The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show Dr. Greg Story

Sales people are always under pressure to meet their targets.  In high pressure situations, this creates certain behaviours that are not in tune with the client’s best interests.  We know we should listen carefully to what the client wants, before we attempt to suggest any solution for the buyer’s needs.  We know that by asking well designed questions, we can possibly come up with an insight that triggers a “we hadn’t thought of that” or “we haven’t planned for that” reaction at best.  At worst, at least they know whether we have a solution for them or not.  Under pressure though, salespeople can temporarily become deaf toward the buyer.
Even assuming they are smart enough to ask questions in the first place, they may fall over when it comes to carefully listening to the buyer’s answers.   They can hear some buyer white noise in the background while they are thinking about their own interests.   They are self absorbed and are not plumbing the depths of what the client is trying to achieve.  In fact, they are ignoring the hints and nuances in the sales conversation.  Well then, what are they doing?  They are fixated on their own needs, their own target achievement, their own big bonus and their job security.
The client may have outlined what they had in mind at this stage, but that won’t scratch because the salesperson needs a bigger sale to make target.  They need to expand what the client wants, regardless of whether the client needs that solution or not.   Upselling and cross selling are legitimate aspects of sales, but the purpose has to be very clear.  It is not about making the salesperson more money.  It is serving the client in a deeper way.
The client may not have the full view of what is possible, because they will never know the seller’s lineup of solutions as well as the salesperson.  They will also not have had deep conversations with their competitors.  They won’t have been allowed behind the velvet curtain, to see what their competitors are doing and how they are doing it.  They will not have had a broad exposure to what other firms and industries are doing in terms of best practice.
This is the value of the salesperson, because they are constantly doing all of these things.  They are like butterflies, skipping from one sweetly fragranced flower to the next. They are collectors of stories, problems, breakthroughs, successes and can connect many, many dots together.  In this sense, they can see possibilities the client may not know exists or may not have thought of.  This is where the cross-sell and the up-sell add value, because the salesperson can expand the client’s world and help them to become more successful.  That is a long way from ramping up the number value of the sale, to make target.
 

It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience.  The energy often quickly drops away, the voice just fades right out and there is no clear signal that this is the end.  The audience is unsure whether to applaud or if there is more coming.  Everyone is stuck in limbo wondering what to do next.  The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained.  It sometimes reminds me of classical music performances, when I am not sure if this is the time to applaud or not.
First and last impressions are critical in business and in life, so why leave these to random chance?  We need to strategise how we will end, how we will ensure our key messages linger in the minds of the listeners and how we will have the audience firmly enthralled, as our permanent fan base. 
Endings are critical pieces of the presentation puzzle and usually that means two endings not just one.  These days, it is rare that we don’t go straight into some form of Q&A session, once the main body of the talk has been completed.  So we need an ending for the presentation just given and we need another ending after the Q&A.  Why the second one, why not just let it end with the final question? 
The pro never lets that happen.  Even the most knee quivering, voice choking, collar perspiration drenched, meltdown of a speaker is in 100% control while they have the floor. The audience usually let’s them speak without denunciation or persistent interruption.  Life changes though once we throw the floor open to take questions.  At that point speaker control is out the window and the street fight begins.  Now most Japanese audiences don’t go after the speaker, they are too reserved and polite.  Western audiences are less docile and big bosses ask difficult and potentially embarrassing questions.
When we get to the Q&A, the members of the audience are able to ask rude, indignant questions, challenging everything you hold to be true.  They can denounce you as a charlatan, scoundrel, dilettante and unabashed poseur.  Sometimes, they even launch forth into their own mini-speech, usually unrelated to whatever it was you were talking about.  Or they move the conversation off to a new place, which has nothing to do with your keynote content.  Suddenly your message is lost.
The original topic of your talk is now a distant memory.  That is why the pros ensure they bring it all back together with a final close to the proceedings.  Let the masses wander hither and thither with their questions, the pro never worries.  After the last question is done, the last word is now with the speaker, not some provocateur who happened to turn up to the event.  Surprisingly, many speakers don’t claim this right and allow the last question from the audience member to set the tone for the whole proceedings.  Don’t ever let that happen.
There are a number of ways of bringing the speech home.  In the first close, before the Q&A, we might harken back to something we said in our opening, to neatly tie the beginning and end together.  Or we might restate the key messages we wish to get across.  Another alternative is a summary of the key points to refresh everyone’s recollection of what we were saying.  We might end with a memorable story that will linger in the minds of the audience, that encapsulates all that we wanted to say.  Storytelling is such a powerful medium for increasing the memory of what has been said, you would expect more speakers would use it.
When we do this wrap-up, we should be picking out key words to emphasise, either by ramping our vocal power up or taking it down in strength to differentiate from the rest of what we are saying.  Speaking with the same vocal power throughout just equates the messages together. The messaging is not clear enough and makes it hard for the audience to buy what we are selling, Bland doe

