The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Okay Boss, Motivate Me!       "Motivate me" must be one of the saddest requests a leader can receive.  The request may not be so bluntly articulated, but the underlying assumption that the boss is there to motivate the staff seems to linger.  "If only I had a better boss, I would be better".  "If only this company got its act together, I could get mine together".  "If only these other staff weren'...

The morning dark gloom of heavy ponderous rain clouds, piling snow drifts or driving, cutting razor blade sleet can have a serious impact on our sales mood. We may be thinking to ourselves, "what a lousy day to have run around town juggling umbrellas, trains, taxis and bags of samples to visit clients".  The next day, the rains have departed. Brilliant azure blue skies and a friendly warm sun seem...

We Are Always Sorry In Japan Before We Get Up To Talk Well educated from two top ranked Universities.  Undergraduate in Japan and an MBA from the USA.  He had a very capable command of English and our presenter did a very good job of conveying the business structure, strategy and results of his publicly listed enterprise.  Yet, that presentation could have been so much better with attention to a f...

108 Japanese Leadership Legend Mr. Atarashi's Big Breakthrough Ever heard that a training course changed somebody's life?  "It was good", "I enjoyed it", "I learnt something new", maybe.  Warren Buffett, the famous American billionaire investor is a huge Dale Carnegie fan and often mentions in TV interviews how the Dale Carnegie course changed his life.  Being in Japan, it is great to hear a leadi...

The Power Of Using Stories When Selling   Storytelling in sales is our ability to express ourselves in a way which is engaging and persuasive.  We capture the attention of the buyer because we have taken the client to a world unexpected.  This might be because the real essence of their problem has just now been revealed to them.  The salesperson who can marshal the discussion to bring forth the hi...

Show Me How Great You Are, Don't Tell Me   Japan is an interesting place where there is a lot of respect for people's family pedigrees, University alma maters, job titles and position in the company.  Sometimes though, you are left wondering is this person really one of the actual elite or is this the best the Japanese elite can produce?  American friends tell me Missouri is famous for it's "show...

Episode #105 Success Formula for Leading Project Teams Take One   Leading projects can be tricky.  Often the enthusiasm for the detail overrides the brain and the team are leaping into the minutia of the details without planning the project from a holistic viewpoint.  The other penchants of the misguided are looking for cool tech solutions when the biggest issues are always people issues.  Having...

Episode #104 Hard Sell Hell Take One I feel sorry for the "phone dogs" having to cold call clients to sell them stuff and at the same time I hate them.  They are paid to call clients to arrange for one of the sale's team to roll in and close the sale. I am all in favour of cold calling but I detest idiocy.  The phone dogs are given sales scripts cobbled together by idiot bosses and the end result...

Episode #103 The Danger Zone When Presenting   In the history of the world, it has never been harder to be a presenter.  The Age of Distraction has guaranteed that everyone will mentally escape from us, without a bye your leave and with no compunction.  Assuming you have done a good job planning the opening to grab attention, have you also planned for the middle stanza of your talk?  This is where...

How To Persuade Followers Take One Welcome back to this weekly edition every Monday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show"     I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery and my new book Japan Business Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in...

Prospecting For Golden Clients   Do you have a clear image and understanding of your perfect client?  Authors often mention about writing for their avatar.  This is their imaginary reader.  They have a clear picture of whom they are writing for.  They know their reader's hopes, fears, aspirations, behaviors, goals and idiosyncrasies.    In sales, prospecting to find your Golden Client is a bit lik...

Today is a very special milestone, as we have reached the 100th episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show.  It is nearly two years now since we started.  In the show, I bring the power of the Dale Carnegie Training curriculum to bear on the tough issues we all face.  I add in my own experiences in business here, hard earned over the last thirty three years. I have made plenty of mistakes and...

Here is a simple question – are you only working on the highest value items, that only you can do?  Some things you can and should delegate but there are others that need your exclusive, personal touch.  Isn't that what leaders should be doing with their time.  If that is not the case, then please take note of some efficiency ideas from today's show. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesd...

In this modern day and age a salesperson just swanning into a meeting and asking the client really basic information about their company is completely incomprehensible. It is basic laziness and unprofessionalism.  It is winging it when there is no need.  There is so much readily available information on businesses and the individuals running them today it is incredible.  It is about time salespeop...

Technical experts are rarely expert presenters.  Why is that?  They are smart, well educated, highly knowledgeable about their area of expertise, have tons of data and boast abundant experience.  Their presentations should be nothing less than triumphs, legendary value, unmatched deep dives on their subject.  Rarely the case though. They fail for the simplest of reasons, when really they shouldn't...

Academic studies of business are important sources of case studies, theories and new research.  All great stuff.  Some areas though are definitely behind the times and that is in the area of imparting information to an audience.  The bleeding of the executive summary from the written document, into the way business conducts meetings is a guaranteed formula for tears before bedtime.   Find out why...

 No one tells you when you start in sales that you need a crash course in juggling.  Not juggling balls in the air but juggling al the deals with clients that need the follow through and juggling all the deals that are cooking away but not quite ready yet.  We can get ourselves into trouble, if we don't acquit ourselves well in this juggling venture.  Find out why that is very shortly. Welcome bac...

Very few business presenters are able to really engage their audience. They are speaking at them rather with them. In today's show we will deal with how to turn that situation right around and become a presenter who has the audience eating out of the palm of your hand.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Presi...

Sadly not everyone is like us.  At time, we have to deal with people who are quite rude or aggressive.  This usually triggers an escalation of tensions and problems arise and smolder away under the surface, until the next eruption occurs. How can we stop this vicious cycle of downward spiraling emotions?  That is what we will deal with today. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "T...

Sales is a tough gig.  Monthly, Quarterly, Annual quotas dog us every day.  The pressure is unrelenting.  When you have a good year what happens?  The targets go up even higher.  In fact, the end of the year is a bit fuzzy as we wait for the final results to be tallied. We often don't know exactly where we finished.  What we do know though is that we are back to zero and we have to start again.  T...

The number one request we receive from our participants in our presentations classes is help to make them clear to their audience. You would think that wouldn't be that heard.  Don't worry, plenty of people are seizing defeat from the jaws of victory in this department. Today we will shine some light on what we should be doing to be more clear when presenting.  Welcome back to this weekly edition...

We are all amateurs when it comes to negotiating.  Very few of us bother to study about it, because it seems removed from our everyday. It is the lore of movies, where tough negotiations are portrayed as gladiatorial encounters.  When we do get into a negotiation, we have no plan and little clue about what we should be doing.  So today, we introduce with some ideas about negotiating to better prep...

How hard can it be the present the sales materials to the buyer?  Simple right!  Well maybe not. What are the best practices to ensure the meeting is a success and we make a sale. So many salespeople are taught product knowledge, given catalogs of products, prepare slide decks to explain what they sell to the buyer, but have got very little clue about how to present it all.  Today we pull back the...

Breathing. How hard can that be when we are presenting?  Funnily enough we do crazy things and create problems where we don't need them.  Today we are going to look at how to make sure we have enough oxygen to the brain and enough wind power to drive the vocal chords. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Presiden...

Dale Carnegie's famous book How To Win Friends and Influence People dealt with what to do when you want to get on with others.  Today we are going to have a bit of fun and talk about what not to do.  Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sa...