Podcasts about sales japan

The premise of tonight's theme is how we position ourselves for the client before we even meet them. With the advent of social media, people will know they are going to meet you and will check you out. That wasn't possible before, but it certainly is now. So, how do we put ourselves in the best light, in the best position before we meet the buyer or the client? That's what I'll be looking at tonight. A bit about Dale Carnegie: we're a very well-established company, 112 years old, originating in New York, and we've been in Japan for 61 years. We have 200 offices around the world and are quite well known. These are our locations, so wherever you're coming from, we're probably there. We have eight million graduates and 100,000 in Japan. Warren Buffett is a graduate, as is Chuck Norris, one of my favourites, and the current president of Shiseido, Uotani san, is also a graduate. These books are very well known: How to Win Friends and Influence People, Hito Wo Ugokasu, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Michi Wa Hirakeru, all very well-known books. They sell well. Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is consistently in the top ten business books in every language every year around the world. In the publishing industry, they say there are two massive long-sellers: one is the Bible, and the second one is Dale Carnegie's book, which is just incredible but true. So it does very well. My theme here is that in business, know, like, and trust are some fundamentals. People have to know you to do business with you. They have to like you, generally speaking. While we might do business with people we don't like, it's not our preference, and they have to trust us. Now, I'm not going to deal with like and trust tonight. That's too much, but I'll deal particularly with getting to know you, and we'll look at that. So, how do I build credibility before I meet the buyer? How do I establish that remotely? That's what we'll be looking at. In 2010, I was scared of social media. I wasn't on any social media at all, and these are the themes I was worried about. It was an unknown thing to me. I didn't understand it. I thought, oh, my identity will be stolen. They're going to hack my credit card. Trolls will hammer me if I post something. I was scared. At that time, social media was fairly limited. LinkedIn was the longest-running, but it was really a recruiting site for people posting their resumes. Facebook was mainly in America. Twitter was only four years old by that time, and Instagram was only one year old. It was all very new, and I was scared of it. Then something happened. I met Jeffrey Gitomer, an American, a very famous author on sales, and an interesting character. He attended our Dale Carnegie International Convention in San Diego, which, by the way, is a beautiful place. I was very impressed by San Diego. He said to the convention delegates, all Dale Carnegie people, "How many people are on Twitter?" Nobody was on Twitter. Trust me, nobody. At that stage, he had 30,000 followers on Twitter, and he basically said to us, "You are all idiots." He didn't say that directly, but that was the message. "You should get onto social media." I thought, well, okay, he's probably right. I should check this out. So that's where I started. I also got into a thing called content marketing. I had never heard this expression before, and there was a very good podcast with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose called This Old Marketing, which was really pioneering and promoting the whole concept of content marketing. I started listening to these guys and learning about content marketing, which was a revolutionary idea at the time: you put your best stuff out there for nothing. At that time, people were protecting their IP, hiding their details, their data. But they said, no, you put it out there. That was not a typical idea at that time. So I was studying that. Today, I have 27,680 followers on LinkedIn and 3,383 articles and blogs published on LinkedIn. On Facebook, I have 4,200 friends. I'm not really big into Facebook, to be honest. On Instagram, I have 536 followers. I only started Instagram recently. On Twitter, I don't have many followers. I've never quite come to grips with Twitter myself. I post on it but never look at it, basically. As mentioned by Jeff, we started YouTube in 2013 and called it Tokyo Japan Dale Carnegie TV. Now, we have 1,920 subscribers. It has taken a long time to get over 1,000 and close to 2,000. Very hard work. We have 2,500 videos on YouTube, which is a lot. And of course, we're a training company, so we have lots of content in the areas we cover. Another big influence on me was Grant Cardone, another American, a very famous hardcore sales guy, very successful. He makes this point: we are all invisible. I was talking about know, like, trust. But if you're invisible, how do you build a business? People don't know you, and that's what he's on about. People don't know you. You have to make a big effort to get out there and be known. So I took that on board and said, okay, I have to become more visible. I have to work on that. Social media is one of the big content marketing delivery mechanisms. We're trying to get attention. Where is the attention on social media? Are we where the buyer's attention is found on social media? Are we where they're looking on social media? In Japan, YouTube kills everything with 102 million. Next is Line, of course. X, formerly known as Twitter. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. LinkedIn has very low numbers, just three million. But if you're in the expat community, it would be an incredibly high proportion of people on LinkedIn. My personal main target is expat leaders because I have all these Japanese working for them who need training. If I can get to the expat leader, maybe I can get the whole company. So that's one of my targets. Yes, it's true. Facebook is basically Japanese. The comment was that Facebook is like LinkedIn for Japanese, and very true. I post all my stuff on Facebook. I post on all these things except for Pinterest. I don't do Pinterest, and I can't work out how to use Line. If I could work it out, I'd probably do something there, but I haven't yet. We are trying to dominate our niches as a training company. This gets tricky because we have three main curriculum areas: leadership, presentation, and sales. If we were only doing leadership, that would be one level of content we need to produce. But we're not just doing leadership, so we have to produce a lot of content to compete with others who specialise in leadership. We have to produce a lot of content to compete with people who specialise in presentations and the same for sales. So we are tripling what would be a normal company's requirement, which is why we're pumping out so much content. What about AI? You might think, "No problem, AI will produce this presentation for tonight." In thirty seconds, you've got it. How easy is this? AI will write some posts for LinkedIn, and bingo, out comes the content. We are redundant as content creators because AI will do it all for us. Well, maybe. Your rivals might be using it. Maybe you're using it. But how can we differentiate our content? Here are some ideas. First of all, it doesn't know your stories. It hasn't been able to scrape those. Your personal stories are only known to you. You have a hundred percent control of that. When you write LinkedIn posts, AI tends to be a bit generic in the way it creates content. You look at the outputs, and they all have a similar style. But if you write as you speak, in the vernacular, that's very much you. Very authentic, very individual, and with your own point of view. AI will scrape all of the world's viewpoints on a topic, but you have your own individual viewpoint. That's unique. You must become highly skilled in presenting. You can get the best content from AI, but you still have to stand up here and deliver it. AI might do this online with an avatar, but in the real world, no. It can't do it. Have your own personal style, which is hard to duplicate. Some of my differentiation approaches include using my title, Dr. Greg Story. I have a PhD, and I use that distinctly because I'm in the training business. You'd rather be taught by Dr. Story than someone with just a basic degree, right? So I use that as a differentiator through my education as branding. I use a lot of alliteration when I write: "super sushi service." It's alliteration. I use that style for my writing and use words in unexpected ways, normal words but in slightly unexpected ways. When you're reading, it feels a bit different because it's me. Others won't do it. AI certainly won't do it. I try to use unusual words to differentiate and have a style that's recognisable. I hope that when you see my stuff, you'll say, "Oh, that's written by Greg Story" as opposed to anyone else. I also try to include personal stories to connect with my audience and make the content relatable and memorable. So, AI is a tool we can use, but to truly stand out and make our content unique, we have to infuse it with our personal touch, experiences, and style. That's something AI can't replicate.   Again, to differentiate, to have a style that's recognizable. I hope that when you see my stuff, you'll say, oh, that's written by Greg's story as opposed to it could bewritten by anybody. And then try to include personal storiesto connect with my Now, I I avoided that. And I broadcast, as Jeff said, video. I broadcast audio. And then, what's your message? And then, you can have a story with a lesson, a parable, something that you've learned. Something happened. You've learned a lesson from that and you share that lesson. So these are some typical storytelling themes we can use when we're putting together our content. But I finally broke through as a presenter. I started sharing my personal information. I found I could connect with people in a way I wasn't able to connect so well before. But we have these self limiting beliefs. The point is we've got to get over those. If we're going to project ourselves into the market and be credible with clients before we meet them, they've got to know us. We've got to get out there.So let's work on that. But we've got some self limiting beliefs. For example, I had a meeting with the president. I had a meeting with Suzuki Taro, the president. I hate being recorded on camera. I'm an introvert. I knew where to hit certain words and phrases, key ideas,and bring my energy to that point in the sentence. Very hard for AI to know how to do that. So these are things that differentiate. I think the name Story, someone can correct me here, but it's actually originally a Scandinavian name. I try to make the client the hero. I try to use my own cadence, my own rhythm. When I'm highlighting key ideas and phrases, which again, it's going to be very hard for AI to replicate that because it's my definition. For example, I've recorded one of my books,Japan Sales Mastery, whichn just about killed me, I've got to tell you. I can't believe how hard narrating your own damn book is. I used to be scared of the camera, but I've managed to get over that and I am an introvert, actually. So this is very taxing for me tonight to have all these people in the room with me. I'll have to go home later and lay down for quite along time to recover. I'm a very private person, Jeff. I don't share much. If you look publicly online, you find very little about me personally.You will find a lot of stuff about presentations, leadership, sales, not a lot about Greg's story. I'm not beautiful enough or handsome enough to appear on video. I'm not photogenic at all. I always look terrible in photographs. I'm not photogenic. I'm the guide. I've got a very raspy voice from ten million kiais in the karate dojo, actually. In this room, we put a green screen set over there. We set up the camera here and I will record myself on green screen video. Include the names. Even if you have a code name for someone, include the names. It automatically sent to my YouTube channel with the audio podcast and also, the podcast video goes to YouTube. It was and I didn't do anymore after that. It's exhausted me. But someone else could narrate it. But I wrote it, so I knew where to put the emphasis. It wasn't planned. It's out there about a very small amount. Much better. There's got to be a context. Something'shappening in the background. Something's going on. What is it? Bring out that background. My Saturday mornings are writing every week. Saturday morning, I write. I write one on presentations, one on sales, one on leadership. My voice sounds terrible. Now I'm not handsome. So I can multipurpose my one piece of content very, very effectively. So I start, in my case, always with a blog text. So include the people in the story. So my copywriting structure looks like this. So that text gets turned into podcast audio. So this is multipurposing of content. So we have different stories. We have the warning story, we can writeabout that. Bad things are coming. So we're going tell some stories. Now, someone said to me tonight, oh, your name's Story. That's handy if you're gonna be in the storytelling business. So, we need, I believe, to master video and audio and text in this modern age. So, who are we according to what does Google say about you? Who are you when you look up Google? Story, which got anglicized in the great Viking invasion of England, I believe in the eighth century. So there we go. That audio will go to the podcast and will go to a place called Libsyn, Liberated Syndication, which hosts podcasts on Apple Podcasts.  It's got a huge list of different podcasts they get my content out to. That's what all those little green arrows mean. But it also turns up on my YouTube channel as audio. The opportunity cost of no action because in a lot of cases, people think no action means no cost. That's not true. The plan, let's get rid of the villain. Let's fix thatproblem. The villain, client's problem. Then I'll record those for my podcast. Then, this is important. Then, we have the narrative arc. There'll be certain characters in the story. There'll be some conflict, some problem, or a big opportunity. What is that? Set the context with the opportunity. Then there's gonna be a resolution. Could be good, could be bad, but there'll be a resolution one way or another. There's a teleprompter behind here and I'll be reading theteleprompter of what I've written and I'll take that text and I'll turn it into video. There's an opportunity cost there. And then finally, the solution, the happy outcome. We talk about that. We can have the success story, hey, we did well. We can have a humorous story, something amusing. We can have a branding story, talking about your company and how great you're doing and how you're helping save the world, etcetera. What's the learning? What's the thing you want to get across to people? So that's an arc in the narrative. When you're writing a story, you're putting stuff together to think about. What do you find? Yahoo, Bing, ChatGPT, YouTube, Amazon. If you search yourself on these items, what does it tell us about you? Who are you? I'm possibly going to be your client. I want to know about you. This is where I'm going to look. This is where I'll go. And what will I find? Now, a lot of Americans have said to me that they can't use Facebook for business because there are a lot of embarrassing frat house photographs of them in very compromising positions, drinking very exotic-looking drinks with umbrellas in them, in very bad locations with very dodgy people. So they are excluded. But I said I was terrified of social media. I came late to the party. What you'll see on these mediums is me in business all the time. You're not going to see me casual very often. I control it. So if you look up Greg Story, there are seventy-one entries on Google, forty-four on YouTube, ninety-one on Bing. I stopped at page ten. Chat GPT, one entry. I did a presentation last December for the American Chamber Sales Committee. At that time, I wasn't even existing on Chat GPT. So finally, I made it. I'm there. And it's actually correct. It wasn't hallucinating. I'm actually there. And then YouTube, there are fifty entries. I stopped at fifty. There's a lot more. And then Amazon, one entry. What's going on here? I've got, well, seven books already published, and the eighth one is with Amazon right now. So Amazon's search engine is not very good. So anyway, I don't know how that works. So what has been useful for me to become known and credible with my potential buyers? LinkedIn is my main medium for business, and this is what my front page looks like. You see lots of me in action. I'm running a soft skills training company. So what am I doing? I'm teaching or I'm speaking, naturally. And then, here I am. My name is not Dr Greg Story. The name in LinkedIn is Dr Greg Story, franchise owner, master trainer, executive coach, leadership sales, presentations, Tokyo, Japan. That is what's in my name bracket on LinkedIn, not just Dr Greg Story. And then, it talks about global master trainer, executive coach, three-time best-selling author, global business expert, leadership, sales, presentations and communication president. There's a lot of propaganda about me on that one page, and then you have all of my postings would come after that. Massive numbers. In this case, on LinkedIn, three thousand three hundred and fifty of them. And then, as I said, twenty-seven thousand six hundred and eighty followers. Post impressions, seven thousand thirty-two in the last seven days. In the last ninety days, seven hundred and sixty-four people looked at my profile. Eight hundred and seventeen people searched for me. How many people are searching for you? You go to your LinkedIn, have a look at your number. How many people are searching for you? When I see that number's high, I'm happy. It says that what I'm doing is working. They're searching for me. I'm trying to find them, of course, but they're looking for me. I may not know who they are, but I'm giving them what I want them to find. I'm packaging it up. I'm saying, this is me. I'm credible. I can do everything on leadership, everything on sales and presentations. I've got it. That's what I'm saying. So Roberto DeVito was the editor of the American Chamber Journal, and I used to submit articles to the journal. I made a big mistake. When I first submitted them, I thought, you've got Dale Carnegie on the wall over there. I thought, well, Dale Carnegie, he's the icon. I can't compete with the icon. So I never put my name and photograph with the articles, only my name. Until one day, I was at an event. I gave someone my card. “Are you the guy that writes those articles in the American Chamber Journal?”,  I said, yes. I realised, you idiot. You should have put your own face and name, so people could recognise both instead of just the name. Trust me, my face and name is on everything I can find now, to catch up. But I met, actually, I bumped into Roberto across the road in front of the Ark Hills building one day just by accident. I'm having a quick chat, because he's editing my articles. I'm putting them up there. He said, “Greg, why don't you start a podcast?” Here's my response. “What's a podcast?”. I'd sort of heard of it. In the 1990s, there were podcasts, and they sort of disappeared, and they came back in the mid-2000s, right? 2013. So and I thought, wow, a podcast. Okay. So I'll take that on board. So this was a re-creation, but this would have been me back in 2013, 2014 actually, with this exact mic recording my podcast. I had zero idea. I was clueless. I didn't even think about the mic, you know. I didn't know the quality. But now, for the techy people here, and I'm sure there's a lot of techy people here. I use a Shure SM58 microphone. I use a Zoom H6 handy recorder, which actually is recording this presentation right now. I use Adobe Audition for the editing, and I use Libsyn to host my Apple podcasts. So that's some of the tech. Now, I'm not going to discuss what we do for the videos because there's a lot of lighting and camera and stuff for that, but we have a lot of gear for all that stuff. So I'm better organised now. So what did I learn about podcasting? First of all, don't be an idiot like me. Spend the money and get a good quality microphone. Straight up. Don't muck around. Get the right gear. Find a platform which can upload your content to multiple areas like Libsyn. You need something like that. If you're gonna do interviews, the guest provides the IP. Jeff has been a guest on my podcast, Japan's top Business Interviews, and he provided all the IP. But if you're doing it yourself, then you need to have content. And I have a lot of content, as I'll talk about in a minute, because I can do that because we're in the business of doing training. So we know about leadership, presentations, sales, communication. And you got to be like clockwork. We say weekly. It's got to be weekly. You can't miss. And if you're going to do it, commit to it. There are so many podcasts that fail within the first ten episodes and they quit. Don't be one of those people. If you're going to commit to it, keep going with it. Don't worry about the numbers. Keep going with it. You'll eventually get the numbers you want. So, this is my first podcast, August the second, 2014. Every Thursday, Leadership Japan Series. This is where I started. So now, we've got nearly seventy-four thousand five hundred ninety-nine downloads. Five hundred and fifty-nine episodes weekly. Now, in 2016, I'm following this content marketing. The guru says, niche down. Right. But, get ready to ride the tiger's back. Because what I thought was, okay, niche down, I am going to break them out. The Leadership Japan series had content about sales. It had content about presenting. I know, I'll break them out and separate them. I'll niche down. “How hard could that be”,  I said to myself. Well, once you jump on to the tiger's back, as soon as you jump off, you get eaten. So you have got to be careful what you do here. So I started with one and then I presented this one. This is November third, 2016. Every Tuesday, this has twenty-three thousand nine hundred and fifty-two downloads. We're up to episode three eighty-five on this one. And then I did this one, which was the Sales Japan series. It's every Wednesday, three thirty-one thousand three hundred and sixty-seven downloads, three hundred and eighty-five episodes. But the work to produce these additional two was much bigger than I expected. But remember, we are a training company. We are doing all of these areas, so we have to have content in each of these areas to compete with companies who only do sales, only do leadership, only do presentations. So we just triple our workload immediately and we're prepared for that. Now, in 2018, Google said, we are going to now do voice-based search as well as text, and I believed them. And I thought, bingo. Because how many blogs were there in the world in 2018? Major, major, major number of blogs around the world. How can you compete with so many millions of people producing billions of people producing blogs? And I thought, ah, audio. I have a lot of audio. Maybe I can win in the audio market. It's hard to win in the text market. So I know, I know, I got a great idea “Why don't I create more audio?”, I said to myself and try and dominate that voice-based search. Well, guess what? You Google Greg Story, you're not going find much in the vocal department from Google. Thank you very much. Where's my voice-based search, Google? Still not there. So anyway, but I didn't know that. I believed them. So I was inspired by, some people might remember the show, Tokyo on Fire from Tim Langley. It was a very good program on politics. So, yeah, I was inspired by this. I said, “you know what? I'm going do video”. So this is how I got started. The first one, my weekly podcast. So December 28th, 2018, I started doing my weekly podcast, and then I converted it into a video and put it on YouTube. So now we've got nine hundred and ninety-three videos, nine hundred and twenty-four subscribers, not a big number, nine hundred ninety-five episodes weekly. So if you look at this, I'm doing six podcasts a week, fifty-two weeks a year. I'm doing three videos a week, fifty-two weeks a year. It's a machine. I've got a machine behind me. It wasn't there when I started. I was terrified of social media. My colleagues, who were twenty years younger than me, had social media. I said, yeah, it's a fad. I was wrong. I was wrong. Now, I don't have twenty years to play catch up, so I have to run hard. And these are some of the lessons I learnt from all this. So first, don't be afraid of social media. Second, repurpose content. So once I created all this, I realised the power of having all this content. So I turned it into books, as Jeff mentioned. These were the four books that were done. These three were audiobooks and Kindle. This is the latest one, done on audiobooks and Kindle. It's a lot of work, but you can turn it into other things. So what I did was, I took the content from the podcast. The podcasts are turned into transcriptions. The transcriptions are turned into books. And I've done, as I said, seven books like that. This is an example of repurposing the content. Take the content and put it everywhere. Don't be afraid of social media. It is a gold mine. Don't worry about the numbers. Don't worry if you have no viewers, no followers. Keep producing, because people will start to come to you. But be like clockwork. Every week, deliver. Don't be afraid to get on social media. Don't be afraid to put your face out there. And, very importantly, get a high-quality microphone. It makes all the difference.  Then, I wrote this one, Japan Presentations Mastery because we teach presentations and we want to get more business. So, we wrote this and then we did Anata Mo Purezen No Tatsujin. We translated it, so we have a Japanese version. I rewrite the books for a Japanese audience. I write it for a foreign audience first, for the expats, the CEO, who's going to buy training, and then I rewrite it for a Japanese audience. Then I wrote this book. Stop Wasting Money On Training. I think that's a bit counterintuitive for a training company.Subtitle, “how to get the best results from your training budget in Japan” because I realized you couldn't find any books on on how to pick a training company. We are experts in training. So I wrote a book, a neutral book. It's not a propaganda piece for Dale Carnegie. If you read it, it's not like that at all. It's very, very neutral,very objective, but it talks about the things you need to think about. When I go to see the client, I've got two books.This is one of them. Now, theres presentation and sales and very shortly leadership and I give them both. Do I care if they read them? No. This says, we are expertson training. That's enough for credibility. Okay? This is my new book. I say, we're waiting for Amazon to give us the thumbs up. Could be tonight. Could be tomorrow morning. It's that close. I have never seen any books in English about leading in Japan written by foreigners. If you can find one, let me know. I couldn't find any. I believe this is the first book ever written on this topic. And the target audience are expat CEOs who are leading here to help them because these are the people who pay for our training, who have the decision making power or at least get me in front of the HR team to try and convince them to take us on as a training company. So very, very fresh. Very, very fresh. And I call it your complete leadership toolkit and it is a very complete book. So now, I have soon to be eight books, right? Coming up will be eight books. Then, I will rewrite that leadership book for a Japanese audience and we'll translate that. That'll be number nine. So everyone's heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, I presume. He's a legend. He's an amazing business person, incredible entrepreneur. He took reality TV, combined it with motivation, and he combined it with education. And he has another trading name as Gary Vee. He had a guy following him around, video him all day long, which they cut up and brought out. He's unbelievable volume producer. But Gary Vee or Gary Vaynerchuk has thirty people working in team Gary, chopping all this stuff up. He's a legend. He says, I heard this recently, you have got to post twelve times aday. I'm like, “that's ridiculous”. How could you do that? Well, guess what? I'm posting twelve times a day. I counted them up. The blog goes to LinkedIn. It automatically goes to Facebook and Twitter. Now, purists would say,you're a very bad boy, Greg. You should be recrafting that for Facebook and you should be recrafting that for Twitter instead of sending in the same stuff. Hey. Do I have that sort of time? No. I've got three areas, presentation, sales, and leadership to cover. I'm busy. So I just flick a switch and bingo. It's there. Done. I upload something I'll talk about in a moment called Fare Bella Figura. I'll talk about that shortly. It goes to, to LinkedIn and I share it also to Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram. I upload video shorts to LinkedIn, then they get switched over to TikTok, threads, and Instagram, which is actually twelve a day. So I'm actually doing what Gary Vaynerchuk said to do. I thought it was impossible, but I'm actually doing it. Amazed me. So we need a mindset shift here. We need to be agnostic about the funnel that brings the client to us. But we got a brace for trouble. We're doing something new. We should try it anyway. And if it doesn't work, well, you know, retreat if you have to and don't say no for the buyer in terms of trying something new. And if it works, go all in and ignore the critics and hammer it. So this is something that I was thinking about. There are some fundamental business truths. People judge us when they first meet us based on our bodylanguage, how we're standing, how we move. The second thing they judge us on is how we're dressed. They look us up and down. They're checking us out. They're making judgments. We haven't even opened our mouth yet, but they're making judgments, first impressions about us. So we have to control that first impression and we mustbecome more knowledgeable about image control in business. So I had some innovation considerations. I found people often complimented me about the way I'm dressed. I thought, can I drive that as a differentiator against my competitors in the training industry? Can I take that and drive it harder? I didn't see any businessmen blogging about what they wear except for people who are in the clothing business.They got their own boutiques or whatever. I didn't see any business people blogging about men's clothing. So I needed to execute though in a very light low touch manner, because I'm pretty busy and I have to have the guts, right, to court trolls, mockery, derision, abuse and hatred by putting myself out there and I was scared to do it. I thought, you know, if I put out what I'm wearing, man, I'm going get hammered by these people. Well, I'm just going to be abused all day long. So I took a deep breath. I said, okay, I'll go for it. Here's my premise and every one of my blog starts like this. I run my own soft skills training franchise business here in Tokyo. And many years ago, I decided to dress for success. Each day, I consult my schedule and that day's work content drives my sartorial choices. Before I head out the door every day, I check myself in the mirror and ask, do I look like one of the most professional people in my industry? That's the premise, okay? Then, this comes up. This is the Fare Bella Figura.  In Italian, it means make a good impression. I use Italian because I think it's pretty cool. Sounds better. Fare Bella Fugira. Sounds pretty good in Italian,bright? So, master your first impressions. Be a sharp dressed man. Now, which is the band we know about being a sharp dressed man? ZZ Top. You know that song, Be a Sharp Dressed Man. I thought, that's pretty cool. I'll use that. So I put in Be A Sharp Dressed Man. Now, this is what they get. I put in very detailed comment on what I'm wearing. You can see all the stuff on LinkedIn. This is just what I'm showing you. It's like wallpaper. And I have a photograph of me. But guess what's in the background? Nineteen twelve. Dale Carnegie. I'm taking it right here. So, I'm promoting the company and the longevity of the company at the same time I'm promoting what I'm wearing. Right? So, I'm getting double value there. So, now, here's the distressing part. Here's the results. My handcrafted, really carefully written blogs, which I work really hard on every Saturday morning and come up with these eight hundred thousand word pieces, I get two hundred impressions on LinkedIn. The first Fare Bella Figura,  when I put up, sixteenhundred impressions. I felt like crying.I couldn't believe it. Like, just show me in a suit and I get sixteen hundred. I'm writing all this stuff on leadership and presentation and sales and I get two hundred. And it continues to outrank my other blogs. Still. So, at the end of my blogs, there's a sales funnel. There are three lead magnets and then the description about my podcasts and my books and about me and all the propaganda is there. Guess what? On the end of all these posst, that same propaganda is there.It's there. It's a funnel to get people to come to our websitethrough these lead magnets. So here's some takeaways. Observe trends. I've noticed, and this audience is not very good representation of that, but suits are coming back for men. Suits are coming back for men. Ties are going to come back for men. Shoes, serious shoes, not sneakers. It's coming. Check me in five years to see if I'm right. But I feel it'smoving in that direction. I might be an early mover maybe in this trend. I don't know. I don't know. I might be totally wrong. Let's see. There's a gap in the market. No men are putting themselves out there talking about what they wear every work day. I only do it five days a week. I only do Monday to Friday when I'm at work. Right? So what's my point of view and experience here? Got to embrace that, some new ways to engage an audience.   How do I differentiate myself from my rivals? Try something new and stop if it doesn't work. So these are some ideas for you on how to control your image, your message, your content to hook into the client's mindset before they meet you. So you're crafting their expectations about who you are and what they can do with you before you even meet them. Now, I don't know everything about digital marketing. This is only what I've done myself and I'm sure there are many things I can improve which I don't even know about. So if you see something tonight and you say, what are you doing, you idiot? You should be using this and you should be doing that and don't you know about this? Tell me, because I'm still educating myself about this stuff. I'm a boomer, but in here, I'm still nineteen. So with that, I'd like to invite you, who has the first question? Thank you.  

