Afleveringen
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Japan loves the Devil they know over the Angel they donât know. Change here is hard to achieve in any field, because of the inbuilt fear of mistakes and failure. This country takes risk aversion to the highest heights in business. There are no rewards for salaried employees to take risk. There are massive career downsides though, if things go wrong, due to an initiative they introduced. Personal accountability is not very popular here.
The decision-making system here is also a nightmare in this regard. Who is the decision-maker? Probably no single person. The meeting we attend may have one to three people present in the room, but they are the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg we will never get to meet by the way. Behind the walls of the office, sit their other colleagues who will have to sign off and agree on the change.
The checks and balances of Japanese organisations guarantee a few things. One is it makes for good communication internally. No one faces an unpleasant surprise. I have found most Japanese, as individuals, are not good at dealing with the unexpected. The sudden emergence of something that had not been previously factored in, has these staff rushing for emergency exits in fear.
The other thing this system supplies is the opportunity for all the vested interests to have their say. Fast action is not viewed as a plus. Reaching a consensus is very important in Japan and people expect to have input into any new arrangements. The piece of paper suggesting the change physically moves around the section headâs desks and each one applies their hanko or stamp to the document, indicating they are okay with the change. Nothing will happen until all of those stamps are there.
Turning up and finding the buying team are already quite happy with their current supplier, means a lot of work has to be done internally by the people we are meeting, to make a change away from the known and established order. Who wants more work? No one in Japan, that is for sure. When you are dealing with small to middle size firms the supplier arrangements can be even trickier. They often have a strong owner running the show. They make a lot of the key decisions and then everyone else does the execution of the decision. You may not get to meet with the dictator directly.
In many cases, the current supplier company was supplying their grandfather who started the business. Many a good time was had on the golf course, being entertained in the Ginza by geisha and visiting expensive cabaret clubs together in the good old days. Gifts flowed thick and fast as well, to cement the relationship. The current generation of the heads of the respective businesses may have been at school together, have marriage links between their two families or belong to special clubs as members. I see these connections at my very exclusive Rotary Club here in Tokyo. These are successful families who move in the same circles. The third generation of family business heads have deep links together built up over the last generations. Why would they change their trusted supplier to you?
Be it a big corporate or a smaller concern, there are a lot of barriers to change in supplier relationships in Japan. Frankly, we have few levers at our disposal as a result. The one thing that companies fear in common though is getting left behind by their competitors. The globalisation of business has meant these harmonious relationships between supplier and buyer are getting shaken up.
Just explaining the details, benefits, quality and pricing advantage of the solution you provide are not enough. We need to lob some dynamite into their current cozy little supplier arrangements, by bringing up their exposure to being blindsided by a competitor. We need to remind them that the best solution will win in the market or at least reduce their market share. We need to point out that in a competitive industry, no one cares about the depth of the existing relationships, because they are fully focused on their survival. Rivals will make key supplier changes and these will trigger changes across the industry, as everyone else has to adjust accordingly. By getting ahead of the curve, they can win time to adjust and win market share for themselves, vis-Ă -vis their rivals.
Price and quality differentials only become meaningful in this light in the current market. Just talking about price or quality in isolation wonât move the buyers to make any changes. The effort to make new or change supplier arrangements needs a strong reason in Japan or else everyone just defaults to a âdo nothingâ stance.
This requires we come armed with examples of where a change in supplier arrangements wiped certain companies out. The best option is relating changes in their industry, but even if we donât have that, we need to show evidence of how dangerous it can be to avoid change. The drivers of change are plain to see: globalisation changing supply options, Japanâs declining population driving companies to take desperate measures to stay afloat, technical advances challenging existing business relationships, currency movements impacting pricing, etc.
We say fear and greed drive behaviour. Well in Japan, the fear factor is certainly more pronounced than the greed factor, so lead with the downside of non-action rather than the upside of a new initiative. Paint a picture of how the advantages of your solution could become dangerous in the wrong hands, that is to say, their competitors. Advise them to not give an unfair advantage to their rivals by not making the change today. Express the importance of urgency, the time factor exigency to take action right now.
We need to do this to drive the imperative of all those characters sitting behind the wall of the office, to get their hanko out and stamp the recommendation, showing their support for it. The people we are meeting are not the final decision-makers, so we need to arm them with the required nuclear harpoon to break through all the inertia and resistance to change, that is the hallmark of business in Japan.
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I have been in sales since 1988, with a slow, then fast migration of skills. I started my own small one-man consultancy in 1988 in Brisbane to assist businesses wanting to create revenues with Japan. I moved into commercial real estate in 1989, then into market entry in 1992, retail banking in 2003 and then selling soft skills training in 2010.
I began my personal study of sales around 1990. The company didnât provide any sales training, so I had to source it myself. I attended Tom Hopkins two-day Sales Seminar in Brisbane and that considerably boosted my understanding. The organisation I worked for in Japan brought in a sales trainer and I worked with him as his assistant for delivering sales training through N.E. Asia. When I joined Dale Carnegie I undertook the sales training they had and that further refined my skills to the point where I was able to certify as a sales trainer.
If there is one area I see as a weakness in myself and for most people in sales it is asking for referrals. Japan shouldnât make any difference when it comes to asking for referrals so I donât think there is an market specificity preventing us from doing it.
I had an uncomfortable experience when someone supplying me with personal services did a hard sell to me on referring him to other potential buyers. I had bought from him a few times, so there was a relationship there, but I always felt a bit wary about him. He is clearly focused on the money and fair enough, but I shouldnât be feeling that. So when he pushed me hard on getting new business from him I didnât like it at all. It felt dirty and unnecessary. Why do I owe him anything and have to introduce my contacts to him to grow his business. What had he ever done for me to grow my business - a big fat zero? He presumed that because I was a client, he had the right to ask me for referrals, but I didnât feel he had won that right at all.
So where is the line where we can comfortably ask the buyer for introductions to other people to get new business? I think the personal relationship is important, but they donât have to be your bosom buddy in order to ask. Of course, if that is the case then it is easier.
Firstly, we have to have built the trust with the buyer by delivering value for them. I try to make the buyers my friends, but that doesnât happen in every case. The buyer becoming a friend shouldnât be part of the qualifying process to be to ask for a referral. As long as we have delivered value we have a starting point.
The way of asking is critical. The person I referred to, asked me in an extremely aggressive way and I didnât like that at all. One of my failings is if people become aggressive with me, I instantly respond in kind. As I get older though, I am getting better at dealing with this flaw and when he was aggressive with me I didnât say anything, so that is progress.
The takeaway for me was never ask for a referral in an aggressive to too assertive fashion. Keep in mind the buyer doesnât owe us anything. We need to remind them of the value we have provided. With this platform we can ask for their help. We should never ask a very broad request such as , âDo you know anyone who would benefit from our training?â. We have just opened the floor gates for them and they have so many possibilities they canât fix on any that are helpful. It is like those consumer experiments where counterintuitively they have found reducing the number of choices on the shelves helps to move more product.
We need to zero in on some choices for them to make from a limited number of people. We can say, âYou have mentioned to me that you felt you received value from the training we provided. I wonder amongst your circle of family, friends, colleagues or business contacts, you can think of someone who would equally get value?â. We have reduced the entire Universe of people down to four buckets. We want them to be able to see the faces ion their minds eye so that the process is controllable. If they are struggling then we zero in on one of the buckets to see if we can spark some recognition of who might benefit.
If they have someone on mind, we have to make the follow-up super easy and a light touch for them. If we ask them to call that person for us, while we feel this is perfect, they will feel that is too much. After all, they donât work for us. However, if we say, âwould you mind if I mentioned that we did some training with you and you thought they might also benefit from the same training?â. That is a light touch and easy for them to agree to. We might also ask them for the contact details of the person they have in mind and again that is an easy ask.
We can copy them in on the email if we send an email and then that tells the person we are contacting that we have permission to make contact. If we do it by phone then we need to drop the name of the person who gave us the referral to add trust to the basis of the call.
My parents thought the flow of Philip Gregory Story was better than Gregory Philip Story, so they made that choice as my official name order and had always called me Greg. I have had the experience of people calling me up saying, âHi Phil, XZY suggested I give you a callâ. I instantly know they are lying to me and cannot be trusted.
Most people wonât have that handy device available, so we have to assure the person that the referrer did genuinely make that suggestion. In my case, I would say, âTony Smith was in my High Impact Presentations class last Thursday and Friday and he really made some great progress in just the two days of that programme. It was clear to both Tony and me how much he gained from the training. I asked him if there were others he thought might equally get value for the course and he gave me your name, hence the reason for my callâ. By being so specific it is easier for the person I am trying to sell to, to know this is genuine.
If we deliver value for the buyer, then we should make that extra effort to see if there are others we can help, who they know. Not everyone will want to do that, but even so, if we ask in a gentle way, we wonât create doubt and destroy the relationship. The worst thing we can do is to continue not asking. There are simple ways to do this and we should start doing them â including me!!!
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Storytelling is usually associated with novels of hundreds of pages, movies lasting two to three hours, television drama series fifty minutes long per episode. In sales in Japan we get a mini window to the buyer that, hopefully, in the first meeting will last an hour. During the second meeting, to present the solution, we will also get around the hour the buyer has allocated for the meeting with us. In both cases, we have to make sure the buyer, rather than us, is doing most of the talking.
That is especially the case in the first meeting, because we donât actually have any clear, in depth idea about what they need. The time should be spent in two phases â one establishing credibility and trust and the second phase devoted to asking questions to uncover their needs.
