwinian survival of the fittest environment, where it is up or out?  The company won't invest in you and you won't invest in you either?  The key path for being excellent in the professions is study. Doctors, engineers, architects, dentists etc., all have to keep brushing up their knowledge, even though they spent many long hard years at university to become qualified.  “Nothing happens in business until a sale is made” underlines the importance of the profession of selling in society.  Just like there are charlatans in any profession, there are fakers in selling as well.  They won't be around long, so let's concentrate on the honest salespeople who are just not as skilled as they need to be   There is no excuse for we salespeople not to be on top of our game. The first thing to do is to take responsibility for ourselves. The onus for professional development is placed squarely with us and we are not beholden to some outside force, like the company we happen to work for.  Today we have access to the greatest collection of readily available knowledge on sales in the history of the planet. Tremendous books, magazine articles, blogs, videos, podcasts - the list goes on and on. Yet so few access this cornucopia of wisdom and experience.   Up until 1939, if you were in sales, you could only get sales training from within your company. Dale Carnegie launched the first public classes for salespeople in that year and now there are thousands of providers all around the world offering help.  We have no shortage of gurus touring the globe holding sales rallies to pep up the troops and get them fired up to do better.   We don't lack for information.  The problem is you need to have the smarts and the desire to want to access the information and then more importantly, to want to apply it and adapt it to your own situation.  We can read the books and watch the videos etc., but we need practice to make it part of us.  We have colleagues in the sales team we can be practicing with, doing role plays in the morning before seeing clients. Yet so many don't take the chance to do that.  Knowing a questioning structure is great, but mastering the semantics and cadence of how to ask those questions are quite another thing.   Every major sports star warms up before the match. Ikebana masters strip the flower stems themselves to get their mind into the right frame. Shodo masters grind their own ink for the same reason, rather than delegating the task to their underlings. The karate master meditates before starting training. This is part of their mental preparation. Salespeople also need good mental preparation, but they are not taking advantage of all that is available to them. If we want to be great then we need to polish our craft. We also need to be searching through newspapers, magazines, web sites, social media for relevant information that a client would value and we should be offering this as part of our service as a partner in seeing the buyer's business succeed.   What surprises me are salespeople who are failing to meet their targets who won't come to the office early to study sales together with their colleagues.  They turn up at work at the appointed time as usual and then flounder through the day, making no or few sales.  They repeat this process year after year, always hoping to land a whale, that they hope will solve all of their sales quota issues.  Whale obsession has been a sickness amongst some salespeople, who haven't worked it out yet that skill acquisition and luck are polar opposites.  One you can control and the other you can't.  They prefer the one they cannot control and then whine about the lack of results.  When your whale is not landed you are left with nothing.   Building skills builds the lead pipeline, which in turn leads to better conversations with buyers. The solutions presented are better, the client hesitations are handled more smoothly and the order is always asked for. None of this is rocket science but it is difficult and it needs practice to make it work.  We need to commit to make the time to study, to do the role plays, to keep pushing ourselves to become better at serving our clients.  That is what it means to be a professional in sales. The path to professionalism starts from within.  When we watch that video, read that article or book, listen to that podcast we have gained some momentum.  Let's begin.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Presenter Survival Tips For A Tech Meltdown   When the tech crashes, you shouldn't crash and burn with it when presenting. Absolutely ALWAYS get to the venue early and check the equipment. Remember, you are in an alien environment, being served by people you have never met before. Who knows how old the technology they have is or of what quality level is the equipment.  The people setting up the talk never give presentations.  They don't understand that if the tech goes horribly wrong, the audience will blame the speaker, not the hosts.  They also don't understand that public presentations are the arena in which reputations are built or destroyed.  They are just there to open the room up and move the chairs around. We should never rely on anyone else when we are the presenter.  I find that bringing my own laptop and a backup USB tends to eliminate a few of the technical problems which can occur. I also bring hardcopies of the slide deck, which I can refer to before the talk, if the projector, monitor, USB or computer isn't working. I can reduce my stress, because I know what I want to cover. I have rehearsed the presentation, so I know the cadence I want to achieve and the order of the unveiling of the talk. Now, importantly, in that room, I am the only one who has a clue what I am going to say and the order in which I am going to say it. If it happens that my point 6 actually followed point three rather than point five, then only I know the order was incorrect. I certainly won't be sharing that little morsel with the audience. I will brazenly charge on, as if it were all part of the bigger plan.  And that is what every presenter must remember – don't flag problems the audience doesn't need to know. I am highly perturbed that top level CEOs of big corporations can't give a speech to a business audience without reading the whole thing. The content is usually put together by people in the Marketing or PR departments and maybe the CEO worked on it before delivering the talk. Great, but why do they have to read it? Don't they know their industry, their sector, their own business? It is pathetic in my view, to see a top business leader reading line by line from the speech script. Some can at least glance at the audience as they read it, so that is less pathetic, but still not good enough.  Now if it super technical and no brain could retain the content, then reading it makes sense, but how many of those business presentations have you ever attended. In my case - none. If you are in the scientific community or some field so complex, that there is no possibility of remembering it all in your speech, then you are forced to read it. But we are in business and there are few super highly technical presentations that we will ever need to attend. They are usually more standard affairs where they talk about what is happening in their industry, the marketplace and what their firm is doing about it. I saw a terrific example of no notes, but keeping the presentation going for three hours. Think about that - three hours and no notes. He had no visible notes, as far as we in the audience were concerned. This was a professor at Harvard Business School when I was attending a week long Executive Education course. Now this was an impressive feat and the first time I had seen such a thing.  At the end of it, as we were filing out of the lecture theatre, I happened to notice that on the back wall behind us was a large sheet of paper with ten words written on it. I realised that this was the speech right there. The professor had his order on the sheet and he just talked to each of the ten prompt code words that were on that sheet.  If we get to the venue and the tech is not working, we can do the same thing.  Just jot down some prompt words, in the order you need and elaborate on those for your talk. We don't need the tech to give a presentation. Now we can't describe what a graph shows or a diagram demonstrates as well as the original slide deck, but we can paint word pictures and describe trends to illuminate the point we are making.  We can also be telling stories that draw out the key differences, the reasons for the changes or the new insights from the data, rather than having to actually show the data. So in your planning phase, always be prepared for a meltdown of the tech and be flexible about crafting your talk from the ashes. Always get there early without exception. Remember, only you know what is going to be covered in your talk and in what order you will roll it out.  Keep that secret information to yourself. No matter what happens, carry on and the audience will probably never know there was a problem. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan Author of Japan Sales Mastery, the Amazon #1 Bestseller on selling in Japan and the first book on the subject in the last thirty years. In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Ownership Versus Dictatorship In Leadership   Leading people can be easy, if you want to be a total dictator and just order everyone around. The way of doing everything has to be specified and the detail has to be scrutinised within an inch of its life, all the time.  All the ideas have to come from you and all you want is passive acceptance from the team. They are the arms and legs and you are the brain, in super command mode.  Actually there are plenty of leaders like that in Japan. The control part works just fine because you are in control of everything.  This means your entire day is broken up in firing out orders and then checking to make sure they were executed in the exact format you had specified. This uber control method has a lot of consistency and predictability to it.  Compliance heads love this environment, because it is all about controls. This is the Theory X leader that Douglas McGregor wrote about in his study of motivation.  The leader working on the basis of strict controls and severe penalties for non-compliance.   At a certain point of scale though, this breaks down because you just can't manage enough time in the day to interact with each person individually or check up on their work directly.  This is where you need middle managers.  You can apply this same management technique to Middle Managers, but you personally are removed no from the front line.   You are also limited to how much innovation you can expect in the business.  This would be fine, if there were no competitors in the market and that they also were not innovating.  That never happens, so while we are gaining super control over our own business, we are handing the field over to our competitors who can out innovate us.   We also face succession planning problems.  Who can move yup through the ranks and lead, if all potential leaders have grown up on hand held spoon feeding by the bog boss?  We need capable people to take over.  The issue is capable people will quit that type of environment, because they have their own ideas and aspirations and they feel suffocated by all of this top down dictatorship.   We know that people will feel ownership of the world they help to create.  This invites us as leaders to involve our people in the business we are running.  We want their engagement.  If they are not engaged why would they care about doing things better.  To get innovation we need engagement, to get engagement we need to provide a sense of ownership.   What happens though when the person you look to for leadership, for innovation, for creating ideas doesn't come to the party.  Japan is a country of following orders and many people are happy with that.  Tell me what to do and I will do it very well, but don't ask me what to do. This isn't all that helpful when we are trying to skate to where the puck is going to be in business. We have no clear road map of the future and we have to think about what our business will look like in five years time. What will the marketplace look like then, our competitors, our suppliers, etc.  The boss can't tell you that.  We all have t work together to divine the future and then make our plans on that basis.   As a leader we can be making a big effort to give ownership of this process to our subordinates, but we notice that some grab the chance and others don't.  People in Middle Management have been given the opportunity to come up with their vision for the department for the future and that have produced exactly nothing after many months.  What do we do?   We may instinctively feel that we need to give people ownership, so the dictator role model is ruled out.  But we notice they are not thriving in this “you own the business” environment.  The first thing to realise is that not everyone is like you or wants to be like you as a leader.  Some people need a dictator to tell them what to do here in japan. That would be you, so play that role.   You may decide that your leadership team cannot carry the weight of someone who can only do what they are told and who cannot take ownership.  Often, these people are functional experts who are deep, deep in heir craft and you cannot lose their expertise.  This is the classic case of people being promoted into leadership in Japan based on age, stage or speciality.  They were not raised above the crowd based on their leadership capability and were given no training in how to lead.   You may need to put someone above them, who can be the actual leader and keep them in their functional day to day supervisory role.  That way you don't lose them, but you can also call on someone else for the ideas and participation at a more senior level.  Or you can become the brains of the outfit for their department and just tell them what needs to happen and then supervise the execution of the plan.   The key point is to play to the strengths of the team members.  We re going to do better by elevating their strengths than trying to eliminate their weaknesses.  Think about yourself - how many of your own weaknesses have you been able to successfully eliminate? You have 100% control over yourself, but you probably haven't been able to eliminate the weaknesses of your direct reports.  Build on their strengths and get the right people on the right bus and sitting in the right seats. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.        