In a week when many Chinese markets are out for the celebration of the year of the dragon, earnings begin to tail off from the recent flurry. There are still some areas of interest as UK banks begin to surface, beginning with NatWest on Friday. This will be followed by HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds Banking the following week. In the US there are still some all-sessions stocks to watch including Q4 earnings from Coca-Cola, AirBnB and Lyft, interestingly, all on Tuesday. Economic data from both the consumer and business on confidence, could provide some further downside for the beleaguered Australian dollar. In the UK, by the end of the week we'll have a pretty good idea if the Bank of England will cut rates at its next meeting on 21 March. There's jobs data, consumer prices, producer prices, retail prices, GDP and retail sales. Retail sales also appears in the US along with Q4 GDP.

Latest industry data shows India surpassing Japan to become world's third largest auto market.Link to the featured video: https://youtu.be/JA0ZKqrC0K0Grab a copy of my book: https://partsmanagerpro.gumroad.com/l/qtqax "The Parts Manager Guide" - https://www.amazon.com/Parts-Manager-Guide-Strategies-Maximize-ebook/dp/B09S23HQ1P/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3UZYOGZJUNJ9K&keywords=parts+manager+guide&qid=1644443157&sprefix=parts+manager+guid%2Caps%2C244&sr=8-4Please remember to like, share and leave your comments.Videos are uploaded weekly.Visit my website for more! https://www.partsmanagerprof.com/For the full video you can find it here on my YouTube channel: India Surpasses Japan To Become World's Third Largest Auto Market in Record Sales If you want me to continue making videos like these, please donate to our paypal account: paypal.me/partsmanagerproFair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS* This video is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Here is a simple question – are you only working on the highest value items, that only you can do?  Some things you can and should delegate but there are others that need your exclusive, personal touch.  Isn't that what leaders should be doing with their time.  If that is not the case, then please take note of some efficiency ideas from today's show. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The proportion of children with allergies or dental problems is more than ten times higher in families on welfare than in those not receiving benefits.  The Tokyo university study identified factors such as stress, house dust and lack of supervision.  In households on welfare, thirty one percent of boys aged five to nine suffered from asthma, ten times higher than the norm.  In other news, part-time University lecturers with Ph.D.s are part of the working poor.  They get paid a very low amount for lectures, get no pay during holiday periods and don't get remunerated for preparing classes or marking essays. Tenured tracks are reducing but those entering the pipeline are increasing.  In two thousand and eighteen the number of Phds was fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty eight compared to only five thousand five hundred and seventy six in nineteen weighty nine.  The number of PHD doing part time work went up six fold from fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty eight in nineteen eighty nine, to ninety three thousand one hundred and forty five in two thousand and sixteen. Finally, one in seven Japanese children live in relative poverty.  The child poverty rate in Japan tops all of the OECD countries.  In single parent households, it is fifty percent.  Among households on welfare the ratio of children advancing to universities and vocational training was thirty five percent less than half the average of seventy three percent. This is episode number  ninety-nine and we are talking about How To Finally Get Your Act Together     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. “The first thing is to make sure you are in the moment” says sixteen time tennis Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic.  “That is much easier to say than to do.  You have to exclude all distractions and focus on what you are about to do.  In order to get into that state of concentration, you need to have a lot of experience, and a lot of mental strength. You are not born with that.  It is something you have to build by yourself”.     Leaders are busy people and it is difficult to find time during the day to be “in the moment”. Phones ring, email floods in without mercy, staff want a piece of you, meetings suck the life force out of your day, business social media beckons with its siren song of “look at me, look at me”, imminent deadlines loom.  Consequently, you often look back on the day and are bewildered as to where the time went and become frustrated with how little actually got done.    Excluding distractions and focusing on what you need to be doing are learnt skills.  It is astonishing to me how few leaders plan their day.  When I am teaching leadership to senior leaders and we get to the time management bit, I ask who plans their day – written down and prioritised?  On average I would be lucky to get 10% of the participants raising their hands.  When I clarify that they are writing it down in some form of numbered order, a few sheepishly lower their hands.   Are they lacking the mental strength to be able to organize themselves?  I don't think that is the issue.  It seems to be a general lack of ability to self-organise their day.  The first barrier is philosophical – “I don't want to be locked into a schedule, because mine changes so much throughout the day, there is no point setting priorities which will keep changing”.   There is a breakthrough technology for that called the pencil.  If your priorities change, then change the order by re-writing to list. “I can't be bothered doing that burdensome task”.  Well if that erase and re-write construct is too much for you, then we have to wonder why you are being put in charge of people and budgets in the first place.   The reality is the basic order of priorities will only ever change a few times a day and not every day, so the alteration of the order is no big deal, so get over it.  The power of setting priorities, in order, is that you can concentrate on the highest value components of your work.  When I was at University, I remember one of the professors showing me a cartoon about the difficulties of sitting down and writing. The ironing, the cleaning, the lawn mowing all were given a higher priority, because the writer was afraid to start and looked for escape routes.  We do that in leadership – we procrastinate on projects and tasks we should be doing.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome back The golden rule of leadership time management is “we can't do everything, but we can do the most important things”.  The most high value tasks are those that only we can do – they are not things we can delegate.  The key is to concentrate our mental energy to be “in the moment” to complete those highest value tasks without being distracted or hindered.  Therefore time must be allocated for the highest value tasks that we have nominated ahead of all the other many tasks.  The latter are the lower value tasks, which is where those without a prioritised list, spend the majority of their working lives and are left wondering why they can't get enough done.   To allocate the time required for the highest value tasks, we need to create block time.  This is cordoned off time, no distractions time, no meetings time, no calls or emails time.  We seize the highest priority work to be done and we throw everything we have at it, uninterrupted and unapologetically. Allocate time in our diaries for block time by diarising a meeting with ourselves that is set in stone. If we don't do that we will never be able to marshal the time we need for the highest value projects we need to be working on.   We also need to create block time for thinking.  We can get very tied up in our businesses, busy, busy, busy working in them.  We should also allocate time to for working on them as well.  That means getting away from the everyday routine and taking a step back.  We need that thinking time to let ideas emerge, percolate and galvanise.  What should I be doing more of?  What should I be doing less of?  What can I add in to the business?  What can I take out?  Time spent pondering these ponderable will be some of the most valuable time you spend at work.  You don't do it now or do enough of it, because you are not allocating the time.  The weeds have seized you and you must break free.   Leaders, let's stop kidding ourselves - all we have is time and how we spend it determines all. Let's take back our control and rise above the noise, to work at the most peak level of effectiveness possible.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode  we are talking about. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

In this modern day and age a salesperson just swanning into a meeting and asking the client really basic information about their company is completely incomprehensible. It is basic laziness and unprofessionalism.  It is winging it when there is no need.  There is so much readily available information on businesses and the individuals running them today it is incredible.  It is about time salespeople started using it.  Find out how they should be doing that very shortly. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint was hacked to the tune of three point five billion yen or thirty three million dollars.  Remixpoint the owner of the exchange said two point five billion yen or roughly 24 million dollars belonged to customers.  Ouch.  In other news, Japan recycles eighty four percent of the plastic it collects, one of the highest rates in the world.  This sounds good but the figures are misleading.  Of the plastic recycled only twenty three percent is turned into new plastic, four percent is chemically recycled into its constituent parts.  The vast majority, all the remainder, is burned. Other countries don't count burning as recycling.  Finally, convenience store giant Seven and I had their new mobile payment system using barcodes and QR codes hacked and customers were defrauded through unauthorized access.    Eight hundred and eight customers using the cashless payment system lost thirty eight million yen or three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.  One month after its all dancing all singing debut, the system has been entirely scrapped. This is episode number ninety eight and we are talking about  Stop Being Hopeless In Client Meetings     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Salespeople are very busy, rushing around finding new clients, developing leads, networking, cold calling, attending client meetings, getting stuck into preparing proposals and later executing the follow through on what has been promised.  Somewhere in this process some key basics start to go missing.  One of those basics is the proper preparation for client meetings.   This is rather ironic because we salespeople have never had it so good.  In this modern age we have so much information available to us just a few clicks away.  Listed client companies very conveniently include their financial details, strategies, corporate officer information, etc., in their annual reports on their web sites.    Invariably, we will see a modern besuited business Titan posing in the plush corporate corner office. In addition to the PR division's photographic efforts, there will be a substantial article or interview with the CEO, outlining the way forward for the company.  The key organisation goals and milestones are on display for all to see.   A few minutes finding this information and reading it will give the salesperson a very clear idea of the key business drivers for the company's strategy.  The financial section will also tell us how the entity is tracking against it's declared goals.  It may even get down to a breakdown at the divisional or country level, which is pure gold to someone about to meet a decision-maker from that firm.    Being able to tie what you sell to the goals they have set for themselves instantly makes the context relevant and places the discussion on the right basis.  Talking about your contribution to their ROI is of great interest to someone in that company, who has responsibility to deliver the goals established by senior management.  So rather than talking about what you want – to sell something – the discussion is better focused around how you can help them achieve their goals.   How many salespeople though bother to do this prior to calling on the client?  Not enough! If we turn up to their office and say, “Tell me about your business?”, this speaks volumes about our lack of research on the company beforehand.  It would be much better to ask a question that relates to the goals which have been set within the company.  We should be looking for some context where we can show how helpful we can be, in solving their local issues preventing them from satisfying their corporate goals.   We should be coming into that meeting talking about the most relevant issues facing the team we are meeting.  We might say:   “I notice that your company President has made it a clear goal to grow the business by 12% over this next year.  Given the current business climate, that sounds pretty tough.  Is that also the commitment you need to deliver from the Japan business?”   This is a great question because we have indicated we have done our homework on the firm, we are aware of their goals and we are empathetic. We are also checking if the local business has the same issues or not.  If they answer that the local unit has to grow by 30%, then that sets us up for a very interesting conversation about how they are going to achieve that and why their local goal is so much larger.   We want to capture the scale of the gap between their current performance and their required performance, plus their chances of bridging that gap without our help.  If we find out the opportunity to grow 30% in Japan is a snap, because business conditions here are so much better than everywhere else for them, we may have a hard time showing where we can be helpful. Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome back On the other hand if they are really suffering from having such a large target, then perhaps we may be the solution and they will be all ears to hear how we can help.  We could ask them “how is business?” and they may or may not choose to enlighten us to their reality.  Remember, everyone loves to buy but no one wants to be sold.  So the less you have to tell salespeople anything, the less likely you will be sold anything.    If we are able to lead the conversation into a deeper stage quickly, the more likely we are to find out if we have a new client here or not. This should be our goal and we should be using the best resources available to us to achieve our goal.   Apart from the information on the firm, there is also information we will find on the individuals we will meet from the firm.  They will probably have a Google, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube presence.  A quick search on their name will turn up useful background information, which may allow us to draw out some connections we share in common.  If you both studied at the same university or previously both worked in the same industry or lived in the same location (state or town) or have the same hobbies, these are speedy connectors between two total strangers.   In sales, we need our buyers to know, like and trust us. The like and trust parts are the difficult bits, especially at the initial stages of the relationship. Sharing things in common is a great way to quickly establish credibility and a relationship.    Let's take my example.  I am a proud Queenslander, grew up in Brisbane, I support the Brisbane Broncos and Origin rugby teams, studied Modern Asian Studies at Griffith University and I practice karate.  There are a wealth of speedy connectors right there.  You can find all of this out about me on-line in about five minutes.    Start our meeting by commenting on how well Queensland has been doing in the Origin rugby and you and I are off to a great start! It means you know about the rabid Queensland versus New South Wales State rivalry in rugby and how important it is to native Queenslanders like me to win.   I am a buyer of goods and services here in Japan.  Over the last twenty 25 years here, not one salesperson has tried to connect with me through knowing some common connectors. Given what is out there now in the public domain, there is no excuse for salespeople calling on me, particularly over the last ten years, to not try to connect in this way.   It is the same for most people we meet.  We can get the relationship off to a flying start, if we bother to invest the time to find out their key details.  Yes, we are all very busy but that is not a sufficient excuse. We salespeople are simply not doing a good enough job to use the tools at our command today.  It is crazy when you think about it.  Trying to build a connection and establish a positive first impression has to be every salesperson's goal when meeting new clients for the first time.    Yes there are unlisted companies and yes, not so many Japanese business people use LinkedIn as yet.  However, there are plenty of companies though who are listed and plenty of Japanese people on Facebook etc., so we should make the effort to do our homework on the client before we meet.  In this Internet age there really are no excuses.   One of the other tricky bits about Japan is the group dynamic of decision-making.  We may not know beforehand precisely who will be in the room.  Often there will be extra people who turn up and so we won't be able to research them prior to the meeting.  However, after the meeting we can try to find out something about them that might enable us to establish a relationship.  If they support a particular interest, we might send them an article on that subject.    If they like a certain sport or activity we might arrange tickets as our guest.  However, I am a bit conservative regarding individual gift giving in Japan.  There are often corporate compliance restraints on entertainment and gift giving which we should be aware of.  We don't want our efforts to cause them any embarrassment or trouble.  On the other hand, we could bring something to eat to be shared with the whole team and that is usually acceptable.  Japan, fortunately has an amazing selection of these types of goodies for just such an occasion.   This is the age of readily available and free information. We need to differentiate ourselves from every other salesperson out there. A simple way to do that is to spend some time researching the company and the individuals.  When we have these insights we ask better designed questions, we uncover more key information more quickly and we provide great context for our conversation with the buyer.   Action Steps   Go on-line and read through the corporate annual report Use social media to find out about the person we are going to meet Use search tools like Yahoo and Google to see what we can know prior to the appointment If new people turn up to the meeting, do a search on them and see if there are ways we can connect with them. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode ninety nine we are talking about How To Finally Get Your Act Together. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Academic studies of business are important sources of case studies, theories and new research.  All great stuff.  Some areas though are definitely behind the times and that is in the area of imparting information to an audience.  The bleeding of the executive summary from the written document, into the way business conducts meetings is a guaranteed formula for tears before bedtime.   Find out why very shortly   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Japan has been concerned about having too many of its eggs in the Tokyo basket.  There has been a move to relocate central govern offices out of Tokyo, revamping universities outside the capital area and government grants have been extended to promote local industries in rural areas to attract companies to move their headquarters out of Tokyo.  This has pretty much been a total failure. In fact Tokyo's population grew by one hundred and forty thousand last year.  The number of firms who have taken advantage of tax incentives to move their headquarters out of Tokyo has been insignificant. Only the Cultural Affairs agency is moving to Kyoto.  Despite all the rhetoric, all the rest of the bureaucracy is staying put.  In other news, a Health Ministry survey in two thousand and fourteen counted one point one million workers  who considered themselves depressed.  This was up from four hundred thousand in nineteen ninety nine.  More recent surveys pin about ten percent of the people in companies as suffering form depression.  Finally, of the one thousand five hundred foreign detainees who were held in prison as of june last year, six hundred and four were asylum seekers. The number of asylum seekers accepted into japan was just forty two.  There were ten thousand four hundred and ninety three applications for asylum. This is episode number  ninety six and we are talking about  Ignore your Business School Advice     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Avoid this advice at all costs, “State your conclusion first and then explain the reasoning behind it”. I am sure many have heard this dubious gem about how to persuade live business audiences.  It is well intentioned but atrocious advice. Driving this effort are the dual objectives of clarity and brevity.  Admirable outcomes for any business meeting.  However, if you actually want to dissuade people concisely and quickly, then go for it.    The “conclusion first” advice is a natural reaction to lengthy diatribes, wandering aimlessly around business subjects, driving bosses crazy.  The senior leadership are thinking, “I wish they would get to the point”. So the standard advice is state your conclusion up front and then add the evidence.  The written word though is different, but here we are talking about oral business presentations.   “Conclusion first” sounds quite logical and reasonable, except it doesn't work very well when it comes to persuading an audience.  If you are just imparting information then it is probably fine, but if you are seeking agreement on a course of action, then expect low rates of success.   If we put up our action recommendation, before the evidence, we are asking for trouble.   When there is no context, the audience cannot judge fairly.  Your bold, naked conclusion instantly comes under silent assault from a room full of armchair critics and skeptics.  They now tune you out.  They are totally focused on why what you just said is rubbish and won't work. This, by the way,  is when they are supposed to be absorbing your rationale.  Instead, they are no longer listening to you and are concentrating solely on negatives.   The Japanese language, like some others,  gives us a good clue on fixing this problem.  The verb is at the end of the sentence and so while we are absorbing content, we don't know if the sentence is describing something in the past, present or future.  We also have no idea if it is positive or negative.  This prevents the listener from jumping in and cutting us off.  They have to suspend judgment about the content. This enables us to explain the reasoning, then bring up our recommendation rather than the other way around.   Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome backStart with evidence, proof, facts, data, expert opinion but wrap it up in a short story. This story should have a few defining guideposts – time, place, people and emotion.  We try to capture our audience's attention by helping them to see the scene in their mind's eye.    For example, “I caught up with our client CEO Ben Smith in Tokyo after Thanksgiving.  We were meeting in their wood paneled boardroom, on the 46thfloor of their office in Toranomon Hills, listening to feedback on the programme and I was getting nervous”.  That introduction takes about ten seconds.  No one is going to stop us and say, “Greg, will you get to the point”. We have mentally pulled them into the story, taking them to a place they either already know or can easily imagine. They can visualise the people and the scene.  They are also hooked by curiosity – why was I getting nervous, what happened next, etc?    We now have their complete attention, as we explain the problem or issue at hand.  We bring in strong evidence with context.  We provide our experience, our rationale, our logic and reasoning inside the story.  We next state the action step we recommend.  This is done in one brief sentence and we immediately tag on the benefit of taking the action. The chances are high that the listeners, hearing the facts and context we have introduced, will jump right ahead of us. They will race to the same conclusion we have reached, before we even have a chance to articulate it.    Better to bridge to your conclusion, while others are already mentally agreeing with it, than having to fight a rearguard action from the start.  This approach allows us to more easily persuade others to take the action we are proposing.  This is the real world of business not varsity.  Try and it and enjoy the results. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode ninety seven  we are talking about Typical Technical Presenter Big Mistakes. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