The main opportunity for telling micro stories in phase one is around our background and experience. The buyer wants to know who they are dealing with. They want someone who knows what they are doing, someone who can help them and we need to fill in those details for them.
We have all had the experience of buying something, we ask a question and the clerk says, âone moment pleaseâ and then disappears to ask someone else the answer. This is never a confidence builder. We immediately recognise we are being served by the clueless. That is the danger for us in sales in B2B situations, where we have to answer their questions without having to get the answer from someone else. We need to tell stories which will assure the buyer we are an expert in this field and we can give them concrete and valuable assistance to solve their complex problems.
Usually, there is a rapport building phase at the start and this is where we can package up a mini-bio of who we are. Remember, we are a stranger to the buyer, yet we expect them to unveil all of their corporate problems and challenges. Recall what your parents told you: âdonât talk to strangersâ, yet here we are trying to sell them something and they donât know who we are.
In Japan, in that rapport building phase, I am often asked about why I came to Japan. I have a plan for that question and so should you. I mention I came for two years to study Japanese at Jochi University as a Japan Education Department scholar and this has turned into 40 years. This gives the listener a lot of confidence that I know Japan and that I am an âinsiderâ not just a gaijin or âoutsiderâ.
I also make a subtle point that actually the real reason I came to Japan was to study traditional Shitoryu karate. This reinforces for the listener that I know Japan at the deepest level having trained in the martial arts here â one of the last bastions of old style traditional culture.
Establishing my Japan credentials isnât enough though, because the issues at hand are commercial and I need to demonstrate that I know what I am doing so that I can help them. Having a strong brand like Dale Carnegie is helpful because I always mention that we started the training in Japan in 1963. This tells them we have a lot of experience in Japan, so we can understand their problems. I give them a very brief bio of Mr. Mochizuki, who launched Dale Carnegie in Japan, to personalise the point.
In the second meeting, when presenting the solution, it is vital to have stories of how other buyers succeeded with the solution. These donât have to be long stories, but they need to do three things: one, put flesh on the bone of what the solution does for the buyer in application; two, explain how that buyer was able to adapt the solution to their business specificities; and three, talk about the success they had with it.
We may not be able to mention the name of the other buyer, for confidentality reasons, and we should definitely point that out. No buyer wants to hear all about the juicy details of another company and then hand over the details of their own company to you, knowing you have such a big mouth and will go around telling everyone about their secret business, if they do business with your firm.
We just have to make the point it is a company very similar to the current buyer. We should talk numbers, best expressed as percentages of growth, or speedy turnaround or major cost reductions, etc. Japanese companies rarely want to be the first mover because of their risk aversion. They prefer others to trial it first and then they can study the results to see if it is for them.
We donât have that much speaking time with the buyer, so we need to have micro stories we can draw on to bolster our credentials as a reliable, trustworthy partner. We also need to allay their fears that what we have wonât work for them, by telling micro stories of where it has worked for other buyers. These stories canât be just pulled together out of thin air in the moment. We need to have worked these up for meetings with clients before we meet them, so that they are lean and pared down for easy, yet fast retelling. Stories need data and data needs stories in sales. We should never forget this golden rule when selling in Japan.
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Bosses love hunters.
They beat the bushes and find new clients for the business.
Usually, they love the thrill of the hunt and wrestling the buyer down to do the deal. CRM systems, paperwork, boring follow-up detailânot so much.This is the preserve of the farmer. That person you can entrust the client to, knowing that they will be well taken care of. The follow-through will be well executed and, in a fair wind, will remain a repeat buyer.
I'm a hunter and easily bored with the mundane aspects of sales.
I'm also the boss, so I know how we need both hunters and farmers operating at peak performance levels.Here are some aspects of the farmer we need to perfect.
1. Building and Maintaining Strong Relationships
Trust based on a track record of reliability and predictability is crucial.
This calls for clear, frequent, and transparent communication with the buyer's side.Omotenashiâserviceâmeans anticipating and exceeding the client's needs. Client needs change, their internal structures change, and we must be on top of those changes in order to remain relevant.Farmers are good at the detail and at scheduling regular contact. Hunters have already moved on to the next exciting deal.
2. Deep Understanding of the Client
Every industry and every sector is different, and every firm is unique.
So the ability to tailor services specifically for that buyer is needed. That means keeping up to date with changes in the industry, economic growth rates, currency rates, inflation rates, supply chain, etc.The farmer knows who the players are on the buyer's side and what interests and concerns them. The key decision-makers can also change. Farmers keep abreast of these changes, always sensitive to wind direction fluctuation, which could eject them from the ongoing business.
They know what their counterparts' KPIs are and how they are measured and rewarded. They have to know what the personal interests of the buyer are in order to provide a holistic solution for them.
3. Strategic Account Planning
Design-in is the holy grail in manufacturing. It means your component or service is designed into the product or process from the start. To get to that stage, we have to know the client's plans, objectives, timelines, milestones, quality thresholds, price points, etcetera.
To keep the relationship humming along, we have to stress the value we bring and accommodate the needs of the buyer from the point of view of lifetime value and not this month's sales quota.
Not always easy, though. Headquarters mandate cost-cutting, and things go south very rapidly. That agreed deal is now shattered on the rocks, and the details are now flotsam and jetsam being pounded by the surf.
We serve a lot of folk in the automobile sector, and we have had two major clients really pull back on their spending. They're being hammered by their Chinese EV competitors. One recently celebrated the appointment of a new CEO and promptly ceased all training and froze their programs. Ouch.
The other recently informed us that the next contract will be decided by Dutch auction. The last thing you want to hear in a sales negotiation is the phrase "Dutch auction." The new contract bid starts at zero and goes up, and whoever raises their hand first gets the deal at that price point.
There's no differentiation here for a quality-versus-price comparison. It is a very unsophisticated methodology but highly in favour of the low-price buyer. Procurement department buyers, who see all items like nuts and boltsâbasically undifferentiatedâlove it.
If you're in the service sector, where there are vast differences in quality provision, you are not going to love this way of thinking. Ouch.
4. Collaborative Problem-Solving
The farmer sees themselves as an extension of the client's firm and gets involved to help solve their problems. They do this through the prism of their product or service. They become an outside consultancy looking for areas where they can add value. Often, as salespeople, we see across many industries. Companies in industry A hardly ever mix with companies in industry Z, but we do.
We see what works and doesn't work across the range of our clients and their problems. We can bring in things we've seen work well elsewhere and help the buyer achieve the goals they have set.
Let's remember that farmers are important in any sales team. Hunters may be very flashy, flamboyant, and exciting, but they often create chaos and despair. They often lose repeat business because of their lousy follow-up and poor personal organisational skills. Farmers can glue the customer to us and keep that flywheel turning.
Bravo to the farmers out there.
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I received this note following my attendance at a networking event run by one of the foreign Chambers of Commerce here in Tokyo.
âDear Greg Story , I hope this message finds you well. It was a pleasure meeting you, and I truly enjoyed our conversation and the valuable insights you shared. Please feel free to reach out if there is anything I can assist you with. I would be delighted to stay connected and explore potential opportunities for collaboration. Thank you again for your time, and I look forward to speaking with you in the future. Best regards,â.
Frankly, I was shocked to get this note. It was from a Japanese businessman, so bravo on the quality of the English. It was sent that same afternoon, so well done on the cadence. My shock was induced by the fact that we didnât have anything even faintly resembling an insightful conversation. Our conversation, such as it was, can be recorded as relatively brief. This note, upon receipt, came across as a âcannedâ response which felt as if he probably sends this out to every man and his dog, so totally non-tailored or personalised and therefore a comprehensive fail.
He was in the property management field, he told me, and he made no effort to filter me to see if I was a prospect who could become a client. Yet he bothered to send me this note. What was the point? Honestly, when we are networking, we need to do much better than this.
In my case, I only send follow-up notes to people who are high possibility prospects. How do I know that? I filter them during our conversation. I only need a few pieces of information to work out if there is any potential gold in this conversation for my business.
Their meishi or business card is the first filter. What is their position inside the company? Are they a decision-maker who can buy my training? For me, the second filter is company size. If they are under thirty people, then the chances of us doing any in-house training delivery is slight. The modest numbers of staff make it hard to justify the expense. However, they could be a candidate for sending even just one person to our public classes â a light and inexpensive option. If they have over thirty, then in-house delivery is a possibility.
The next filter is, do they have any need? On the back of my card, I list the following information: âSoft skillsâ training, so that it is clear we are doing corporate training. I have these categories: Leadership, Sales, Presentations, Communication, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and Executive Coaching, all prominently displayed. On the spot, I go through these with the person I have just met explaining what we do. In a light-hearted manner, I then ask them if they need any of these? But I am deadly serious about trying to unearth any hints regarding what would help them grow their business.
Some people flippantly say, âwe need all of themâ. That is okay, because I am not so easily deflected. I then push them for which one in particular would be the best for their people. I am trying to filter to see if there is a real need there or not. If there is, I will tell them I will get back to them after the meeting and mention âletâs get togetherâ. I am conditioning them to have no surprise or resistance when my email turns up trying to set a time and date for our meeting.
If my filters eliminate them as a potential client, then I am pleasant, but I move on and try and find someone who is a buyer. Some people say to me they find they get stuck at networking events and spend the whole time talking to one person because they donât know how to break off the conversation and meet other people. Here is how I do it: âIt has been a pleasure chatting with you. Why donât we try to meet some other people while we are here? I look forward to catching up again in the futureâ and I shake their hand and simply walk away.