Selling To Buying Teams   In Japan it is rare to be selling to one person.  Even if we only meet one person, there will be others who have to be consulted and have an influence over the buying decision.  It is often the case that we meet teams of buyers in the meeting.  We may have our champion helping us to become a provider for the client company, but there may also be blockers who attend the meeting to make sure nothing happens.  When the numbers increase, the complexity of getting a positive decision goes up.   When we are dealing singly with our champion, we have to arm them sufficiently to run through the blockades within the firm.  They need to be given the right arguments to deal with the naysaysers inside the company. There will be different executives involved, with different agendas and we have to give our champion the bullets to fire off, when they hit resistance.   During the meeting we are facing a mixture of viewpoints on the buying decision.  We need to run the ruler over this group and decide who we are dealing with and what are their buying perspectives.  Generally there are four different types of buyers apart from our champion.  The Executive Buyer will be the CEO.  They tend to take a long term viewpoint and are driven by strategic value and growth opportunities over time.  The Financial Buyer is usually the CFO and they have  shorter time frame in mind than the CEO.  They are driven by costs because they are looking at the cash flow situation of the company and the debt burden.  They are interested in payment terms – usually long ones – and flexibility around the conditions associated with the purchase.   The Technical Buyer can be the functional specialist, the accountant, scientist, engineer, doctor, HR specialist, etc.  They tend to be driven by efficiency, practicality, capacity. The User Buyer has direct application of the purchase and are concerned with the features, the ease of use, the reliability, the warranties etc.   Giving a one size fits all presentation to a buying team made up of people with different perspectives is going to be insufficient to the task.  The presentation needs to be structured so that the tasty bits are presented to each perspective, in a way that they can identity with it.  We should prepare on the basis that all four buyer types will be in the room and then vary our presentation according to who actually turns up.   There is no guarantee that concentrating on the President is going to bed down the deal.  Often the President will have delegated the final decision to the person who has the biggest stake in the decision.  They may be trying to empower their staff and won't overrule them, even if they personally hold a different view.  Japan is also a classic for ignoring any women in the room because they are not perceived as having any say in the final decision.  This is old style thinking.    I was at networking function and met a very attractive, smart young businesswoman who had a big title on her business card.  I guessed correctly that she was a family member of the majority owners of that company. I didn't go and see her, but sent one of my very capable female consultants to do the follow up meeting. Don't assume that because they are women, you can concentrate on the men and still do business with that company. Those days are over.   Also don't just address your remarks to the English speakers in the group.  They are rarely the decision-makers.  When you talk make eye contact with everyone in the group and include them in what you are saying.  It doesn't matter if they understand the English or not, but they will understand you recognise their importance in the group.    You may have experienced the reverse situation.  The buyer only talks to your Japanese staff member and ignores you even though you are the boss.  This can happen even when you speak Japanese.  It is very annoying.  So don't do the same with your buyer group, involve everyone in your remarks.   Just to make the whole picture more challenging, there is another layer of complexity we need to add to the meeting.  Each of the people present on the buying side, will have a particular personality style which will impact on how they like to communicate.    Those who are Drivers are very task and outcome driven and are strict time-is-money types who will make a quick decision and want to move on to the next project.  Get straight to the point with them and be direct, they won't be offended.   Their opposite style are the Amiables who like to get to know who they are dealing with, so that the right element of trust is established.  They are not in a hurry and don't like pushy salespeople.  Be subtle and soft in tone and body language.   Analytical styles are logical, data and proof driven.  They love numbers to three decimal places and having all the ducks in a row, arranged nicely. They dismiss all salespeople statements which are not backed up by fact as pure fluff.  Talk numbers and logic.  If you want to make a statement, then wrap it up inside a question.  If they say “yes” to the question then they are accepting the statement.  For example, you want to make the statement that, “we can guarantee delivery in three days”.  Don't state that.  Instead ask, “If we could guarantee delivery in three days, would that help your business?”. If they say yes, they have validated the importance of quick delivery.   Their direct opposite type are Expressives.  They like the big picture, look at holistic solutions and love to brainstorm on strategy. They hate getting stuck down in the weeds with a lot of small fry detail.  Talk about the future and how brilliant it will be with your solution to their problem.   So in addition to the buyer's job function perspective, we also have to be aware we need to switch our communication style to suit who we are talking to.  We will need to be talking about the area of their interest and in the communication style they like.  This takes quite a feat of flexibility on the part of salespeople, but this is what separates the great from the good. What Is The One Key Thing When Presenting?   I was talking with a friend, while we were having lunch at this very nice Italian restaurant he frequents, near his office.  Between dishes, we were talking about how he has to go to his US headquarters and join all the other representative Country Heads from around the world and give his report on how the business is going in Japan.  I was thinking that that must be a very high profile and pressure presentation. So I mentioned how great our High Impact Presentations Course was. In my own case, I wish I had done it 20 years earlier, because it would have changed my career trajectory.  Anyway, my friend was patiently listening to all of this and then asked me a very profound question,  “What is the one key thing when presenting?”.   What he was getting at was that if we had to boil it all down, what is the one most critical skill we need to be effective as a presenter.  This is a major question in business. After all, this is our personal and professional brand we are putting out there on show for all the world to see.  This is not something we want to get wrong.  I had no hesitation in telling him “focus on your audience”.   Great. What does that mean, because aren't we all focusing on our audience when we present? Definitely, yes, we should be focusing on our audience, but often we are deluding ourselves.  If we break down the presentation and analyse it, we can see that focusing on your audience has major ramifications for your degree of success when talking in front of others.    We may have what we want to say in our mind when preparing the talk.  We may be an expert in our field and have a whole bunch of stuff we want to share because we are excited by the content.  However, we may have not taken the trouble to think about what the audience would be most interested in?  Why would they turn up?  What will they be expecting to hear?  We may have not bothered to research who would be in the room.  What would be the age range, the gender mix, the degrees of expertise on the subject.  Did we do our research so we could focus the topic down to the slant most likely to impress our audience?  Or did we just talk about what we were interested in?   Who were we thinking about when we got up to speak?  We may have started our talk focused not on the audience but on ourselves. We were thinking how nervous we were feeling.  We feel captured by our high pulse rate, our sweaty palms, our dry throat, our weakness in the knees.  The focus is 100% inward not outward.   We may have been very deeply engrossed in the notes we were reading, such that we didn't even look up at the audience.  Or if we did, we used one of those fake eye contact approaches, where our eyes look in the direction of the audience but we are not really looking at anyone. We may have decided to ignore half the crowd and only talk to one half of the room or maybe only the front row or maybe no one, because we are staring over all the seated heads at some spot on the back wall.  Or we may be skimming across the room looking at everyone for one second and therefore looking at no one.  We cannot engage anyone in the audience with a fleeting one second glimpse but we can try to give the impression of an attempt to engage with our audience. This is not a talk focused on the audience.  Do the audience members sitting there feel that we are talking directly to them individually and not to an amorphous mass.   We may have decided that the audience was pretty dumb, so we need to read the text on the slides to them. We might even do that by turning our back on the audience and staring up at the text on the screen.  We are so focused on the text and the content and not on those listening to us.   Just to drive home the lack of focus on the audience, we cram so much information on each slide, that they becomes impenetrable.  Analytical types love jamming ten graphs on the one slide or throwing up the entire text document on screen.   We may hit up the slide with five different colours in a florid mess.  Or we may have gone crazy, like an example I saw recently, where the presenter used four or more different fonts in the text.  This made it super hard to read for the audience members.   Where was the focus?  It was on the presenters “cleverness” to showcase so many fonts on each slide, even though it was a disaster. Not to really rub it in, but the Japanese presenter was delivering a two hour lecture to a local Chamber of Commerce on presenting skills.   We may be rambling, because we have a poor structure for the talk, so we are hard to follow.  We may not have applied a logical flow to the talk to make it easy for the audience.  “Don't make your talk hard to follow” is a fundamental rule.     Or we may speak in a monotone to see how many people we can put to sleep.  By hitting key words we can emphasise key messages we want the audience to take away with them.  We may be umming ahhing like a legend, to really distract the audience from the message.  We have not done any work on polishing our presenting skills, because we are not focused on the audience but selfishly on the most friction free, time efficient approach.  That means no extra effort being made.   We may have spent a total time of zero minutes practicing the talk before we gave it.  We may have spent our time instead working on the slide deck.  It takes time to cram ten graphs on the one slide, with five different colours and four different fonts for the text.   This major effort will just suck up any potential rehearsal time before the presentation.  So where were we focused after all?   Even though we may imagine we are focused on the audience, we may in fact be missing the opportunity or actively working against that aim.  Take another look at whether you are actually focused on your audience or whether you are just imagining it. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.            

What Is The One Key Thing When Presenting?   I was talking with a friend, while we were having lunch at this very nice Italian restaurant he frequents, near his office.  Between dishes, we were talking about how he has to go to his US headquarters and join all the other representative Country Heads from around the world and give his report on how the business is going in Japan.  I was thinking that that must be a very high profile and pressure presentation. So I mentioned how great our High Impact Presentations Course was. In my own case, I wish I had done it 20 years earlier, because it would have changed my career trajectory.  Anyway, my friend was patiently listening to all of this and then asked me a very profound question,  “What is the one key thing when presenting?”.   What he was getting at was that if we had to boil it all down, what is the one most critical skill we need to be effective as a presenter.  This is a major question in business. After all, this is our personal and professional brand we are putting out there on show for all the world to see.  This is not something we want to get wrong.  I had no hesitation in telling him “focus on your audience”.   Great. What does that mean, because aren't we all focusing on our audience when we present? Definitely, yes, we should be focusing on our audience, but often we are deluding ourselves.  If we break down the presentation and analyse it, we can see that focusing on your audience has major ramifications for your degree of success when talking in front of others.    We may have what we want to say in our mind when preparing the talk.  We may be an expert in our field and have a whole bunch of stuff we want to share because we are excited by the content.  However, we may have not taken the trouble to think about what the audience would be most interested in?  Why would they turn up?  What will they be expecting to hear?  We may have not bothered to research who would be in the room.  What would be the age range, the gender mix, the degrees of expertise on the subject.  Did we do our research so we could focus the topic down to the slant most likely to impress our audience?  Or did we just talk about what we were interested in?   Who were we thinking about when we got up to speak?  We may have started our talk focused not on the audience but on ourselves. We were thinking how nervous we were feeling.  We feel captured by our high pulse rate, our sweaty palms, our dry throat, our weakness in the knees.  The focus is 100% inward not outward.   We may have been very deeply engrossed in the notes we were reading, such that we didn't even look up at the audience.  Or if we did, we used one of those fake eye contact approaches, where our eyes look in the direction of the audience but we are not really looking at anyone. We may have decided to ignore half the crowd and only talk to one half of the room or maybe only the front row or maybe no one, because we are staring over all the seated heads at some spot on the back wall.  Or we may be skimming across the room looking at everyone for one second and therefore looking at no one.  We cannot engage anyone in the audience with a fleeting one second glimpse but we can try to give the impression of an attempt to engage with our audience. This is not a talk focused on the audience.  Do the audience members sitting there feel that we are talking directly to them individually and not to an amorphous mass.   We may have decided that the audience was pretty dumb, so we need to read the text on the slides to them. We might even do that by turning our back on the audience and staring up at the text on the screen.  We are so focused on the text and the content and not on those listening to us.   Just to drive home the lack of focus on the audience, we cram so much information on each slide, that they becomes impenetrable.  Analytical types love jamming ten graphs on the one slide or throwing up the entire text document on screen.   We may hit up the slide with five different colours in a florid mess.  Or we may have gone crazy, like an example I saw recently, where the presenter used four or more different fonts in the text.  This made it super hard to read for the audience members.   Where was the focus?  It was on the presenters “cleverness” to showcase so many fonts on each slide, even though it was a disaster. Not to really rub it in, but the Japanese presenter was delivering a two hour lecture to a local Chamber of Commerce on presenting skills.   We may be rambling, because we have a poor structure for the talk, so we are hard to follow.  We may not have applied a logical flow to the talk to make it easy for the audience.  “Don't make your talk hard to follow” is a fundamental rule.     Or we may speak in a monotone to see how many people we can put to sleep.  By hitting key words we can emphasise key messages we want the audience to take away with them.  We may be umming ahhing like a legend, to really distract the audience from the message.  We have not done any work on polishing our presenting skills, because we are not focused on the audience but selfishly on the most friction free, time efficient approach.  That means no extra effort being made.   We may have spent a total time of zero minutes practicing the talk before we gave it.  We may have spent our time instead working on the slide deck.  It takes time to cram ten graphs on the one slide, with five different colours and four different fonts for the text.   This major effort will just suck up any potential rehearsal time before the presentation.  So where were we focused after all?   Even though we may imagine we are focused on the audience, we may in fact be missing the opportunity or actively working against that aim.  Take another look at whether you are actually focused on your audience or whether you are just imagining it. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Leading Your External Partners In Japan   For many companies it makes no sense to fund their own sales force in Japan.  The money, expertise and time available within the organization is insufficient to the task, so a partner is required.  This could be an equity partner or a distribution alliance.  The penalties for getting this wrong though are high.    Poor partner selection can ensure your product or service never gets anywhere in Japan by design. The big player looks attractive as a distributor, but they are partnering with you to kill your business. They have a preferred product or service and the last thing they want is for you to disrupt the market.  The best way to do that is partner with you and then just idle the business.  They know it will take you years to figure it out, if you ever do.   When the agreement period for the partnership is set long, the pain is sustained and there is nothing you can do about it.  Desperate or ignorant company representatives sign long contracts with insufficient milestones.  Ideally what you want are clear performance targets in the agreement, which if they are not met, would allow the contract to be ended.  Expect strong resistance on this idea.   The poor levels of due diligence on these types of partner arrangement are astounding.  When talking to business people, I am always amazed at the number of supplier partnerships which occurred because the foreign seller happened to sit next to a Japanese businessman on the plane.    Even presuming you didn't get stuck with an evil partner trying to kill your business, the case often occurs that they are killing your business anyway, through incompetence. They might be well minded but still incompetent.  The partner's sales team's interest in your offer can be an issue.  Basically, they aren't interested.  Japanese sales people prefer to visit clients and collect orders for established products, rather than having to actually sell anything. Your product by definition is new. The preferred methodology is to get you to take a whack on the price, as an incentive to get clients to buy it. This is pure laziness on the part of the partner's sales organization.   Selling from a value perspective is key, because Japan is a tough market to raise prices in, once you start low.  The buyers have fixed their mental temperature at a low level and resist your efforts to raise the temperature.  Often we may assume that the partner's sales organisation can sell. That would be too generous. Usually, salespeople in Japan are either poorly trained or under trained when it comes to selling.   This is where you need to provide some training for their sales team on how to sell.  You might think that all you need is to train them on the product features etc., but that is too optimistic.  They won't be much good in designing questions for the buyer to attract interest in your product.  They won't go much beyond an introduction of the features.  They won't sally forth into the sunny uplands of benefits of the features, the application of the benefits, the evidence of the application and chancing their arm with a trial close. They won't know how to deal with objections when they come up and they won't ask for the order.  Apart from those small details they will be fine.   Getting sales people who already handle a multitude of other products to become interested in yours is a struggle.  However by providing value, such as excellent training that benefits all of their job, they feel a sense of appreciation.  It needs to be set up though.  Don't rely solely on the leaders of the partner organization to do this for you. You need to speak to the salespeople directly about how much you admire their work, how committed you are to seeing them succeed and explain why you have introduced this broad based training, beyond just the product specs.   You might be thinking that the partner's sales managers can lead the team but again, you are being too generous.  Like many countries, sales leaders are selected based on a bunch of reason which having nothing to do with leadership potential.  In Japan, they may be the most senior or they might be the best sales person.  These leaders also need proper training, so make sure they get it.  Put them through the same training as the sales people, so that they know what they can expect from the salespeople in terms of knowledge and capacity.  Also give them better training on how to lead.  This will be a revelation for them, because they will have been thrashing around for decades unsure of what they are supposed to be doing as a professional in sale's leadership.   Expect all of this will be resisted by the partner organization and ask yourself why that would be?  You are paying for it after all, so what is the problem?  Good question isn't it.  Welcome to Japan!   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