How is it possible that a salesman who can barely see over the counter become the top salesman in his company?  We all think we have our problems but compared to Toshiya Kakiuchi we have nothing to complain about.  With his limitations, he succeeded in sales, so if he can do it then what is our excuse? Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The Bank of japan has forecast that nearly sixty percent of Japan's regional banks will suffer net losses ten years from now.  They are facing a dwindling client base brought on by accelerating population decline in many regions across Japan and the tightening profitability of their businesses.  The worsening performance of regional banks is bad news for companies and other borrowers that sustain regional economies.  Mergers will help to some extent but this won't fix their profitability problems. In the April-December period in two thousand and eighteen more than eighty percent of the seventy nine regional banks listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and other markets posted either reduced profits or losses.  In other news, according to a recent survey by En-Japan Inc, close to forty percent of employers feel they have low retention rates for regular employees hired in the middle of their careers.  Companies said that nineteen point two percent of midcareer hires were likely to quit between six months and a year after being hired.  Another five point eight percent left in less than a month. One in three forms said a midcareer hire was prone to quitting in less than six months.  Finally, The number of children in japan fell by a third during the Heisei period running from nineteen eight nine until this May. The number aged under fifteen was estimated at fifteen point three three million, as of april this year, down one hundred and eighty thousand from a year ago.   This is episode number eighty six and we are talking about The One Hundred and Six Centimeter Salesman     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.Salespeople are world class whiners. They are the most creative group amongst all professions for coming up with excuses about why they can't meet their targets.  The sale's life requires a constant stream of new buyers. Marketing is permanently inhabited with ne'er-do-wells, who are sabotaging the sales department's efforts with underdone campaigns and inept promotions.  When the leads are few and far between, desperate measures are called for and the chief villain of the piece is cold calling.  Everyone will assure you that you can't cold call in Japan.   Salespeople everywhere are delicate blossoms.  They get a rocket from their boss about their poor results and try to cold call potential clients over the phone.  They get total, irreversible rejection and quit phoning after the third call.  There is a variety of cold calling which is even more debilitating and that is tobikomi eigyo(飛び込み営業).  You have probably seen some seriously stressed out younger person in your reception hall of your office, hanging around looking totally out of depth and out of place, getting the bum's rush from the most lowly ranked person on your company's totem pole.  That was a tobikomi eigyo salesperson, someone who just drops by unannounced and devoid of an appointment, always unceremoniously shown the door.   Imagine if you were so short, that the receptionist can't even see you unless she stands up and peers well over the counter.  Or, that the typical unmanned reception phone and organisational chart are at such a height and depth, that you can't even use them. This presumes you can even get into the building, in the first place.   Toshiya Kakiuchi was born with a brittle bone crippling disease that confined him to a wheelchair.  He applied for jobs, found the going tough, then one day a firm which built websites, accepted him as an employee.  He expected to be seated at a desk, building websites in the safe bosom of the office.  His boss told him to head off to the sales department. “You have to get out there and cold call offices door to door, tobikomi eigyostyle, looking for companies who need a website”.   Seated in his wheel chair, he was only 106 centimeters tall, found that most buildings were difficult to access because of vertiginous stairs.  His sales comrades were seeing 40 or 50 companies a day and he was only seeing 5, if he was lucky.  Yet, in a short space of time, he became the top salesperson in that company.       Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backand if you are interested in sales training with dale Carnegie we are running the programs Sales Booster One on November eleventh and Sales Booster Two on August fifth.  More details can be found at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off: After his talk to the Economist Conference Network event, I asked him about how he managed it.  With only a limited number of calls he could make in a day, he had to really make every post a winner.  He found a way to turn his disadvantage into an advantage.  We have tobikomi eigyopeople coming to our office every month, trying to sell us one thing or another.  Like everyone else, we send forth the lowest person in the chain of command to shoo them away (nicely of course, because we are Dale Carnegie!).  Do we remember any of them 30 seconds after they have moved on to the next company's reception area?  No.  Kakiuchi san, though, is definitely memorable, distinct, differentiated. You are not going to forget him turning up to you office.  He told me that he had to just keep going back again and again. Eventually he would get to talk to a decision-maker who could buy and they did buy.   So, for all those able bodied salespeople out there whining in their suds about how tough sales is, stop it right now – you have nothing to complain about.  Kakiuchi san found a way through by differentiating himself, by having grit and stick-ability to keep going back despite being constantly rejected.  He was physically weak but mentally tough.   Today he runs his own company Mirairo that researches, designs and consults on the needs of the disabled.  He has produced an app called Bmaps that tells the disabled where there are stairs, elevators, physical barriers on their route to their destination. His book Barrier Value (バリアバリュー) tells his story of how he overcome his challenges.  With our aging population demographics, we will all be needing his company's services in the future, as our hips and knees weaken and those stairs are looking like Everest.   So salespeople, don't complain about cold calling.  Read Kakiuchi san's book and reflect on how lucky you are, with so much sales opportunities right in front of you. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty seven we are talking about HOW TO NOT WIN FRIENDS AND NOT INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Very few business presenters are able to really engage their audience. They are speaking at them rather with them. In today's show we will deal with how to turn that situation right around and become a presenter who has the audience eating out of the palm of your hand.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. There have been some changes in the way higher education is being funded in japan.  Government spending on education in japan represents one point seven percent of  public spending compared to the OECD average of three percent.  Tertiary educational institutions in japan rely heavily on private funding at sixty eight percent, more than twice the OECD average of thirty percent.  The amount of financial support provided by families as a percentage of income of university students has declined from seventy six percent in nineteen ninety six to sixty percent in two thousand and sixteen.  During the same period the percentage of student loans increased from six percent to twenty percent.  In other news, the Japanese government is encouraging firms to keep employing workers up to the age of seventy, to help ease the manpower shortage and ease the pressure on the pension system brought on by the twin factors of an aging and also declining  population. The number of sixty five or older workers was eight point six two million or twelve percent of the sixty six point six four million people, fifteen or older who are working.  Today twenty four point three percent of senior citizens have jobs.  The pool of workers in the fifteen to sixty four age group has dropped five million since two thousand and twelve to seventy five million today.  Finally, the Japanese domestic market for internet shopping has grown steadily at an annual rate of ten percent according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.  In two thousand and seventeen, Japan's on-line shopping market reached sixteen point five trillion yen or one hundred and fifty four billion dollars. This accounts for five point seven nine percent of total household spending..  The ratio in Britain, China and The US has already passed ten percent so Japan can expect to double in size over the next few years. This is episode number Ninety Four and we are talking about  The four hundred face presentation     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Can we be successful as a presenter if we don't connect with our audience?  Many presenters believe this simply is not needed.  This connecting lark is rather fluffy and irrelevant for them because the content is king.  The delivery is a sideshow, a trifle, a distraction from the main game.  Solid high value information, backed up with verifiable data is the mother lode.  Actually that is not true.   Solid, verifiable data delivered in a monotone, presented looking down to the reams of notes on the podium, in a disinterested manner is a communication killer.  No matter how good the "goods" are, it is not much help if no one if getting your message.  Why aren't they getting it?   They are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Line instead.  We cannot be so arrogant as to imagine our content can carry the day in this age of distraction.  The younger generation are going to be the future business audience from Hell. They are growing up totally distracted all the time, with the concentration span of a dazed gnat.  They have an addiction to being in touch with each other all the time and are unapologetically reaching for their escape vehicle - their phone - in a heartbeat.   If you are looking down at your note when speaking then the most valuable data is being withheld from you.  Watch your audience like a hawk.  If you see them disappear under the desk scrolling with their device, then you can kiss your message goodbye.  Look them right in the eye.  And do it for six seconds.  Why six?  Less is not giving us time enough to connect and any longer becomes intrusive - we start giving them sunburn from our intensity.   So the maths on that calculation are pretty simple.  Six seconds means ten people per minute.  A 40 minute speech means we are constantly using our eye contact to connect with 400 faces.  Some will be the same faces, depending on the size of the audience.  In a large audience, we may think we cannot connect with everyone but we can.  Those seated far from us will imagine we are looking at them.  The actual person we are looking at and the twenty people sitting around them, all believe we are talking directly to them.  Our object should be to speak one-on-one to every single person in that audience.   But Greg, in Japan, we don't make eye contact.  Not true.  In a typical business meeting, continuous eye contact will be burn out the retinas of our Japanese counterparts, so we have to learn how to turn the eye contact on and off.  A presentation is not the same thing though.  This is a different role for us and we need to play the bigger game of being persuasive. To do so means we have to bring our full armory to the cause, to battle listener distraction and escape attempts.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backHow would you like to become a dynamite presenter?  Sounds good doesn't it, well here is the answer – the High Impact Presentation Course.  Two days, two instructors, every thing video reviewed, massive individual coaching – this is the Rolls Royce of presentation training.  The next programme in Japanese will run on November thirteen and fourteen. In English we may have another programme scheduled for November but that is not yet decided.  We certainly will have one in English on February fourth and fifth next year.  Details can be found at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Divide the audience up into six sectors, depending on the size. A smaller audience might become just three sectors.  The point is to ensure we visually rove across the audience and speak to every single person, no matter where they are seated.  We are not looking at the projection screen, our laptop monitor, the back wall, the front row or only one side of the room.  We are circulating in a random fashion around the audience, trying to draw them into the web of our message.   We have in our mind those 400 faces we have to connect with, before our time is up.  When we do this, the members of the audience feel more closely connected to us.  They feel as if they are being spoken to directly and they feel flattered with the attention.   We can read their faces for reaction to what we are saying.  This allows us to respond by varying our delivery, by using voice tone, questions and silence to keep them in the room with us.   If we have their attention then we have a chance of getting our message across.  Even if they cannot remember all that we say, they will never forget us.  Getting both would be a wonderful result, getting one is better than being totally forgettable like most speakers.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget that the next High Impact Presentations programme in Japanese will run on November thirteen and fourteen.  In English we may have another programme scheduled for November but that is not yet decided.  We certainly will have one in English on February fourth and fifth next year. Details can be found at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com   In episode  Ninety Five we are talking aboutWinning Sales Follow Through. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Sadly not everyone is like us.  At time, we have to deal with people who are quite rude or aggressive.  This usually triggers an escalation of tensions and problems arise and smolder away under the surface, until the next eruption occurs. How can we stop this vicious cycle of downward spiraling emotions?  That is what we will deal with today. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Japan is a crazy place. A pair of hybrid melons from the City of Yubari in Hokkaido fetched a record price of five million yen or forty six thousand dollars at the start of the season.  The melons usually sell for between four thousand yen and ten thousand yen and are given away as seasonal gifts.  In other news, Japan was the world's top investor in two thousand and eighteen.  This is the twenty eight consecutive year that Japan has been number one.  The net balance of assets held by the Japanese government, companies and individual investors stood at three hundred and forty one point five six trillion yen or three point eleven trillion dollars. Germany was second at two hundred and sixty trillion yen and China at Two hundred and thirty six trillion. Direct investment in the USA by Japan was a record high of fifty five point six three trillion yen or five hundred and nineteen billion dollars.  Japan's total overseas investments was also up by zero point five percent to reach one thousand and eighteen trillion yen or nine point three two trillion dollars, rising for the tenth straight year.  Finally, the government is going to legislate to reduce food waste.  Major convenience store operators Seven eleven and Lawson will start discounting rice balls and lunch boxes that are close to their expiry dates, by offering customers enrolled in their loyalty campaigns special shopping credits worth five percent of the value of purchases. The Japanese government said there was six point four three million tons of waste in two thousand and sixteen and half of that came from the commercial sector. This is episode number Ninety three and we are talking about How to Deal with The difficult     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. You know you are not perfect, but some of those around you are a real pain to deal with.  Why are they so difficult to get on with? Who knows, but the easiest way forward is to reduce the stress to a minimum by avoiding them or minimizing any interactions.   I mean, come on, putting up with these people is exhausting and just wastes a lot of valuable time.   That may be true, but in fact unresolved conflicts, miscommunication and diminished information exchange, leads to even greater time wastage, morale hits and the bottom line of lost productivity.  If your rivals are dealing better with these internal issues than you are, in the end, their team will win in the marketplace.   One of the conundrums is defining “difficult”.  It varies so much between individuals and from situation to situation. Nevertheless, we can all recognize trouble immediately when we see it.  Can we control other people, especially those we deem difficult?  Good luck on that one!  We can however control ourselves in any situation or relationship. A bit of self-reflection will help to flush out our perceptions, biases, attitudes, behaviours, feelings and communication style that might be fueling conflict.   Past situation analysis is a handy tool to plumb the depths of our unhappiness with others.  Reflect on a situation where you didn't handle the difficult person well and things rapidly deteriorated.   What was the trigger point for you or them?  What was the outcome after the confrontation?  Is it possible you contributed to the explosion of emotions?  What was the biggest lesson you came away with from this meltdown?  Additionally, have there been any situations where you did pretty well handing a difficult colleague?  What worked, what was the outcome and what did you learn as a result?   A handy helper in the tool box of dealing with the difficult is “the benefit of the doubt”.  This means suspending the attractive beliefs that you are right, they are wrong, you are perfect and they are an idiot. Before allowing the chemical reaction in the body to take over and go into fight or flight mode, mentally just hit the pause button for 6 seconds.    What do you know about this person that might be triggering their behavior that you find upsetting or at the least plain annoying?  Is there some historical context operating here around they way they were raised, the life experiences they have had and the influences they have absorbed?  Is this a communication issue because neither of you are a native speaker of the same language?  Keep the pause button on hold for another 6 seconds and think if there is some situational context in play here.  Have they scratched the duco on their new car that morning, had a fight with their partner at home, just been royally chewed out by their boss, etc?   Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome backIf you really want to learn how to do better with people, then the Dale Carnegie Course is a wonderful programme to help you do just that.  This is a twelve week programme that improves communication, leadership and people skills.  The next Japanese language programme will start on September 18th.  There is also a three day Immersion version available starting on August 22nd. The next twelve week programe in English will commence on September 26th. Details can be found at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com  Back to the show. When we take a breath and pause, we can have better control over how we react to them, rather than letting the chemical surge take over.  There are some useful human relations principles we can apply to move us into a positive mental framework.  Instead of telling others what they need to do to fly straight, we can swap in some questions instead.  What led them to reach that conclusion?  What experience has led them to believe their idea is the best solution?  The hard bit is biting our tongue after we have asked the question, so that we don't cut them off and jump in with our own shiny insight.  Instead, hear them out and ask follow up questions.  This now allows us to better understand what is driving the disagreement or their behavior.    Letting them save face is a handy idea.  Our egos can lock us into positions we don't fully hold, because we don't want to be seen to be backing down.  We can take the ego bit out of the equation by how we communicate during the interaction. Being polite, reasonable and open goes a long way to reaching a resolution.    We might even disarm them with praise and honest appreciation for raising their countervailing views with us.  When they know there is likely to be a disagreement, they mentally gear up for battle. By not providing a target there is no battle.  We could thank them for being forthright and candid.  We might mention some mistakes we have made in the past and how we have resolved to do a better job of educating ourselves and thank them for widening our range of viewpoints.  There is nothing more disconcerting than trying to argue with someone who doesn't argue back, but instead praises you.   Hard core difficult types may still try to get a rise out of us, because they need to have a fight, but let's not fall for that one.  Instead get them talking about the way they came to their conclusion and where they have seen this work well in the past.  Smiling silence is our best defence, as we get them to do the talking.    Difficult people are only difficult if we allow them to annoy us.  When we take the high road, they often just run out of gas because we are not supplying the fuel for the fight.  This is the verbal aikido approach of not confronting or resisting attacks, but re-directing the energy along a path of our own choosing.  Superior human relations skills are a powerful ally in dealing with the difficult, but they need practice and discipline.    Try using these ideas and life will get a whole lot easier! THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. Remember the next Dale Carnegie Course Japanese language programme will start on September 18th.  The three day Immersion version is available starting on August 22nd. The next twelve week programe in English will commence on September 26th. Details can be found at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com In episode  Ninety Four we are talking about the Four Hundred Face Presentation Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Sales is a tough gig.  Monthly, Quarterly, Annual quotas dog us every day.  The pressure is unrelenting.  When you have a good year what happens?  The targets go up even higher.  In fact, the end of the year is a bit fuzzy as we wait for the final results to be tallied. We often don't know exactly where we finished.  What we do know though is that we are back to zero and we have to start again.  Today we look at some antidotes to the annual back to zero blues. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Japan's fathers are spending more time with their kids but how do you think about these numbers compared to you own experience?  In a recent Bornelund Inc survey of fathers with kindergarten or nursery school children forty two point two of respondents said that fathers play with their children two to three days a week.  Fourteen point eight percent play with their kids four to five days a week.  Twenty four point two percent play every day. The survey also found that sixty percent of mothers weren't satisfied with how much their husbands played with the children, with eighty percent saying the fathers preferred to spend the tine on their smart phones.  In other news, Japanese consumers are pretty picky.  McDonalds was fined by the Consumer Affairs agency for false advertising. The consumers complained because the beef patties in the Tokyo Roast Beef Muffins was made from moulded beef rather than sliced beef as shown in the ads.  Finally, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry one out of every seven Japanese sixty five or older is estimated to suffer from dementia. That represented five point two million people in two thousand and fifteen. And this number is expected to grow to seven million by twenty twenty five.  That will make it one out of every five seniors.  I am already in that age group now, so that's a worry.  This is episode number ninety two and we are talking about It's a New sales Year And you Are Back to Zero     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Sisyphus was banished to Hades for misdeeds in life and spent eternity rolling a large stone to the top of a hill, to just watch it descend again.  This is the sales life.  Every end of financial year, we are back down at the bottom of the hill. Here we go again, having to push that big rock all the way to the top.   “You are only good as your last deal” is a common refrain in sales.  We struggle all year to make our targets and then we go back to zero revenues and start rolling those massive KPI rocks up the hill once more.   Most salespeople struggle to make their targets and the targets are always being raised.  The effort to get deals over the line before the cut off, leaves us in a disheveled heap. We go to bed one night utterly exhausted, only to arise the next morning to face an even bigger rock.  We are already tired, so how do we motivate ourselves to get in the game again?   Maybe we made your target or maybe we didn't.  It doesn't matter because we are in a new financial year now so we have to start again. So the first thing is to not worry about the past.  Draw lessons from it, but don't allow yesterday's worry to intimidate today's attitude.   Fill our mind with thoughts of peace, courage, health and hope.  We cannot tolerate a vacuum in our minds, so either the good stuff goes in or we allow the bad stuff to disable us.  We should not dwell on the negatives, but concentrate on solution finding for client problems.    Oh no!  Our biggest client won't be buying this year and that is going to leave a massive hole in our numbers.  Don't moan about it.  Start work on finding new wonderful clients to replace the lost one.  Get on to positive momentum to carry you forward.  You have your health and that is critical in sales. It is a stressful occupation, an emotional rollercoaster that can quickly spin out of control.  Make sure you maintain your health by adjusting what you eat and drink.  We all know what we are supposed to do, we just don't do it.  Well, this year do it!   Expect ingratitude. This way, bad news and bad behavior never catch you mentally unprepared.  Your client chooses your competitor and not you, despite the close relationship you have together.  You feel like you are dealing with an unfaithful spouse and are burning up with rage. If you assume ingratitude is the usual state of the world, then you just brush it off and move forward.  That good client of yours will be back at some point, so don't blow the relationship for the sake of one deal gone missing.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backYou might like some information on our sales booster One and Sales booster two programmes.  These are modular programs so they can be done in any order.  Sales Booster One covers the building of trust with the buyer, designing excellent questions to uncover needs and then presenting the absolute best fit solution for the buyer. This will next run on November 11th. In Sales Booster Two we look at how to handle pushback, objections, hesitations and doubt.  We also look at how to ask for the sale without coming across as a pushy salesperson.  The next programme will be on August 5th.  Details can be found on our web site at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com  Back to the show Count your blessings not your troubles.  You are focused on the hill and the rock but not your strengths.  You have experience, contacts, track record and a good reputation in the marketplace.  You are a professional, who always has the client's interests as your first priority. You practice your craft and you study to improve even further.  There are always more potential clients than time available to service them, so there is no lack of potential.  Your competitors are not studying, and don't have the client's interests at heart. This gives you an advantage over the long term, as they just flame out and disappear.   Try to profit from your losses.  Not every post is a winner despite your best efforts.  Analyse what went wrong.  Don't be afraid to ask the client for feedback.  Our experience is the sum of our failures.  We learn what does work by finding out what doesn't work.  In the startup world they have the mantra of “fail faster”.  This is an old idea.  Edison applied this same concept to discovering which materials would bridge the gap in his electric bulb.    Create happiness for others. Give something back.  Provide advice, volunteer, turn up and help. When we give, we receive much more in return.  Our soul is warmed by the act and our spirit is strengthened.   Don't be overwhelmed by the hill in front of us.  Break it down to centimeters and roll that rock a little a day, every day and we will get to the top.  Okay, we have to start again but that is the fun of the game.  We get to play again and see what we can do this year.  See which wonderful new clients we can help. See what creative solutions we can generate.  We are an awesomely powerful learning machine and the game is our university of life.     Action Steps Don't worry about the past Fill your mind with thoughts of peace, courage, health and hope Expect ingratitude Count your blessings not your troubles Try to profit from your losses Create happiness for others THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget Sales Booster One on November 11thand Sales Booster Two on August Fifth.  Details at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com   In episode Ninety Three we are talking about. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