For networking and follow-up, the process has to be well organised and congruent. There is no point sending a follow-up email to someone who is clearly not a prospect. There is no point sending a follow-up email unless you have already set it up that you will do so, rather than doing it out of blue like this gentleman did with his all weather template.
I have used the example of my training company for the filters, but take your own industry sector and work out what you need to know to succeed in your business. What would be some relevant filters you can apply to strangers to know which basket to place them in?
People who donât make their living selling, hearing this brutal clarity, may feel this seems mercenary. Trust me, they have no idea they are alive. Sales is a rough and tough profession and a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Our most important tool is our time and how we use it. We cannot be dilettantes and swan around in a daze, like most people I meet at networking events. We have to be laser focused on getting new clients and we must let nothing distract us from that pursuit.
When civilians criticise me for this hardheaded businesslike approach, I just ask sweetly, âhow do you find new clients when networking?â. I then ask whether they think their own salespeople are strong enough in finding new buyers, and are they committed enough to growing the company by finding new clients? Finally, I ask âwhat would be the impact if your salespeople adopted this approach and used their networking time as effectively as possible?â. They go very quiet in response and cease their uneducated critique of this pro-salespeopleâs hard won expertise, as they should.
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âThank you for submitting your proposal for our capability development project. We appreciate the time and effort your team invested in preparing the proposal. After careful consideration, we have decided to proceed with another vendor whose proposal more closely aligns with our current needs and strategic direction. This decision was not easy, given the high quality of all the submissions we received.â
I have stopped crying now, but this is the response I got from the buyer. Obviously, I have looked back on this deal and have tried to fathom what went wrong. They contacted us, so that means they were a hot prospect looking around for possible providers. I met with them face to face to ascertain what they wanted. This proved to be a little tricky because they were a bit vague on what they actually wanted. As is often the case with HR people, they are casting a broad net to see what they can drag in, because they themselves donât have a lot of expertise regarding possible content.
I duly took copious notes, suggested some things during that first meeting to see if there was any interest. There was interest, but looking back, I wonder now if that was only because they didnât have a clear idea of what they wanted, so everything sounds good in that case.
I didnât just send them the proposal by email. I organised a second face-to-face meeting to walk them through the proposal, so I could gauge their body language and deal with any issues on the spot if they were unclear or uncertain about the contents. All textbook stuff. I left that meeting feeling like I had the winning formula for them, so I was devastated when I got this rejection.
Was it the money? It could have been, because my pricing was 16% higher than what they spent with another company for the previous yearâs training. I didnât think that was outrageously different though, and I tried to assuage the price rise with loading on the value we provide. When the HR people see the training supply as a commodity, however, with no differentiation, then price becomes the easiest tool to wield. I could have just matched the price with what they paid the previous year, but if you believe in what you are doing, you have to defend the quality, the brand, and the differentiation you bring to the equation. It is a risk and in this case, it didnât fly.
Was it the content? This is hard to say because their needs were open and broad. They didnât really have a clear picture of what they wanted, which was good and bad. Good, because it opened up a lot of possibilities and bad because it opened up too many possibilities. We all have our limitations as suppliers and our areas of strength. We tend to work within certain frameworks, because that is the content we are most familiar with and most confident in. It is always better to have a buyer who is very specific about what they want, and there is the downside that you donât have it at all. That is okay, because that at least tells you why you failed to get this deal. It is that buyer vagary which is frustrating, because you could have made the deal but you are never really sure at the end as to why you didnât.
Was the chemistry not there with the buyers? I would say in this case I was too confident about the chemistry. I thought I did a good job in both meetings with connecting with the two HR representatives. One of the problems with chemistry, though, is that it isnât a huge differentiator and it is easy for a rival to match you in this element. Salespeople, by definition, are good with people, good communicators and we are all the same in that regard. Maybe my successful rival was equally charming and engaging and what I was doing wasnât a big enough differentiator to make a difference in the end.
One thing which on reflection may have been a mistake is we spoke in English. We could have chosen either language, but one of them seemed to want to speak in English and the more junior person in Japanese. It may have been better for me to speak in Japanese with them. There were no communication issues with our conversation, but it may be a comfort factor which I could have paid more attention to. This was a multinational company so English is expected by people in their roles, but we are still in Japan. I donât believe this was a deal breaker at all, but it is something to consider. The argument can both ways also that speaking in English with a multinational company emphasises your suitability for them over a pure Japanese domestic supplier. It is not definitive, but something I will pay more careful attention to going forward.
Can I get a clear answer as to why the deal didnât get done? Basically no. The buyers donât want to get into justifying their decision for you. They have taken it and they have told you there were multiple options and they chose another one rather than you. In these cases, I just write back and say, âthank you for letting me know. I look forward to the next opportunity to work together with youâ. I leave it at that and accept the umpireâs decision and move on.
Getting rejected has a negative psychological effect on all of us in sales, so we have to be very careful we donât let it impact our confidence or self-belief. In my case, I always say to myself, âthey are stupid not to take my offerâ. I reflect on what I did and what happened, but I always put the blame on the buyer. This may seem irrational and delusional at one level, but it makes a lot of sense for when you fall down seven times and need to get up the eighth and keep going.
My psychological equilibrium in sales is more important than accuracy about who is to blame for this failure. Sales is rough and mean and we have to protect ourselves because most times we donât get the deal. We cannot allow that to impinge on our optimism that we will get the next deal.
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n the West, we often emphasise that inaction doesnât necessarily mean safety for the buyer, and there is a real cost to taking no action. We talk about the âopportunity costâ of doing nothing. A buyerâs competitors arenât stagnant; theyâre actively seeking new advantages with something better or more advanced. The market is never still either, as itâs always shifting, and companies need to be agile to keep pace. Economic conditions are equally unpredictable, with movements in currency, oil, gold, agribusiness etc., and other factors creating constant change.
In this volatile environment, companies canât afford to stand still. Innovation, adaptation, and flexibility are essential. Any opportunity to strengthen an offer relative to competitors must be seized and maximised. The ideal outcome is one where our offer canât be easily compared to what salespeople know as the âMatrix from Hell.â This matrix, favoured by procurement departments, lists items to be purchased down the vertical axis and supplier names across the top on the horizontal axis. Prices are then compared, and the cheapest option is chosen.
We donât want our offer to fall into this pricing matrix. Instead, we aim to differentiate our offer so that it defies easy comparison. We need to add value beyond price alone. If our offer lacks the necessary depth, we need to think creatively about what we can provide to stand apart, avoiding price reductions or loss-leader tactics. Our goal is to create âapples to orangesâ comparisons, making it impossible for price to be the only factor in the buying decision.
As a result, we constantly highlight the downside of inaction to the buyer. In this VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous), how can any company feel confident doing things as they have always done them? The ground is shifting beneath our feet, and companies need to be capable of responding. As salespeople, we represent something new and different for the buyer, offering them a lifeline to navigate the daily VUCA challenges.
Do Japanese buyers see it this way? Unfortunately, they donât. Change in Japan is a double-edged sword. Intellectually, itâs acknowledged as necessary, but buyers instinctively resist it. They closely associate change with risk. Culturally, Japan emphasises group dynamics, partly to disperse any risk among all members, so no individual is held accountable if things go wrong. Japanese salespeople, for instance, prefer bonuses over individual commissions, as they feel more comfortable being rewarded as a group.
Buyers share this perspective. They donât want to be singled out over a purchasing decision. Collective agreement to change suppliers or add a new supplier feels much safer. The ringi seido system of collective decision-making perfectly suits this desire to spread accountability. By obtaining the seals or hanko of all key decision-makers on a proposal, the potential blame is shared if something goes wrong.
A salesperson parachuting in with their shiny idea about the opportunity cost of doing nothing quickly finds themselves in a thorny position in Japan. No one here is likely to get fired for missing an opportunity. Buyers fear mistakes far more than they fear a lack of urgency. With no pressure to act, talk of âmissing outâ seems quaint. Here, doing nothing isnât equated with loss; in fact, itâs often praised, as it avoids risk and keeps the enterprise safe.
This cultural inertia partly explains Japanâs relatively small venture capital market, the lack of unicorns, and the many âzombie companiesâ that neither thrive nor disappear but manage to survive. Everyone involved seems determined to make no changes, ignore opportunity costs, and look away from change, hoping it will pass them by.
If youâre passionate about motivating buyers to embrace change or realise the consequences of opportunity cost, be prepared to feel like youâre talking to yourself. Japanese buyers see no upside to making changes and plenty of downsides, so they tend to hold their ground. That doesnât mean we shouldnât try, but we should avoid making opportunity cost our primary âhail Maryâ play to close the deal.
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One of the worst combos in sales is a virtual meeting online and the buyer says, âsend me your proposalâ or even more insane, you volunteer to send it. Even if you managed to sit down face-to-face with a buyer, do not under any circumstances finish up the meeting with this sentence, âI will send you my proposalâ. Sale is hard enough as it is, so why do salespeople decide they are not living on the edge enough and make these types of ludicrous statements?
We usually get one hour in the first meeting to go through the first part of the sales cycle: build rapport with small talk, get permission to ask questions, ask questions to understand 1. where they are now, 2. where they need to be, 3. why they arenât there already and 4. what will it mean for this individual if it all goes swimmingly?
This requires that as the salesperson, we shut up and let the buyer do most of the talking and that we take very good notes. One handy note taking technique is to divide the note page into four quarters representing these four questions and then write the answers in the corresponding quarter of the page. If you have missed something, it becomes immediately obvious, because there are few or no notes in that quarter.