No Sale's Questions Please, We Are Japanese   I was visiting the office of one of my multinational corporate clients and we were talking about the issues he was facing with his Japanese sales team.  His product is given the “yes” or “no” purchase decision by the business owner.  In this industry the business owners have very little time available so getting an opportunity to speak with them is gold in itself.  There are also lots and lots of competitors in this business, so the buyers have no shortage of choices.  The sales team are experienced salespeople and have been selling this range of products for a number of years – they are veterans.  And yet they haven't come to grips with one of the most important precepts of selling – ask well designed questions of the buyer.   Japan throws up all sorts of interesting challenges in the selling field.  One of them is social hierarchy.  This can be pedigree – coming from an elite social group, who tend to marry within their own ranks and who tend to inherit the business.  It can be based on education.  The name of the elite institution you went to, puts you into a very small circle of the best and the brightest in the land and everyone knows it, including you.  It could be the faculty you attended within that elite higher education organization, that marks you even further apart as an expert.  It could be the title on your business card, that tells everyone you are a formidable person who has risen to the top of the tree in business.  It could be the size of the organization you work for, a massive machine of vast power and scale, a behemoth bristling with power and influence.   The lowly Japanese salesperson calling on one of these elite buyers is fully conscious of their own inferiority and the low rung they occupy on the totem pole of influence.  Unless they are properly trained they can be on the back foot from the start and never get in control of the sale's conversation. This was the problem I was discussing with my client.  His salespeople are telling him they cannot ask questions of their elite buyers because of their own social inferiority and position as salespeople.   Nonsense.  This is a lack of sale's ability not a business barrier erected to keep the hoi polloi at bay.  As in all cases in Japan, the buyer is GOD.  Note: they are not king as in the West but GOD, regardless of their background. When they are part of the super elite, then they are a bigger GOD. You don't just start interrogating GOD, you get permission first.  Now this would seem a relatively straightforward process, except that few sales people in Japan have any well defined process for the activity of sales.   The first thing we need to do in setting up the permission to ask questions is to design our Credibility Statement.  It is not complex.  Tell the buyer what it is you do, but do it in a succinct way.  Do not ramble and do not go into super detail – just the broad brush of what your company does.  For example for my company we would say, “we are global experts in training soft skills”. Four key words there – global, experts, soft skills.  That is enough for the buyer to clearly understand what it is we do and to make an initial judgment of whether that is relevant or not to their business. Next we give a relevant example of where we have provided our service or product for a similar buyer and had success for them.  We know that buyers doubt seller's claims as fluff, unless there is some evidence to back it up.  It is not always possible to come up with a similar case.  However we should try to get as close as we can, even if it is a different industry but a similar echelon of scale – for example, very boutique or gargantuan, start up or 19thgeneration, foreign or domestic.   “We recently did some work for an asset management company to improve their people's pitch quality, they made it to the final round and won the billion dollar pitch”.   Here we are proving evidence that what we do works, that we have the skills to make a difference securing the client's desired outcomes.   Finally we make a suggestion, but not a bold claim. In America a bold claim, actually a super bold claim would be de rigeur but not in Japan.  We need to be subtle so we say, “Maybe, we could do the same thing for you. I am not sure, but in order for me to find that out if that were possible would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”.  It is showing respect for the buyer, saying that we are not presumptuous or arrogant enough to think we know what they need, without discussing it with them first.   We don't say we are going to spend the next twenty minutes drilling down on your needs and finding out all the issues of your company, going deep and personal.  We just say we want to ask “a few questions”.  Every client will think a few questions is better than an interrogation.  However, because our questions are very well designed, we will have them thinking more deeply about their own business. In this case, they will not have any hesitation to continue the session with us beyond a few questions.  If our questions can trigger a thought bubble inside their head that says, “we hadn't thought of that” or “we haven't planned for that”, then you have struck gold right there.  Ask stupid questions instead, suddenly the interview will be over and you will be out on the street.   Getting permission to ask questions is not hard, if you know what you are doing.  Years in the job of selling doesn't mean the salespeople actually are professional.  They are just repeating the same mistakes their sempai or seniors taught them when they entered the company.  So getting progress here in the sale's field is glacial.  Japan – you have run out of time, we need to do a lot better. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Don't Be Boring When Presenting   Every week I get to listen to speeches from some of the top people in their field.  I belong to an elite Rotary Club here in Tokyo.  That description in itself is a bit of a problem, given the philosophy of Rotary as a service organisation helping society and connecting business people together.  When my fellow Rotarians from different parts of the world hear this term “elite”, they will be puzzled, but hey, this is Japan and we do things differently here.  My particular Rotary is brimming with the captains of industry, the commercial crème de la crème, the top shelf of corporate leadership.  One of these titans was giving a presentation recently.    He runs a huge print media company with an eye popping daily circulation in the millions that is the envy of his Western compatriots.  This is a man whose whole career has been devoted to communication, capturing stories and gaining influence.  So my expectations were raised on a couple of fronts.  I thought here is a speaker who will have a lot of interesting anecdotes, given his organization has a global footprint and the fact that they have been doing this the 1870s.  I thought given all the changes going on in the media business, he will be able to provide insights into where the industry is going.  What a disappointment.   The first red flag that the quality of this presentation was going to be less than expected, was when he started reading his speech.  For someone in his position, with the many decades of experience he has, why on earth would he need to read his speech.  Everyone in that audience reads his media product on a daily basis without fail.  He is a fellow Rotarian so he is amongst friends.  There is no question time in this format so there can be no concerns about being ambushed by a tough question.  This would have to be one of the safest speaking environments on the planet. He could talk to his notes without having to read the whole thing word by word.   We all have some area of expertise otherwise we wouldn't be given the chance to speak.  When we have experience with our area of knowledge we don't need to read the script.  We can talk to the points and this allows us to engage with the audience in a more natural way.  Unlike our speaker, we won't have our gaze transfixed on the sheet of paper sitting on the rostrum in front of us.  This forces our eye line to be looking down on the page and not up at our audience. This creates a barrier with our audience and precludes the opportunity to engage with them.  Our eyes are such powerful communication tools and we should be using them to look at individuals in the audience as we speak.  We should be switching our gaze around the room, holding that person's attention for around 6 seconds before moving on to the next person.   The next red flag on the quality was his speaking speed.  When we are reading we can tend to speed up.  This gets worse when we get nervous.  I don't know if he was nervous or not, but I do know he was whipping through his speech at a  rate of knots. Another reason for the speed can be trying to squash as much content into the delivery as possible in the accorded time.    Slow down for clarity. I am a rapid speaker in both English and Japanese.  I have to really work on myself to slow down so that the audience can follow what I am saying.  This is especially the case when speaking in a foreign language.  Slightly different accents and cadence can be hard for the listener to catch and when you speed things up the degree of difficulty rapidly accelerates.  When we are flying along at speed we tend to lose the pauses.    Instead it becomes a machine gun delivery that just runs one set of thoughts right over the top of the preceding ideas, making it very hard for the audience to keep up.  We need to give our listeners some little time to catch their breath mentally and digest what we have just said.  As he was speaking in Japanese, I would have appreciated a few pauses so I could process what he was saying more easily.   Were there interesting stories and anecdotes from his star studded career covering the major events of the last 40 years?  Nope. Were there interesting trends being revealed about the future of media in Japan. No.  It was boring and uninteresting and it didn't need to be like that.  Tell stories from your own experiences – we  have a strong interest in that type of content. Lots of things happen in business and in life and we all have terrific episodes and examples we can weave into our talk to support the point we are making. Think about your audience and what would be of interest to them about trends in your industry that will impact their business, the market or create future societal trends. Something that the broadest base of listeners can relate to.   We didn't have any of that on this particular day but we should have.  It was boring. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.comand check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

The Focused And Disciplined Boss   Intellectually, we all know what we should be doing and how we should be doing it, but that isn't how things work in the real world is it! We have turned our email inboxes into giant parking lots for stranded emails, which get no attention, but are parked there ready for action. We know we are wasting a lot of time in meetings, but the meetings are always scheduled for an hour where everyone follows Parkinson's Law and allows the work to expand to fit the time. We have papers, magazines we will never read but aspire to and reports piled high on all flat surfaces within arms reach. Another parking lot for the parentless paper trail.   So much time is spent on organising the logistics of leading today. Sorting through stuff to decide what to do about it, rather than actually doing it. We file emails or electronic documents and then can't remember where we filed them so spend time hunting them down. We keep shunting paper around from one spot to another, because we can't commit to knocking the work off and moving onto to the next task. Democratically, we all have 1440 minutes in a day, but we can't actually manage time - we can't flex it into 1441 minutes a day. We can only manage ourselves and the priorities we set.   Chaos for one is flexibility for another. Your workspace looks like a bomb went off, but magically and annoyingly, you can retrieve the exact piece of information needed from the rubble on command. Others have almost empty desks, where neatness shines like a beacon of hope for everyone else. Everything in its place and a place for everything. Smarty-pants types!   Which one are you: supreme order or supreme chaos? Is there a right answer? No, we all have our own ways of working. It is the amount of productivity our systems allow us, that makes all the difference.   What about where we spend our time relative to past, present and future activities. Again, there is no correct answer, we must however decide where to direct our energies. As another way of looking at our way of organising our work, we can break tasks up into past, present and future.   Past might coalesce calls to be returned, emails to be answered, reports to be written, etc. Present might encompass today's meetings, urgent matters that pop up and require boss attention so that staff members can do their work or any deadlines due today. Future might be travel arrangements, project proposals to be approved, future deadlines coming nearer, people who need to be contacted.   We might take tasks from each group, list them up by group and give each a priority number of order of attention. We might rotate through each group, doing one from the past, then one from the present and next one from the future, before moving down to the next number on the list of priorities.   We can do it this way, just to bring a little variety to the way we normally work. Sometimes shining a light on tasks makes us realise we have forgotten to give a project sufficient time or we have not put enough effort into the Important but Not Urgent category of planning. Doing things the same way all the time is comfortable. It is good to put ourselves in places outside our Comfort Zone, if we want to drive greater productivity and clarity around task completion.   Here are a couple of productivity tips worth thinking about. Allow an extra 25% of time for completion of a task. Often we cut things too fine, so we never ever get around to completion or to a critical mass on a piece of work. That little bit of extra time may move the needle to see that work completed or almost completed, rather than being tossed into the bottomless pit of started, but not realised projects.   Before we head home, we should look at the next day's schedule and priorities for that day. This gets our mind organised for the next day, so we are ready to go immediately when we get to work and we catch any preparation we need for the next day, which we may have forgotten about.   Where we can, we should confirm meetings ahead of time, especially clients we are visiting. If there is a change, it is good to know early, so that the day's plan can be rejigged right then and there. Other people we work with can forget meetings and this is a sure way of reminding them what they need to do, especially for those more logistically challenged amongst us.   Try to organise time in large slabs of Block Time. It is similar to making an appointment with a client or a boss, which we usually honour very diligently. We are just making the appointment with ourselves in this case, so that we can get through some concentrated work without interruption.   Keep all the project parts together, so that you are not chasing after missing bits. Clutter builds up quickly, so be ruthless about tossing stuff out. Try to have your workspace cleared of all other papers, except the ones you are working on – this brings more clarity to what we are doing, by reducing distractions. Do one task at a time, rather than trying to multi-task – don't split our concentration if possible.   Have a place we can note down important information. It might be on paper or done digitally, but we need a type of reminder list as we work on through the day to capture thoughts, data, information and inspiration.   Try to have our schedule planner with us, be it paper or in an electronic calendar form accessible through our phone. And try to have one planner to reduce the double inputting. This scheduling process helps keep us on time.   When we are going to events go early. Japan can be a challenge to find locations, so allow extra time to navigate the address. If it is an event, get there early and check through the name badges to remind yourself who will be there so you can put a face to a name. Also look for people you may want to meet at the event to expand your network. Always arrive early so you looking cool, calm and collected rather than panicked! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Totally Ineffective Sales   The phone rings and a magazine wants to interview me for a series where they feature companies located in suburb of Minato-ku, in central Tokyo. I had never heard of this magazine, but am always grateful for any media exposure, so I say “Yes” to the interview. The date and time are fixed. One twist to the interview was that it would involve an interview by a Japanese actor, who I had never heard of. Fine, because what do I care, as long as the media exposure is there, I don't care how they do things.   So the cameraman, the actor and the journalist all turn up and away we go. It turned out the actor didn't ask me any questions at all, but was primarily there for the photo opportunity. The journalist was actually conducting the interview. The cameraman and actor depart and I am now getting an explanation on the magazine from the journalist. Despite what was written on his business card, it soon becomes apparent that the journalist was actually the sales guy.   