The number one request we receive from our participants in our presentations classes is help to make them clear to their audience. You would think that wouldn't be that heard.  Don't worry, plenty of people are seizing defeat from the jaws of victory in this department. Today we will shine some light on what we should be doing to be more clear when presenting.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Cash is still king in japan. Notes and coins in circulation account for twenty percent of the nation's GDP.  This is double the amount in the EU.  Cashless payments are still in their infancy at only twenty percent compared to Korea at ninety percent.  Japan plans to reach forty percent cashless payments by the time it hosts the next Expo event in Osaka in twenty twenty five.  Japan is expensive for credit card costs to merchants.  At an average of three point five percent this is high compared to globally at one point five percent.  Even for QR code systems the rate is three percent.  There are estimated to be three hundred million e-money cards in circulation and over thirty million mobile phones with e-money functions in Japan.  These only account for a few percent of retail payments though.  In other news, last year one in eight young people turning twenty in Tokyo were not born in Japan.  That doesn't count those born in japan, but who are not ethnically Japanese. The Government says there are two point seven three million non-japanese living here.  The Japanese population may be declining, but the number of non-japanese is up six point six percent since two thousand and seventeen.  Finally, if you are thinking of buying a convenience store franchise in Japan to become free of the corporate chains you might want to do some careful research. For example, seven eleven increased its outlets by one thousand every year between two thousand and eleven and two thousand and seventeen.  During the same period, the labour shortage became more severe.  The number of job offer to job seekers went from zero point five six to one point five four. Hourly costs for staff went up from seven hundred and thirty yen per hour to eight hundred and forty eight yen.  The labour shortage and twenty four hour operating rule of the franchisors is forcing owners to work increasingly longer personal hours with no time off.  Seven eleven also asks for between forty percent to seventy five percent of gross profit as its franchise fee. This is episode number ninety one and we are talking about Don't Mystify Me With your Presentation Please     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. he global chief's private jet has landed. We are all assembled in a luxury hotel's gorgeous function room. The big brand name, the resplendent silver mane, the speaker's resume and abundant confidence all speak to a brilliant talk coming up.  After the obligatory networking and chatting with tablemates over lunch, the main event gets underway.  The keynote starts well but gradually we start to lose connection with the speaker's message.  The talk is full of supple subtleties.  The main point becomes fuzzy, distant, unapproachable and impenetrable.  We sit there wondering are we all stupid, because we can't grasp the speaker's nuanced argument or is the speaker simply rambling and incoherent?   Actually, it doesn't matter which of us is stupid, because the talk has failed.  The speaker has not been able to get the message across in a way that resounds with the audience.  Being intellectually brilliant and speaking above your audience is not effective communication. We have to know who is in our audience, their level of understanding of the subject and their capacity to be challenged.  We need to be able to communicate, which means the listeners can understand and follow what we are saying, rather than trying to impress with our own brilliance.   Structure helps to guide the audience through the proceedings. This speech, if it had a structure, it was obscure, vague and puzzling. Consequently the speaker lost the audience. A heavy mist rolled in on this speech after about the first ten minutes and engulfed us all in such a way, that we struggled to follow where this meandering was going.  What was the point being made here?  Where are we going with these stories?  What is the key argument being made?  These are all bad questions for an audience to be asking.  They should never have to wonder because the speaker is clear, coherent and provides direction.   The use of slides on this occasion was minimal. In many cases this is a blessing, but not this one.  We needed some more form to follow the speaker's points.  We were lost. We could have found a path, if there had been some visual guideposts for us.  The slides roll out and pull us along the path of the argument.  Other simple ploys like “there are three key issues” or “the five areas of urgent attention are…” helps to frame the content in a way where we can track it.  These structures help us to relate the current point to those preceding it.      Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backIf you would like to give crystal clear presentations then take a look at doing our High Impact Presentations two day programme running on November thirteenth and fourteenth.  Details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com  Back to the show Maybe a fellow genius, if indeed our speaker was a genius, may have been simpatico with our speaker's intent and understood the thesis. Alas we were just ordinary punters, turned out in the hope of a nice lunch and some enlightenment from this font of knowledge.  Our font this day though was dry and not at all helpful because we couldn't get the point.   As speakers we have to make it easy for our audience to understand us.  If we are going to be clever and tangential, we run the risk of losing people.  If we are fixated on subtlety, we can be too opaque for the troops and they just get lost.  We were all crime scene witnesses to the merciless murder of a major brand that day.  When the big cheese fails like that, we doubt the whole organisation.  Our faith in the firm has completely subsided.  Apart from the damage to the company, the individual's personal brand is shredded, torn and tattered.    The stakes are high when you are a presenter, so mastering the ability to connect with your audience is critical.  Don't over complicate the exercise.  Have a clear structure, be easy to follow as you navigate your way around your talk and pitch it at the right level for your audience. Do that and your personal and professional brands will be enhanced, appreciated and working for you, not against you. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Remember, if you would like to give crystal clear presentations then take a look at doing our High Impact Presentations two day programme running on November thirteenth and fourteenth.  Details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode ninety two we are talking about Every new sales year you are back to zero again. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!  

We are all amateurs when it comes to negotiating.  Very few of us bother to study about it, because it seems removed from our everyday. It is the lore of movies, where tough negotiations are portrayed as gladiatorial encounters.  When we do get into a negotiation, we have no plan and little clue about what we should be doing.  So today, we introduce with some ideas about negotiating to better prepare ourselves for that day when we have to conduct a negotiation in business. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Bank passbooks have been a staple of banking in japan, along with many hour waits for the most mundane of processes.  Major lender MUFG will no longer issue paper passbooks from now to most customers who open new accounts over the counter.  They want us all to move on-0line to help them reduce costs.  The banks have to pay two hundred yen stamp duty annually to the government for every passbook they issue.  Expect the other major banks to follow suit.  In other news, Amazon and major super market chain Life will tie up to sell fresh food on-line.  The target market for this service are the elderly and customers too busy to shop. Amazon is touting delivery times as fast as two hours. Amazon japan expects to be able to expand its product offerings while the supermarket hopes to reach a younger customer demographic and people who live in areas without stores.  Finally, farm damage from bad weather and disasters totaled five hundred and sixty billion yen or over 5 billion dollars last year.  The number is the second highest in the last ten years, after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor meltdown disasters. This is episode number ninety and we are talking about  Negotiating With The Unpleasant     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Sadly, not everyone is like us – wonderful, charming, amusing, attractive.  Despite our best efforts to be a role model of perfection, setting them a good example, others persist in being a major pain.  Here are 12 selective tips on negotiating with the difficult amongst us.   Have a positive attitude Sounds like a motherhood statement but deciding to see the negotiation as a learning experience in the real laboratory of life, as a means to enhance our win-win negotiating skills, changes the starting point of the discussion in our favour.   Meet on mutual ground Try to meet, rather than engage in a protracted email war or discuss complex issues over the phone. Face to face is best and preferably on neutral ground for both of you.  Away from the workspace is often best, such as over coffee or lunch, away from the office.   Clearly define and agree on the issue Sometimes we are arguing about different things under the same banner.  By defining the issue in commonly understood words, we are a long way toward achieving better clarity about what is at stake.  If the issue is a biggy, then break it down into bits that can be dealt with one by one, in concrete detail.   Do your homework Start by taking the other person's case and building the argument from their perspective.  This often opens up gaps in our information or assumptions we are drawing, based on no particular facts.  Decide what is our BATNA – the best alternative to a negotiated agreement or our walk away position.  Also determine what we can accept, what we can live with and what would be an ideal outcome.   Take an honest inventory of yourself Be more self-aware of aspects of your personality  and style which may help or hinder the negotiations.  Nominate your “hot buttons”, which if they get pushed, triggers an explosion inside you and decide not to allow yourself to react that way. Watch your language and tone, as these usually go straight to the default mode in arguing and you probably don't want to go there.   Look for shared interests Conflict has a way of magnifying perceived differences and minimizing similarities, so look for common goals and desired outcomes.  There may be a common objective but the disagreement is often around the best path toward achieving it. Focusing on the common goal and the desired future, keeps the conversation moving forward.   Deal with facts, not emotions In sport we say play the ball not the opponent.  So we should focus on the issue not the messenger.  Maintaining a goal oriented rational approach may be difficult, especially when the ego gets in play, but try and de-personalize the conflict and separate the issues from the personalities involved.  Instead of being defensive, ask clarifying questions that get them talking and you listening.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backIf you would like to get some training on negotiations, we will be holding a one day programme in English on November twenty seventh and in Japanese on December ninth.  Details are on our website enjapan.dalecarnegie.com.  Back to the show. Be honest Be honest and transparent about what is important to you and why.  Clearly state your goals, issues and objectives so the other side can grasp where you are coming from.  Don't assume it is obvious, because it probably isn't.  If only common sense was more common!   Present alternatives and provide evidence Create options and alternatives demonstrating your willingness to compromise.  Frame options taking into consideration their interests and back up your plans with evidence.   Be an expert communicator Be clear, be clear, be clear.  Ask questions, paraphrase for understanding and always check for their understanding of what you are saying.  Miscommunication is often the major culprit in conflict.   End on a good note Shake on it, agree the actions steps and who is accountable for what, by when and how.   Enjoy the process Reflect and learn from every negotiation.  Have your own criteria to evaluate the process and solution then write it down as a record for future reference.  See your own growth being aided by understanding and learning from different points of view.   Tricky personalities and difficult people will never just conveniently go away.  Instead, we need to be better prepared in dealing with them. We can keep repeating the same procedures and wonder why we never get a better result or we change our approach. Einstein's definition of being crazy by the way, was to keep doing the same things but expect a different result. Don't go crazy - these practical tips will help us on the journey to a less stressful and more rewarding future.   Action Steps Have a positive attitude Meet on mutual ground Clearly define and agree on the issue Do your homework Take an honest inventory of yourself Look for shared interests Deal with facts, not emotions Be honest Present alternatives and provide evidence Be an expert communicator End on a good note Enjoy the process THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Remember, if you would like to get some training on negotiations, we will be holding a one day programme in English on November twenty seventh and in Japanese on December ninth.  Details are on our website enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode ninety one we are talking about don't mystify me with your presentation please . Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