In our proposal, we will outline what we have understood is their need. We will then outline what we suggest is the best solution to deliver on this need and then explain what it will cost. Of course we never ever use words like âpriceâ, âcostâ, etc and instead we only refer to the âinvestmentâ.
This sounds infinitely simple, but have we understood their need? Have they actually been totally forthcoming about the full gamut of their need? Are they holding back key information we need to know in order to provide the best solution for them? Why would they not share that critical information with us? We assume they want to buy something. Maybe they have a vague interest. We have managed to blag our way into a meeting with the buyer, but their motivation isnât high. They may have a mild dose of curiosity or they may be a psychopath who loves to torture poor, unsuspecting salespeople.
Salespeople generally have poor listening skills. They are often not really listening completely, because they hear one piece of the puzzle and their brain inflames with an internal conversation about the clever next thing they are going to say. At this point, they actually stop listening to the buyer. Or they may hear an objection and the brain goes into overdrive with what they are going to say to destroy that objection. They stop listening to all the other vitals hints from the buyer about what they need, in order to concentrate on their sparkling riposte.
Consequently, what they regurgitate in the proposal may have missed the mark or more likely, missed key bits which the buyer needs to hear about in order to organise the Purchase Order. Given this likelihood, imagine what a disaster it is to send the document off and allow the buyer to sit there and silently think, âI am dealing with an idiot who has not understood fully what we needâ.
Here is Dr. Storyâs iron discipline sales requirement. When wrapping up the meeting, grab your schedule and make them open theirs and find a date and time for the next meeting. In that meeting, you will bring the proposal and go through it with them to make sure you have correctly and fully understood their needs. Get into their diary right there and then, because trying to do it later can be difficult and sometimes it never happens at all.
If they say, âjust send it to meâ, under no circumstances accept that statement. Instead, say âI will need to show you something, so letâs find a time for me to do thatâ. Do not dilute the power of what you have just said by adding to it with more justifications. Keep the strength of that bold statement intact, break eye contact, hold your pen at the ready, look down at your diary, and suggest dates and times.
We want to be sitting right across from them when we go through the details to read their body language reaction to what we are outlining. We want to make sure we have properly understood their needs and that our solution is attractive to them. We want to tease out any doubts so that we can deal with these spiky porcupines on the spot.
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Hunting for new clients is difficult and expensive. Marketing tries to drive people who are seeking our solution to our door through the website, advertising, search words and SEO. That all costs a lot of money and the success ratio can be quite low. We attend networking events and these usually cost money too. Now our most fundamental sales goal is not a sale. We are desperately looking for the reorder. If we can get that, it means we donât have to spend any more money on getting this client on board. We can amortise the acquisition costs across a stream of orders which brings our per buyer acquisition costs down substantially.
Another source of clients are clients. These people have bought from us in the past, but the trail has gone cold. Maybe they stopped and never resumed because of an internal crisis around money and they had to cut costs. Perhaps our champion got moved and their replacement has their preferred list of suppliers and we are not on their list. Maybe we screwed up an order and got cut. There are so many reasons to have lost touch with a buyer in Japan. It is made more difficult here because of the rotation of staff through different sections of the company, as they try to create an army of generalists.
Trying to get back on the bronco after having been bucked off is extremely tough. The people there now may not remember us at all. In effect, this becomes a cold call and we have to start again. We need some powerful tools to get back on their buying list.
Hopefully, we have a good record keeping system and we can pull up what we supplied previously, how long they were our client, who we were dealing with on their side etc. We will need to reference all of these details to gain credibility as a supplier. If they have never done any business with us, then there are many hoops to jump through, whereas being a previous supplier clears a lot of those hurdles.
We may have introduced a new product or solution since we last communicated. Often, we may have numerous solutions and they only selected one, when in fact we can solve a broad range of issues for them. This is the time to introduce any new products and also the range of existing products to them. What wasnât required before may now be of interest. Perhaps a rival supplier isnât doing a great job and we turn up as an alternative.
If we have something we can demonstrate or show as a solution that is helpful. In our case, as a training company, we can offer free refresher classes for their staff who are our graduates. The price is right, they know who did the training previously and in most cases those same people will still be working there. As we rerun what we previously supplied the people involved recall how good our solution was. They are possibly in more senior roles now and they may want this solution for their team. They may also be stimulated to look for what else we can do for them, as they recall their satisfaction with us a supplier.
If it happened that we screwed up previously, there may be a chance that the people who recall those details are no longer there and we can start with a clean slate. Japan, however, is pretty good at record keeping and our beautiful name may be mud and still listed on their blacklist of people to never use again and the conversation will go nowhere. I called on the same company after a couple of years break. The people I met were new, but I was amazed when they consulted their records and perfectly quoted what had been discussed in the previous meeting. Donât underestimate Japanese record keeping prowess.
If they have a good memory of us and we have developed something new, then that can often be the hook to get us the meeting. They may be curious about what we have come up with and be prepared to hear us out. It is not easy, but it is easier than trying to blag our way into a meeting with total strangers, who have no knowledge of us and what we do.
We all have buyers who have fallen by the wayside and it is worth the effort to rekindle those relationships and try and restart the business. We could be leaving a lot of money on the table by not trying to reconnect. Chasing new buyers is expensive and hard so letâs get out our records and go back and touch base again and try and get some deals going.
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We know that there are a lot of salespeople who are totally untrained. They have cobbled together bits and pieces of the sales process but they donât have the whole picture in their brains. I remember when Dave Stearns, a Carnegie Master Trainer came to Tokyo to certify us a Sales Trainers. He started with the top right hand corner of the whiteboard and then he slowly outlined every single aspect of the sales process and the flow filled the whiteboard from top to bottom, from left to right. It was an amazing tour de force from someone who is a real master. At the time, was sitting there thinking that I could never do that. Well today I am using our sales process and doing the exact same thing in my head when I sit across from the client.
The only difference is that in Japan it is rare to get through the whole process in one sitting. Here it is more likely we get up to the point of the questioning model and the explanation of the solution comes in the next meeting as we present our proposal. At this point we go into handling any objections and then closing the sale. Again in Japan, that closing of the sale part of the process may not trigger an agreement, but it will set off an internal process to look at what we are suggesting.
The decision-making process here is complex and glacial with many actors involved. Most of the key decision makers we will never meet, and it is up to the people sitting in front of us to become our champions and push the deal though. This internal harmonisation process though takes a lot of time and we have almost no leverage. Telling our champions to âspeed it upâ is a like a sick joke, because they don't have any capacity to do that as they seek internal agreement to move forward.
In the Ringi Seido decision-making system, the Section Leaders and Division Heads who will be impacted by the deal though the changes it will trigger attach their hanko or seal on the proposal document to signal agreement. When there are enough of these achieved the document gets elevated to the Directors level and usually they rubber stamp approve it because they know all the due diligence has been completed down below.
To bridge between the questioning component and to be invited to propose our solution, we have to move into the suggestion phase. There is no great detail required at this point. What we are doing here is to try and make sure that what we are thinking will be a good fit for what they are after. We have heard their story, we know what they want to achieve and mentally we are rummaging around our magic solutions box to see if we have what they need. We explain in rough terms what would be involved and check to see if that sounds directionally correct. If we do get it right, then we talk in general terms about the outline of the possible solution and see if they think that is a match for what they want. If it is and they think that will work then we are invited to submit our proposal along with the other potential rival suppliers they are talking to.
The Proposal will go into much greater depth and detail about what is involved and how it will work in practice. It may not be precise enough, but if we are most of the way there, we can still refine it further according to their feedback and we are not out of the running yet. Naturally pricing has to be attached and it we are higher than our rivals, which hopefully we are, because our quality is better, then we submit and see if they go for our ideas. This is important because at this point they are just ideas and until we get the business and can execute, the buyer has to take our word for it that we can do what we say we can do and at the quality level we say we can provide. There is a lot of trust included at this point.
This is why the way we present has to be very well executed. We have to be making suggestions and constantly checking back to see if there is a match. If it isnât we need to know that information early and redirect to something else we think may. The level of confidence we have and the degree of detail we can provide off the top of our head, without referring to any materials is important. It sends a message to the buyers that we know what we are doing, we have done this before and we know they results we can deliver.
Mentioning previous projects for other clients is important because it means we are not using them as the test bed. Japanese firms donât want to be the guinea pigs for anything. They want to know that it works already. We may not be able to drop the names but when we describe what we did and what happened they are relieved to hear there is a track record of successful implementation already. The way we describe it is so key. We have to do it with supreme confidence, belief and knowledge to demonstrate we know our stuff.
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Basically, we know that a third of the potential buyers we meet will never buy from us, another third will buy, but not right now and the remaining third are ready to go, if they can be convinced to take action right now. The issue though is when we meet them for the first time, we donât know which bucket they fit into and we can waste a lot of time and energy thrashing around before we work it out. The knowledge gain process is not straightforward and there are a lot of traps and feints ahead of us, as we make our way forward into the impenetrable jungle. Is there a faster way? Perhaps if we can plumb the depths of our experience and identify some buying or non-buying signals this will help us speed things up.
Being salespeople, buying signals are difficult for us because we donât take ânoâ for an answer. We will push for the meeting even in the face of resistance. Our sales exploits have informed us that the buyer who assures us he has absolutely no more than fifteen minutes to meet with us, will spend ninety minutes talking to us if we have what they need. We also know that ânoâ isnât a permanent feature and things can change, so we never give up hope. It also means we go up a lot of dead ends and have to extract ourselves for the waste of time, black, smelly, squelchy bog we have become trapped in.