Well we are straight into the details of the pages of the ads in the magazine and the different configurations. Ad sizes, locations, colour, black and white, pricing etc. This takes some time to go through and I am sitting there thinking to myself, “Is this guy going to ask me any questions? Is he going to explore where the gaps are in our marketing? Who is the primary audience we want to reach? What are the issues we are facing?”.   Now fascinatingly, these areas did come up in the interview phase, as I outlined some of the things I wanted for the firm and where I felt we were being challenged. Did he follow up on any of these leads or plumb them for more information and greater depth? No. He just ploughed straight into the features of the magazine.   I asked him how long he had been in sales and he told me 18 years and had been with this one company his whole career. It was obvious he had never received any sales training in that time with his employer. Here is the immense irony. He is here in my office calling on the President of a corporate training company, that specialises in soft skills training in the areas of sales, leadership, communication and presentations. We teach sales! He had no professional sales skills.   It was also obvious during the interview, that no research had been done on our business or on me. Given I thought this was a media interview, I was not perturbed by that, because they were here to ask me a bunch of questions for the article. Once I realized this was a sales call, I thought that is pretty poor preparation on the part of this sales guy. He could have done a very simple search on us, checked out our YouTube channel, looked at my LinkedIn profile, looked at my Facebook, checked me and the company out on Google search. He could have come to the meeting well armed, to engage me in the buying process. He had done nothing.   Being a patient, generous soul, I went to the rack of flyers and brochures and pulled out the Japanese version of Sales Advantage, an eight week course we teach on selling. I then proceeded to explain to him about the sales cycle. Research the buyer prior to meeting, gain trust, explore client needs, tailor the solution to those needs, deal with any hesitations or concerns, ask for the order and do the follow up. No rocket science here but there are a lot of very effective structures present in the training for each part of the cycle.   I particularly pointed out that he asked me no questions at all, but proceeded to try and sell me a solution, when he had no idea what I needed. That just cannot work because it is madness and yet this is the shtick of so many salespeople everywhere around the world not just in Japan.   Until he knows what I want, he shouldn't even be bringing up solutions. I told him to keep his magazine and price list on the chair next to him, well out of sight of the buyer. Don't even refer to the details, until you know which details will be relevant. All that should happen first is to build the trust through gaining some rapport. This can easily be based on information uncovered in the pre-meeting research. I am a traditional Shitoryu Karate 6th Dan and that is fairly unique for a foreigner in Japan. He could have engaged me on sports, because he was pretty big guy himself and maybe a sportsman as well. If he had been a rugby player (he had that type of size), we could have talked about my Brisbane Broncos hometown rugby team. The possibilities of creating something in common are endless. He did nothing.   After establishing rapport, we need to ask well designed questions to uncover the needs. Only then get involved with the solution. That magazine had many pages and many possibilities, but he should only have been directing my attention to the few areas where I have the strongest need. I don't need a tour of the magazine, we are all time poor and he should be sensitive to that. He should only show me the areas which are going to light up my strongest interest. I also suggested he get out a pen and use that as a pointer, to again direct the buyer's attention to only those parts of the page which are most relevant. A page is crowded with information and the sales person's job is to isolate out the most compelling sections and only concentrate on those. Exclude the rest because it is a distraction from the main message.   I now started selling him on our sales training course! The terrible part was at the end when he asked me for $500 for a tiny little paragraph, with a black and white photo, in the rear of the magazine. I said “No”. He then told me, he had explained over the phone that there was a $500 charge involved with the interview for the space in the magazine.   Well I don't recall that part of the conversation, perhaps because he was speaking so fast when we were discussing the meeting over the phone and the phone line clarity wasn't the best. This was when I also realised this was a bait and switch technique to get sales. They sell you on doing the media interview but the real purpose is to sell ad space.   I stuck with my “No” to the $500, even though it wasn't a huge amount. I wasn't being mean. I was trying to educate this 18 year veteran of sales about selling. Going to his boss and explaining why they has spent money on the actor and the cameraman and had come away with no result would be an unpleasant conversation, but I thought it may cause him to reflect on his poor skills. Will that be the case. I hope so but I doubt it! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.  

How To Facilitate When Presenting     Many presentations are one dimensional. The speaker speaks and we just listen, maybe getting a chance to lob in the odd question at the end. In many cases, with internal presentations, there will be a role for the presenter as a facilitator as well, to get the discussion going or to drive the decision making process. Very few speakers are trained to facilitate and so we more or less bumble our way through.   One of the first things we have to learn in our facilitator role, is to shut up and listen. When we gave our presentation, we had the limelight. As a facilitator, though, we want as many others as possible to share that limelight, which means we have to get out of talk mode and go into listen mode. Sounds easy, but it isn't.   When we are revved up in presentation mode, it is hard to change direction and just stop making our points. When someone says something, our brain lights up with something clever we would like to say. In fact, we get the inspiration pretty quickly, so we tend to switch off the person who is speaking and what they have to say. We just concentrate on what we want to say. Effectively, that means we have now stopped listening. We might be better than that, but we may instead be doing selective listening. Only honing in on the points we like and ignoring the rest of what the speaker had to say. We need to really work on our listening skills as a speaker and allow others our full attention when they are contributing. If you find yourself cutting others off before they finish, then you know you need to ease off and just listen more.   Silence for a speaker can be a struggle. Japan has no problem with silence so there is no social pressure here to fill the airwaves with continuous talk. We should take a leaf out of their book and use silence more when facilitating. Ask a question and then become quiet, even when we get into that uncomfortable silence period. Some are shy to speak up, others are deep processors going down many layers of thought on what they want to say. We need to give them time to contribute, we may even need to ask the more boisterous types to hold their comment and allow others to talk for a change.   We need nerves of steel when we do this, because in Western culture, silence is seen as uncomfortable, an indication of the breakdown of communication, that something has gone wrong because people are not participating. No one in Japan particularly feels any of that, by the way, so it is all in our heads.   Also avoid rephrasing a question or comment, unless it is really necessary. People have their own styles of speech and we need to make them feel welcome to contribute. If we become “correctors” of other people's comments, they get the message that they are not skilled enough in communication to be able to lodge their own original effort. From this point on they will simply stop contributing. We should also be careful about changing the subject, until everyone has had a chance to comment. As mentioned, some are shy, some are deep thinkers and just at that vital moment when they are about to launch forth with their carefully crafted contribution, we switch subjects and they are banished to silence.   We also need to have a poker face. If we hear something with which we very much disagree, our facial expression and our body language, can go into overdrive and convey our displeasure with other people's views. Again, this acts as an inhibitor of participation. Bosses do this all the time and then wonder why the number and quality of ideas are so poor.   We need to be aware of when to use closed questions to drive clarity and agreement and when to use open questions, to stimulate discussion. It can be a good practice to disassociate ourselves from the question and ask it as if a third party was involved. For example, “some commentators have the view that the new financial year is the best time for launching new projects. How has been your experiences with this type of thing?”. By not attaching our name to the view, it makes it easier for others to put forward a contrary view.   When we are asking questions, there will be three common varieties. The fact-based questions are there to get out information and data and generally will have a specific, correct response. This type of question is better addressed to the whole group than an individual, to avoid the possibility of calling out someone who cannot answer and will be embarrassed.   Opinion-based questions help to get a sense of how people feel emotionally about a topic. It is important to assess the emotional climate in the room on some topics before we go any further with the discussions. When people are reluctant to offer their opinion, especially here in Japan, you need to use a different technique. Ask everyone to write down their thoughts, but don't ask, “What do you think?”. In Japan, that is too confronting. Instead ask “What did you write down?” and people will speak up.   When we are speaking that is one role. When we move to facilitator mode we need to switch gears and make some adjustments to how we do things. Understanding the different requirements is key. As a facilitator, we want audience participation and their contributions. We need to set that up and make it happen. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Soft Versus Hard In Leadership   I was invited to speak about Japan at an HR Forum in Taipei recently. The audience was made up of very senior executives from a wide range of industries. There was quite a lot of discussion about the challenges of leading firms today. The central debate which emerged though was about being hard on results and hard on the people to get those results or to be more people focused? What struck me was the central concerns raised were not culture related, nationality or geographically bound. This tells me these are central constructs which can apply anywhere.   Too tough an attitude toward our staff breeds sycophancy, “yes men”, timidity and stasis. When you combine this with a firm run as a family business, the problems just multiply. “Bakabon” is a nifty Japanese term to describe the idiot offspring of the company founder. They are talentless, but they have the right surname, gender and they will take over the business, when the founder dies. Talented people don't want to work in these businesses because they can never get to the top, because they are not part of the family.   In listed companies, hard driving bosses create havoc. They see their career as a series of stepping stones up the path toward corporate success. The people working for them are the temporary input needed to derive the output desired – the results to show what a genius leader they are. They expect this success to be a springboard on to the next bigger post. It is then goodbye to everyone who made it possible – you won't be remembered. You were just a means to an end, that being a brighter future, wealth and prestige for the golden one. The rest of you left behind, just keep slogging it out.   The point was made by one executive that at different times, there is a place for running the show like a brutal dictatorship. He gave the example of coming into a firm that was going down. His job was to save it and many a hard conversation was had with the team to that end. You can understand that in a life and death situation the niceties can be suspended in order to survive.   Is that the only way forward though in that situation. Could we get lift off from the team with a different approach? Part of the problem with the harsh interaction formula is that we are imposing our will, values, timetable and our priorities on others and forcing them to comply or else. What if we were able to align their desires with our desires? This requires a lot more effort than balling someone out and threatening them with obliteration if they don't buck up.   To make that alignment of purpose and desire work, requires we know that person and what they want, which comes back to our communication and time management skills. Busy bosses have to abbreviate everything because they have no time due to poor time management. As the scale grows so does the pressure on how well we can manage our time.   They are also working on the basis that their job is to manage the firm's processes to get results rather than to manage processes and build the people. This is what differentiates the leader from the manager and so we have a lot of managers masquerading as leaders.   We cannot delegate tasks to grow people because we don't trust that the delegatee can do the job properly. Why would that be? Well, we have not factored in the possibility that we will have to mentor the staff member in this new role or that we will need to spend time helping them understand the WHY.   This is because we are so time poor and just simply can't fit it in. It seems faster if we just do it ourselves. So we just stick with watching the processes and we forgo our role to build people. Don't believe me? Get out your pen and write down how many hours a week you spend right now on building your people? Shouting out orders and issuing commands doesn't count as building people by the way. If that number of hours calculated is perilously small, then you have not being doing your job as a leader and you have slipped down the ladder to being a manager.   The leader's job is to get production achieved through people, by finding out what motivates them and aligning that with the firm's goals and targets. This requires communication and people skills. It cannot be created in a minute on demand.   If you don't have this mentality, then you won't arrange your time management to allow the conversations with your staff to be had. Yelling at staff is much easier than creating a loyal, highly engaged, motivational environment where people do their best creative work in an ecosystem of trust, which is outwardly focused on beating the competition in the marketplace.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Sell The Sizzle Not the Steak   I recently saw a documentary sponsored by Salesforce called The Story of Sales. There were 8 chapters in this documentary: What is sales; the evolution of sales; educating salespeople; what makes a great salesperson; making a connection; technology's impact on sales; the future of sales and sales is great. It was very comprehensive and featured a number of American gurus on the subject. In one part, they showed an old movie of a sales trainer talking about “Sell The Sizzle Not the Steak”. We have all heard this mantra before, but is it true today?   I was thinking about that sizzle part. Which bit is the sizzle? Who thinks it is sizzling? Is there only one sizzle? In sales, we can wax lyrical about the steak, its quantity, quality, provenance and we can get enthusiastic about the sizzle. The problem with all of this though is we are making some major assumptions.   What if they don't eat meat? The whole sales construct is out the window right there. Did we ask them at the start if they were predators or herbivores? Did we find out if they eat steak? Maybe they prefer lamb or game or seafood – did we check? Or did we just launch into our fluent, dynamic, convincing, extremely well polished and attractive pitch?   Now talking about the sizzle makes a lot of sense, because this is the application of the benefit of the features. The features would be the cut of the steak, the number of grams, the degree of fat marbling, whether grass fed or grain fed, the origin and safety of the beast. We could talk about the cooking pan, the barbecue grill, the mechanics of the timing of turning over the steak, the relishes we can use, the balance of flavors, the degree of salt used, etc. The benefits describe the taste, the aroma, the protein contribution, the iron content in the diet. The application of the benefits talks about no longer being hungry, enjoying the occasion with friends, the bonhomie created through matching with excellent red wines, the visual scene of the meat being heated up, the sound and scent of the sizzle.   However, did we know whether they like the steak cooked in a pan in the controlled environment of the kitchen or outside on the barbecue grill? Do they like their steak turned over once so it is rather rare or do they like it well done? Do they like to add salt and pepper? What sauces do they prefer – ketchup, barbecue sauce, home made sauce, Worcestershire? Do they drink red wine, like the smell of steak cooking or the sound of the sizzle?   Sell the sizzle sounds easy, but all roads lead to Rome in sales and that always leads back to the quality of our questioning skills. The documentary on Sales had everyone hammering home this point, everyone in furious agreement, yet at the same time trying to carve out their little expertise niche on the subject. Fair enough, that is how you sell books, training courses or software.   Today, the internet brandishes our websites, stuffed to the gunwales with key information about us, our company, our products and services. Buyers can find out a lot about what they are seeking before, we even get to talk with them. The problem with that though is we cannot possibly anticipate all of the questions, concerns, doubts and hesitations they will have. Our websites are always going to be inadequate.   In the case of most B2B sales, we need to meet the buyer. We need to dig deep into questioning them about all the assumptions we are packing. We need to be skilled at linking their answers to the solutions we provide. We need to be strategic in our thinking and good at analysis. We need to be asking questions that trigger insights they had not considered about their business. We need to be dressing up statements, as questions to check for agreement and at the same time differentiating ourselves from the hoi polloi of our competition. We need to sell to their emotions and help them justify their decision with a wall of logic.   Do you think AI empowered robots can replace us and do a better job of handling that little list of goodies? Not yet!   So the sizzle is a bit more complex than it looks at first blush. Asking questions sounds easy too but are they the right questions, the best questions, the most impactful questions?   We do a lot of sales training here in Japan and the quality of the questioning is always a problem. Salespeople skip from one question to another, ignoring hints from the client that are worth a fortune. We have to stop doing that. We all need to take our assumptions apart and have a good look at them.   What is your equivalent of “sell the sizzle” simplicity in your organization that is costing you money through lost sales? We all have it, some accepted truth, dubious ancient wisdom, powerful precedent, established policy or groupthink. We have to be more vigilant to better analyse what we should be doing and how we should be doing it instead. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.              