How hard can it be the present the sales materials to the buyer?  Simple right!  Well maybe not. What are the best practices to ensure the meeting is a success and we make a sale. So many salespeople are taught product knowledge, given catalogs of products, prepare slide decks to explain what they sell to the buyer, but have got very little clue about how to present it all.  Today we pull back the velvet curtain and show the success secrets of how to present your materials to the buyer  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Last year, the number of deaths in traffic accidents fell to the lowest on record since 1948.  Sounds pretty good right.  However, the number of fatal accidents caused by drivers seventy five and older hit a record four hundred and sixty, accounting for fifteen percent of all fatal accidents.  The number of people seventy five and older who hold a drivers license increased to five point six million. By twenty twenty two the number is predicted to reach six point six million.  Keep your wits about you folks when you are out and about. Japan is a pretty safe place but be careful out on the roads.  In other news, Tokyo based Mynavi's survey of new company recruits showed that one in three are considering leaving their jobs within five years and only one in five treat their employment as being a lifetime role.  This is shocking in an economy used to people joining companies for life.  Nearly half said they are considering changing their jobs within ten years. Only seven point six percent were planning to spend more than ten years with their employer.  Twenty one point eight said they plan to stay with their firm until retirement.  Finally, more than a million Japanese work in a different city to their family being away on job assignments.  Usually the wife stays put with the kids and the husband lives alone in a different town. In a two thousand and seventeen survey by the Japan Institute for Labor policy and Training, nearly two thirds of Japanese firms transfer their staff and only nineteen point four percent say they take any account of the wishes of the employees as to where they are transferred. These assignments usually last longer than three years, with very limited company support for family reunions. This is episode number eighty nine and we are talking about Presenting Our Sales Materials     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. If we are presenting a brochure, flyer, price list, hard copy slide deck or any other typical collateral item, then we should adopt best practice for greatest success.  Have two copies always, one for you to read and one for the client, unless you are a genius of reading upside down (which by the way seems to include all Japanese!).    At the start, put your copy to the side for later if you need it and turn the client's copy around to face them. Then proceed to physically control the page changes of the document.    Don't just hand it over, if you can avoid it.  You want to walk them through the pages, under your strict supervision.  There is usually a lot of information involved and we only want to draw attention to the key points.  We don't receive unlimited buyer time, so we have to plan well.  You don't want them flicking through the pages at the back and you are still explaining something up the front     By the way, don't place any collateral pieces in view of the client at the start of the meeting.  Keep them unseen on the chair next to you or in your bag.  Why? We want to spend the first part of the meeting asking solid questions to uncover their needs.  Don't distract the buyer from answering your questions – this is vital to understanding their business and their needs.   As we hear their answers we set off a chain reaction.  We mentally scan the solution library in our brain and start lining up products for them. The details will be in a brochure or a flyer etc., but by showing them at the start we will distract the client. It also implies I am here to sell you something.  What is our mantra?  Everyone loves to buy but nobody wants to be sold. Keep the sales materials out of sight, until you absolutely know what you will need.   Also, at the beginning, we don't know which materials to show to them, because we don't know which is the best solution for their needs.  Are they after blue or pink?  There is no point in going to great depths to describe your unmatchable, unbeatable, best blue in the universe, a prince amongst blues, if they only want to buy pink. After the questioning phase is completed, when we know what they need, then and only then, do we can grab our materials and guide them through the detail.    If we hand over the sales materials at the start, they will be reading something on page five and you will still be focused on page one. If you allow this to happen, control of the sales conversation has been lost.  The salesperson's key job is to keep control of the sale's talk direction, from beginning to end. If you can't do that, then selling is going to be a tough employ for you.   After placing the document in front of them, facing them, pick up your nice pen and use it to show them where to look.  There are many distractions on any single page, so we need to keep the show on the road and them focused on the key items.  Our pen is our navigator.   When we need to make a strong point, we should back it up by using eye contact.  The problem is their eyes are glued to the page in front of them, so that they are not even looking at us anymore.  To get their eyes off the page, to make eye contact with us, simply raise the pen to your own eye height and their gaze will soon join yours.   Know where the items of most interest in your materials are located, based on what you heard earlier and skip pages that are not as relevant.  Do not go through the whole thing, from beginning to end.  You want them focused only on the most relevant and interesting elements of your presentation.  Also you have to narrows things down, because you just don't have that much time available to you.   Slide Decks Regarding the preparation of slide decks, this is a very specific “visual” topic and so please go to our You Tube Channel.  We have a comprehensive video tutorial of all the nitty gritty detail of what works best. To access the video, please go to our YouTube Channel, “Dale Carnegie Training Japan”.    In the playlists, there is a section called “How to Become Really Excellent At Presentations”. Scroll down to find the video titled “How to Use Powerpoint etc., (Properly) When Presenting”.   This takes you through colours, fonts, layout, graphs, tables, photos - everything you need to know in one place.   Many Japanese presenters are at world champion level at getting this type of thing wrong.  Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown up on the one screen, with garish colours and disparate fonts.  Usually it is a total mess.    Don't make this your template to try and blend in. The country of zen has not managed to apply any such minimalist concepts to what goes up on a screen.  The basic rule is “less is more” with presentations on screen.   Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome backIf you would like to get some sales training for yourself or your team, then August fifth we run our sales booster two programme and later in the year, we repeat our sales booster one programme on November eleventh. These courses are entirely modular, so it doesn't matter which order you do the programs in.  Details are found on our website enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to the show It is extremely rare that we wrap up a deal at the first meeting in Japan.  Usually, we come back with our solution and pricing.  There are many favoured standard styles for presenting proposals for clients, so it is impossible to go through all of those.    However, in general because of their risk aversion, most Japanese buyers have a tremendous desire for detail.  Let me share with you an insight about this preference for above average levels of information supply.   When I was student here in the late 1970s, I attended an international symposium on Sino-Japanese relations.  One of the Japanese academics was relaying a story about the introduction of zen into Japan from China.  One of the zen stories used a well and a bucket as a metaphor for a spiritual point of instruction.  In the Chinese version, the key point was the allegory not the detail of the equipment being used    In the Japanese version of this story, great attention was placed on the dimensions of the well, the bucket, the winding mechanism, the construction of the rope etc.  I have never forgotten that insight and it has played out as a truism here in Japan.  I have found it is almost impossible to give the Japanese buyer too much detail.  I am not suggesting you should, but just be aware there is a hunger here for data.   As flagged, this is part of their risk aversion preference.  By having more and more detail, they can reduce the possibility of a mistake or a failure.  They will suck up as much detail as they can get out of you.    It doesn't mean you should give them so much detail, because it diffuses their concentration on the key things we want them focused on.  Remember, we should never sell past the sale.  However, bear in mind that the demand for detail and data from the buyer is always going to be super strong.   Probably way past what you may be used to.   The proposal should reflect the information captured during the sales interview.  Outline what you believe is the issue facing the client based on what they told you.  Warning! Before proceeding any further, it is critical to check that you have clearly understood their needs.     If this is incorrect, then the rest of the document is immediately headed for the trashcan.  Assuming that is not the case and having laid that understanding out, now suggest your solution.   Depending on your preference, you can present the content in this way: Expected Result-Problem-Solution or Problem-Solution-Expected Result.   At the solution point though, go into some substantial detail.    Where possible try not to just send the proposal document by email.  Present it yourself, because what may be clear to you, may not be so clear to the buyer. We often assume knowledge that they don't have and so key points can be missed.  Sometimes buyers will say “just email me the proposal”.  Resist this idea with every fibre in your body and get over there and present it instead.  Mention you have something you must “show them” and explain that is why you can't just send it.   Often they will be the internal advocate for what we are selling, so we want them to have the power of persuasion on our behalf. Always present the proposal in person for clarity and so you can answer any questions or correct any misunderstandings.   Action Steps   Control the reading flow of the presentation document Use you pen as the navigator through written materials Only show the materials after you have had your questions answered and know what they want Before putting together your slide deck watch the video “How to Use Powerpoint etc., (Properly) When Presenting”. Always present your proposal in person Expect the Japanese will want a lot more detail than you may be used to putting in your proposal document Present your solution in this order: Expected Result-Problem-Solution or Problem-Solution-Expected Result.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Remember, if you would like to get some sales training for yourself or your team, then August fifth we run our sales booster two programme and later in the year, we repeat our sales booster one programme on November eleventh.  These courses are entirely modular, so it doesn't matter which order you do the programs in.  Details are found on our website enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode  ninety we are talking about Negotiating With The Unpleasant. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Breathing. How hard can that be when we are presenting?  Funnily enough we do crazy things and create problems where we don't need them.  Today we are going to look at how to make sure we have enough oxygen to the brain and enough wind power to drive the vocal chords. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The biggest and most powerful Japanese business federation is the Keidanren. It's chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi recently told a news conference that lifetime employment is no longer sustainable. The link between tenure and wages in japan is one of the strongest in the OECD countries.  With lifetime employment the firm is supposed to develop you throughout your career. However, more than two thirds of Japanese workers believe they need further training, which is double the OECD average.  Participation in lifelong learning in Japan is in the bottom quarter of OECD members.  Also the share of Japanese workers who find training useful for jobs is the lowest in the OECD.  In other news, Softbank has used at least five investment vehicles, including the one hundred billion dollar Vision fund to make its mobility investments.  Deep pockets and aggressive investing tactics and sweeping vision of the future of transportation give SoftBank and its founder Masayoshi Son and outsized influence in shaping the entire industry. The Vision Fund has more than thirty investment professionals who work to promote cooperation and integration among the portfolio companies, which they refer to as a family.  Finally, Japan's greenhouse gas emissions fell one point two percent in fiscal two thousand and seventeen, a fourth straight year of decline.  The Environment Ministry said this was a result of increased  use of renewable energy.  Japan is targeting a twenty six per cent cut by twenty thirty.  So far they are at eight point four percent.   This is episode number eighty eight and we are talking about  What Is the Correct Breathing Method When Presenting    Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Breathing is such a natural act and normally, we don't pay it much attention.  Some how though, when we are giving a presentation, our breath control becomes a factor of success.  One component is our nerves, which are driving the chemical surge through the body, making our heart rate skyrocket, which speeds up our breathing pattern.    If we are not breathing properly, we can have mental white outs of the brain, because we are not getting enough oxygen.  We can't remember what it is we are supposed to say.  We get lost, become panicky and come across as disorganized, unconfident and flakey.   Voice is driven on the winds of breath exhalation and lack of breath power impacts audibility.  If we don't have good breath control, we can find ourselves squeaking out to the audience in this little voice that says, “I am not confident. I am not confident, I am not confident!”.   We might find that our lack of breath control results in our final words of our sentences just dropping away to nothing.  We often see speakers kill their key messages, by not supporting the key points with their words voiced with power and conviction.  There is no opportunity to punch out a strong message, because we are just vocally doing a disappearing act in front of the audience.   It could also be that we are becoming very breathy when we speak.  It sounds similar to people who have respiratory illnesses. They always seem to be gasping for breath.  Actually they are and so are speakers with no breath control. They simply can't pull in enough oxygen.   The lack of breath control gets transmitted to our cadence of when we speak.  A lack of air means we are confined to short breathy sentences and the lungs are only being filled in a very shallow fashion just from the top portion.   So how do we stop this and better instruct our instrument – our wonderful speaking voice?  I am going to pass on what I have learnt from nearly 50 years of karate training, where breath control is absolutely vital.  It is the same method used by singers.     Controlling our nerves is a key part of breath control, because if we don't, we are working at cross purposes with ourselves.  One of the techniques for controlling our nervousness is to go through some deep breathing exercises, before we go on stage in front of the audience.  We can do these seated or standing and they don't take very long. Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backand if you would like to improve your public speaking skills then take a look at our Successful Public speaking course.  This is a one day programme and the next course will he held on July eighth.  If you want to develop a very high level of speaker skill, then our two day High Impact Presentations course will do just that.  Japanese language versions are being held on July tenth and eleventh and later in the year on November thirteenth and fourteenth.  The English version will be held on July sixteenth and seventh .  The details can be found on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com   Back to where we left off. Place both hands on your tummy and just touch lightly.  As you breath in, imagine you need to fill the lungs from the bottom most part of the diaphragm.  To help us do this we breath slowly and deeply and we can see if we are succeeding, because the hands on our tummy are starting to move forward.  This pushing out of the tummy is a good sign, it means we are doing the deep breath sequence correctly.  We reverse the process and slowly exhale and the hands are slowly drawn back in.  We need to do this slowly, because a bit too much force and speed here and we can become dizzy, as the flood of oxygen to the brain makes us feel lightheaded.   This diaphragm breathing is actually how we should be breathing all of the time and I recommend you start the practice and make it your default habit.  When we are in front of the audience, they cannot see the breathing rhythm, so there is no need to feel self-conscious.  Every breath we take starts at the lowest point of the diaphragm and we sense our tummy being pushed out and then being pulled back in. This is how we should be breathing while we are on stage.   Interestingly enough, if we lose the flow and suddenly, the breath begins from the very top of the chest, we will feel our pulse rate pick up, our chest tighten and our shoulders start to rise.  This might happen at first, before we can master this deep diaphragm breath control, but don't worry.  Just slow the breath down and concentrate on the lower diaphragm and trying to push your tummy out with each inhalation.  Once you do this, the cycle will re-institute itself and you will be getting plenty of air.  The key is to pick this up in rehearsal.   Correct breath control gives us the ability to make the tonal variations which keep command of our audience.  We can bring power to words and build to crescendos, when we want to emphasis particular key points.  It also helps us to relax and look super composed when we are standing in front of people. That confidence is contagious and our audience buys what we are saying.  And that is what we want isn't it.   Action Steps Get to the venue early and find a quiet, private place to do some breathing exercises Place the hands over the tummy and check if we are breathing from the lower diaphragm or not Make this method your default method of breathing from now on If you start to feel yourself lacking air, then re-set and concentrate on breathing from the lower diaphragm.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty nine we are talking about Presenting Our Sales Materials. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Dale Carnegie's famous book How To Win Friends and Influence People dealt with what to do when you want to get on with others.  Today we are going to have a bit of fun and talk about what not to do.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. In twenty forty when Japan's population of people sixty five or older is expected to near its peak, the number of senior citizen households will increase by seventeen percent from twenty fifteen to reach twenty two point forty two million or forty four percent of the nations total households and forty percent of those households will only have one member. In other news, a Japanese aerospace startup Interstellar Technologies Inc successfully launched a small rocket Momo-3, making it the country's first privately developed model to reach outer space. Founder Takafumi Horie said, “It was a complete success.  We'll work too achieve stable launches and mass produce rockets in quick cycles”. The firm aims to develop low cost commercial rockets to carry satellites to space.  Finally, in the past two years Japan's total employment rose by two point two nine million, while Japan's overall population declined by eight hundred and forty thousand. Since nineteen ninety six, irregular employment has surged rom twenty percent to forty percent. Japan's labour participation rate of those working between the ages of fifteen to sixty five stands at around seventy eight percent.  Switzerland's rate is eighty four percent so Japan still has room to grow. This is episode number eighty seven and we are talking about  How To NOT Win Friends And NOT Influence People      Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.   Whenever you see a fault in someone else, jump right in, don't hesitate to correct it immediately. If there is a mistake, then remonstrate with them about their failings.  They need to know about it don't they!  Belittling them in public is a good way to keep their ego in check.   You have read somewhere on-line, that people respond better to honey than vinegar, so from time to time, honey up your words with some fake praise.  Really crank up the superlatives and pander to their ego to get them to do what you want. People are pretty thick, so you will probably have to lay it on with a trowel.  Delivered with a fake smile is good too.   Rather than plumbing the other person's desires and communicating in a way that get's their buy in, just pull rank and tell them what they have to do.  You know more about everything than they do, so make them fly straight and use the dominance of your personality to force them forward.   Treat people as disposable commodities, who perform required functions.  Cogs in your wheel really. Apart from fake interest, don't care much about them, after all they don't count anyway.  The world is your oyster, not theirs and if they were not so stupid and lazy, your life would be much easier   Avoid smiling – it will be taken as a sign of weakness.  A heavy, serious face makes you look more important and impressive. A scowl seems to work wonders in intimidating others to do what you are telling them to do.    Axe that jive about getting them to talk and you being a good listener.  Hey, time is short.   They need to hear from you what they need to do. Use most of the time to talk about yourself and your brilliance.  They need to hear this, to learn from the superior role model on how it is done.   You have interests and so do they, but your interests are much more important, so make sure they are au fait with yours.  You are important, not them, so the object of each exchange is to boost your own importance with those around you.  Make sure they know what a big shot you are at every chance.  Keep repeating pertinent facts until they get it.   Win every argument, don't leave any opportunity to chance.  You must dominate the ideas war.  If they start to think they have won over you, it will be the thin edge of the wedge and others may start to get uppity as well.  Put them in their place immediately and without reservation.   If they are wrong then tell them so quickly and emphatically.  They need to hear this from you every time they step out of line. Mistakes cannot be tolerated whatsoever, so the faster you point out their errors, the more efficient things will be around here.  Never forget you are the font of all knowledge and they need correction.   If it turns out you are wrong, never admit it.  Stick to your guns and browbeat them into submission.  There cannot be any questioning of your leadership authority. To bone up on how to better spin it, re-read George Orwell's “1984”. It is a great primer on “doublespeak”.   Don't bother to engage people in a friendly way.  Life is a serious affair, so they had better get with your plan and your approach. This will help them to get the message faster, cut out all the fluffy bits and get straight down to the meat.   Do the majority of the talking, so they can't get a word in edge wise to disagree with you.  Simply out talk them and bludgeon them with your will. If they are not getting it, then talk LOUDER!   Make sure they know your ideas, in detail.  Don't ask them for their ideas, all they need to know is what you tell them.  They don't need their own opinion, because you are going to give it to them.   Don't bother with that hokey “walk a mile in their moccasins” liberal, pinko propaganda. They need to appreciate your better considered viewpoint – it will save us all a lot of time.   They may have ideas and desires, well, so what? Your ideas and desires are all that count.  They are much more relevant and important, so solely concentrate on what you want to happen.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backand a course you might find fabulous for developing excellent people skills is the dale Carnegie Course; Effective communications and Human Relations. Courses run for twelve weeks and the next programs start on these dates: June 19th, July 6thand September 18th.  Full details are available on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com   Back to where we left off: People are basically evil and untrustworthy.   Don't expect any nobility out of the great unwashed. Check everything twice and expect to be ripped off and cheated by the rabble. Therefore always be checking and be very well prepared in advance.   Forget about selling your ideas, why should you have to?  Just tell them what you want and force them to do it.   If there is a mistake, don't beat around the bush – call it out and preferably do so as publically as possible, so that they can be shamed and the rest can benefit from a “teachable moment”.   In the unlikely event you ever made a mistake in your life, keep it to yourself.  Don't be generous and judge them by taking into account where you may have struggled in the past. Instead have a sky high expectation for them and hold them to it.  Ultimately, they will thank you for the double standard.   Give direct orders at every stage and opportunity.  People are either weak willed, sheep or plain stupid, so they need to be told what to do, in detail, in triplicate and often.   If they blow something up, hold them accountable and don't worry about them losing face – they can be an object lesson for others on the penalty for failure and the shame attached to that.  People are driven more by fear of failure, than desire for gain. So hammer them hard.   Wait until you receive perfection, before you hand out any recognition. If you do have to give them any praise, let's keep it miniscule.  We don't want them getting a big head.   If they are having trouble with their work, make a point of describing the distance between their current capacity and the problem at hand.  They need to know they are far from the mark and that they had better harden up.   Forget about whether they are happy doing what you suggest.  When did any of your bosses care about whether you were happy following orders?  The point is that they should do what you say and their happiness or otherwise is not important in the big scheme of things.  Produce the numbers or else.   Anonymously send this transcript to your competitors, as a true guide for leaders. Sign it as follows: “This is good. Regards, J”, so they think it is from someone they know.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty eight we are talking about What is the Correct Breathing Method When Presenting. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Most presenters fail to consider the importance of where to stand when presenting.  In today's show we will go into some detail on how to adjust for different venues, how to engage with your audience and things to avoid.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The curriculum for general courses taught in high schools, which has remained untouched since the current system was established after world war two, will be reformed as part of a plan to drastically revamp secondary education. This reform reflects a sense of crisis among educational authorities about declines in the amount of time that high school students spend studying and their willingness to study. Nine point three percent of first year junior high school students said they do not study on weekends with the figure rising to twenty five point four for first year high school students. In other news, the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group banking unit executive Saiko Nanri wants to change Japan's long-standing culture of drinks between managers and employees. Companies have long encouraged such parties to give workers the chance to break down barriers with their bosses in an informal setting. Nanri has told her team that she won't hold the gatherings, saying they're unproductive and unfair to parents of young children.  Her stance calls into question old work habits blamed for hindering productivity and discouraging women from remaining in the workforce.  Finally, almost half of the rail lines run by JR Hokkaido are unprofitable.  About two thirds of lines operated by JR Hokkaido have considered seeking financial assistance in order to keep their respective routes open, while the remaining third are leaning toward shutting their lines down due to a dearth of passengers.   This is episode number eighty five and we are talking about  Where Should I Stand When I Am Presenting     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.Usually this isn't even a question for most presenters, because the organisers have already set up the room when you arrive. Our speaking spot has been designated for us.  But have we been designated a spot by experts in public speaking or by the venue crew who usually just haul chairs, lug tables around and set up the stage? Sadly the coalescence between expertise in public speaking and membership of the logistics team is rare.   So where should we stand? This will depend on the venue size, the illumination of the room, the size of the audience, the layout of the stage, where the screens are located and what you want to achieve.    I attended an effective talk where the stage was empty, yet the speech suddenly got underway with no speaker in sight.  He was actually wearing a Lavelle microphone and was behind the audience at the rear of the room. The acoustics of that hall however, gave no indication of where he was standing and so it created a buzz as the assembled masses tried to place the speaker's location, with the voice they could all hear.  He then strode manfully to the stage and continued his oration.    As an attention-getter, to break through all the clutter in the heads of the audience, it was very effective and he did that just by varying his speaking spot from where everyone usually starts.   If we are using a screen, then is it hoisted high above us, are there two giant screens on the left and right or is it at our height in the center of the stage?  In smaller venues, the screen is normally at our height and usually set up such that the podium is on the audience right of the stage.  No particular thought has gone into this location and the choice is purely random, often linked more closely to power outlets and cabling considerations, than the speaker's effectiveness.   Stand on the audience left of the screen, so that the audience can read your facial expression and body language and then move their eyes right to read text or images on the screen.  We read left to right, so this is a natural progression.  We always want the screen to be subordinate to us.  So set the proceedings up such that they have to look at you first, rather than at the slides on the screen.  Our face is a trillion times more powerful as a communication tool, than anything that is on that screen.   If there are giant screens above, then the chances are the venue is pretty large and the stage will be quite wide.  Rather than being stuck in one place, work the stage area.  I don't mean nervous, fidgety, random pacing across the stage as I have seen done by many amateur presenters.  I mean move right to the very apron of the stage and to the extremes of left and right to engage with all of your audience.  Just be careful at the edge that you don't fall off, because that can easily happen, when we are fully engaged on our audience and we miss the peripheral sight of the edge.    Start in the middle of a large stage, as close as you can get to your audience.  Remember, that to those seated at the back or up on the first, second or third tiers of seating, you are the size of a peanut.  Yes, they have the giant screens but try to bring your physical presence as close to your audience as you can, to create a closer connection.    Move slowly to the extreme left and then stop.  Now we can engage everyone on this side of the room.  After a few minutes move slowly back to the center and stop.  Now move slowly across to the extreme right and stop.  Then slowly back to the center, by which time it will be getting very close to your peroration.    I might also add that if the venue is large, then really exaggerate your gestures and expressions. The scale of the venue requires that larger version of you to enable you to engage with your audience and “work the room”.  Get to the venue early and go sit in the most distant seats. That is when you realize how small the speaker is when on stage and that you have to “big it up” more.   Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backand here is some information on presenting.  On July eight we will run our Successful Public Speaking course.  On July tenth & eleventh and later on November thirteen and fourteen, we will hold our High Impact Presentations course in Japanese.  On July sixteenth and seventeen, we will hold the same course on English.   Back to where we left off. You might be thinking you have to stand where the podium is located. Why?  With the automatic slide advancers available today we can be highly mobile.  If the clicker isn't working well, then enlist a colleague as a “slide advancer” to man the laptop and move slides on your signal.  Or, you can just stroll back to the laptop and do it yourself. Don't get stuck behind the podium because we can't access all of your body language if you do that.   If you are stuck behind a podium, then be sure that as much of your upper body as possible is visible. This might require asking the venue staff for a small platform on which to stand behind the podium.  The microphone arrangements may make that tricky, depending on the height of the stand provided. If you need to remove the microphone from the stand then do so and stand as tall as possible, so you can be seen easily.   If the venue is smaller, then we can stand left of the screen but we can employ three strategic distances in combination with the content of what we are saying.  We start speaking when we are about halfway between the back of the stage and the audience – the neutral or green zone.    If we want to add strong support to a micro point we are delivering, then we move forward to as close to the audience as we can get, the intense or red zone.  We don't stay there long because the pressure is too strong for the audience.  We should move back to the middle, to lessen the intensity.    If we want to make a bigger or more macro point, we move toward the rear of the stage, the big picture or blue zone and then go back to the green zone. These changes of distance are related to what we are talking about so there is no consistent pattern necessarily.  In fact, we don't want any consistent patterns or we will become predictable to our audience. They switch us off because they have anticipated what we will do and they soon lose interest.   Normally lighting isn't an issue unless some amateur stage hand, do-gooder or volunteer decides your screen needs more contrast and they turn off or dim the lights.  Stop whatever you are doing and request them to turn those lights back on.  We need to be seen and we need to see the faces of our audience.  We need to gauge the reaction to what we are saying and to check if we are losing their interest or not.    A speaker recently gave a TED talk here in Tokyo, but to accommodate various cool technological features such as holograms, an invisible screen was separating the speaker from the audience.  Well it was invisible to the audience and they could see the speaker, but not the other way around.  That is a nightmare right there, because you are talking to an audience you can't actually see.  It always pays to check the speaking arrangements before you speak or get here early and try to fix logistical items which will negate the impact of your talk.   Sometimes in smaller, more intimae venues like clubs, the lighting is rather poor.  We can use the projector to throw up light or we can look for spotlights to try to get some light on us and the audience.  We can also try and stand very close to the audience, so that our physical presence will compensate for the lack of light.   If we are on a panel and everyone is seated, we should stand when we give our initial remarks, if possible. Thereafter, we may be seated, as we back and forth on the various worthy points under consideration.  By standing, we use our full arsenal of body language capability and projection to make our argument.  When you can stand up and speak without relying on having notes cradled in your lap, you gain more credibility and more projection for your argument.  In Japan, the crowded space on the raised dais between your seat and the obligatory low table, may not allow it, but don't be afraid to stand and talk, rather than having to remain seated if you can manage it.   To be an effective speaker, we need to include consideration of the best logistics needed to support our efforts.  Don't rely on the clueless to prepare the venue properly, instead have a clue ourselves and always be in command of our environment. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty six we are talking about The One Hundred and Six Centimeter Salesman. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Technical experts are rarely expert presenters.  Why is that?  They are smart, well educated, highly knowledgeable about their area of expertise, have tons of data and boast abundant experience.  Their presentations should be nothing less than triumphs, legendary value, unmatched deep dives on their subject.  Rarely the case though. They fail for the simplest of reasons, when really they shouldn't fail at all.  Find out why very shortly.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The Japan Post Insurance scandal boasts some amazing numbers.  Ninety thousand cases of inappropriate sales, twenty-two thousand cases of customers being tricked into making double payments, forty-seven thousand cases of being left uninsured for months before signing new contracts after their old ones were terminated, and twenty four thousand other cases where customers were disadvantaged.  What happened? The bosses set aggressive sales targets for the sales staff and they gamed the system to make their numbers.  When the scandal broke, the bosses tried to justify what they staff had been doing calling it “legitimate”.  That didn't fly and before you knew it, the Presidents of Japan Post insurance and Japan Post were doing a lot of deep bowing at their press conference. In other news, a Pew Research center report for japan found that ninety percent of Japanese think robots and computers will be doing much of the work currently being done by people, in the next fifty years.  Some eighty-three percent saw this as causing greater inequality, while seventy four percent believed people will have trouble finding work.  Finally, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has provided five hundred million yen or roughly five million dollars in subsidies over three years and three months to SkyDrive Inc, the first company in japan to develop an electric vertical takeoff and landing craft or eVTOLs.  Osaka Prefectural Government is aiming for a one person vehicle with six propellers to provide a demonstration flight at the Osaka World Expo in twenty twenty five.  At the Fukushima Robot Test Field at the end of February ten drones were launched simultaneously by different business operators to test whether they could fly safely without collisions in an airspace of nine hundred by six hundred meters. This is episode number  ninety-seven and we are talking about Technical Presenters Biggest Mistakes  Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Technical experts love their specialty.  Usually, they have studied hard and long to get into their profession and there is also substantial on-going professional development required to stay current. They are analytical types who thrive on the detail.  When they present technical subjects to business people who are not experts they can run into trouble.   The slide deck will be vast and detailed.  There is a lot of information to get through and so the slides can be dense.  The subject matter, being technical, is a serious business and that is how they approach their delivery. Somber, low energy, no gestures, monotone delivery are all de rigeurfor our self assured, serious experts.  The pace is slow, large numbers of the slides are read to the audience.  The entire atmosphere is funereal.   Is there a contradiction between the subject matter and presentation delivery skills.? If the matter is technical shouldn't the material speak for itself.  Isn't the presenter just a simple conduit of information? Yes, you could do it that way, if you want to be completely forgettable, have no interest in establishing a powerful personal brand and become the go to person on the subject.  For many technical people that would be just fine, because they don't enjoy the limelight, they don't really want to meet new people and would rather be immersed in their specialty.   If the firm is happy for them to be nobodies in a crowded field of similar experts all vying for the same client business, then that monk like approach is a good outcome.  If however, you want your firm to stand out above the din, to become famous for the quality of your team and for your professional bedside manner with non-specialists, then a re-think is in order.   Lets start with the deck, because this is the holy grail for specialists and this is where all the time is sucked up, with iteration after iteration.  Slides can be printed out and distributed after the presentation.  Why not during?  Yes, you can do that but the chances are that you will be on slide 5 and your audience will be on slide 45 and you have lost control of their attention. Better to mention at the start that the materials will be distributed after the presentation.  There may be one or two sheets where the detail is so dense, say numbers on spread sheets, that it is impossible to read on screen and these could be handed out at the start. Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome back The details can be presented on the slide because our audience can read it for themselves, which means we don't have to cover every detail on every slide.  We can show and tell.  That is, show the slide in its full glory but only refer to a few key points. This allows us to speak without being trapped by the text on screen.  We can speak to the points, elaborate and tell stories to bring the facts to life.    Storytelling is mainly absent from the repertoire of technical presenters but these are the things the audience will remember after the talk.  They also make the detail more interesting because they are usually dealing with things at the application rather than the theoretical stage.   When speaking not every word needs to have the same value.  This is the monotone delivery approach, which quickly puts everyone to sleep. Instead we can select out key words for additional emphasis and hit those words harder when we deliver them. We can bring energy to the fore when we make recommendations or issue warnings.  These are simple voice modulation techniques which add validity to what we are saying.   We can use gestures to back up our words, again these bring energy to key points in a way that adds credibility to the content.  Our passion for the subject should shine through.  The specialist though often believes that their subject matter should be unemotional and delivered in a bland way, that is not controversial.  We don't have to be outrageous to make a connection with the audience.  Regardless of the subject matter, it usually has ramifications for people and people are emotional.  We can find how this topic relates to their businesses and their lives and make it real for the audience.   We don't have to be dull. We can take highly technical subjects and humanize them, tell stories, inject situations and people into them to bring them to life. We just need to change our mindset about what we are actually doing here.  Are we simply going through the motions or are we trying to communicate our key messages to our audience?  That decision makes the path forward very clear. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts In episode ninety-eight we are talking about Stop Being Hopeless in Client Meetings. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