Letâs look at some loser situations we will encounter, when meeting potential buyers, as warnings to weight up the investment of our valuable time with them. I had a great lunch with the ebullient foreign President of this firm, which had been bought by a very large Japanese enterprise a few years earlier. He was excited about bringing our training into the firm to strengthen the sales team and to deliver the sales numbers the headquarters wanted. His Japanese CFO had been sent in from the mothership. That snippet of information should have sounded a warning bell for me. The lunch went well, he was excited and I was excited to get things going, so I ignored that deadly little trip wire.
That ebullience I should have realised was built on a foundation of sand within his own organisation and that the Japanese CFO actually pulled the strings not him. The lesson here is that when you know the firm has been purchased by a larger entity, or is a joint venture of some type, definitely check who has come across from the mothership and what positions they hold.
Look at the President you are talking to through that lens and ask some subtle but important questions about how decisions are made. What I should have done was to ask about how he was going to get the people to whom he reported to okay the purchase of the training I was proposing and then settle back and very carefully analyse his answer. I needed to strip his ego and bold front out of the equation and take a good look behind the velvet curtain to try and get a sense of who had the real power.
In the end, despite our conviviality at lunch, he just kept peppering my follow-up attempts with a string of excuses and stalls. The penny dropped eventually and I realised this deal was never going to happen, because he couldnât convince his CFO to okay the expenditure. His ego canât allow him to admit to me that he has little or no power within his own organisation, despite have the grand title âPresidentâ on his business card.
Another President who I have been chasing after for a long time now, tells me he wants our training, but my follow-up emails and calls never get a response. When I collar him at an event, we are both attending, he pleads he is so busy with this or that and so couldnât get back to me, but he is still interested. Here it the conundrum. Yes, he is interested, but can he translate that interest into a deal with his firm? I know his industry is in turmoil and although the technical changes donât directly affect his business, the overall industry direction does.
The chances of a deal happening seem slim, but the price of a regular follow-up email is not high. However, I shouldnât invest any emotional energy into him whatsoever because only pain is in that future. What I donât want though is he eventually gets religion about doing the training and wanders off with a competitor, because they were the last contact he had from a provider. That would really hurt if that happened. Things can change rapidly in business, but we just donât know enough about the buyerâs internal situation to know when. Can you imagine if I finally corner him at some future event and he says, âOh yeah, we did the training with XYZ companyâ. Would that be grounds for justifiable homicide?
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I am a great fan of Victor Antonio, who writes books, gives lectures and training on sales. I listen to his Sales Influence Podcast and he has a lot of solid, credible advice. In a recent episode he spoke about not using âweasel wordsâ in sales and being more directive and certain with the buyer. Weasel words are defined as âwords or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleadingâ and in sales would include words such as âperhapsâ, âmaybeâ, âcouldâ, etc. I was thinking about how this would apply in Japan.
The culture here of modesty, humility, not standing out, not being openingly directive is the exact opposite of the culture in the USA, where you have to be more aggressive. As a consequence, if I started being more assertive with my buyers, I believe they would dismiss what I was saying as American style push selling and reject both me and my solutions.
I have lived here for 40 years in total now, so over those three sojourns, I have adapted my Aussie self to fit in with the way things work here. In sales, when I first started trying to convince buyers to buy, I was using consultative selling methodologies. That meant asking questions to understand the buyer needs. However, I am sure when I got to the solution explanation part, I was being very strong and forthright in my recommendation that they buy what I was offering.
Having sold here for many years now, I have changed that method to be less strident in my recommendations and I do use a lot of what Victor calls weasel words in the sale. I have found that being too pushy with the buyer doesnât go down well. Being too assertive isnât viewed positively and the buyer feels they are being pressured to purchase. Deals donât get done as a consequence.
If it was black and white, that would make things easier, but where is the line between strongly believing in your solution and being too pushy. I know I really believe in what we sell. We see the results from our training and how it changes peopleâs lives, so we are all true believers. The problem is the buyers have to buy it, before the results are delivered and they have to take our word for it that what we are saying is true. We know for certain but they are not sure.
We also know that confidence in the solution does sell. If we are too hesitant, too unsure, too circuitous in our explanation, then the buyer may not receive enough confidence from us, that what we are proposing will do the trick. How much is too much confidence and how much is too little? As I say â where is the line?
I have found that the key is to be humble about what we say will happen after the sale, in terms of what they will receive in terms of results, and then pile on the evidence. We can be very sure, passionate and enthusiastic about what we have seen work for someone else. We can speak with total belief about what we have observed. We can speak with authority of one who has witnessed the changes and the improvements. In our explanation of the results from our training, the total certainty is there because we have seen it with our own eyes. When we speak about whether this will automatically transfer across to this particular buyerâs situation, we have to be more conservative. Having perfect knowledge of the buyerâs situation internally and externally, is unlikely for us. We cannot say, âwell this worked for XYZ company, so it will definitely work the same for you and you will get equal or better resultsâ.
This is where the weasel words are needed. If we are too strong in our recommendation we will be doubted. Every buyer is concerned that what they buy wonât work as advised, and that internally they will be blamed and scolded for their selection of supplier. They like the passion we show for our belief in the solution, because this gives them more confidence in the possibility it will work. By not trying to push the sale through, we also show our respect for their position. We need to say something like, âthis worked well for XYZ company, so given your situations are very similar, there is a strong probability it will work the same for you tooâ.
When we say it with these caveats, we sound more reliable to the buyer, because we are not giving any 100% guarantees, which may or may not be worth anything. We sound more honest too, because we are introducing the possibility it wonât work for them, but that we will make a 100% effort to see that it does work. That small sense of doubt gives the buyer confidence that what we are saying isnât salesperson blarney and that we are honest and can be trusted as a partner.
We are telling the buyer that we are not here for a sale. We are here for the repeat order and we will do everything we can do to make sure it works so that more orders flow and we build a solid trusted advisor partnership. What we say and how we say it matters in sales and semantics are crucial in getting the deal across the line.
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The denizens of the upper floor, quiet, luxurious C-suites with expensive wall hangings and deep pile carpets, determine the changes the organisation needs to make to survive or to do even better. They expect everyone below to get behind their dispositions. Deep down in the engine room of the sales team, these changes are communicated by their boss. Usually, sales leaders become the boss because they lasted through two consecutive recessions and were the last one left standing or they were the star producer and were kicked up to management, many years ago.
Invariably, they received no leadership training on the way through, so they are constantly making it up, using trial and error as they go along. They may just bluntly tell everyone how it is and expect the salespeople will snap into line and obey the new direction.
Sales is an emotional rollercoaster of constant rejection, with hard sales targets and permanent instability. Somewhere in that firefight, the salespeople have carved out their own little world and cobbled together a construct, held together with string and adhesive tape, which allows them to survive or possibly thrive. Then the big bosses turn up and tear a hole in that neat little safe and sound world. Suddenly, the salespeople have to make changes to what has always worked and their sales leader is no help. What happens to their motivation?
Salespeople are already world class, gold medal winning whiners. It is always someone elseâs fault as to why they canât make their targets. The system requiring them to make this latest change has just handed out the ultimate all-weather, all season excuse for missing the numbers. Finding the path of least resistance is how most people operate and salespeople in particular, because they are permanently time poor. They cut corners and shave off service quality to ensure maximum speed.
Change means slowing everything down and recalibrating what needs to be done. These changes will often impact their clients and particularly in Japan, salespeople hate having to bring any changes to their buyers, which will affect their operations. How can salespeople adjust to change?
Decision One is whether to continue with this company or not? In Japan, there is a dearth of salespeople, so job mobility is at world recording breaking highs. Taking your clients and moving is super easy today, so their response to the changes is âgoodbye big bosses, I am leaving with all my business cards, to work for the oppositionâ.
What about for those who choose to stay? First order of duty is to not rely on the boss for how to make the adjustment. Expect they wonât be much chop when it comes to this type of thing, as they are totally untrained for it. Salespeople have to work it out for themselves. Once that reality is accepted and the change is confronted directly, then some analysis is needed.
In any change, there are pluses and minuses and salespeople must run the ruler over where these are located. Are there any advantages to the buyers with these changes? If this is the case, then that is always going to be a great conversation and one the salesperson can look forward to initiating.
More likely, how can the negatives of these changes be minimised for the buyers? Ultimately, the salespeople have to be agnostic about what they think about the changes and be fully focused on what they mean for their clients. If the changes are a pain for the client, what can they do the reduce the amount of pain or what can they do to counterbalance the pain?
Maybe they canât do anything and they consequently lose that client. Well salespeople lose clients all the time, so there in nothing unique in that. They also know how to find new clients, so they have to get busy with that activity and find clients for whom the changes are not an impediment to doing deals.
Salespeople have to be resilient or they cannot survive in the rough and tumble of the sales life, so adjusting to the new is built into their DNA. They wonât necessarily welcome or like the changes, but they can make them work because they are experts in adaption.
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Salespeople turn up in Japan and expect things to be pretty much the same as where they have come from. After all, sales is sales right? Wrong. Japan, as usual, is quite different. If these newly arrived salespeople had received training on how to sell, then they are probably going to try a consultative sales approach. This is absolutely what they should be doing, except it doesn't work in Japan. The consultative approach at base has a very sensible and basic idea â ask the client what they want and then give it to them. Simple stuff.