The Power Of Belief When Presenting   Watching a grey haired, grizzled veteran of the media making his award acceptance speech talking about the importance of the pursuit of the truth in the media and a High School Senior speaking out about gun control, I was struck by how powerful both speeches were.  Many award speeches we see are either hopeless or perfunctory.  This one was different.  No notes, coherent, well delivered, confident and with a strong message.  The High School boy also spoke without notes, in front of a big audience, yet with so much confidence and clarity.  The common factor for both was the amount of belief they were communicating in their message.   Now in business, we might be thinking that is all very well for a media representative trying to fight back against a President who lambasts journalists about fake news and disparages their profession. We might think that this young man has survived a life and death experience and so he has that special degree of super commitment.   We in business are quite different aren't we?   Getting fired up over spreadsheets, or quarterly results, or the PR department's corporate messaging isn't all that life changing, powerful or exciting. This is a cop out.   If we are delivering a presentation in business, we have a message we wish to convey and the delivery of that message can make or break the success of what we are doing.  If we are just reporting numbers, we can see that as a routine function, isolated and puny in impact.     What if we saw our activity against the WHY of what we are doing and connected the numbers back to that. What if we connected it to the lofty goals we have set for ourselves and how these numbers fit into that effort.  What if we connected it to the competition out there and how we were doing against them in the market place.  We can all take something that seems mundane and find a greater sense of purpose.     If we are presenting on behalf of our firm, we are usually trying to convey a positive message about the company and what we are doing.  If we analyze our audience well, we can know how to connect what we want to say with issues that they are interested in and will value.  There is no shortage of ways to make a presentation relevant to our audience. The secret is in the planning.   The delivery is the hard part though.  Seeing yourself as a soldier on the media front lines, fighting back against the evil afoot is a much more uplifting topic than talking about the firm's annual marketing plan. The delivery can have the transfer of belief though.  Yes, the scope and scale of the drama is different.  However, we can seize on the central point we want to get across to our audience and talk about that in a way that resonates we totally believe what we are saying is the best advice for them.   Counter intuitively, start the planning with the talk's final punch line.  What is it you really, earnestly want to communicate, what is your key point?  Once you have divined that essence, build the talk around it by offering evidence, examples, vignettes, stories, proof, case studies that back it up.   If you believe what you are saying, then be supremely confident when communicating these points.  Send out waves of desire to help your audience do better through what you are conveying. The feeling is totally different to doing a download of data to an audience. This is the mental provision of the buffet and then the audience are on their own to take what they like and have an interest in, with no central compelling narrative, idea, point or message. We don't want that.   Even if the object of the talk is to inform, the desire should be to provide the most up to date, highest value information and insight about what it means to our audience. If the object is to impress the audience about our company, then the desire is to convert as many of the people in the crowd to become fans, so that we can help them with our solutions. We don't just want them to like our firm, we want them to buy our wares, speak highly of us and recommends us to all and sundry.   Belief is the most powerful engine with which to power a presentation. Find where you can inject belief into your talk. It must be relevant to the audience, genuine, authentic and heart felt. When you speak with belief you speak with a different voice. Something magical happens to you as a communicator and you and your message will be remembered. And that is what we want isn't it.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Bruce Lee Nailed This Leadership Flaw   I am a big Bruce Lee fan, but I never thought of him as a purveyor of leadership wisdom. Lot's of interesting stuff gets posted on Facebook and sure enough the following was attributed to Bruce Lee, “A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer”. Did Bruce really say that? Who knows, but it is a great piece of insight about leadership anyway, so let's roll with it. Leaders habitually fail to learn from their subordinate's answers and also overestimate their ability to share their personal wisdom with the team. No one is listening much to each other.   Bosses aren't learning much from foolish questions, because well, they consider them foolish and of no value. When we have brainstorming sessions in companies, the boss is the judge, jury and executioner of aspirant ideas. The boss runs the session because they are the boss aren't they. This is interesting and here is a suggestion for all the bosses out there - don't always be the facilitator of ideation sessions within the company. Let someone else run the session and just be a contributor.   The boss presence in the room in Japan means there is a tonne of deference going on. Yes, I know we have the same thing in Western companies too but the scale in Japan is much larger. The Confucian precepts of respect for authority, respect for men, respect for those older, all play a stifling role in Japan, when it comes to the free for all of brainstorming.   Actually it isn't much of a free for all in Japan, more a filleting process, when ideas are being put up. Bosses tend to whip out their razor sharp Japanese hocho (knife) and slice ideas apart as they emerge. “We tried that already”, “stupid idea, someone give me another one”, as they stand next to the whiteboard calling out for input. As we know, having your idea sliced and diced on the spot by the boss doesn't inspire the offering up of any further ideas, so we fall silent as the tomb.   Now the foolish question in a brainstorming session is a gift. We don't treat it as such but that is a mistake. Foolish ideas break the idea generation sequencing. We normally think in sequential, logical terms. This is fine for iterative ideas, for kaizen style small increment of improvement. It is not so helpful for coming up with breakthrough ideas. This is where foolish ideas come in because they force us into places where we wouldn't normally go.   It makes you react because it is out of scope, beyond consideration, unprecedented, unexpected, irrational, illogical. It forces your brain to start taking that foolish idea apart and start fixing it, straightening it up, getting it into a logical construct, searching for the practical application. This is where real creativity comes in, but we wouldn't have gotten to that obscure angle if we hadn't the benefit of the foolish question in the first place. Any brainstorming session that doesn't tolerate foolish ideas at the idea suggestion stage is bound to be shallow and of little value. Bosses take note – welcome foolish ideas.   The other piece of Bruce's advice about fools not learning all that much from a wise answer is interesting . In Japan, bosses tend to have the most experience, access to the most valuable information and are plugged into where the business is headed. Naturally these bosses become the fonts of great wisdom within the company. They are serving up pearls to the swine on a regular basis. They imagine that they are having a positive impact, sharing their knowledge and their insight into how to fix problems. The dispensing of all this value however only has value in itself if people are listening to or are executing on what they have been told.   Staff are all convinced they are already busy, busy, busy. Actually busy enough not to need another shiny idea from the boss. The new boss initiative is greeted with mild interest and a secret determination to do nothing about it. The boss is busy too, so after casting the pearl forth the boss moves on, fully occupied with a whole bunch of other stuff. At some point in the future, the boss wonders what ever happened to that initiative that was spoken about. The answer invariably is nothing has been done and nothing achieved and time has been lost.   The error is one of ownership. “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still”, is an old saying. Bosses have to get staff to buy into the idea. Passing off pearls of wisdom isn't enough. These magical contributions have to be acted upon and made reality. The only way that happens with any panache is when the staff buy into the idea and assume ownership. This is the critical transition path of fluffy ideas to concrete outcomes.   Boss communication skills are on display in this regard. They need to be highly persuasive to get staff who are 100% convinced they are too busy already, to squeeze another project into their work lives. In a tumultuous world though, bosses are shooting out orders and advice at rapid fire and imagining they are doing a good job. The truth is they are not getting engagement and commitment to what they are saying.   We have a cool saying in Dale Carnegie, that “people own the world they help create”. This tells bosses to get their staff involved in the creation process and that means allowing them to brainstorm ideas and make foolish suggestions. Bruce Lee was right. We need to better understand what is wise and what is foolish in the workplace. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Business Contracts In Japan Aren't Worth The Paper They Are Written On   A friend of my mine has started his own consulting business recently and does Facebook Live updates to his growing band of devotees. I was watching one broadcast the other day when he was talking about always enforce the contract. He had signed a contract with his client, the situation changed and the client wanted to change the arrangement. Naturally, we are talking about the client paying less money than originally agreed. It was within the scope of the contract that the originally agreed money should be paid, because the changes fell outside the time limit for any alteration to the signed agreement.   My friend did relent and allow the buyer out of the contract, because he was told he would get looked after the next time. The person making this promise promptly left the company in short order and the replacement CEO brought in his own suppliers and my friend was out of pocket. Subsequently, his advice to his followers is always stick to what has been agreed and don't let the buyer off the hook for the money.   I was thinking about whether I would agree with that advice for Japan? Western society, particularly the American business world is very litigious and so contracts become the income source of the numerous law firms there ready and able to enforce the contract in a court of law. I signed a contract to supply training services with a foreign corporation, where to my astonishment in the fine print it said I would agree to forgo the settlement of any disputes in a court of law. I thought lawyers were smart, but whoever drafted that clause was on drugs. Should we have a dispute, I wondered, how will they handle it, if we don't agree? Pistols at 20 paces?   Japan is a country where domestic contracts are pretty much relative. If the buyer situation changes, then they expect the seller to recognise that and adjust the agreement accordingly. This usually means the seller getting less money or no money and having to wear it, to maintain the relationship with the buyer. Is everyone here in Japan ethical and won't take advantage of you? No. Of course some companies will use this loose arrangement to suit themselves and say “to hell with the seller's interests”. Of course Japanese companies who operate internationally are used to contracts being enforced, because they have deal with foreign entities who will go to court and so they have learnt to do the same thing.   If we take the big picture view, for the majority of cases, companies are ethical in Japan and they will not try and dud you for a short term gain. There is the problem of people moving around within the company every few years, as they rotate through the organisation. Your earlier flexible attitude may not be known to the new guy or gal and that creates a problem. Generally speaking though, Japanese companies are pretty good at doing handovers. Even if that vital piece of business intelligence was missed in the handover, the person you had the relationship with can usually be relied upon to reach out to their successor and put them in the picture.   My fear with my friend's advice is that if you take a Western legalistic approach, rather than a more holistic approach, you will get paid for that one deal but that will be the end of the relationship. Japan is a country full of obligations. Japanese business people see business as a partnership and requests for the seller to be flexible for the buyer, are part and parcel of that world. Now there are plenty of countries where you would never dream of providing that flexibility, because they will skin you alive at the first whiff of weakness. Japan isn't one of them.   The other side of Japan is you do get paid here. Yes, someone may not pay you at some stage in Japan, but it is very rare in mainstream business. Most terms of trade are thirty day payments and Japanese companies stick with that agreement. The slowest payers in Japan by the way are some of the biggest multi-national companies on the planet. These are major brands sticking it to the little guy because they can. You either take their 60 or 90 day terms or don't do business with them. I hate this approach.   If you are playing a long game in business and we should all be playing the long game in Japan, then my advice is to be flexible and preserve the relationships above being strict on the terms of the agreement. You might get caught, but the chances are slight and the risk on the other side of the ledger is much higher.   We talk about “buyer beware” but “seller beware” is also good advice. Judge the scope of the business potential over the long term. What we call the lifetime value of the buyer. If you see that some flexibility now will result in a continuous streams of orders, then it makes good business sense to agree to their requests.   I am dealing with a huge multi-national company's Japan team. They violated the terms of the agreement over cancelling scheduled, agreed training. I had every right to demand they pay, according to the agreement. I agreed to their request to overlook the penalty payment because I could see a lot more business coming our way. It has come, as we enter the second year of a lot of training being delivered for them. On the other hand, if it is a one off arrangement, then you may not need to be flexible. Instead, demand payment as per the agreement.   This is common sense in business and we have to judge each case by its own merits. This is important and we shouldn't be rigid and have only one response about “abide by the contract or else.” Japan is all about the long term and relationships built on trust. Keep that in mind next time the buyer wants to vary the agreement.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Experts Not Very Expert At Presenting   Five star luxury is always appreciated and the hotel setting for this presentation was clearly appropriate given this elite event. The speaker's contribution to business acumen was being highly anticipated, judged by the number of people in the room. Numerous round tables with white tablecloths, mainly men in dark suits, reserved tables for the more important, Western breakfast buffet at the back – the usual setting. We are all gathered for the information we are about to receive because there may be some insights presented which may help our businesses. We are also all armed with our mental review sheet of the presenter's competence and by extension his organization. We want to know how much we can trust what we are being told.   Experts are a problem when they come to presenting their knowledge because they don't value the process. The data, the graphs, the trend lines, the insights, the market intelligence all have value, so a first rate treasure trove can be delivered in a second or third rate manner. This is their excuse at any rate, “I don't have to be a good presenter, because everyone is assembled to hear my genius content”, they plead.   