The pace is unrelenting.  The world is producing information at a prodigious rate and somehow we are supposed to keep up with it all.  In todays show we will explore some ideas on how we can better deal with this daily overpowering tidal wave of stuff.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Toyota Motor corp will supply its fuel cell vehicle technology to major Chinese automaker Beijing Automotive Group as it seeks to expand business in the world's largest auto market by volume.  This is the first tie up between Toyota and a Chinese automaker for hydrogen powered vehicles.  Toyota is allowing royalty free access to nearly twenty four thousand patents for electrified vehicles.  In other news, the English language ability of students at public secondary schools missed the government's proficiency target in two thousand and eighteen. Final year students of both junior and senior high schools did not reach the fifty percent goal for achieving the required levels for the Eiken proficiency test.  The average result was only forty two point six percent for junior high students and forty point two percent for High school students hit the targets.  Finally, the Keidanren, the nations most powerful business lobby has approved year round hiring of new graduates.  Restrictions have been lifted to enable firms to hire workers with greater flexibility based on their needs while allowing the students more freedom in their job hunting process. This is episode number eighty four and we are talking about  HOW TO MASTER THE DAILY INFO TSUNAMI      Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Paper piled high on all flat surfaces, email in-boxes bursting at the seams, project and completion deadlines menacing your normal calm equilibrium.  Days fly by punctuated by too many meetings, the quality of which are usually abysmal, and the entertainment factor zero.    Keeping up to date with your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Line, Instagram, Pintrest accounts saps your mind and body.  The black, oily tsunami of “stuff” just keeps coming, no matter what you do.  Life is short and is this all there is to look forward to – years and years of this regimen?  How do you grow when you are constantly being pushed backward, fighting for survival, swimming against a roiling sea of “stuff”?   “While the music is playing you have to keep dancing”.  Uh oh! Is that really the case?  Can we keep dancing or will we suffer a major intervention that wrecks everything, because we can't find a way out of this impending doom and gloom of overwhelm.   Here are some ideas on how to create interrupt in your life and master the daily turmoil:    Take stock of the issues and create some clarity about the field of battle confronting you.  List up the offending items that are overwhelming you, “speak their name” to make them visible and less daunting.  Dig further for each item as to why it is a constant irritant.    For example, “I pile up paper as a way of not losing it, but I don't get back to dealing with it”. “E-mail has become untenable, there is so much excess flow, I can't keep up and things begin to drift”. "I have all of these projects noisily buzzing around, at various points of completion, and they are like a dark cloud of impending doom that hovers over me”.  “Meetings suck the life force out of me by devouring my precious time and energy, compounding my woes and squeezing the little non-meeting time available to me”. “Business social media is a modern day digital opiate, spreading fast and wide, debilitating all who come into contact with it”.   We cannot do everything, but we can do the most important thing, so start by deciding which nightmare is the highest priority.  Create “block times” in your schedule, which are appointments with yourself and recorded in your diary.  For that period of protected time attack the offending item with gusto, starting by deleting all the backlog of “stuff” whose use by date has passed.  Get the survivors into a priority order for further attack.    If it is paper, ruthlessly throw it out and file the rest into one file, arranged inside into priority order for the next assault.  Before you file anything permanently, ask yourself, “how often in the last year did I consult any of the items I have already so meticulously filed?”. Scariest question in captivity!    If it is email, select alphabetic filtering, so you dismiss masses of emails at one go.  With the remainder, move items into new folders called Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3.  If it doesn't make it into one of these three folders then unceremoniously delete it.  If you are a notorious hoarder (like me), and simply cannot bring yourself to press the delete button, then put it in a new folder called “Just In Case”.    Only after that process has been completed, you may roll over and give up!  Hey, if there is some sticky item that is still that important, the other party will remind you with their follow up, so relax.   Find out more when we come back from the break                                         Welcome backand here is some information which will be useful.  On June twenty first and later on November eighteenth we will run a course called How To Make Multi-tasking Work For You. Details are on our website enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we were: For projects, stop the bees buzzing in your head, by writing down all these nebulous items on a long list and then attach priorities to them.  Start working on the main priority projects first. Just by plucking them out of the ether and writing them down, we realize the awful truth – we have too many things on the go and this is ridiculous.  We can now attach more realistic timeframes for completion and maybe even drop some.   Meetings are trickier, because often we have little in the way of choice and few options.  Be positive, consider your compulsory attendance at excruciatingly painful meetings as character building – “what doesn't kill me makes me stronger”.    If you must attend, try to bring some better order to the way meetings are run.  Try to have the agenda sent out beforehand, get everyone to agree to start on time regardless of who is not in the room, elect an Attila The Hun style facilitator to run the meeting to better control the ebb and flow of discussion.  Finish on time!   Don't set meetings in one hour blocks – say make it 40 minutes instead, and get through it all in that time or hold content over to the next meeting.  If you have truckloads of meetings and you can pick up just 20 minutes a day from every meeting, then life starts to look a lot, lot better!   For business social media, face the fact that you have become a heinous glutton, and have seriously over indulged.  Be positively violent toward non-essentials.  Axe them without mercy or at the least, banish them from your purview. Make some choices about where the highest value lies and spend your downtime there.    Keep in mind that there is not that much coming through the digital fire hose that is really vital, as opposed to mildly interesting.  If you really need information on a particular subject, rather than random grazing on the high plains, you can use the search function to aggregate what is out there. Think high art curation, rather than mass consumption.   Truncate the deluge, sort, prioritise and curate.  Get clarity first then allocate the time to wade into battle, swinging your long sword, smiting the enemy left and right, until the battlefield is yours again.  Be absolutely ruthless about wasting your time on low level “stuff”.  Now go get um!   Action Steps Stop, look, consider List up the items Look for the root cause behind the issue Create block time Concentrate on the priority items only Be ruthless - cut, cut, cut THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty five we are talking about Where Should I Stand When I Am Presenting. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

If we don't have a nice flow of new clients we cannot expand the business or replace clients who have dropped out.  The marketing team have their role to generate leads and the sales team have their responsibilities too.  Sadly, the two things they can do directly such as cold calling and networking they avoid. They don't like either because they have no idea of the best practices involved to make these methods sing and yield new buyers.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Korean University students are targeting Japan as a place to work.  The Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency KOTRA helped two thousand six hundred and fifty three students obtain jobs abroad, eight hundred and seventeen of whom were hired in Japan.  This was roughly thirty percent of the total.  KOTRA noted that these South Korean students had high skills not only in Japanese but also in English.  One Japanese employer commented, “They have experienced military service and are disciplined.  They are good to work with, because they respect their superiors and are diligent”. Given the bad political relations with Korea this trend is somewhat surprising, but looks to continue to grow. In other news, Toyota Motor Corp and Panasonic Corp will integrate their housing businesses as they seek to collaborate on “town development” for next generation lifestyles where homes and vehicles are connected to the internet.  Toyota President Akio Toyoda said, “From here on out, information will link all items and services that support people's daily lives.  I want to take on a new challenge of providing a new kind of lifestyle”.  Finally, as of two thousand and sixteen Japan had thirteen point one hospital beds per one thousand people., the largest ration amongst all the OECD countries., where the average is five point four beds.  In fiscal two thousand and eighteen, japan had an excess of two hundred and eleven thousand beds or fourteen per cent more than in two thousand and thirteen. This is important because forty percent of medical costs in japan go to hospitalisation.  If a medical institution has excess beds the impulse is to fill them.  This is episode number eighty three and we are talking about  New Client Acquisition     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Japan is a huge market. This is a wealthy, sophisticated society, with a design sense second to none. People work diligently as a team and put in long hours.  Achieving annual organic growth should be an expectation of bosses that sales teams should be able to realise.  Yet, the results are often flat lining or disappointing.  Excuses abound – the yen is too strong, the yen is too weak, competitors are discounting, new competitors are taking market share, etc.   Finding new clients is the perpetual Holy Grail of the sales world.  Websites lure, social media sponsored posts promulgate, ad words harvest, email sequences are very precisely engineered and content marketing assures expert authority.  But this is the world of marketing to unleash the lead flow so that the sales team can follow up.  How well do the marketing and sales teams work together?  Often, not well.  The marketers complain the salespeople are squandering their hard earned efforts. The sales people whine about the poor quality of the lead flow.  Down at your shop, are they operating as two independent empires or as hand in glove colleagues furiously plotting together to achieve world domination over your competitors?   Targeting new clients doesn't get much attention in Japan.  We all know that our avatar represents the typical client and all we have to do is identify others who fit that profile and the chances are high that they too will benefit from our product or service.  How many sales teams here have defined their avatar? What about your crew?  Can they nominate the ideal client?   A standard operating procedure should be the Spider.  What is this Spider you might ask?  If a client from a particular business has landed in your sales funnel and have bought from you, there are no doubt others in that same niche who would also possibly buy as well.  For example, if one airline buys from you there may be a good chance other airlines have similar needs.  Imagine a whole bunch of other look alike buyers you can bring into your web. Having made a sale to one company, do the salespeople take the Spider metaphor to heart and start listing up other similar targets to proactively contact. They should, but they don't.  Why is that?    A major ice wall confronts them – the unknown, unfamiliar and unnerving.  They don't have a contact who can introduce them, so they do nothing. The idea of cold calling the target company is judged hard graft, so they don't try.  By the way, are your salespeople doing cold calling or are they avoiding it?  They know the person who picks up the phone is going to be a slayer of salespeople aspirations.   It is not an impossible quest though.  There is a way through the initial business barrier by focusing on the design of the conversation that will spark buyer interest.  But no, they do nothing and just leave it.  It is fair to say it is no push over here.  When you cold call a Japanese company, if you don't already know the exact name of the person you are after, then you get cordoned off by the lowest person on the firm totem pole – the youngest female usually.    Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backand let me introduce two sales programs to help your salespeople succeed.  The sales booster One and Sales booster Two  courses cover all the critical skill areas needed in sales.  Sales booster One will next be held on November eleventh, 2019 and sales Booster Two  on August fifth, 2019.  All the details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off. They are not very lady like though, in fact they are stone cold killers, axing your intention right there to speak with the buyer.  In short, they are merciless, ruthless and unrelenting.  If you are made of sterner stuff and don't go down immediately without a fight, they will cast you off to the next level on the totem pole.  This is the spotty faced, flat headed youngest male in the section, who will promise you that their boss will call you back, as he gleefully gets rid of you, knowing that the hoped for call will never happen.   This is grim stuff, so these opening conversations should not be left to whim.  These need to be well designed and well practiced, so that you do get through to someone who can make a buying decision.  Untrained salespeople try to cold call without a solid plan, fail, and then tell all and sundry that you cannot cold call in Japan. Not true, but you do need to have a proven methodology for doing this.  Is this the case for your firm?   The fall back position may be to try to meet new clients through networking.  Japan is a curious place though in the networking world, because fundamentally, no one is terribly interested or motivated to network.  I know you, you know Taro, you introduce me to Taro. I will do the same for you with my contacts.  A pretty limited way of doing things, but this is acceptable here. Barefaced bowling up to a complete stranger and introducing yourself, trying create a new connection, is greeted with such shock, that salespeople give up quickly.   Can you widen your network of people you have no connection with and can you work the room here? Yes, you can, but again you need a methodology and you need to take salespeople out of their self -imposed limits and practice it.  Do your salespeople practice how to network with complete strangers down at your firm?   Here is the issue. Cold calling and networking are defined activities with best practices that work.  The majority of companies however do not invest in teaching their sales staff how to master these dark arts.  Instead they whine about the lack of new clients.  This situation is begging for a solution and for the most part will remain that way.  The firms who get it will make the effort and collect the new business, while their competition runs around bewildered in ever decreasing circles.   Action Steps Design hooks in the cold call conversation that the person receiving the call, wouldn't dare not pass the call on to a key decision maker Train the team on how to create a brilliant first impression when meeting complete strangers.   THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode eighty four we are talking about How To Master The Daily Info Tsunami. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

New clients are the lifeblood of businesses.  Keeping clients is difficult, things change and they disappear. They have to be replaced.  How do we replace them?  In today's show we look at two excellent techniques for doing just that.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Hanko the personal stamps required in Japan since the  eighteen  hundreds are getting phased out at some of the country's biggest institutions.  Lenders have begun allowing customers to transfer money or make payments with their smart phones, instead of using hanko. Japanese banks are trying to slash paperwork, boost efficiency and appeal to younger generations. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial group has started offering accounts that don't require hanko or passbooks and is trying to overhaul its branch network to replace rows of tellers with tablet computers and video booths.  The goals is to help customers adapt to digital platforms so they can do more banking on their own devices.  As many as one hundred on the five hundred plus branches will convert to the new format by twenty  twenty  four.  They plan to halve the number of branches at the same time.  The Abe government is trying to make more government services available on-line.  In other news, six years have passed since Prime Minister Abe announced plans to create a Japan in which women can shine.  According to the OECD, only zero  point  seven percent of Japanese women were in management positions in  two  thousand  and  seventeen , basically the same share as in two thousand and   eleven. The figure is well below the average four  point  seven percent seen on other developed countries.  In the World Economic Forum's annual World gender Gap Index Japan ranked one  hundred  and  ten out of one hundred  and forty  nine  countries. Japan ranked lowest among Group of Twenty nations in terms of female politicians, with women occupying just  ten  point two  percent of the  four  hundred and  sixty  three  seats on the Lower House.   Finally, back in the early  two  thousands  the government implemented reform of the nations system for training legal professionals, launching law schools modeled after those in the USA.  However more than half have been shut down due to declining enrollments and the bar examinations for students who have completed the two year programs have been disappointing.  In  two  thousand and  fifteen the government gave up on its goal of boosting the annual number of successful bar exam applicants to  three  thousand, halving the target to one  thousand  five  hundred. This is episode number eighty two  and we are talking about  Using Your Hands     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.We think of speaking as an activity where we use our voice. That is true but we use a lot more than that.  We use our face, eyes, legs, body and our hands.  When we are speaking while seated it is different to when we are standing. We need to master all situations for when we are called upon to speak in front of others.  One of our problem areas is what to do with our hands when we speak.  Judging by most of the presentations I see in Japan, few speakers have worked this out yet. Here are some common habits we can improve upon to make ourselves much more persuasive and professional. ONE  Hands in front of the body.  This for men will usually means wrapping the right fist by the left hand and holding both in front of the groin.  For women, Japan has a specific requirements such as cupping the fingers of each hand so they interlock like the yin yang symbol and holding them at waist height or sliding the fingers together at the thumb and first finger intersection,  so the arms are outstretched and all the fingers are pointing to the ground.  This is usually a set piece and is combined with the foot positioning, so that one foot is forward of the other and the front toe of the rear shoe touches the back heel of the front shoe. These elaborate rituals are a product of trying to standardise the form and to kill uncontrolled hand movements.  It also kills the ability to use gestures to support and strengthen our words.  The arms and hands when held in front of the body also create a subliminal barrier between the audience and the speaker.  It is saying “I don't trust you, I am scared of you and I need to protect my most vial organs from you, in case of sudden attack”.  As a speaker, we want to be as inclusive as possible, so we need to eliminate all physical barriers (podiums, reams of notes, ipads, arms) between ourselves and our audience.  We also want to show we are totally confident and have a welcoming attitude to our audience. TWO   Arms behind the back, clasped together. This is another anchor technique used when the speaker has no idea what to do with their hands.  The hands are also invisible to the audience, so the speaker feels they can forget about what to do with them or how they are placed or situated.  That is true, but there are a few issues with this pose.  Since cave dweller days, we have learnt not to trust people whose hands are not visible to us.  They may have been concealing a weapon.  The thigh bone of a major animal, a sturdy, gnarled tree root or a sharp, flinty rock with which to bash us on the head and steal out fire, food or loved ones. In more advanced and sophisticated times, the fear is they will suddenly whip out a deadly blade and plunge it deep into our soft intestines and kill us. The palms open and facing forward gesture is a universal and timeless indicator of “I am not a threat to you, because, as you see I have no hidden weapon”.   This when associated with certain words and phrases says “you can trust what I am saying”.  Not a bad thing for a speaker to achieve with an audience, especially to a gathering of card carrying skeptics. THREE  Arms folded across the chest or one hand touching one elbow while the other hand is held near the face.  Like number one, these are defensive postures specifically designed to keep your audience away from your vital spots.  By the way, I do recommend the latter posture, if you are ever standing close and talking with someone you are suspicious of.  My karate background recommends that position, because from there it is very quick to parry a sudden “king hit” style blow to either your face or your body, but I digress.  In speaking term though, these postures send all the wrong messages.  We want to be trusted as a speaker and to do so, we have to show we are open to our audience.  Holding our hands by our sides is a natural position and from here it is easy to raise our hands when needed, to inject a powerful gesture with which to back up our words. FOUR   Hands in the pockets.  This is a particular favourite of male executives who have no idea of what to do with their hands when speaking.  The really confused thrust both hands into their respective trouser pockets achieving a sort of  stereo effect.  It presents the hands where they can be seen from the front, but it denies us the opportunity to use gestures during out talk. Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backLet me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  Our One Day Successful Public Speaking  Course will run on July 8th.  Also our Two Day High Impact Presentations Course will run on July 10thand 11th.  Details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off.  FIVE    Holding something in our hands.  When we are teaching public speaking, our participants often want to hold their speaking notes in their hands when they do the pair practice role plays.  I notice they actually never look at them, but they feel comforted that should they get into trouble, help is close by, if there is a possible brain white out.   Sheets of paper however tend to become a distraction as we tend to wave them around.  The pages quiver and shake if we are nervous and this is visible to our audience. We are sending the wrong message to them.  We want to convey belief and confidence in our message. If we are looking down, be it at the notes page or an iPad, we break off eye contact with our audience. Instead, we need to be watching our audience like a hawk, constantly gauging their reaction to what we are saying. We also want to employ our eye power to engage with them directly and sell them on our key messages.  We want to remove all distractions from what we are communicating and we want to free up our hands so we can employ our gestures to bolster our argument. SIX   Gripping the podium, the microphone stand or holding the hand microphone with both hands.  The double hand, vice like grip of the podium gives the speaker the feeling of stability. It also removes the “what do I do with my hands” conundrum.  What it says about you though is, “I am nervous and lacking in confidence”. It can make us appear quite strained as we apply muscle power to the upper arms and raise our shoulders, as we ensure the podium does not make a sudden attempt to scarper.  Best to not even touch the podium at all and just feel free to raise your hands for gestures.  Holding the microphone or it's stand with both hands, precludes us from gesturing during our talk.  Don't touch the microphone stand at all.  Restrict the hand microphone usage to one hand only, so the other is free and readily available for emphasis. Having said that, if you find your arms and hands are shaking almost uncontrollably, because the adrenaline is coursing though your body, then by all means hold the microphone with both hands and gather it to your chest, so no one can see how petrified you are.  The shaking won't be visible anymore and you can feel more confident when you are talking. SEVEN   Hands under the table.  If we are seated during our presentation, we don't want to hide our hands under the table.  This is the same trust issue as the hands behind the back in number two.  Place the hands on top of the table, resting comfortably together where they can be seen.  From there, pick them up and use them for gestures. EIGHT  Over employing or holding on to the same gesture, all of the time.  We need to use a variety of gestures otherwise, we become too predictable and boring for our audience.  We also need to turn gestures on and off, like the faucet of a tap. Don't let the water run too long, remember to switch it off for a while.  The break between usage and non-usage, gives the gesture more force with our audience.  If we hold the same hand position for longer than 15 seconds, all the power of that gesture dies and it just becomes an annoyance to our audience. NINE    Pointing our finger at people, making a fist like we want to fight, making slapping sounds and waving our hands around like a drowning person when speaking.  Thrusting our single finger at someone is an aggressive action, as is brandishing our fist. We associate these gestures with an invitation to argument or combat. Neither should be our intention when engaging with our audience.  Slapping or hands together or slapping our legs is an unnecessary distraction and we should avoid doing so. Waving our hands around becomes another distraction from the message we want to convey and can look like we are out of control. Mastering how to employ our hands effectively distinguishes the professional speaker from the rest of the crowd. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my weekly podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.  In episode eighty three we are talking about New Client Acquisition. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Leaders become leaders because they were the best at their job, their tasks, their function. They are promoted and then left to their own devices to become a leader.  The lucky few actually get some training on what it means to be a leader. Very, very few however are ever taught how to coach others.  The leader's job is to manage processes and build people.  Everyone gets the manage processes part, because that is easy to understand and we all basically know the processes of the business.  The build people part however absolutely requires an ability to coach adults.  This takes training to master.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Using a typical Lawson convenience store as a model, a franchise promotion website managed by Fc-convenience.com estimates that when a store's monthly sales are  fifteen  million  yen, then the owner ends up with four  point  seven million yen after paying for stock.  From that they have to pay the franchise royalty fee as well as staff wages and overhead, such as utility costs.  In the end their profit per month is  four hundred  and fifty  eight  thousand yen or  five million  four  hundred  and  ninety six  thousand yen per year, roughly fifty thousand  dollars. In order to maximize income, the franchise owners adjust their personnel expenses because it is the only thing they can control.  Japan's labour shortage is making it hard to recruit staff.  Convenience store workers average salary is  nine  hundred  and  seventy four  yen or  eight dollars seventy  five per hour, which hasn't gone up since two  thousand  and  thirteen.  Most non-Japanese who work at convenience stores are on student visas and currently there are about  forty  thousand employed here.  The Japanese government has included convenience store workers are a category for the new work visas being introduced.  In other news, the majority of people under age fifty who lived in the three towns close to the site of the  two  thousand  and  eleven Fukushima nuclear disaster have no plans to return.  Many former residents of Futaba, Namie, and Tomioka say they have established new lives elsewhere and that their adopted towns are more convenient. The residents of these three towns were subject to compulsory evacuation orders by the government following the crisis. Finally, police arrested two men on suspicion of trying to illegally bring fertilised eggs and sperm of wagyu cattle into China last year.  Chinese authorities prevented the suspects, who traveled by ferry with the sperm and the eggs stashed in containers,  from entering the country as they did not have a quarantine certificate.  They were arrested when they returned to Japan. The arrests came as the Agricultural  Ministry is tightening control of wagyu reproductive material amid rising popularity of the Japanese beef overseas. This is episode number eighty one and we are talking about   THE PROFESSIONAL LEADER AS  COACH      Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. A consistent issue our clients raise with us concerns effective coaching. Becoming a leader is usually the result of demonstrating your own ability to get results.  We promote the performers in the hope some of the pixie dust will get sprinkled around. The outcomes are often underwhelming.  For the organization to grow, it needs talent to be fostered right throughout the whole organization.  The natural owners of that fostering effort are the leaders. Coaching fails because of the poor quality of the processes being applied.  In many cases there is no real process at all.  Here is a seven  step process which will vastly improve the coaching outcomes. ONE   Identify Opportunities The need may be obvious or circumstances may reveal a need. For busy leaders, selecting who to coach is a critical decision.  The staff with the most untapped potential are probably the most attractive candidates.  You can't do everything at once, so start with the option that will create the most value.  We will get to everyone over time but we need to prioritise our efforts. TWO  Picture The Desired Outcome Coaching without a clear strategy often results in sporadic efforts which ultimately lead nowhere.  The Coach must work with the staff member to arrive at a clear vision of what the improved state will look like.  It is hard to hit a target you haven't nominated.  Creating a word picture of the desired outcome helps to keep the efforts focused, especially when the chaos of everyday seems to conspire to ensure you get distracted. THREE  Establish The Right Attitude This sounds simple but it is not snapping your fingers and presto, brilliant attitude. Improved performance requires change and everyone agrees in principle that change is necessary but as long as it is not expected of them in practice.  We need to know our people in order to understand how to communicate the change need in a way that resonates with them and they want to be part of it.  Learning to talk in terms of the individuals's personal motivations is powerful.  Reality check for leaders – do you really know this level of detail about your team? FOUR   Provide The Resources The most expensive and highest value resource is your time to devote to coaching.  It also requires a sincere personal commitment to see the person being coached succeed.  A lot of successful people climbed over the bodies to get to the top and expect that is how everyone else should do it.  Their attitude to coaching is usually negative.  People develop in different ways and at different times, so making ourselves the only metric of success is pure folly. Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome back Let me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  Our One day Step Up To Leadership Course will run on May 24thand again on September 2nd.  Also our seven week Leadership Training For Managers Course will start on June 3rdand run through to July 23rd. Another Leadership Training For Managers Course starts on November 5thand runs through to December 17th. Details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off.  FIVE  Practice And Skill Development Make the time, identify the correct skill set needed, explain it, demonstrate it, then let them practice it.  There is a balancing act going on here, where we need to let go, but keep monitoring without micromanaging them. We all learn by making mistakes and this is a fact we need to embrace.   Encourage them to fail faster. SIX   Reinforce Progress Knowing and doing are sometimes related. Don't expect because they have learnt it, they are automatically doing it.  Check that there is no slipping back into the cuddly Comfort Zone, as people revert to their old, better established habits.  Habit is stronger than knowledge.  Keep them accountable to continue to progress. SEVEN  Reward What we reward gets repeated and what gets repeated becomes a new habit. Give praise which is specific, explaining exactly what they are doing that is good, rather than obtuse general statements of  approbation. None of this is complicated. Common sense though is not always common practice.  Executing these steps takes commitment but the rewards are enormous.  If your leadership team is coaching your key people using a solid process and your rival leaders are not, expect to win the war. Action Steps Identify Opportunities Picture The Desired Outcome Establish The Right Attitude Provide The Resources Practice And Skill Development Reinforce Progress Reward THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my weekly podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. In episode  eighty two we are talking about Using Your Hands Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