The issue in Japan is the client wonât open up and tell you what they need. Buyers have been trained by crap salespeople here to expect a pitch of what you have to offer, so the buyer can lean back and shred it, trying to sort out the risk factor. If you come to the buyer and start asking questions about their firmâs current situation, they donât see this as a means of better understanding their situation, so that you can provide the most relevant and effective assistance. They see it as prying, as exposing their dirty little, embarrassing secrets to strangers and therefore to the broader world, broadcasting all of their failure points and weaknesses.
We may start with our consultative sales approach and hit a wall on our first question: âWhat is the current situation for your company?â. This sounds innocuous enough, but that is not how the buyer interprets it. They feel, âI canât answer this salespersonâs questions, because I donât know them well enough and the trust is not sufficiently built yetâ. That is a big gap from the get go.
At this point they usually segue into âTell me about what you do and about your productsâ. This is bad. We are now throwing mud at the wall and praying something will stick, which is not much of a sales strategy. How can you get the pitch right if you have no idea what they need. Most of us come to client sales meetings with numerous products and solutions, but which one will hit the mark?
In the West we are very logical. If what the salesperson is genuinely interested in what we need and if what they are saying seems to make sense, then we are prepared to look at buying. The Western buyer is not terrified of making a mistake. They are not fearful of sharing information with strangers. They are not dubious about foreigners selling them stuff. They are looking for ways to help their firm do better in the market, for methods to outfox their competitors and gain an unfair advantage in the hand-to-hand combat of business.
The Japanese buyer is very conscious that if they introduce something new, like a new supplier and anything goes wrong, they will lose face and will suffer in the internal future promotion stakes. They are not focused on helping the firm to do better, because they are driven by their own personal self-interests. They have also discovered that the safest path is the one of doing nothing new.
I was talking to the HR Manager of a car dealership about some sales training for their firm. They have had sales training before, but the results were not impressive. My angle was âtry us as a new approach, bring in something fresh and differentiate your salespeople from all the competitorsâ. I thought that was pretty conclusive and convincing.
Weeks later I was told they went with another firm who specialises in sales training for dealerships. This is what they had been doing in the past and not getting the change they wanted, but the safest path forward is always to do what you have always done in Japan and take no risks with anything new. They will get the same results they have always gotten but everyone will feel safe and no one will lose their job.
In Japan, we need to set up the consultative approach with getting permission to ask questions before we launch forth. In the West we never have to so this step because every gets it. Not Japan though.
Here is the simple, quick formula: explain who you are; explain what you do; talk about who else you have done it for and the results; suggest you could possibly get similar results âbut to know if that can happen or not, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?â. In 95% of cases this works and I get permission to dig into their dirty laundry and find out their problems. There are still those buyers though, who just brush that effort aside and say âgive me your pitchâ.
I really want to cut my losses and leave right there, down my cheap, bitter, horrible green tea and depart, because I know that without understanding their needs, I have little chance of talking about the things of most value to them. I donât do a runner because that would be abrupt and considered rude in Japan. I soldier on, fully understanding every minute with this buyer is keeping me away from a buyer who will buy.
Consultative sales can be done in Japan, but it needs some modifications to allow for the pitchfeast mentality on the part of the buyers. Once we understand where they are coming from we can work our way around the resistance and get to the heart of their issues and hopefully we have a solution that will work. If we donât, we shouldnât waste our time or theirs and we should go find a buyer we can help.
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âThere are no excuses for failing in salesâ, is a common ideological position. However, is this really true? There is no doubt that sales is a very macho environment for men and women. There are set quotas, targets, numbers to be hit and if they are not hit, then that person is deemed to be failing. There are no hiding places in sales. You make your target or you donât. Now, if we fired every salesperson who failed to hit their target, we wouldnât have many people in sales. Japan makes this especially fraught because the declining population translates into a shortage of salespeople. This also means that the quality of salespeople in the market is only going to decline. Whether we like it or not, we will be looking for anyone with a pulse to hire because we need warm bodies. Targets smargets in this case.
In sales anywhere, we know a couple of things. The majority of people in the business are untrained. Companies want off the shelf top earners who they can cut loose and let them go forth and bring in the dough. That is an epic delusion in this day and age in Japan. People who can sell are not moving because the company is doing its best to keep them. That means the ones who are mediocre, or worse, are mobile. Even this supply will dry up as companies become more and more desperate for salespeople and will keep their underperformers because they at least know something about the product lineup and have met a few customers.
We also know that at any point in time, a third of people we meet who we hope will become clients will never buy from us. There may be many reasons for this, to do with budgets, decision-making, ideology around self-sufficiency, stupidity, etc. Another third will buy, but unfortunately not according to our monthly sales quota driven schedule.
In Japan, especially, it is exceedingly rare to meet someone and then immediately get a sale. The dispersed decision-making process in business here ensures that there are many voices to be consulted about a new decision to buy from an unknown supplier. This internal harmonisation can take a long time to come to fruition. The best way to think about is like this: âthe buyer is never on your scheduleâ.
The remaining third will buy, and the question becomes why will they buy from you? The âyouâ is important here because firms donât buy from other firms. They buy from the individual they meet, who is sitting across from them in the meeting room. They make their decision on that basis. Is the chemistry there between buyer and seller emanating from a solid foundation of trust? Where does this trust come from?
The biggest part of the trust equation is from the sellerâs kokorogamae. This Japanese word can be variously translated, but in this context, âtrue intentionâ is the best version. True intention means what is really driving the salesperson? Is it desperation to keep their job by making their monthly sales target? Is it greed to score a big commission or a promotion? Is it to do the right thing which is best for the buyer? If it isnât the latter, then we have a problem.
Correct kokorogamae is often defeated by the culture of the firm. Doing the best thing for the buyer is not a smash and grab activity designed to yield immediate returns. The focus of correct kokogamae is to get the repeat order, not a single sale. That mentality is very specific and the time frame is long. If the sales manager is pushing everyone for immediate sales revenues, then the needs of the buyer get tossed out the window and the salespeople will do and say anything to get the sale. In fact, everyone is working hard to dismantle the brand and destroy the client trust for short-term gains and this is driven by the leadership. Is it the fault of the salespeople that they are working for idiots?
Companies have to do much better by their salespeople. Target expectations need to be realistic and have attached timelines which make sense. Training is an absolute requirement, in particular, how to ask questions in order to fully understand what the buyer is trying to achieve. Pitching a solution makes no sense if you have no idea what the buyer needs, and this activity has to be replaced by intelligent questioning skills. The aim has to become the repeat order, because farming is a lot less expensive and more efficient than hunting all the time.
Just hiring people and then firing them is an option that is no longer able to be enjoyed by companies in Japan. Given that the quality of those recruited will just keep going down, these individuals have to be encouraged and developed. That requires time and treasure, but there is no alternative.
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Most of the sales jobs in Japan require the ability to sell in Japanese. That usually means native speakers of Japanese or foreigners who can operate at a highly sophisticated language level. There will be exceptions, but they are not that numerous. Probably the bilingual recruitment industry is one of the main employers of foreigners who canât speak Japanese and English-language schools. One could argue that today neither requires any real sales skills. Recruitment, in particular, is at an inflection point where the demand definitely exceeds the supply, so anyone with a pulse can match a candidate from the database and invoice the firm looking to hire staff.
Be they Japanese candidates for sales jobs or foreigners, what should we be looking for? Some might look for a track record of sales results. That is one indicator, but often not all that useful. Is the methodology in your shop teams doing sales and being rewarded as a team with salary and bonuses? Or are there individual targets and commissions attached to the sales? This is such a different construct, it depends on how you are configured.
Japanese salespeople, in my experience, love a salary, bonuses and team accountability. They are reluctant to take individual responsibility for their sales results. The money is obviously better when operating as an individual, but most Japanese salespeople feel overly exposed to the harsh realities of the sales life in this situation and prefer the comfy team embrace. So expecting rocketing individual results from a salesperson who has been operating within a team is overly optimistic. Despite that, I always favour personal accountability for results and work on gluing the team together, even though they are focused on getting their own numbers.
How have they been trained is also a strong indicator? Very few salespeople anywhere on the planet have been given formal sales training. In Japan, it is usually on-the-job training or OJT where they go with their boss or more likely, with their senior to client calls. Japanese salespeople turning up on their own is rare in Japan. Usually they travel in pairs, as one is the understudy to the other, until such time that they become the senior in their own pair. Ideally, we either want properly trained salespeople or we want to be able to train them formally, rather than rely on the Japanese system of intergenerational mediocrity.
In some cases, the salesperson needs a degree of technical background for their work. Japan though has a weak connection between what they study at University and the jobs they wind up doing, so often there is no direct match. In many cases, the engineers may have the required technical training, but no formal sales training, so they are reliant on the OJT system for developing their sales abilities, which is at best a hit and miss affair.
In general, broad skills are required and, in particular, communications and human relations skills are needed. Technical people can often be duds at both, so they need to be developed. In other cases, the person has these key skills but is weak technically. The Unicorn is always hard to net. When I first worked at the retail bank in Shinsei, the hiring criteria was maths skills for salespeople selling investment products to wealthy individuals. A rather dubious idea, I thought, so I changed it to put more emphasis on people and communication skills. Naturally, the results vastly improved immediately.
The other element we need to think about is our brand. Does the person we are looking at hiring fit our brand or can we teach them how to fit. If I see a sales guy with some of the things we are looking for, but has scruffy, poorly shined shoes, I know that I can teach him how to fix that issue. If his haircut is a disaster, we can fix that too. The point, though, is the individual has to submit to the brand and fit in with the companyâs thinking. In todayâs environment where getting a sales job is super easy, maybe they donât want to change themselves to match the brand and expect things to flow the other direction. In my case, I would always think long-term and want to defend the brand, because it is bigger than one salesperson.