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 is more pronounced in this regard.  These differences pop up when you are selling here as well.  The following are my experiences having sold in all of these cites and having lived in Kobe/Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo and having made sale’s calls in other provincial centers.
If we go from south to north and start in Kyushu in Fukuoka, there is a local dialect and basically everyone went to school there and graduated from the local colleges and universities.  Foreigners are not calling on companies all that often down there, so there is still something of a rarity factor at play here.  Back in the good old days, when companies had generous entertainment budgets, the local staff were really glad to meet you.  This was a grand occasion to use you as the excuse to have a big night out on the town on the firm’s dime.  My ego took a bruising when I finally worked out it wasn’t the Story charm, that was generating this great enthusiasm for a night out on the town.  That big spending night out culture has gone by the wayside, but the rarity interest factor is still at play. Language is an issue though, because the English speaking capability is still underdeveloped in most of Japan.  The local burghers are quite cautious and conservative too.  It will take a lot of patience to do business here, but it can be done.  It just normally requires a lot more time than your company’s leaders or shareholders are prepared to give you.
Kobe was opened as an international port on April 1st, 1868, so it is one of the most open minded towns in Japan regarding international business.  They have had foreigners living in their midst for a very long time, so there is nothing special about us from a uniqueness point of view.  Trade has meant dealing with the outside world and being flexible about it in the process.  The denizens of Kobe often have a better level of English than other parts of Japan and they enjoy being seen as one of the most international cities in the country.  I always found people there open to discussing business.
Osaka is an ancient merchant town with a merchant mentality.  It was the center of the great commodity markets in Japan for salt, rice and soy beans.  One of the great things I like about this city is they will give you a “yes” or a “no”. Often, the reluctance to tell you “no” in Japan, leaves the whole decision piece dangling, without any clear idea of where we are going with this.  Not in Osaka.  If they like it, they will explore if there is a deal to be done and some money to be made.  They are proud of their local dialect and this is a big divider between insiders and outsiders.  As a foreigner, we are so completely outside of all consideration, that in a way, we are probably better accepted than their despised rivals from Tokyo.
Kyoto I always found very closed.  The aristocratic capital of Japan for centuries, it features a defined smallish city area hemmed in by mountains.  The interconnectivity of the local people is pronounced.  Their families have lived here for centuries, they know each other and they know who is a “blow in” and who isn’t.   Even for other Japanese salespeople from out of town, Kyoto is a hard market.  If you are from the outside, you are “out” for the most part.
The area around Nagoya has produced the three most famous warrior leaders in Japanese history, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Tokugawa family Shoguns, closed the country off from the rest of the world. When I say “closed”, this was upon pain of de

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 their personal and organisational brands.  When in a team environment, you absolutely cannot neglect the rehearsal component.  There will be many sessions needed before you are ready to face an audience, so you have to plan for this.  Do not leave this until the last moment after you have all been diligently assembling your slide decks.
The batting order is important.   Don’t put the brainy nerd up front. They may be the legitimate expert, but unless they are the best presenter keep them in reserve.  We want the best person to lead off, because this is how we create that all important first impression.  They may come back for the close out or have another equally skillful person secure the positive final impression.  The technical geeky people can be safely placed in the middle of proceedings.
As mentioned, don’t allow all the available team time to be sucked up by creating slides for the presentation.  This is the mechanical part and we need the soft skills part to be really firing. That takes time and repetition.  Set deadlines for deck completion, well in advance of the event, so that the chances to get everyone together are created.
Having worked out the order, do dry runs to see how the whole things flows.  Practice little things like each presenter shaking the hand of the next presenter as a type of baton pass between the team.  It shows you are a tight, united unit and connects the whole enterprise together. 
Also, make sure each presentation can be given by everyone in the team.  People get sick, planes get cancelled or delayed, all manner of circumstances can arise.  At the appointed time, you are down some key members of the team.  In this case the audience expects the show to go on and for you to cover the missing person’s part. 
This cannot be the first time this idea has occurred to you,.  You need to plan for this at the very start.  As you all rehearse together you hear their section over and over, so jumping in and working through their part of the deck shouldn’t be an impossibility.  The questioning part might be different, but the presenting part should not create too many difficulties, if you are organised.
Have a navigator for the questions determined at the start.  When questions land you want that process to be handled seamlessly.  I remember being on a panel for a dummy press conference, during media training. One ex-journo in the audience asked us a very curly question and being amateurs, we all just looked at each other, having no clue as to who would take that infrared missile.  Our work colleagues in the audience just burst out laughing, because we looked such a shambles.  Pretty embarrassing stuff, I can tell you.
Anticipate what likely questions will rise, nominate who will take care of which sections and if anything indeterminate hits the team, understand that the navigator will take care of it.  The navigator, will also control the questions.  If it is straightforward, then after thanking the questioner, they will just say, “Suzuki san will take care of this topic” and hand it over. 
If it is a bit tricky, tough or complicated and is going to be hard to answer, the navigator must control things.  They need to build in a bit of thinking time for the person who is going to have to take this one.  They need to “cushion” the answer.  By this I mean they will say something rather harmless, but which buys valuable thinking time for the person. This allows them to brace themselves for their reply. 
It would sound like this, “Thank you for your