What are we on about with this sales lark?  Are we in sales to make our fortune or to make the client their fortune?  The difference in perspective is massive. For a long and successful career in sales we need to be thinking in terms of how we can best partner with the client to make them successful.  This mentality is not all that common in the profession and that is why so few salespeople are successful – they have the wrong mentality, they don't know their true north to get their correct bearings.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately.   Convenience store operator Lawson will introduce self-checkout systems in all of its fourteen thousand convenience stores by October this year to cope with Japan's labour shortage.  Customers will scan the barcodes themselves with cashier machines that can be used for self service.  Only cashless payment methods such as credit cards and digital currency will be accepted.  In related news, The Trade ministry last April, unveiled their Cashless Vision aiming to raise the ratio of cashless payments from twenty  percent  to  forty  percent by twenty  twenty  five. By comparison about  ninety  percent  of transactions were cashless in south Korea,  sixty  percent in China and forty  five  percent in the USA.  Pay Pay Corp entered the cashless market last October and is backed by yahoo and Soft Bank.  Using the app, customers can scan QR codes displayed at stores with their smart phones to complete payments.  PayPay has a tie up with Alipay, an on-line payment system from China's Alibaba Group targeting foreign visitors.  The Japanese Government is going to reward with discounts  of  five  percent of purchase amounts for a period of nine months, to consumers who make cashless payments to small and medium sized retailers.  They are doing this to take some of the sting out of the increase in the consumption tax from  eight  to  ten   percent in September.  Finally, as part of the Tokyo twenty  twenty  Robot Project, robots will be deployed to assist spectators and staff at the Tokyo Olympics.  The Human Support Robot (HSR) and Delivery Support Robot (DSR) developed by Toyota Motor corporation will be used in tandem to assist visitors using wheel chairs.  The HSR is a one armed robot about a meter tall which can hold objects, pick things up off the ground and reach high up. When people order food or drinks using a tablet computer, DSR will transport the item in a basket and HSR will then deliver them directly to guests. In addition Atoun Model Y a wearable robotic suit developed by Panasonc corp will be used by staff tasked with carrying, loading and unloading heavy objects.  The suit can reduce the burden of heavy loads by  ten  to  forty percent. This is episode number eighty and we are talking about  TRUE NORTH IN SALES     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.Like a lot of people, I subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc.  The following morsel popped into my inbox, “People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care –Anonymous”.  Wow! What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others.  This piece of sage advice should be metaphorically stamped on to the brain of every single person involved in sales. Don't miss it – we all know that selling stuff is a tough gig.  Rejection is the normal response to our spiffy sales presentation and follow up offer. You have to be tough to survive in a sales job.  You need other things too. Product and technical knowledge are important.  Total command of the detail is expected by clients.  However, we need to be careful about what we focus on. Are we letting the product details and features confuse us about what selling is really all about? Some salespeople I have encountered remind me of an icy mammoth trapped in a time warp from the past, still trotting out the product brochure and seeing if I will go for one of their goodies?   You don't like that one, well then how about this one, or this one, or this one, ad nauseam? I want “blue” but they keep showing me 50 shades of “pink”. They are playing that pathetic, failed salesperson game named “process of elimination”. I want to buy, but are they really showing me they are focused on understanding me? Are they demonstrating to me that they foremost care about my benefit?  Are they communicating to me that, “in your success Greg, is my success”? Or do they come across not with stars in their eyes, but $$$$ signs?  I can recall seeing them sitting across the table from me, mentally salivating at the thought of the big fat commission this sales conversation is worth?  I can sense they have already bought the new three  series Beemer before the ink is dry? The quote at the beginning, “People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care” reminds me of a great Japanese word, which should be embraced by everyone in sales - kokorogamae(心構え).  It can be simply translated as “preparedness” but the Japanese nuance goes much deeper than that. Anyone studying a martial art or a traditional Japanese art (道) will immediately be on my wave length, when they hear this kokorogamae term. As a side note, here is a little Japanese language grammar insight for you.  Kokoro in Japanese means your heart or spirit and kamae means you ready position.  In karate, for example, we take our kamae, fighting position, when we do free sparring.  So the word kamae becomes gamae when kokoro and kamae are made into a single compound word. So we can translate kokorogamaeas “getting your heart or true intention in order”.  This concept is the core foundation of my sales philosophy. This means to really hark back to your most basic principles of true intention.  What we can call True North – the purity of our intention. What is the spark in our heart driving our behavior?  Is it the money or is it the serving?  Is it what we want or what the client wants?  Is this going to be a long-term relationship or a fleeting transaction?  Salespeople need to start by searching their heart for their true intention.  Huh? Does this sound a bit too “hug a tree” Californian style, overly emotional for you?  Why do I recommend searching your heart?  Because clients can sense your motivation isn't centered on their best interests and therefore they won't buy from you.  Of course, there are the exceptions – the Hollywood image of the “smooth talking” salesperson who could sell you anything and will certainly try to.  Oh, they may con us once, but we will eventually work them out. In this modern age, social media can kill us very fast.  Our reputation can be shredded and before we know it, we are out of business. These single transaction orientated salespeople are like skyrockets that initially blaze bright through the night and then explode!  They are here for a good time not a long time and they give the profession of sales a bad brand.  The best Japanese salesperson I ever interviewed for a sales job was a convicted criminal.  The criminal part didn't surface immediately, but came up later through some background checks  - note to Sales Managers – do background checks!.  Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome backLet me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  Now Part Two from the April edition of Sales Booster will run on August 5th.  On November 11th we will again run the One Day Sales Booster Course Part One. Details are on our website at enjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off.  He was absolutely brilliant in the first two interviews, polished, genius personified in the sales role play, and WOW, what a closer!  I thought “Yes!” at last, I have found my perfect Japanese salesperson. Actually, he was a liar, a thief and a baddie.  He had zero True North orientation and his kokorogamaewas plain wrong.  What a wake up call to smell the coffee for me. So let's ignore the outliers, those riff raff of sales and come back to the vast majority of salespeople who are not evil, just inept.  They are underskilled because they have never received proper sales training. People often arrive into sales jobs through companies who are transactional in nature.  It is the industrial model of sales.  Potential salespeople come in the front door and if they don't magically hit their numbers, are shown the back door after a few weeks or months.  Another sacrificial victim is then brought into the meat grinder through the front door and the process repeated forever.  No thought is given to investing in these new hires to properly develop their understanding and skills.  It is just a throw of the dice every time, to see who stays and who goes.  This routine usually produces very unfortunate sales behaviour in the individuals involved, as they become more and more desperate to make a sale to keep their employ. Desperation drives people to extremes and the client's interests in all of this are thrown right out the window. The ethos of the organization is short-term gain and their salespeople are a type of plug-and-play item, to be switched out as soon as needed. If you want a successful career in sales, change your heart, focus on True North, purify your intentions, show you genuinely care about the buyer's best interests before your own.  If you do that every single time you meet a client, you will have get success in sales and build a powerful personal brand.  We need clients to know, like and trust us.  Establishing our individual sales philosophy based on the kokorogamae concept is going to deliver the like and trust component in spades. If your current sales life is a nightmare of transactional relationships, burning clients for short-tem gain, unrelenting pressure on the numbers and no training, then get out of there as soon as possible.  Before you can get out of there though, take responsibility for yourself, make kokorogamaeyour light on the hill and move forward. Watch the videos on YouTube, get the books on sales written by the famous masters and study hard about what it takes to have a successful sales life.  If you want to stay in sales, then create your own philosophy of what that means as a profession. Decide to be the very best that you can be.  Decide what your personal kokorogamaeof sales will be. So, no more hesitation, let's commit and get on to it! Action Steps Decide why you are in sales in the first place? Choose sales as a career and create your own philosophy to guide you through the peaks and troughs, the good times and the scary times If you are working for or with people who have the wrong approach, the incorrect kokorogamae, then get out of there as soon as possible Make the client's interests your interest and you will do well in sales. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode  eighty one we are talking about The Professional Leader As Coach. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Nervousness when presenting can make us do strange things.  Two of those are reading our speeches or trying to memorise them. Both are a potential disaster and best avoided.  We think we have to read it or memorise it, because we are not sure we will know what to say. We are killing our audience when we read it and we are jousting with a meltdown if we fail in our memorization. Today we will take a look at why these two techniques are a poor choice and look at what we can do instead.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Tokyo based venture company A.L.I Technologies aims to release a mass market flying motorcycle by twenty  twenty  two. Called a hover bike they plan to sell them in emerging economies in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where there is poor road infrastructure.  The vehicle will use propeller power to hover centimeters above the ground.  It will stay at the desired altitude through technologies that use sensors to avoid obstacles.  The price will roughly match those of mini vehicles.  In other news, Seven Eleven has launched an experimental program by shortening business hours at some directly run outlets in order to consider whether to revise its policy of operating twenty four hours a day.  There are currently fifty eight thousand convenience stores in Japan, dominated by Seven Eleven, Family Mart, and Lawson. Most convenience store chains require that they be run without a break. The labor shortage in japan however is driving this review.  Franchise store owners are finding it increasingly hard to hire staff. There may also be some greater effort toward using automation and artificial intelligence to run stores without staff to get around the staff shortage problems.  Finally, Suicide is the leading cause of death among children aged  ten  to  fourteen  in japan. It now accounts for  twenty  two  point nine  deaths in this age group.  Overall suicides peaked in  two  thousand and  three  at more than  thirty  two  thousand. In  two  thousand  and  seventeen it had dropped to  twenty  thousand  four  hundred and  sixty  five per  year. For children there has been noted surge in suicides after holidays such as the spring and summer vacations.  Last July the government adopted a suicide prevention plan, strengthening counseling on-line while also giving lectures to students on how to seek help when they have concerns. This is episode number seventy NINE and we are talking about  DON'T READ IT     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.The content was really great and the way the words were put together was quite clever.  Obviously a tremendous amount of work had gone into this piece.  The speaker had a previous professional journalistic background and the careful selection of just the right vocabulary and the descriptive flourishes were excellent. The speech however was a dud. It failed miserably because it was a written speech, read to us.  He could have emailed it to all of us and we could have read it for ourselves. If we read it for ourselves and struggled with some of the big clever journo style words, we could still break out our dictionaries and plumb the meaning. The next speaker just spoke. He wasn't such a fluent talker, sometimes stumbling over some of his words, occasionally stuttering, but he had everyone's attention because he was authentic.  He wasn't reading to us, he was looking at us and connecting with us. He had a slide deck, but he just used this as his navigation, to help draw us into his story. The issue here is how should we deliver the content we have designed.  Do we have to remember it exactly, memorise it so we can be faithful to our speech design and message?  Speakers get very hung up on their content.  They feel that they have to deliver the perfect coalition of words to get their message across.  Our first speaker couldn't memorise his speech because it was way too long. That is the case for just about all of us.   Usually the sheer effort required is not worth it.  His speech content was far superior in the construction of the content, compared to the second speaker.  But he failed as a communicator, because he read it to us. All of his effort went into the crafting the script and nothing into the delivery.  It was all about him and how clever he was and not about us in the audience. If it is a very short speech, you can try and memorise it, but these are usually very special occasions. Japan is a very formal country, so if you are asked to speak at a friend or subordinate's wedding here, then there are established protocols and sentences you must use in Japanese.  If you greet the Emperor of Japan, then there are set things you must say in Japanese, the specific content will depend on the occasion.  Mick Jagger told me not to drop names, but I have done both and I did memorise the content. These were short pieces, so I could manage them without getting myself into trouble. However I did get myself into serious trouble though, trying to memorise a longer speech.  I was the Dean of the Kansai Consular Corps at the time and was asked to speak at the farewell party for China's Consul General Li, before he left Osaka for America.  I had studied Chinese at University and although pretty rusty, thought I could pull off a short speech.  Because I am not a fluent speaker of Chinese, having lived here in Japan for thirty years, I had to memorise the content.  The plan was to memorise the first part in Chinese and then switch to Japanese, which was much easier for me.  As the Australian Consul General in Osaka at that time, I thought this would be a pretty deft piece of national branding, emphasising Australia's commitment to Asia.  As we say, it seemed like a good idea at the time! Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backLet me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  On May 27th and July 8th we will run our One Day Successful Public Speaking Course. For two days on July 10thand 11thwe will run our High Impact Presentations course. Details are on our website at emjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off. This is where memorisation can get us into trouble, and this includes trying to do it in your native tongue. Well I wasn't doing this in English, so it was a high risk strategy.  So off I went, with no safety net.  I was doing fine actually, until I got to a quote from the famous poem by Mao Zedong called “Reascending Jinggangshan”.  All of the Chinese guests in the audience immediately recognised it and started applauding enthusistically.  At this juncture I made a self inflicted, fatal error.  While they were applauding I was wondering what to do next.  After having a brief internal debate with myself, I decided to wait for the applause to die down and then resume my memorized speech.  Because it was a memorised speech and not natural conversation, it was a forced exercise to remember the words.  Disaster.  Suddenly my mind went completely blank, and I mean a total whiteout.  I could not recall what came next.  If you are ever up on a big stage, facing thousands of expectant faces and your mind goes blank, you will find that a solitary microphone stand is not much cover behind which to hide your embarrassment.  After about 20 seconds of stone motherless silence, which felt like an eternity, I was somehow miraculously able to pick up the next part and complete the speech, before switching into Japanese.  I learnt it is pobably wiser to avoid memorising your speech. Please don't read it to us either, if you can avoid it.  If it is a highly technical speech, something with gargantuan legal implications if you get it wrong, a life or death statement to the media or on behalf of your absent big boss, then you may have no choice. If so, then please use as much eye contact with your audience as possible.  You can study the text, such that you really know the content.   You can read the first part of the sentence, then voice the last section while looking at your audience and still remain perfectly faithful to the sacred text. You can read the words and add in gestures, to emphasis the message.  You can stand straight and tall and project confidence, reliability, credibility and trust rather than hunching down over the microphone stand.  You can have pauses, to allow the audience to digest the key points.  You can hit key words for emphasis and can use voice modulation to bring the text alive. Please, please, please do not have your head down, eyes glued to the text and cut yourself off from your audience.  Even better, read your audience not your text.  Observe if they are buying what you are saying, see if they are understanding the point.  You don't have to memorise your talk or read it to us or read the slides to us.  You can have speaking points and talk to those points. For the vast majority of speeches, a conversational tone of talking to key points will work extremely well. If it is severely formal and you have either memorise it or read it, well go ahead.  However if you don't have that type of caveat, then look at us, talk to us and engage with us.  We will forgive any sins of grammar, pronunciation or lack of speaking fluency in the delivery.  We will connect with you and we will receive your message. We will regard you highly as an authentic person who spoke from their heart.  And we will remember you thereafter in a positive vein. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my weekly podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. In episode Eighty  we are talking about true north in sales. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

