The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Japan is a big small place.  It is about the same size as the UK, but is covered in mountains, the latter making up 70% of the land area.  We have very few of those horizon stretching field vistas like they have in England.  This mountainous aspect has led to quite strong sub-regional differences here, especially reflected in language, customs and cuisine.  England has these too, but I think Japan...

In business, we are asked to present as a team.  We may be pitching for new business and the presentation requires different specialist areas of expertise.  This is quite different to doing something on your own, where you are the star and have full control over what is going on.  One of the big mistakes with amateur presenters is they don't rehearse.  They just turn up and fluff it.  They blow up...

  The Question and Answer component of talks are a fixture that we don't normally analyse for structure possibilities. Having an audience interested enough in your topic to ask questions is a heartening occurrence.  When we are planning the talk though, we may just neglect to factor this Q&A element into our planning. We may have considered what some potential questions might be, so that we are pr...

During the "bubble years" of surging economic growth, Japan could not keep up with the supply of workers for the 3K jobs – kitsui, kitanai, kiken or difficult, dirty, dangerous undertakings. The 1985 Plaza Accord released a genie out of the bottle in the form of a very strong yen, which made everything, everywhere seems dirt cheap. Japanese people traveled abroad as tourists in mass numbers for th...

We believe in our product and we are very knowledgeable about the facts, details, specs, etc.  We launch straight into our presentation of the details with the buyer.  Next, they want to negotiate the price.  Do we see the connection here, between our sales approach and the result, the entire catastrophe?  The reality is often salespeople are slogging it out, lowering the price, hurting their posi...

Gaining credibility as a speaker is obviously important.  We often do this by sharing our own experiences. However, having too much focus on us and away from the interests of the audience is a fine line we must tread carefully.  When we get this wrong, a lot of valuable speaking time gets taken up and we face the danger of losing the attention of our audience. They are like greased lightening when...

Japan seems to be going in opposing directions at the same time, when it comes to the supply of internationalised staff suitable for foreign companies.  The statistics show a peak in 2004 of 83,000 Japanese students venturing off-shore.  This dropped to a low of 57,500 in 2011 and since that point has climbed back above 60,000.  Just to put that in context, Korea has over 117,000 students studying...

Japan loves the Devil they know over the Angel they don't 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.  Pers...

Speech contests and debating contests are usually for younger people at school or university.  It is not often you see the most senior people from major corporations going head-to-head in a public setting.  I was at an event where there was a vote to take place for some prestigious seats on the board of a non-profit.  If the number of applicants equals the number of seats, then it is a perfunctory...

Business is more fast paced that ever before in human history.  Technology boasting massive computing and communication power is held in our palm.  It accompanies us on life's journey, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everywhere we go.  We are working in the flattest organisations ever designed, often at home on our own a few days a week or in noisy, distracting open plan environments.  We are a...

The release of 5G or fifth generation mobile networks was launched in Japan in March 2020. Our old phones ran on a 4G standard and 5G faster is significantly faster than 4G.  So what does that mean for salespeople across all industries? The capacity to upload heavier files, to be sent at lightening speed, grabs your attention.  What are some of the heaviest files at the moment?  Video!  YouTube is...

Obviously we all have some trepidation when it comes to Q&A, but Japan is quite far behind the rest of the advanced countries when it comes to public speaking.  Let me put it on the table. The level of presentations here is abysmally low and excuses abound.  People here talk about a "Japanese style" of doing public talks.  This is their excuse for not being at the global standard for communication...

The Spa magazine in Japan previously released the results of a survey of 1,140 male full-time employees in their 40s, about what they hated about their jobs.  The top four complaints were salaries have not risen because of decades of deflation; a sense of being underappreciated and undervalued and a lost sense of purpose. Salaries are a function of deflation and commercial success, as well as the...

Riffraff inhabit all corners of the business world, but the sales profession suffers more than many others. Bankers do all sorts of evil things with our money.  Stock brokers do all sorts of evil things with our money.  Real estate agents tell one version of the truth to buyers. Government officials purloin our money. Everywhere you look, someone is ripping us off.  However, these industries and i...

 Like a lot of people, I subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc.  The following morsel popped into my inbox the other morning, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care –Anonymous".  Wow!  What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others. This piece of sage advice should be metaphorica...

 It's inevitable - at some point disagreements are going to come up in the workplace. Power struggles, political plays, sectionalism, siloism – the list goes on regarding sources of organizational conflict.  As we all know, disagreements can get heated quickly and it can be difficult to put aside our opinions and biases in order to handle the situation diplomatically.  We can get locked into posit...

We are such a judgmental lot aren't we! We form opinions about people within seconds of seeing them, often even before we hear them speak.  We judge their dress, their body language, their style, without knowing anything about them as a person.  We are slow to unwind our first impression as well, so those first seconds of any interaction are vital.  How is that going for you? We are all critics to...

Like a lot of people, I subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc.  The following morsel popped into my inbox the other morning, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care –Anonymous".  Wow!  What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others. This piece of sage advice should be metaphorical...

People skills are really one of the key basics of leadership.  Fortunately, leading is easy.  Getting others to follow us is the tricky bit.  I hope this isn't new information, but not everyone is like you, so how do you get the team to follow you?  Especially how to get others, who are so totally different from you, who are "difficult", to follow you or support you? Central to working well with d...

Job descriptions, performance reviews, incentive schemes, recognition programmes are often box ticking activities in organisations, which often lead nowhere.  Overviewing these various systems and their execution may make the managers feel like they are earning their keep, but are they really contributing all that much to the required outcomes?  Counting what the heads do, getting those heads to t...

Everyone hates to be rejected, but not many people have this as a fundamental aspect of their work.  We ask colleagues for help and they assist, we ask our bosses for advice and they provide it.  Buyers though are a different case.  They can easily find a million reasons not to buy and unashamedly tell us "no".  The rejection itself is not so much the problem, as is how we respond, how we deal wit...

     When you see someone do a very good presentation, your faith in public speaking humanity is restored.  There are so many poor examples of people killing their personal and professional brands with poor public speaking skills, it is refreshing to see talks done well.  It is not that hard really, if you know what you are doing and if you rehearse and practice.  This is where the majority of lou...

Bullying, humiliation, ridiculous stretch targets, rubbish goods, stress, shame – a toxic cocktail often suffered in the sales environment.  We often get into sales by accident.  There are not many varsity business courses in sales.  There is sales training available, provided by companies like ourselves, but often this is not offered by the employer.  The assumption is you look after yourself.  W...

You want to promote your business or organisation, so that you can be more successful.  A genius idea pops up amongst the brain trust over a few drinks after work – why don't we enter the Business Awards?  Someone has to win don't they, so the odds are fair. Anyway, there is no downside is there?  True but there can be, if you don't fully think this through.  I don't mean the requirement for polis...

We have all seen it.  The presenters face is expressionless, wooden, devoid of emotion or life.  It is usually well paired with a horrific monotone vocal delivery, to really kill off the audience completely .  Presenting is a serious business, so these presenters present a very serious physiognomy.  S omehow, s cowling is thought to be good too, to show the gravitas the se heavyweights bring to th...