There is no doubt that we are all facing a lot of difficulty finding suitable salespeople based on our preferred criteria. Whether we like it or not, we have to be flexible and the best idea is to train the people we hire to get them to the level we need. Expecting they will come fully outfitted from the get-go is now a fantasy. Times have changed and we need to move with the changes.
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I have been coaching a founder client here for quite a while now and his emotional reaction to his clients not buying on his schedule always surprises me. I keep telling him, âit is business; it is not personalâ. We know that there are some customers who will just never buy, some who will buy now and some who will buy in the future. We just donât know which is which until we get rejected.
When I get rejected in a deal, they are not rejecting Greg Story. They are rejecting my offer, in its current construction, at this point in their cash flow cycle, within the bounds of their strategic direction, in relation to what my competitors are offering and a whole bunch of other stuff I will never even know about.
Does it still hurt? Yes, of course it does. I get super annoyed and upset like everyone else. The difference between me and my client, who I am coaching, is I never pass that emotional reaction on to the client, who said ânoâ to my stupendous offer. He does pass it on because he feels so upset and frustrated. I keep telling him to chill. Write the email if you must, to get your hurt feelings out, just never send it. My advice isnât working as yet, but I will continue to counsel him to not take it personally.
I had my own rejection case the other day. I was doing an RFP for a client and they came back and said they went with a rival firm who specialises in sales in their industry. What was my initial thought? âThey are idiotsâ was the first reaction. This was followed by âwhy are they just doing what all of their competitors are doing? Why not use another more differentiated approach with something more fresh?â.
What did I reply? I didnât mention any of that. By the time the decision has worked its way through their internal decision-making system, there is no going back. Telling them they are stupid may make me feel good, but it wonât alter their course of action. I wrote what I always write, âthank you for letting me knowâ and that is that. I donât bother with appeals for consideration in the future. I just accept their idiotic decision and move on to find someone smarter, taller, better looking and who bathes and who can do a deal with us.
Now I also put them on my follow up list, because not every deal works out. Their situation can change and maybe my competitor is useless and what they provide doesnât work. So I keep in touch and ask them if they have any needs that we can help them with, and I do this regularly. The initial interval is around six months. That is long enough for them to realise they made a huge mistake by using my competitor and that they got nothing from that ridiculous solution they chose instead of mine. After that, I follow up every three to four months, because business is fluid and what wasnât on the table is now in play.
How long should you follow up for? Ryan Serhant, who I follow and who started his own successful real estate brokerage in the US, says âkeep following up until they dieâ. I am not that pushy, because I figure there are reputational costs to being too pushy and too insistent in Japan.
Tokyo is big, but it is also a small village in many ways. We sell to Japanese domestic firms and foreign multi-national companies. Our reputation as Dale Carnegie, a business based on being able to get on well with all different types of people, has to be careful how we are perceived in the market. If we say one thing, but do another, then our brand consistency will suffer and so will our sales.
Where is the line between persistence, which is admirable, and being too pushy, which is frowned upon here? It is not always clear, but if I feel that there is no interest, then after about four follow-ups with no reaction stretched over a twelve-month period, I will shelve that firm for a while. The people may change in the future and maybe someone smarter will be the person to talk to or maybe their business has changed and they are now more open to our solutions.
Regardless of what the client does, we can control how we react and we must keep cool, calm and collected in the face of failure and rejection. Is that easy? No, but the choices are few. My client hasnât quite gotten to the point of handling the rejection in a calm, non-emotive manner yet, but I will keep working on him until he gets there. I am constantly working on myself, too. I have found that no one is a clear genius with this stuff and we are all a work in progress.
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This is Part Three and is the conclusion of our series on how to provide superior customer service.
1. Go the extra mile
Time is always short and we all tend to cut corners and look for anywhere we can save time. On the receiving end of the service though, we are looking for as much personalised attention as possible, so there is a natural tension between these two aspirations. Training staff to think beyond the natural limits of time challenged customer service is the start. We can all do more. If we think of things from the customerâs point of view, we can extrapolate what would delight customers.
I visited the café of a well-known business to enjoy a hot chocolate. This was a small outlet, which had one table for customers to sit down. There were no other clientele, so I decided to sit there and drink my brew, before heading off. There were two staff working at that time and when the beverage was ready, the male staff member brought it to the counter.
He could just as easily have brought it to my seat, which was a metre away from the counter, but he chose not to. There was no time pressure on him, but his mind was in basic service mode and not in âgo the extra distanceâ thinking. I am also guessing, given his age, that he was the manager of that small store, so you can see the problem with him in charge supervising others.
2. Using 3rd parties as proof points
No one in Japan wants to be experimented upon or be the Guinea Pig. They want proven, established, reliable, repeatable, high quality service. Years ago, I was with my family in a Korean Barbecue restaurant in the Azabu Juban. I noticed on the wall they had a hand written list ranking the most requested dishes. I thought that was a smart idea for a Japanese audience, who want safety, rather than novelty or adventure. The next day, I brought this up at the Shinsei retail bank, where I worked and suggested we do the same and list our most popular financial products. We did that and it gave that third party seal of approval, making the purchasing decision that much easier.
3. Master first impressions
We are all quick to judgement and often we base it on what we see, before what we hear. Just looking at how someone is dressed influences what we think about who they are. A lot of firms have uniforms for that reason, to standardise the image they want to project and to control the branding. The way we dress matters, so we have to work on that and make sure it is communicating the image we want. In the customer service sector, it might be voice first or it might be visual first. Either way, we have to be mindful of how we come across to the customer. The sound of our voice should always be friendly and helpful.
I had some lower back issues recently and went to a clinic which specialises in that area. The first doctor I met welcomed me, looked at me, gave me his name and listened to my problems. I had to go back again after a week and this time, because of the day of the week, I got a different doctor. Same clinic, but this guy was well overweight, slumped down in his chair, staring at his computer screen. He didnât offer his name, look at me or seem happy to see me and my money. We are facing a major population decline here in Japan, so these doctors really need to hang on to their patients and the competition is only going to get more intense. Same firm and two entirely different impressions. Getting consistency is a matter of awareness and training.
4. Cross and upsell
Selling should always be with the best interests of the customer. We need to have that in mind, rather than ramming more sales down the gullets of the buyers or selling them stuff they donât need. Cross selling is there to open up options for the customer, to give them more of what they need. Upselling is to upgrade the quality of what the client has already bought, to give them a better experience. Both have to be done in the customerâs interests and the customer has to feel that is the case.
I used to go to a dentist in Azabudaidai but I never felt my interests were upper most in his mind. I always felt he was seeing me sitting here in his dentist chair, visualizing his new Tuscan Villa, paid for by the additional dental work he was always suggesting. I stopped going to him because I didnât feel he was trustworthy. There is a massive over supply of dentists in Tokyo and there are plenty of choices, so his greed was a very shortsighted measure.
5. Able to deal with different personality types
We have some people who are very detailed oriented called Analyticals, while others are the opposite and massively big picture, âdonât bog me down in the weedsâ types known as Expressors. Others are fast paced and hard driving as they push, push, push called Drivers. The opposite types are Amiables - quieter, considered and want to have a cup of tea and get to know us before they will do business. In customer service we have to know who we are dealing with, because that will change the form of communication we choose.
We have our own preferred personal style and that is fine, but that means there are three other styles who are different from us and they demand a different approach in order for us to be successful with them. Generally, we can tell from the way they speak, which group they fall into. If they are confident, strong, assertive they are going to be Expressors or Drivers. If they are quieter and more reserved, then they are likely to be Analyticals or Amiables.
Just knowing this enables us to strengthen out voice or soften it, when we deal with them. That alone means we are doing a good job of matching how they like to communicate and they will feel more comfortable with us.
6. Skilled in conflict management
The service sector is bound to have conflict issues between what the customer wants and what the firm wants. In customer service roles, we often get very irate people talking to us and they are difficult to deal with. The usual breakdown is they want something and we don't have it, or we wonât do it.
How we communicate that is everything. We just covered different personality styles so that is the first line of response. We try and understand who we are dealing with. We may need a very detailed explanation as a result or can just be brief. Naturally, we have to be super polite all the way through. Being gruff with a Driver type is incendiary, so I donât recommend that, but we can be direct and they wonât be offended.
We need to be looking for empathy, win-win solutions, practical alternatives, context and background explanations and of course lots of flexibility. I remember when I was in trade promotion, we had sold a new buyer on purchasing garden bark from Australia. It had to be just bark, with no twigs or pebbles or sand. The day the ship should have departed, the supplier called us to explain they missed the ship but âdonât worry, it will be on the next oneâ.
When we relayed that vital piece of information to the Japanese buyer, I could hear the anger coming out of the phone, being held by my staff member seated three metres away. It was so intense, such red-hot rage. He had promised his customers bark and now he couldn't supply it, so we were burning his business, by not living up to our side of the bargain.
That was the end of that business on the spot and no more orders. There was no wiggle room in that case, but wherever we can, we should be looking for solutions to alleviate the problem for the customer.
Over the last three session we have covered off a large number of things to think about in customer service. Information is good, but execution is the key. Often the issues we face are structural or the consequence of legacy systems. We need to keep upgrading our internal approaches to become better at servicing customers, so that we can outmaneuver our rivals in the marketplace.