Usually economic and market related expert presenters are carrying around big brains which are highly analytical. They rely on the inherent quality of their information to carry the day. Worryingly, they are in the persuasion business without realising it. Despite what they imagine, the data doesn't sell itself. There is a line of reasoning, some thesis, a discourse that is near and dear to the heart of the presenter. They are here because they want people to buy their analysis, to think highly of them and their company and purchase their firm's widget or whatever   The buying process though hinges on trust and credibility. Experts need to show two things – that they know what they are talking about and that what they are saying is true. The “true” bit can be gauged by the quality of their sources of the data, plus the veracity of their analysis and argument made on that basis. The trust part though is a lot more personal exercise. Is the expert able to articulate the thesis in a way that the audience can agree? Is the presentation easy to follow? Is the data being presented easily digestible, so that we buy what they are selling?   This is where the problems start. The speaker is a poor speaker. We are now getting sidetracked by their inability to strings two sentences together. We have lost focus on the content and are now diverted by their delivery. Their monotone delivery is making us sleepy. The lack of tonal variety means that each word is assigned exactly the same value, so the gems, the pearls, the brilliant diamonds are not standing out as they should.   They are wooden in their body language, so the face is the same mask throughout, like one of those Japanese Noh masks. They are not lifting our belief in what is being said by getting their facial expression behind the words to drive home the point. They are not using much in the way of gestures, because when their hands are not holding the podium down with a vice like grip, they are flourishing the clicker around to advance the slide deck. Gestures can be very powerful to draw attention to key points and to engage the audience, but none of that is on display today.   The visual aids are not really helping all that much. There is too much information on each slide, so our attention is being dispersed across too many data points. Analytical types think that if one graph per slide is good them three must be a lot better. It isn't!   Adding lots of text must be a good idea they think because it adds greater value. The concept that the presenter could speak to a key word hasn't filtered in yet. They see the screen as an extension of their writing pad and so let's pile on the words, to get everyone understanding the point. Whole sentences are more attractive than single words from their point of view.   Looking fixedly at the screen information is a favourite. It is as if they are totally mesmerized, captured by the data and can't help looking at it, so they ignore their audience. This a big thing to give up, if your are in the persuasion business and trust me we are all in that business.   Being able to drive home your key points, while eyeballing the audience is a powerful weapon. We can engage our audience and draw them into us and what we are saying. We have had thousands of years of refining this in the Western world and we know the power of persuasion through the spoken word. The experts though, ignore history to their peril. By watching our audience, we can also keep a hawk like view of how our audience is reacting to what we are saying and showing them. The reactions are very helpful to where we need to place the emphasis of the talk and give us a heads up, on what questions we are likely to get in Q&A.   It was obvious that no thought had been put into how to open the presentation and how to close it. We went through the slides, went straight into the questions and then moved on to the coffee break before the next speaker. When we are presenting, the first words out of our mouth had better be pretty good. We need to tempt the audience to want to stay riveted to the presentation, because the content is valuable, the presenter is valuable and the presenter's organisation is valuable. We need to hammer our prime message twice at the end, once before we go to Q&A and then again as we wrap it all up and head for coffee.   I heard from one of the organisers that this was this expert's first foray into presenting the latest global research findings of this venerable organisation. It became obvious they hadn't bothered to provide any training before his first outing and also that he wouldn't be getting any after the tour either. It is a “work it out yourself” approach to harming one's personal and professional brands.   Crazy stuff you might ponder, but this scenario is all too common. Don't put people representing your organisation out there on public display, until they have had some training. We don't want them to underwhelm or even worse screw it up. These are all own goals easily avoided, yet we see the same mistakes time after time, often from the same company! Don't be one of them.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Japan's Galapagos Syndrome Still Alive And Well   The description of Japan, as similar to the remote islands of Galapagos off the South American coastline is often quite apt. The fauna and flora of the Galapagos Islands are unique and have become so, through their splendid isolation from the outside world. When the ruling Tokugawa family declared death for anyone coming into Japan or leaving Japan, with the exception of the Dutch down on tiny little Dejima Island in Kyushu, the country went into isolation from the rest of the world. Many things in Japan still continue in isolation despite the country opening up to the world, thanks to the arrival of American gunboats in the 1850s.   In 1992 I was posted in Nagoya, for four years, launching up a totally new operation there. I found it tough. We were trying to get Australian products and services into the Chubu region market, but the mental resistance was quite strong. Initially l thought it was because we were foreigners. I discovered that even those Japanese who were posted there from outside felt the same sense of isolation.   The people who staffed the companies in Nagoya graduated from schools and Universities in Nagoya or its surrounds. They spoke the local dialect, Nagoya ben and supported a range of parochial activities that differentiated them from “outsiders”. Being from Queensland in Australia, I knew all about parochialism. The Japanese staff I met in Nagoya coming from “outside” that region couldn't wait to get out, because they complained they never felt accepted by the locals. This is the Galapagos syndrome in action.   Now the four years I spent in Osaka from 1996 were quite different. Yes or No was quite quickly forthcoming which was great – you received a decision. In Nagoya it was usually No. Osaka was more open but they also felt a jealousy with that upstart Tokyo. Osaka had been the commercial capital of Japan for centuries until the Tokugawa family decided that they would make the sleep fishing village of Tokyo their national headquarters. The locals mainly all went to school and university in the region, spoke the local dialect Osaka ben and supported a range of parochial activities that differentiated them from “outsiders”.   Back in Tokyo for the third time in 2001, I felt freed from all of that narrow minded regional parochialism. Sadly the narrow mindedness continues even here. I find this often in business. For example, when you go to a networking event, no one seems much interested in networking. The company representatives stand around talking to people they already know. If one of them knows someone else there, then an introduction is made, but no one is actively walking around handing over their business cards or meishi to strangers. Not done old chap, what.   Even at international events held in English hosted by the various foreign Chambers of Commerce, the more cosmopolitan Japanese representatives seem reluctant to network and meet new people. Surprisingly, if they arrive early, they go straight to a table and sit down – a sort of seated wallflower. When I approach them and ask to meet them, their faces drain of blood and they go quite pale at the thought of having to speak to a foreigner in English. I see the spread of relief in their faces when I switch to Japanese. Puzzling though, that the company would send someone to an international event, who is scared of having to speak to foreigners.   Who is educating these company staff about how to get out of their own mini-Galapagos? Their bosses are either doing the same thing themselves or they are ignorant of what a poor job their people are doing. I met someone at a recent networking function and followed up the next day, asking to be introduced to their HR person, so I could introduce Dale Carnegie Training to their company.   The HR person replied to them, they already have training contacts and so no need to meet me. It is quite normal that they may have some current suppliers but what struck me was the reluctance to expand their world. Here was someone in their comfort zone, settled in snugly in their mini-Galapagos.   Yes, they may have an existing supplier, but why is there no interest to know what else is out there. I can guarantee that the other supplier is not 106 years in operation globally or 55 years in Japan; that they have offices in 100 countries around the world; that they supply training to 90% of the Fortune 500 countries. No, they are not doing any of that!   Now I am obviously very proud of what we do, but that is not my point. What struck me as strange is why is this HR person doing such a poor job for their company? If they were half awake, they would want to expand the range of options and look for the best quality training they can find, to give their company a competitive edge in their market. Ultimately, it may not be with us, but at least they should be better led to get their thinking out of Galapagos and into the real world. This is a major recruiting, training and leadership issue.   In Japan, HR are often the internal police, making sure all the regulations and procedures are being followed. What we call strategic HR barely exists here. The idea that HR can impact the company's results is a thought rarely held in their minds. They are relentless box checkers – placing a check mark when activities are completed, rather than analyzing which are the best activities.   This is a leadership decision to have people like this running such a vital function. Take another close look at who you are employing in the HR function. You may be shocked to find out they are dummies, not doing the firm much good at all. Japan in general and companies in particular, cannot afford to be mini-Galapagos Islands in this matrixed, inter-connected, 24/7 global construct called modern business. Time for a change.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Most Difficult Part Of Business? People!   Cash flow, market movements, competitor pricing, buyer budgets, seasonality, etc., there are many things which making business hard. I was listening to a podcast recently and the point was made that “people are the hardest part of running a business”. The point they were making wasn't related to just the labour costs or turnover. They were thinking about the impact an individual has on a firm. The degree to which they identify with the enterprise, their level of engagement is a key concern. This flows straight away to customer service, productivity and quality control.   Now in a perfect world we would only be hiring the best people, the most committed, self-motivating, most highly engaged individuals. That would be good, but that isn't the reality or if it is, it isn't the reality for very long as markets move.   The hairdressing industry in Japan has trouble getting staff. Barbers and hairdressers are in short supply. When customer service isn't what it should be the owners have to bite their tongues and carry on. They are not in a position where they can easily fire people. I know this because of an incident recently with where I get my hair cut in the Azabu Juban. Now I have been frequenting this same barbers for 17 years, around 4-5 times a year. My son also, up until recently, went to the same place for about 10 years, until his mother decided he needed to look more glamorous and took him off somewhere else.   At the end of the cutting session, the barber used an electric razor to do the final trim around the back of the neck below the hairline. At the time it felt painful but being a stoic Aussie male, I just put up with it because it wasn't for such a long time. When I got home my wife noticed I had these bright red ridges where the razor has been working and the skin was terribly inflamed.   Being a typical Japanese consumer, she photographed the wounds on her phone and went there the next day to remonstrate with the barber. He is a youngish guy and he was in total denial mode. Finally, one of the more senior barbers apologized. Was my wife satisfied with this treatment of the long term customer – no!   I can guess that the owners will do nothing about this because they can afford to lose me as a client more easily than they can lose the young guy working for them. Now why didn't the young barber apologise and take full responsibility? I have been going there much longer than he has worked there, but his thinking is to avoid all accountability. He is thinking about himself and not about the business.   What they should have done was apologise, immediately check that razor because there is some fault with it and make sure this doesn't happen again with another client. I doubt they have done that, because no one has contacted me after the incident. If they didn't check it, that is very unprofessional. If he did check and subsequently found out he was wrong, that the razor was faulty and then he still didn't contact me, the mistake is even further compounded.   The culture and training in that team is not on the mark is it. In a small organisation like that, they probably invest very little in soft skills training and spend all their money on hard skills around the actual job of hairdressing. All organisations need to do both. Getting the client care culture right must the top priority of the leadership because if they don't get that correct, the business will fail.   Easy to say but check your own situation. Is the thrust of the training on the hard skills? Has the right client service culture been created? This is Japan, so these types of incidents really stand out because generally here the level of customer care is higher than in most other societies. Even if we make a mistake, if we have a strong culture, we can recover because the staff will go the extra mile to correct the problem. What training have we given our people for when problems and mistakes arise. Often, this may have been left vague. It is a good idea to go back and review what we are doing. Is there a standardised approach that everyone knows?   One of the issues in Japan is people hiding mistakes and not taking accountability because there is such a bias against making any errors. We have to create a strong culture that says a mistake is not fatal to your career, but hiding it, not fixing it or not taking responsibilty will be fatal.   Will I go back to that establishment? My wife is absolutely clear that I shouldn't. I don't know. I run a small business too, so I know the difficulties are mainly concentrated in the people employed, so I empathise with the owner's dilemma. I will have to make a decision in about three months time I guess. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Watch Others To Learn Presenting   When we are the thick of things we have trouble observing ourselves. Public speaking is really pushing many people right out of their comfort zone, so the stress levels are massive. They feel they are heating up, their breath is getting shorter, their tummy feels rather bad and their throat is parched. It is very hard to be an objective observer of your own performance when you are mainly preoccupied with survival. This is where being an observer of others is very handy.   Our High Impact Presentations Course uses this technique in depth. While we are up there presenting our classmates are watching us like a hawk for two things. One is to discover what we are doing that is good. The second is looking for areas where we could do better. You will notice I didn't introduce any ideas about things they could critique about our performance. This is looking into the past, it degrades everyone's confidence and creates a negative relationship between the participants.   When we are not in class though there are many chances for us to observe how others present. Obviously when we attend events with a speaker we can take the opportunity to hone our observation skills. The vast majority of attendees are there just to hear the speaker and learn something from the content. They are not mentally pulling the whole operation apart and analysing it. Well that is precisely what we should be doing.   