We all know we are the product of our habits, yet we do nothing about elevating our behaviours.  We also know that certain things work better with people than others and we should focus on the things that work best and make those our habit.  But we don't do that either.  Instead we keep repeating the same errors every time.  What did Einstein say?  Repeating the same actions but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.  So we must be crazy then. Effective human relations principles are things we should firstly understand and secondly bolt on to our personal operating system, such that they become seamless habits that we employ without thought.  Today we will look at just how to do that.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. The Japanese government is about to introduce legislation requiring companies to set up protocols for preventing and dealing with abuses of power.  Pawahara is the Japanese word for this taken from the English Power Harassment.  It will take a year before the legislation comes into force for larger companies and three years for midsize and smaller companies.  By the way, there are no penalties attached to the legislation. Complaints about Power Harassment have increase three times from twenty  two  thousand one  hundred  and  fifty  three cases in two  thousand  and  six   to  seventy  thousand,  nine  hundred and  seventeen in  two  thousand  and  sixteen. Power Harassment is officially defined by the Government as the act of causing physical or emotional pain, or demoralizing the workforce by exploiting one's position.  The Labor Ministry had issued six examples: physical attacks, verbal abuse, deliberate isolation from other employees, making excessive demands, making too few demands and infringing on the privacy of others.     In other news, Line corp and Mercari are joining forces on mobile payments.  The operator of japan's most popular messaging platform and the used-goods online marketplace app will let shoppers pay for purchases at stores that accept each other's systems.  They also launched an alliance to welcome other mobile payment providers.  Line plans to introduce Line securities equities trading with Nomura Holdings this year if it receives the necessary permits.  It is also looking at a banking tie up with Mizuho Financial Group in twenty  twenty. Last November, Line announced an alliance with China's Tencent Holdings and its WeChat Pay aimed at Chinese visitors to Japan.  Finally, the Japan patent Office established the startup Support team last July to help startups protect their intellectual property faster. As part of their IP Acceleration Program for Startups they send specialists from their IP Mentoring Teams to the companies to assist them.   Also restrictions were eased for super-accelerant patent examinations to speed up the process.  It used to take an average of nine months to get a patent approved in two  thousand  and seventeen and this is now expected to shorten to around  twenty  four  days. Progress This is episode number seventy eight  and we are talking about  GOOD LEADER HABITS    Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.          We are all the product of our habits.  What we do regularly defines our level of success. Bad habits, good habits are all the same, in terms of the production of results, so the input point not the process, becomes very interesting for those wanting to succeed.  How do we ensure that we are adding good habits and eliminating bad habits?  Part of the input process is selection of priorities.  Going to the gym rather than the sports bar is a choice.  Eating that donut rather than an apple is a choice.  Discipline is a famed part of military life and various slacker generations are recommended compulsory military service as a way to fly straight.  Where does this military discipline come from?  Regular habits are a big part.  Doing specific things at the precise same time, in the same way without variation instills habits.  Doing things that must be done, regardless of how you feel about wanting to do them, instills disciplines, which become habits.  You don't have to join the military to garner good habits but becoming more disciplined is a big help. Our biggest successes come from our ability to work with other people.  There are very few professions where you can do everything on your own and don't need the input, cooperation or contribution of others. However, we can pick up bad habits that damage our ability to garner that input, cooperation and collaboration. Here are a few bad habits we can eliminate if we want a smoother path to success. ONE  Don't make it your habit to complain to or about others. When others complain about us to others and we hear about it, what is the usual reaction?  Generally not good and animosities arise and can linger for many years, as the result of what is considered an unwarranted assault on our good name.  Some people are pretty good haters and excellent at bearing a grudge.  So if you want to create a blood feud, then start publically whining about your colleagues.  If you have a beef with someone and you heroically decide to confront them with their failings, expose their inadequacies, and detail their insufficiencies then expect either the silent assassin who won't say much but will be seeking revenge at the first opportunity or the instant combustible who will explode right there and then and counter attack ferociously.  Very few individuals will look deep inside their heart, saint like, and admit their errors and bow to your superior and wiser judgment.  You have just made an enemy for life.  How about you?  Do you have enemies for life or have you become someone else's enemy for life? If the chances of success in complaining about others are so low, then why do people persist in thinking they can right the world by drawing other's attention to their failings?  Habit and a major lack of self-awareness are culprits. Let's stop doing that and instead find a more subtle way to draw attention to problems which allow that person to save face.  Call out the error indirectly.  The issue will be raised for discussion and solution but not the animosity.  Make this your habit rather than a surgical first strike. TWO Help others to want what you want and make that style of communication your habit When we are direct and assertive, it comes across like giving orders and few people like being told what to do.  Yes, you can gain compliance and they will do it, if you are higher in the power structure, but you won't win the hearts and minds to the cause.  Let's become a more skilled communicator and look for ways to stimulate self-discovery on their part that leads them to see the wisdom of the solution, that we have identified, as the best way forward. Questions are our friends here and statements our enemies.  A statement will trigger resistance, whereas a well crafted question will lead to self-enlightenment.  Make asking well thought out questions your habit, rather than firing off statements like missiles.  Socrates was doing this back in ancient Greece, so there is nothing new about this concept. Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome backLet me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  On May 24th and September 2ndwe will run the One Day Step Up To Leadership  Course.  If that is too early for you we will run it again on September 2nd .  Also, starting on June 3rdand running for seven weeks, we will offer the Leadership Training For Managers Course. Details are on our website at emjapan.dalecarnegie.com Back to where we left off.  THREE Make it a habit to be a good listener, you will become more persuasive as a result It sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it, listening rather than telling your way to success.  Hollywood has glorified the riveting, moving oratory that rouses the masses and points them in the same direction.  In the real world of business leadership, this is a useful skill known only to a miniscule minority.  The vast majority will not be able to inspire their colleagues to man the barricades anytime soon, but with better human relations skills they can persuade them to do more mundane tasks like ensure the organisation goes forward and prospers.  When we shut up and allow others to speak we learn a lot more than when we are doing al the talking.  We already know what we know.  By listening, we uncover their desires, thoughts, attitudes, hot buttons, beliefs, fears, interests etc.  By knowing each other better, we can become closer through better communication around points of agreement and shared interests.  It is hard to disagree with someone you like. The reason you like them is because of those shared interest and ideas etc.  The reason you know those things is because you weren't always hogging the airwaves and doing all the talking. The caveat here is that you are genuinely interested in them.  A predatory listener, hoping to scoop up enough material to manipulate the other person into doing their bidding, is not a creating a success habit.  People are not stupid and we can all spot fake interest pretty quickly.  The wielder of the fake interest weapon will cut themselves to pieces, as others realize they cannot be trusted.  As we all know, when you lose trust in business you are finished. FOUR    Craft the appreciation habit   Self-centered people are always on about themselves and what they did and how great they are.  They can linger long on their superior qualities and accomplishments but are rather parsimonious about recognizing the achievements of others. These people wonder why no one wants to help them and why they get so little cooperation.  Flattery is not appreciation.  It is a lie that is hoisted on its own petard pretty quickly. The fake praise alarm bells goes off inside our heads almost immediately we hear it, so it has zero impact, except to never trust the perpetrator.  Honest and sincere appreciation is what resonates with us.  The reason we know it is genuine is because of the way it is communicated to us.  General statements like “good job”, “well done” are in danger of setting off that mental “fake praise” alarm.  We need to dig in deeper to what was good.  When we select the action or behavior that was “good”, we now begin to make it real rather than dubious.  Concrete examples add truth to our words and resonate with the listener. Tell them exactly what they did that was good and it will be real.  Appreciate people as a habit and do it in some detail that makes it credible. We are the sum of our habits and that sum determines our success with others.  Habits can be learnt and cultivated at any stage in life. We will definitely have habits one way or another so why nor make a conscious choice to use these habits to be better with others for a smoother path and a happier life. Some actions items going forward for good habit cultivation: Don't complain to or about others Help others to want what you want Become persuasive by being a good listener Give honest, sincere appreciation THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my weekly podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. In episode  seventy nine we are talking about DON'T READ IT. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Sales has been coopted by Hollywood, creating a stylized version of reality.  Sharp suits and conman ways are portrayed as the profession.  The truth is more prosaic, fundamental and involves simple basics.  Understanding buyer need and supplying it, isn't that hard, but salespeople say and do dumb things instead.  Today we will look at some simple things every salesperson should be doing and some things they should definitely be avoiding. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. In a recent government survey   six    hundred  and  thirteen   thousand people in the  forty  to  sixty  four  age bracket were found to be recluses who rarely leave their homes.  This is even higher than a previous survey, that found there were five  hundred  and  forty  one thousand in the  fifteen  to  thirty nine age bracket.  Known as hikikomori in Japanese these recluses number over a  million today.  Seventy  six  point six  per  cent were men. Nearly  fifty  percent have lived that way for at least  seven  years. In  thirty  four  percent  of cases these hikikomori relied financially on their parents.  In other news, Japanese are working longer and not retiring. The ratio of people with jobs amongst those in the  sixty  five to  sixty  nine bracket is now  forty  four percent.  The elderly accounted for nearly  twelve  percent of the nation's workforce compared to only  seven  point  eight per  cent  in two  thousand  and  six.  Of those aged  sixty  five to  sixty  nine, seventy  two  percent were hired as irregular workers and their pay has been reduced to  fifty  to  seventy percent  of what they used to earn as full time regular workers.  In a Cabinet Office survey,  forty  two percent of people said they wanted to keep working as long as they can. Finally, SMBC Nikko Securities has launched a service for customers to advise on investment in Japanese stocks using artificial intelligence.  They have teamed up with AI technology developer Herzog.  The free AI based service will show stock prices expected a month into the future.  It will propose the best portfolios according to the client's risk appetite. This is episode number seventy seven  and we are talking about  Sales Delusions     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.  Smoothly memorised shtick, elaborate glossy materials, sharp suits, large expensive watches, bleached teeth, the perfect coiffure are not important in sales.  Yet, this is the image of the pro-salesperson.  Most of us never meet many pro-salespeople, because the vast majority we run into are hopeless.  We meet the great unwashed and untrained, the part-time and partially interested, usually in a local retail format.  The slick sales dude is what we see in movies or is a received image from urban myths. Hollywood pumps out  Wall Street,  Glengarry  Glen Ross,  Boiler Room, The  Wolf  of Wall Street and we get sold an image of what high pressure salespeople look like. Japan is fascinating, in that it throws up some doozies.  Rotting blackened stumps for teeth, disheveled clothing, scuffed worn shoes, ancient food stains on ties – you encounter this low level of personal presentation here with salespeople.  It is almost the opposite extreme of the extravagent American movie image. Rat with a gold tooth or rat with a rotting tooth – neither appeal very much.  What we buyers really want is someone on our side.  We want help to solve issues slowing us down, holding us back or preventing us from growing as we would wish.  There are  six  steps on the client journey with salespeople:   know you, like you, trust you, buy from you, repeat buy from you and refer you because they are a believer.  This sounds simple, but salespeople get confused about who they are working for. They think they are there to work for themselves and get their commission or bonus or promotion and the client is just a tool in that process.  This is really, really stupid. I coach salespeople but am amazed at the dumb things they say and do.  Some want to jam the square peg in the round hole and then argue with the client about why it will fit when it clearly doesn't.  When they get pushback from the client they then try to overwhelm the objection by strength of will or force of personality.  This is really, really stupid too. The salesperson jumps into the slide presentation on the laptop from the get go.  Or they are pulling out their shiny flyers or expensive brochures or whatever and are launching forth with their memorised shtick. My first sales job was early evening door to door Britannica encyclopedia sales in a poor working class suburb in Brisbane.  Before we were unleashed on an unsuspecting, semi-literate public, we had to memorise, word for word, the entire twenty-five minute presentation.  It wasn't great then, but it is unacceptable now.  Some people are still back in the nineteen seventies with their sales efforts.  I get sales prospecting calls even today telling me “so and so” is in my area etc. I can actually hear the cadence of them reading it off a script in front of them!  Pathetic. Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome back Let me introduce a couple of coming opportunities to you.  On April 22ndwe will run the One Day Sales Booster Course Part One.  If that is too early for you we will run it again on November 11th.  Now Part Two of Sales Booster will run on August 5th.  Details are on our website at emjapan.dalecarnegie.com Now back to where we left off.  When I am coaching aspirant professional salespeople, I ask them how do they know which slides to show or which flyer they should offer to the client?  This is usually greeted with a “Huh?” response. We all did “show and tell” in elementary school but some have not travelled very far since then and think this is how you do sales.  When I arrived at the Shinsei Retail Bank  the financial product sales team would whip out a flyer of one product and if the wealthy client didn't go for it, then they would just whip out the next one. This went on until the client either got tired of it or bought something. As salespeople, we don't know what to show the client and we shouldn't show the client anything, until we know what they want.  So keep the laptop closed, the flyers in the briefcase, the widget under the table and ask questions instead.  By the way, get permission to ask questions first, especially in Japan.  Here the status of the buyer is sky high and it is a total impertinence for a lowly sales pond scum to be asking God questions about anything. Nevertheless, God or otherwise get their permission and ask your intelligent questions.  Find out if there is a match between what you sell and what they need.  Mentally scour the walls of your gigantic solutions library, floor to ceiling packed with possible antidotes to their business ailments and select the best one for the client.   If there is no solution in your library, then don't try and force the square peg into the round hole.  Just thank them for their time and go and find someone you can help. If your solution doesn't fit, then don't waste the client's time - keep your shtick to yourself and move on to the next prospect for whom it may be a perfect fit. THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out.  Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my weekly podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts. In episode  seventy eight we are talking about Good Leader Habits. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

 No one tells you when you start in sales that you need a crash course in juggling.  Not juggling balls in the air but juggling al the deals with clients that need the follow through and juggling all the deals that are cooking away but not quite ready yet.  We can get ourselves into trouble, if we don't acquit ourselves well in this juggling venture.  Find out why that is very shortly. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market.   Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. Toyota Motor Corporation is setting up a joint venture with Chinese ride hailing giant DiDi Chuxing Technology company.  Toyota is investing six hundred million dollars into the new venture to expand its business in China.   GAC Toyota Motor company a joint venture between China's Guangzhou Automobile Group will also join the project.  Toyota aims to promote the use of electric vehicles suitable for future mobility services in China, the world's biggest auto market.  In a bid to transform itself into a mobility company Toyota has established Monet technologies with investment from Softbank Group Corporation. Toyota also invested one billion into Uber technologies new subsidiary to develop autonomous vehicles together with the SoftBank Group and auto supplier Denso corporation.  In other news, A science Ministry committee of experts have approved Japan's first research involving the injection of human induced pluripotent stem iPs cells into fertilized animal eggs with the aim of growing human organs. The aim is to use human organs for transplantation in the future. Finally, The bank of Yokohama and Chiba Bank have agreed to a business tie-up.  The two banks the biggest and third largest by assets aim to launch a partnership in areas such as sharing information on mergers and acquisitions and business successions. This is episode number ninety five  and we are talking about Winning Sales Follow Through     Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.   The implication of this title is that if you don't properly follow through on the sale then you are losing.  Well, it is true - you are losing.  The difficulty of gaining a sale is hard enough, but the real difficulty is to get the re-order.  This is where we should all be very finely focused.  Rather than approaching a potential client with a sale in mind, what if we set off with the idea of the re-order firmly entrenched in our brain? This simple switching of gears completely changes the conversation, the goals and the execution of the sale follow through.   What often happens though in a busy life is we have more than one client on the go.  As we are completing one sale, we have other sales coming to fruition.  There are proposals to write, meetings to be held, materials and data to be gathered – all sorts of tasks required to make the sale happen.  In the middle of this rush, a sale is registered and the concentration on the imminent future sales, suck up all the energy and time that should be available to do a proper job of the follow through.   We need to think carefully about our workload and ensure that above all, we protect our reputation for reliability.  If we are going though the Valley of Sales Death, where we have run out of prospects and the sales pipeline is now empty, we may be rushing around like a maniac trying reboot the sales process.    This means we are often over extending ourselves and we don't get to the follow through in a timely manner.  It might mean not following through fast enough with potential clients we met at networking events.  We lose the momentum and now they don't respond to us.  It might mean, that we have sealed the sale and then mentally move on to securing the next one, without properly nailing down the execution piece of the first sale, we have just completed.   One key thing we need to check with the clients, is what are their expectations on the follow through, be they someone to meet after the networking event or actual clients who have just purchased from us.    Clients themselves are genius at this.  You meet them, hit them up for a follow on meeting and they say contact me: after Golden Week (May), after obon(summer holidays in August), after Silver Week (September), after bonenkai(end of year party) season, after oshogatsu (New Years).    Basically they are trying to condition our expectations of getting a meeting with them.  That is to say, they are resisting our efforts to see them, by trying to slip out of our schedules.   We can take a leaf out of their book too and make sure we set up the proper expectations for our follow through.  If we are going to be busy, then we should say: “Is it okay if I get back to you in a week or so, regarding scheduling our follow up meeting?”   In this way, we are not putting too much pressure on ourselves, if we think we cannot actually squeeze in this next meeting reasonably soon.   If we have had the meeting, gone through our offer and have promised to send a proposal with pricing, then again we need to consider what is the time frame which will allow us to remain in control and project the best image of trustworthiness and reliability.    We could say: “Thank you for the meeting today, would you mind if I shoot the proposal out to you in two weeks time?”   If we have just made the sale, then we could looking at conditioning the follow through, by saying:   “Would it be too much trouble if I sent you the necessary materials you have requested, in about two weeks time?”   I struggle with this myself.  I get on a roll and pump up the client meetings, then the proposals have to start rolling out and this is highly time consuming.  The days are filled with more and more meetings and the time between them to do the follow up gets squeezed. Deadlines start to get missed or start to drift and things start to fall of the table and not get done at all.  I have to have a few harsh words with myself and tell myself to stop biting off more than I can chew.    Often, the client will stall you on a decision.  “We will study the materials and get back to you”. They don't and you don't get back to them either, to see about the why they haven't gotten back to you as promised. This is because you have moved on seamlessly to the next client meeting, then the next subsequent round of either hollow promises or genuine undertakings, which are slow to materialize.  Sales brethren, don't expect the client to do all the work on the follow through – that is our job.   So the first step is to condition the client's expectations as you end the meeting about what will happen next and when it will happen. Give yourself time because you want to reinforce trust, credibility and reliability.  Remember to the client, the things you promised in the meeting are just so much hot air coming from a salesperson.  The real test is when we get down to the follow through.  How do you want to be perceived when it's show time?   Having set the time frames in a reasonable way, so you don't blow yourself up, you now have to really ensure you deliver what was promised, on time, or even slightly ahead of time.  Not too early though, because it will seem you were just sandbagging them on your turnaround times and certainly do not deliver anything after the agreed deadline.    They have given you permission to delay, but they don't trust people who can't make their own indulgent deadlines.  Your trust quota from the client will immediately start to evaporate.  Remember, our objective here is the re-order, not just a single sale.  Find out more when we come back from the break Welcome back You might worry about all the potential business you have left on the table by taking this extra time to concentrate on the follow through with this one client.  The trade off is that your reputation remains solid gold and you are going to ensure you will be around for a long time, not just a good time.   The terms of the deal will have certain specifications and these must be met.  If you unilaterally decide to alter them and then announce the fact as a fait accomplito the client, expect trouble. Flexibility is not a widespread trait here in business in Japan, so expect a possible client meltdown.    There are so many human relations complexities in play here in Japan, because the people we are talking to have promised something specific to others.  If we don't fulfill our side of the bargain, then our clients lose face with their buyers. This is the modern commercial equivalent of seppuku(suicide) in Japan. The clients are more concerned about their long-term position in the market, based on established trust, than they are about saving a few pennies on the pound.  They will never deal with you again, because the risk is too high against the potential reward.  You don't want that reputation – it will always come back to bite you when you can least afford it.  In this social media world we now live in, bad news travels vast distances and at light speed.   You may have seen entertainment programmes where the performer has a number of large plates spinning on a thin, reedy looking stick. As they increase the number of plates in motion, they get busier and busier rushing around to keep them all spinning, so none crash and get broken.  This is the sales life of follow through.  If we over estimate our capacity and launch too many items for follow through at the same time, like those spinning plates, we will falter and crash.   We need to have a brilliant technology for time control and time management.  We need to be highly disciplined.  We need to be excellent memo takers to ensure we write down what needs to happen next. Never try to commit the many things you have to do to memory, unless you are operating at the genius level of detail recall.  There is an ancient piece of wisdom on this:  “The faintest ink is superior to the best memory”   Write it all down, in detail, so that it is clear, creates a retrievable record and which is then actionable.  We need to be able to transfer that information to our schedules and link it back to the required sequences of follow through.  These all add up to our completion of the promise.   Often, we depend on others for some parts of the follow through and this is where we need to be excellent at delegation.  The main reason we don't delegate at all and blow ourselves up, is we are scared to rely on others.  Somewhere in the past we were let down and we are haunted by that memory for our entire working lives.  We cannot grow unless we get leverage. The chief source of leverage is other willing hands.  The issue with delegation is we don't do it properly and then conclude the tool, rather than the tradesperson is the problem.   When delegating there are some fundamental steps which must take place in order for us to be successful.  Firstly we need to plan the delegation and select the best person for the task.  This sounds infinitely reasonable, except we usually select the person who looks the least busy instead. Later we wonder why we have trouble on our hands.    The next step is we meet with that person to explain the task. This is where 99% of people get it wrong.  They tend toward the “dump it” approach rather than the “sell it” approach.  The “dump it” approach is where they just hand off the task and maybe explain a few of the details.  Typically they just say, “I need this done by next Monday”.  They leave out the WHY and the “What Is In It For You” part of the conversation.   Having explained the background, the WHY, their self interest in the project etc., we now work with the person being delegated to, on the timeline and delivery method.  We want them to be doing the main part of this, so that they have ownership and control over how they deliver it.  There will be milestones towards completion which need to be monitored.  At the successful fruition of the delegation we celebrate the achievement.   Follow through is not a one time effort, it is an every time thing.  In Japan, there is no margin for forgiveness of an error.  We are focused on the re-order, so we begin the follow through in the way we want to finish – highly regarded as someone true to their word, who can be trusted and who is totally reliable.   Action Steps   Understand the risks of poor execution after the sale has been completed Control the client's expectations Realise if you have too much on your plate, you need to slow down the pace Gather the best time control and time management methods you can find and use them Write it all down some place where you can later find the notes Use proper delegation methods that lead to success THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my podcasts. Look for the Leadership Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series and The Sales Japan series wherever you get your podcasts.   In episode  ninety six we are talking about Ignore Your Business school Advice. Uh, oh - Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

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.