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In Part One, we looked at some of the elements we need to be working on in providing excellent customer service, and so now letâs continue.
1. Friendly
This would seem to be a very basic requirement in customer service, but often the wrong people are placed in these roles and many of them donât like people. Even those who do like people can suffer brutal invective from irate customers and this can impinge on their joy for the work.
In Japan, the land of the âcustomer is Godâ, we now see legislation against harassment of workers by customers. Dogeza is where you get down on your knees and bow by putting your head on the floor and is the ultimate sign of apology in Japan. In Chinese culture, we know it as the âkowtowâ. Angry customers have been known to force staff to do the dogeza to apologise for the unsatisfactory service they have provided. It would be very hard to be friendly after being put through that experience. Japan is catching up in this regard and these types of outbursts will reduce as the system stops tolerating unbridled rage by customers.
2. Develop loyal fans
This is related to being friendly. The idea is to not just provide a great one-off service, but to enroll the customers as repeaters and make them loyal fans. All sales should have this as the goal. In Japan, though, we receive aloof, but polite service. Those serving see their role in the dimension of providing the good or service, and that is it. There are very few cases where the person serving is trying to establish a connection with the customer and encourage them to come back. Maybe they think that is the job of the marketing department and nothing to do with them.
There are many instances where I frequent the same establishment, but the service is never personalised. It is efficient and polite, but impersonal. I am treated just like everyone else, and there is no recognition that you are a regular. Notable exceptions would be Ali Bab and Lindo near my office in Akasaka, Shinsen Hanten in Nagatocho and Elios Locanda in Hanzomon, but they are rare cases. How hard is it to recognise regulars? Not very. All the staff have to do is say âthank you for coming back, what can I do for your todayâ. I love Princi from Milano in T-Site in Daikanyama, go there very regularly and five years later, I am still waiting for the day they recognise me as a loyal customer. Obviously, in most cases, there is no training or guidance for this, so it is always by the manual and we the customer are left feeling flat.
3. Immediately responsive
Customers are all busy all the day long and they hate wasting their valuable time. Service provision, which is slow or late, is particularly a problem in this high-speed world we inhabit today. When there are problems, we want them fixed fast because we are losing time by not having the good or service work as we expected. I ordered some deodorant on Amazon and was contacted by Japan Post to tell me the package was wet, which meant there had been some interior damage. I went online and registered a problem and I was very happy to immediately hear from the supplier that they would refund my money and they told me to not accept the package. I was mentally bracing for trouble, prevarication, quibbling, and fudging, but their instant response was better than my low expectation. I was very happy, and that is the same with all of us â we want things fixed and fast. Staff need to be trained to provide it
4. Never combatative
I hate one thing in particular and I have hated it my whole life, and that is being told ânoâ. I am sure I am not the only customer who is like that. One of the great ways of telling a customer ânoâ is to reference third parties. When I was at the Shinsei Bank, sometimes the customers would want us to do something which was not possible. Banking, by the way, is a highly regulated industry with tomes of rules. If we said âno, we canât do thatâ, then to someone like me, that is a red rag to a bull and I will tell you the thousand reasons why it has to be a âyesâ.
Instead, we would firstly agree that we could do it. Then we would pause, reflect in an obvious way and then ask the customer what do we do about the Financial Services Agency (FSA) rule that prohibits that action. Now we have said âyesâ at first, so they are relieved and their guard is down. Next, we have made it a problem between them and the FSA and not with us. Third-party direction works well if you can access it.
5. Seeking win-win outcomes
Win-win is an obvious best solution, but many systems are not designed that way. This forces the staff into confrontation with the customer and it creates unnecessary tensions. Staff training will not easily overcome a structural problem. Take a good look at your internal rules and systems and see if they are designed in a way to be a âloseâ to the customer and a âwinâ to the firm. Change them or improve them if possible.
6. No excuses
Highly litigious cultures like the US are hard wired to never admit guilt or responsibility, which can drive the customer nuts. There are also some personalities who cannot admit being wrong and will try some mealy-mouthed lingustic gymnastics to avoid taking accountability. I hate these types of people in any form. As the customer we donât want excuses. We want soutions, compensation or retribution. We want you to fix the problem and we want it now. Again, this is about how we train and empower people. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain is famous for giving staff a certain amount of money they can right off to keep the customer happy. It works, as I have experienced firsthand.
I was staying in their Washington DC property and I went down for breakfast at the 6.30am opening time but the waiter apologised that they were not ready yet. I said âno problem, I will just sit by the window over there and read my paperâ. He later came and told me they were now ready. When I went to pay, the waiter said âcomplements of the Ritz Carlton because we have inconvenienced you by making you waitâ. That was service, I thought, and here I am telling all and sundry about it, for them, years later.
In Part Three will wrap up this look at Outstanding Customer Service.
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Elements Of Outstanding Customer Service In Japan (Part One)
Customer service in Japan is pretty good by comparison with most other countries. To me, it is polite yet impersonal. The status gap between those serving and those being served is quite rigid. In my own country of Australia, those serving are quite happy to have a conversation with the customer. They donât see themselves as inferior in status and treat customers as equals. In Japan, there is no such equality. The language and the culture both reinforce the buyer as God, and those serving are mere mortals there to do Godâs bidding.
Letâs look at some elements of excellent customer service over a three-part series. The sad aspect here is that what I am going to describe is totally obvious and will garner a âso whatâ reaction. I urge you to go beyond that initial first blush and use this as a measuring rod to calibrate how your organisation deals with customer service problems and check if you are operating at the right level of service or not.
1. Totally professional
This is fairly obvious, but that professionalism comes from a combination of attitude, experience and training. Even if you donât have much experience, if your attitude is that you want to provide the highest level of service, then good things will flow from that starting point and we gain experience over time. If properly trained, then the whole process gets sped up.
2. Knowledge
Surprisingly, a lot of people in the service sector have very little knowledge of the inventory, systems, ethos and values. When you ask a clarifying question, their face fills with panic and they have to go seek the answer from someone else. This is a failure of leadership. If they were properly invested in, then they would know the answer without having to run off and find the answer.
3. Highly personalised service
Manualised or formulistic service is the norm in Japan. Companies try to reduce all complexity down to one way of doing things and for the majority of clients, that will be fine. To lift above the great unwashed competitors, we need to be able to provide a more personalised service.
I was reminded of this recently when I brought a pocket square online from Massimo Pirrone in Antwerp. The item arrived in a nice box and additionally, he included a short note and a very nice pen as well. It felt very personalised and I became an instant fan.
4. Take Ownership
Japan is very good when order and harmony prevail. Chaos, the unexpected disasters â not so much. The nature of customer service is that there is always going to be a high frequency of the unexpected occurring. The key is how we react to the changing situation.
When things go wrong, customers want the issue solved and solved instantly. They expect the person they are interacting with to make it happen, regardless of the degree of difficulty. Japan has a nasty edge to it when customers exploit their expectations too far and start bullying staff, because the customer is God.
If the person serving the customer takes ownership of the problem, they will keep pursuing the solution until resolution. That is the mentality the supervision and training need to reinforce.
5. Anticipatory
Omotenashi is the high point of Japanese service and a big element is the person serving the customer to anticipate what the customer needs before they voice that request. On a hot day, being served some iced water as you enter the business is a nice touch, completed without you have to place an order. This is an attitude of service that drives behaviour. With the right leadership, this can be taught.
6. Proactive
This is similar to anticipatory, in the sense that we are not adopting a passive stance. We try to arrange things well before the need arises by being well prepared. We are always looking for faster and better ways of doing things.
We are making suggestions for the client, for their best interests, rather than expecting them to have complete knowledge of what we can do for them. They will never know our business to the depths that we do and so we have to be thinking ahead and bringing up possibilities which wouldnât necessarily occur to them.
We will keep going with our list of things to think about in terms of the service we currently supply and how we supply it in parts Two and Three.
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About The Author
Dr. Greg Story, President Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training
Bestselling author of âJapan Sales Masteryâ (the Japanese translation is "The Eigyo" (Theć¶æ„), âJapan Business Masteryâ and "Japan Presentations Mastery". He has also written "How To Stop Wasting Money On Training" and the translation "Toreningu De Okane Wo Muda Ni Suru No Wa Yamemashoo" (ăăŹăŒăăłă°ă§ăéăçĄé§ă«ăăăźăŻæąăăŸăăă) and his brand new book is âJapan Leadership Masteryâ.
Dr. Greg Story is an international keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. He leads the Dale Carnegie Franchise in Tokyo which traces its roots straight back to the very establishment of Dale Carnegie in Japan in 1963 by Mr. Frank Mochizuki.
He publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
Has 6 weekly podcasts:
1. Mondays - The Leadership Japan Series,
2. Tuesdays â The Presentations Japan Series
Every second Tuesday - ăăžăăčéäșșăźæă
3. Wednesdays - The Sales Japan Series
4. Thursdays â The Leadership Japan Series
Also every second Thursday - ăăžăăčăăăăăăăŁăčă
5. Fridays - The Japan Business Mastery Show
6. Saturdays â Japanâs Top Business Interviews
Has 3 weekly TV shows on YouTube:
1. Mondays - The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show
Also every Second Thursday - ăăžăăčăăTV
2. Fridays â Japan Business Mastery
3. Saturdays â Japan Top Business Interviews
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, become a 39 year veteran of Japan and run his own company in Tokyo.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate (çłžæ±æ”) and is currently a 6th Dan.
Bunbu Ryodo (ææŠäžĄé-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.
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