Did the speaker attempt to connect with the audience before the event? Did they reference something said by one of the attendees to build a bond with the audience and break down the barriers? How was the introduction? Usually this is done by the hosting organization's person. Was it obviously something that person put together and therefore was a pretty half baked affair or was it an all dancing, all singing warm up for the main act?   When you are presenting always prepare your own introduction. Don't make it an essay, keep it brief and focused on the high points. Don't allow anyone else to represent you during the talk. Send it before you speak or hand it to them on the day. Either way, try to get them to stick to the script. What you have written will always be a lot better than anything they come up with.   How was the speaker's opening of the talk? Were they fiddling around with the tech and discussing it with the audience before they got going? Did they say stupid things like “can you hear me?” as they are tapping the microphone, because they hadn't bothered to check earlier when they arrived. Was the first sentence something which grabbed our attention and made sure we kept our hands off our mobile devices? Could they break through all the clutter in our minds as we worry about yesterday, what happened today and what we need to do tomorrow? How did they open? Was it straight into an interesting story? Did they say something surprising or informative? Did they open with a question which got us engaged in the theme of the talk? Look for these techniques and then consider what you need to do to grab audience mind share when you are a speaker. Today, there is so much more distraction and competition for limited time, miniscule concentration spans that we have to really be on our game, in that environment.   Once they got going was it easy to follow where they were going with this presentation? Did it hang together? Was it logically well constructed so we were brought along with their argument and we were persuaded? Did they shift gears every five minutes or so to maintain our interest? Were they using their eyes to engage us one by one, their voice to have modulation to maintain our interest? Were they using their body language to add strength to their argument?   How did they wrap it up? Did they loop back to something they said at the start? Did they use a quotation from an authority figure? Did they summarise the key points?   Did they handle the Q&A like a pro? Were they paraphrasing what had been said so everyone could hear it. Were they using cushions to buy themselves thinking time. Did they have a second close ready to go so that they could make sure their key message was the last thing the audience heard and remembered, regardless of what came up during the Q&A?   So as you see, we are going to be kept pretty busy when we attend someone else's talk. By checking for these things we are programming into our minds the importance of being properly prepared before we get up and talk. Don't let the chance slip by to work over someone else's efforts to insulate ourselves from the typical errors and to make our talk a triumph, based on learning from the foibles of others. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Japan Must Globalise But Where Are The Global Leaders?   The consumer demographics for Japan are crystal clear. The domestic market is shrinking and will continue to do so into the future. The population is aging, so there are opportunities serving that market today but it is a shrinking market over the long term. Once this baby boomer generation passes then the revenue problems will really hit hard. Basically japan is not a growth market in most sectors. Japanese corporations recognise this and are expanding their operations overseas. Part of this process is the globalisation of these companies, as they realize their staff have to become more global in outlook and capability for the organisation to survive.   Junsuke Usami, a partner at L.E.K Consulting wrote an interesting article on this issue, which was published in the Diamond Harvard Business Review. To have capable Japanese leaders who can run a global business is a reflection of Japan's difficulty in producing strong leaders in the first place.   He noted four syndromes that prevent Japanese companies from developing strong business leaders. I am going to add my take to explain the four problem areas he has nominated.   Cannot do early promotion for high potentials Everyone enters the company on April 1st and moves forward on the basis of age and stage, not talent. Seniors rank over juniors and it cannot be the other way around in a seniority based system. No matter how capable the junior staff may be they will not be selected to lead folk older than them. In the old system of lifetime employment, staff knew they would get a chance at one point in the future. That is not felt to be an iron clad guarantee anymore, so the talented are more skeptical than in previous generations. As the young sign up for a free agent era of employment, where there are prepared to walk out the door if they think the grass is greener on the other side, this loss of talent to competitors will be painful. If you have no system to fast track the next generation of global leaders within the company then progress will be glacial, in a world that is moving so quickly it makes your head spin.   Cannot give high potentials stretched challenges to accelerate their growth Before the economic bubble burst in the late 1980s, Japanese companies had so many levels within their promotion systems. You progressed in tiny increments. This made sure the rate of progress was slow. Access to challenging work was limited. The plus side was that you get coaching on the way up from your boss, so the OJT or On The Job Training system, more or less worked. The collapse of the economy saw many layers cut and everything compressed. The bosses today have to do their own email typing, are terribly time poor because their job scope got much larger and are basically out of the successor coaching business. The jumps are now much larger, the number of positions much fewer, so the difficulty of moving up has become much greater. Bosses are not delegating because they think, “it will be faster if I do it myself”. They are also risk averse to delegate to a subordinate, in case the delegatee makes a mess of it and blows up the boss.   Cannot take risk This is part and parcel of growing up in Japan. Risk aversion is built into the DNA. People know if they make a mistake it could be career ending. They are so scared of a mistake, they prefer to do nothing and make no decisions, even though both avenues are against the interest of the company. In large companies HR is feared because this is where the collection of all the records of any mistakes made are kept and these are brought out when it is time to consider which of two candidates to choose for the promotion. We are all the product of our mistakes and that is how we learn. By denying people the right to make a mistake, we are holding them back. This has an impact on the range of experiences available to leaders as they rise through the ranks.   Develop only “company professionals” not “management professionals” Traditionally there have been very few mid-career hires in Japan, so the bonds of those who have joined the company straight out of university are strong. Everyone has shared experiences in the company and groupthink becomes entrenched. Relationships within the company become the way of moving upward rather than through ability. Internal patrons become important and are a substitute for personal capability.   These four syndromes identified by Mr. Usami guarantee that companies won't create strong leaders. The gap between where companies are in the leadership journey and where they need to be just grows every year. If they were able to stay entirely domestic in their focus then it would work, as it has its own circular logic.   The brave new world outside of Japan can't accept this construct and this gap is agitating against producing the global leaders the companies need to progress in the 21st century. The talent is there, it is just unable to be properly developed. It is all a bit depressing really and you have to worry about the country's future if they can't fix this issue of not being able to produce strong leaders, who can deal with the global challenges facing Japan. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

Handling Sale's Meltdowns   Sales is a tough gig. Sometimes the whole sale's meeting turns out to be a disaster. I had one of those today. The majority of my personal sale's leads come directly through networking. We get leads off our SEO, through ad words and our general marketing activities. These all go to my sales team for follow up. We also do cold calling but as the President of the company, this is basically out for me. If I cold call someone as the President it comes across as a bit desperate and creates some doubt in the mind of the recipient of the call. They wonder why does the President have to cold call potential clients, what is wrong with this company?   It just doesn't set the right frame for establishing a relationship. Networking is far better for me and trust me, I do a lot of it, to create opportunities to meet new companies.   Recently I had met a representative from a foreign multi-national company, who was not actually the right person to sell to, but who I asked to introduce me to the buyer. I always do this, if I think there is some potential and sometimes they do help out and sometimes they don't. This duly happened in this case, the appointment was made with the buyer and I turn up on time. I am sitting in the meeting room waiting, when the door opens. A solid wall of vast negativity hits me as the buyer comes in to the room. Was it a bad day, is every day a bad day for them, were they unhappy that I had extracted a meeting through my contact? Who knows what the issue was, but it was definitely a big issue.   I was reflecting later that it has been quite a while since I have had such a totally negative sales meeting. Of course many don't buy and many never answer your emails or return your phone calls, but that is part and parcel of selling. What do you do though when you realise from the body language and attitude that this is going to be hard or even impossible?   Well you need to do your best. Unsurprisingly, the buyer insisted that I do my pitch rather than go through any discovery process around potential needs. This is always a very, very bad way to start a sales presentation. Handing over your solutions when you don't know what the problems are is a methodology designed to fail. Almost every time this happens for me there is no sale. It wasn't looking good.   Today's respondent was not cooperative in the answers, as I tried to dig down and find some potential needs. You can't control that, but you still need to ask. The meeting is going badly, you know it and so you need to start thinking about extracting yourself because you realise there is no value here and no possibility of this time and effort amounting to a sale.   One of the things you can do after the meeting though is get someone else in the company to be the contact point, given you found you were radioactive, as far as this buyer was concerned. In my case there was a narrow chance to do some follow up by sending some links with more information. I asked one of my Japanese salespeople to do that and took myself out of the picture. As it turned out, the response she received was “we have no interest”, written in a very negative tone. You still have to try regardless though. In sales, there is no such thing as “no”. It is only “no” at this moment, to this offer, while that person is there.   I also suggest that we all mark our calendars and do follow-up with the company in a few years time. The buyer told me they were two years into the job, so I probably expect that in around two years time they will have been replaced by someone a lot nicer and a lot less difficult to work with. Either they move on or the company will move them on. So keep them on your mailing list for updates from your newsletter, but also check to see if they opt out. I am fully expecting this will be the case in short order.   The other important thing is to keep your confidence intact. Having a really bad meeting like that can sap your belief in yourself. Sales is a rollercoaster of emotions. Elation with a sale and deep depression with a rejection. To keep ourselves intact we need to face rejection in a way that we can pick ourselves up again and go back out there and try again. In Japan, they have a saying, “shichi korobi, ya oki” or fall down seven times, get up eight. That is sales in a nutshell.   In my case, I always think that buyers who don't buy from me are idiots. It sounds harsh doesn't it. But I know that what we offer is high value, has a proven track record and will get results for their organisation. I see this buyer as doing a very poor job for their company. In fact, I see them damaging their own firm.   Now, this is just a mental trick I use to keep myself positive in the face of failure. Of course we should all reflect on what we could do to improve our sales presentation, but if we did our best, it was professional and they were a pain, then don't hesitate to protect yourself emotionally. Without hesitation, lay the blame at the feet of the buyer. Then get back out there straight away and get the sale with the next client. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

How To Be Confident When Presenting   The Mochizuki Room of the High Performance Center Akasaka opens up and today's class members gradually file in, finding a seat, hanging up their winter coats. They mostly don't know each other, so there is a little bit of nervousness in the room, as they start meeting their classmates and their instructors. At the outset, we ask them to set a vision for the training. It is written in the present tense, but the timing is set 6 months in the future. This requires a bit of mental gymnastics. That means it is not written as, “I will do something or other” but “I am”, as a form of expression. It assumes they have achieved some outcome and that is was a big success.   They have to project forward to a point where they will be giving a future presentation and they have to describe how successful it was, as if it really happened already, even though it is in the future. Next we ask them to imagine after that successful presentation, that they are the last to leave the room. As they are walking out of the building following the crowd, they can hear some of the attendees of their talk discussing their presentation. We ask them to nominate what are the three attributes they want to hear used to describe their presentation, from those who have just heard them speak.   When we ask our class participants for High Impact Presentations Course what are some of the attributes they want to have referenced as presenters, the word “confidence” comes up in almost 99% of cases. Other attributes include: clear, interesting, professional, fun, motivating, impactful, logical, valuable, passionate, interesting etc. Why is confidence the most widely sought after attribute?   We know that confidence sells the message. Someone who doesn't look confident about what they are suggesting is rejected right then and there. If you can't believe it yourself, then why should we believe what you are saying. This reaction makes sense doesn't it.   Confidence also presumes a positive mental state. Speaking in front of others can be contemplated as a negative. Perhaps at school they gave a report and classmates laughed at them, crushing their confidence forever. Maybe they presented their tutorial paper at University and they were diced up by their classmates. Somewhere in their past there may be a recollection of the intense shame, humiliation and despair they felt when they have to present in front of others.   Usually a lack of confidence is associated with nervousness. Being nervous is one thing and putting yourself in that state is another. We are all trained to avoid pain and unpleasantness. Knowing you will become very nervous if you have to present in front of others, automatically has us looking for the escape route to avoid that situation. We know what is coming and we don't like the look of it. Having the adrenalin coursing through our veins, our breathing feeling constrained, the blood draining away from our major organs releasing a queasy feeling in the pit of our stomach is not a state we want to enter into if we can avoid it. That was me too. I avoided public speaking for decades, because of my lack of confidence. Was I half smart enough to go and get some training to overcome these fears? No. I did nothing but sweat and tremble in trepidation that I would have to speak in front of others. I passed up on opportunities to build my personal and professional brand and to promote my organisation.   This is the point – we are not confident because we don't know what we are doing. Any task we have never done before or which is technical and requires some degree of training is going to make us nervous about doing it. Public speaking is no different.   Like these attendees of the High Impact Presentations Course in the Mochizuki Room, we can all overcome these fears of insufficiency to the task, by getting the training. They learn how to deal with fear, with the fight or flight syndrome all speakers have to face. They learn speaking structures that will enable them to prepare any presentation format. When you can just pour the content into the right format, life gets a lot easier. Understanding the point of the talk is another simple but key element. Am I here to get action, to entertain, to inform or to impress? Learning how to design the start and finish of the talk, how to properly design the slides for the talk, how to analyse the audience to know how to present the talk are all the basics we need to know.   When you add in the personal coaching from the instructors it all starts to improve. You only get positive feedback, so your delicate nervous state is not totally upended. You get specific things to work on and lots and lots of practice. You hit the magic marker. This is when you learn how to switch the focus from yourself and move to focusing on your audience. It doesn't happen immediately but it does happen. Once you do that, all the fears about speaking in front of others, which is all about you by the way, disappear.   This is when you can start to notice the impact of what you are saying is having on your audience. You can see the impact because you are watching them like a hawk, never taking your eyes off the audience and you are using your eye power to engage them one by one, throughout the presentation. People nodding approvingly really boosts your confidence and you start to enjoy the process.   With training, you never fear the Q&A. This is when the event potentially becomes a street fight with no rules. When we are speaking we have control of the time, the agenda and the content. Q&A can see questions which have nothing to do with the topic, severe critiques of what you have just said and someone's own diatribe on a subject they hold near and dear. You cannot control this but you can control your response. When you have been trained you can weather any storm and can become bulletproof against any attack. Trust me, this knowledge makes you very confident when presenting.   So get trained and increase your confidence when presenting. It is that simple. Once you have done it, you will kick yourself as to why you didn't get the training earlier. It makes you happy to get the skills but sad to think of how much time and opportunity you have lost for no good reason. Better late than never though, so let's get going! Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Questions As Incoming Missiles   The new President, a super star with a brilliant resume, started attending our Division's weekly meetings. We were between divisions heads, because he had just fired the old one, so he took it upon himself to see what was going on. We were all pretty excited to be in the presence of corporate royalty. The first meeting, though in a room a bit small for all the people crowded in, seemed to be going okay as people reported the results. But then things went a bit crazy. When he didn't like what he heard, he would explode with rage, going from zero to 100 in a nanosecond. His fury was so intense and his questions were brutal and lethal. If you were on the receiving end, your spine simply decalcified on the spot. Every week the meeting was like this.   Here is something I noticed. Never sit in front of an enraged President. Whoever sits in front is going to get both barrels between the eyes. It happened every week, time after time. Get there early and always sit at the absolute end of the long table, on the same side as the President. It is very hard to see you there, so you can escape his wrath and get a good view of the decimation taking place amongst your colleagues!   In business, we are sometimes confronted by a doozy of a question. It could be from the Board Chairperson, an unhappy client, a town hall meeting for the staff, the union delegation, cranky shareholders, an overly ambitious peer during a presentation to the big bosses or a member of the audience attending one of our speeches. Usually we don't handle it very well, because we rush to defang the question by answering it immediately. We speak, drawing on the first thing that pops into our mind, rather than going to our third or fourth more considered response.   When questions are thinly disguised incoming missiles, everyone around us takes cover, in case any of the debris lands on them. A lot of gazing at shoes starts to happen and we feel we are out there on our own. Counter-intuitively, when we handle one of these very hot ones, everyone is really impressed and our stocks rise substantially. So knowing how to deal with danger can be a rather large positive. Great, so how do we deal with trouble?   This requires discipline, concentration and courage. Do not allow your face to show the shock of the assault. Put up the best poker face you can manage as you listen to the tirade. That also applies to your body. I was under attack in a public situation and I caught myself moving my head slowly from side to side, as a sign of my negativity to what was being proffered. I wasn't even aware at the start that I was even doing that, so we have to be careful to rein ourselves in physically.   Also never nod up and down as you listen to the question under any circumstances. It is a habit we have created to acknowledge that we are listening to you, but it can get us into trouble. If it is being filmed, the clever editor will run your apparent agreement with either the negative comment of one of the participants or from the host of the show. It looks like you are agreeing with them.   Repeat the question, but do it in a way that kills the power of the weapon. In a public occasion, people often cannot hear the question, so it is legitimate to repeat it for the audience. When we repeat it though, we emasculate it. For example, imagine it is a town hall meeting and the question rockets in that, “Isn't it true that 15% of the staff are going to be fired in this financial year?”. We don't repeat , “The question was are we going to fire 15% of the staff before year end?”. Instead we neutralise the fire of the words and say, “The question was about staffing levels”.   Just by going through this process alone, we are buying ourselves valuable thinking time. We can add extra thinking time when we include a cushion statement. This cushion is nice, fluffy and soft and is placed between the hard, sharp edges of the question and our answer. In the example above I might say, “Getting the correct balance between work volumes and staff to do the work is important”. In the cushion, we are looking for a statement which will not ignite more opposition or raise temperatures in the room. We want something bland and neutral. This statement gives us more scope to formulate our answer to the question. Remember, we are looking for the answer as close as possible to the one you get hours later, when you have thought further about it and realize, “I should have said this or that”. Too late by then, but if we can buy a bit of time we will do much better with our immediate answer.   When answering the questions we can deny it, admit it, reverse the proposition or explain it. If it is factually incorrect, misinformation or a misinterpretation we need to deny it, in order to quash rumors and incorrect musings.   If it is true, then own up to any misunderstandings, mistakes, or errors. There is nothing so pathetic as someone who is clearly wrong, trying to wriggle out of it with mealy mouthed excuses. Harden up and be accountable.   If it is a negative, there may be some silver lining in the clouds. We need to look for that and bring it forth in an attempt to create some better balance of the interpretation of what has happened.   We can also simply explain what is going on. We can clarify misunderstandings, give background information which led to the decision in dispute and provide other relevant details.   No matter which of these we choose, we need to be very careful when delivering it. When presenting we always spend six seconds using our eye contact to engage with each person in our audience. When starting the answer, look straight into the eyes of the person who raised the question. No matter how scary they seem, look straight at them. After that ignore them completely and only talk to the others in the room. Look at each person for six seconds and then move on to the next person. Keep repeating this.   Often people are trying to upstage us, embarrass us, make themselves look smarter than we are or any other number of stupendously stupid motivations. Don't give them any additional attention. By ignoring them completely, we take away the limelight and their power.   If it is an incoming missile, they are not for converting to your point of view, so don't even bother.   To get the balance back on track, after giving your brief answer to their missile question, tack on a piece of good news about what the organisation is doing. We need to re-arrange the audience's perspectives. They are focused on what is wrong through the question, so we also need to get them considering what is working well.   When we use these techniques, we look sensational because everyone else in the room is cringing, trying to become the smallest possible target and worried they might be next for a tongue lashing. We hold our head up high, defuse the missile and look so professional. If your boss is unhinged like our erstwhile President at the beginning of this story, then getting your seating arrangements properly sorted is your only hope!   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.    

Effective Team Building Is Not A Snap   You are sitting there at your desk beavering away as usual when you get the phone call. Suddenly you are called upstairs by your boss to their office. You are informed there is a new project needed and that “we want you to head up a new team to get it done. There is a lot counting on this and time is of the upmost urgency”.   This is good and bad. You are already very busy with a bunch of other work not yet completed and this project sounds very high risk. If the project doesn't get done well and on time, you know your head is on the block. On the other hand it is a chance to shine and show the big bosses you are more than ready to join their elite company.   The only problem is you cannot do the whole project by yourself. Fortunately, you have been given permission to pull together the team you need to get the job done. In a perfect world, like you see in the movies, you would be selecting the all star team of high achievers and the most motivated dudes and dudesses on the planet. Not going to happen.   You will have trouble getting anyone initially because no one is available and the talented few are totally locked in to other projects. You will get the team you can get, not necessarily the team you want.   This will be a new team and therein resides a raft of complexities right away. You are highly motivated because it is a make or break chance for you. For the team members it is an additional burden in their work lives they feel they don't really need. We have to disengage them from their existing work to make space for the new project. No one is happy about doing that by the way because they know their current tasks aren't going to be magically completed by someone else, while they are working on this project for you.   You might have been given the authority to create the team but the members hearts and minds are not something that can be won over by fiat. How can you get them enthused and motivated about the project? It sounds like a cliché but you need to establish the WHY we are doing this project through the Vision for the team.   This cannot be an email you send out alerting everyone to the new team Vision. We need buy in. “People own the world they help to create” tells us they need to be the ones who create the Vision. We need to use our communication skills to explain the veracity and urgency of the WHY of the project. Having done that we need the team members to create the Vision. This will be the guiding light for going forward.   The team collectively completes the project. That means each person has to be motivated to work hard on the project. They have to defend milestones, to adhere to quality standards, to be accountable and to get on with each other and with you.   The getting on with you is not a given. You have to earn their respect, commitment and effort. You can threaten them with diabolical outcomes if they don't toe the line and try and put the fear of God into them, so that they get with the programme. Stupid idea – don't do that. You will only ever get partial buy in at best. At worst, they may even sabotage the project to see you ejected out of the organization once it fails. Instead use human relations skills to create the environment where they will motivate themselves to do an excellent job.   Here are some basics in human relations skills that will help you to create a team of believers, rather than resisters.   Become genuinely interested in other people The key word here is genuine. People can spot fake interest from far away. By talking with them about themselves we can understand what motivates them. Everyone is different so no “one size fits all” type of approach will work. You need to understand what excites them individually , what is important to them and find a way that this project will deliver that for them.   Smile Sound so simple. Except that busy people, time pressed types, stressed individuals forget to smile. This could easily be you or become you. When you engage with your team you have to remember to start every interaction with a smile. People will gravitate to people they like and there is nothing more powerful than a smile to build a strong bond between people. Forget that fake smile business, this has to be genuine. You will be surprised how little you actually smile at work. We are all so serious at the office, we just train our facial muscles to scowl and show worry, more than we train them to radiate goodness and light.   Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. We are usually poor listeners, especially bosses. We are in the habit of making announcements, firing out orders, issuing directives, scolding poor performance, and telling others what to do. We are always perpetually super busy, so time is money and short form communication using headlines becomes the norm.   ‘The trigger to our engagement of staff is creating the strong feeling of being valued. There is nothing more powerful that listening to your team members for creating motivation. When we really listen to them, they feel they are valued, that what they do is appreciated, that they make a difference around here. Telling them what to do just doesn't stimulate that level of emotional commitment to any great extent. We listen to learn what motivates them, to hear what concerns them, to build empathy with them. This is powerful.   Talk in terms of the other person's interests. Our team members have one constant thought - what is in it for me? If we keep their perspective at the forefront of our minds when we are talking to our team members, our communication skills and persuasion skills will be excellent. Forget about what you want. What do they want and how can this project bring it to them? If we talk about the wonderfulness of the project in its own right that might make us the boss feel good. The team members are much more interested in how this project is going to be wonderful in helping them get their goals met.   Leading isn't about being the most gifted technician, the one best with numbers, the grey beard with the most experience, the hardest of the hard skillers. It is about getting the team to function well together because their commitment is sky high. The reason it is sky high is because you are an outstanding team leader who knows how to use these human relations principles and use them in a genuine not manipulative way. People are not stupid. They can tell if you are genuinely interested in helping them meet their goals or not.   Be genuinely interested in your team and your projects will be successful. You will be given more and more responsibility. The leader who can have people willingly follow is the leader that every company wants. Become that leader. Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.   About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.