 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 prepared for them, but maybe that is the extent of the planning.  We need to go a bit broader though in our thinking about the full extent of the talk we are going to give.  Should we accept questions as they arise or do we tell the audience we will take their questions at the end?  What are the main considerations for each structure?
Q&A in Japan can be a bit tricky though, because people are shy to ask questions.  Culturally the thinking is different to the West.  In most western countries we ask questions because we want to know more.  We don’t think that we are being disrespectful by implying that the speaker wasn’t clear enough, so that is why we need to ask our question.  We also never imagine we must be dumb and have to ask a question because we weren’t smart enough to get the speaker’s meaning the first time around.  We also rarely worry about being judged on the quality of our question.  We don’t fret that if we ask a stupid question, we have now publicly announced to everyone we are an idiot.
Some speakers encourage questions on the way through their talks.  They are comfortable to be taken down deeper on an aspect of their topic.  They don’t mind being moved along to an off-topic point by the questioner.  The advantage of this method is that the audience don’t have to wait until the end of the talk to ask their question.  They can get clarification immediately on what is being explained.  There might be some further information which they want to know about so they can go a bit broader on the topic.
This also presents an image of the speaker as very confident in their topic and flexible to deal with whatever comes up.  They also must be good time managers and facilitators when speaking, to get through their information, take the questions on the way through and still finish on time.  In today’s Age Of Distraction, being open to questions at any time serves those in the audience with short concentration spans or little patience. 
Not everyone in the audience can keep a thought aflame right through to the end, so having forgotten what it was they were going to ask, they just sit there in silence when it gets to Q&A.  Their lost question may have provoked an interesting discussion by the speaker on an important point.  Having one person brave enough to ask a question certainly encourages everyone else to ask their question.  The social pressure of being first has been lifted and group permission now allows for asking the speaker about some points in their talk.
On the other hand, the advantage of waiting until the end is that you remain in control of the order of the talk.  You may have done an excellent job in the preparation of your talk and have dealt with all of the potential questions by the end of the talk. The Q&A then allows for additional things that have come up in the minds of the audience. 
It also makes it easier to work through the slide deck in order.  The slide deck is alike an autopilot for guiding us through the talk, as we don’t have to remember the order, we just follow the slides.  Of course, if we allow questions throughout, we can always ask our questioner to wait, because we will be covering that point a little later in the talk.  Nevertheless, the questions at the end formula gives the speaker more control over the flow of their talk with no distractions or departures from the theme.
Time control becomes much easier.  We can rehearse our talk and get it down to the exact time, before we open up for questions during the time allotted for Q&A.  If w

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 the first time. They often created havoc in international destinations, because they were so gauche – a bit like we have been experiencing with mass Chinese tourism. Companies bought up foreign companies and real estate at a rapid clip. French champagne and beluga caviar was being downed at an alarming pace.
 Finding Japanese workers became difficult, so the Japanese government turned to immigration. We had a very special immigration however. Countries with oil like Iran were allowed to send their citizens to Japan without requiring visas and suddenly we had an influx of Iranians, a bit like we have had with Nigerians. Brazilians of Japanese decent were encouraged to come and work in Japan. They rarely spoke Japanese being third and fourth generation, but they did have Japanese blood coursing through their veins. Somehow Japanese bureaucrats decided that would compensate for the fact that culturally they were 100% South Americans.
 With the collapse of the bubble economy many of these Brazilians went home as their jobs here in Japan dried up. We are again facing a shortage of workers in the 3K industries because of the declining population. We are scheduled to lose around 800,000 people every year. This has an impact on consumer spending because we have less people around to buy goods and services. Uncertainty over the future has played to Japanese risk aversion and native conservatism. People are not spending, preferring to leave their money in the bank at microscopic interest rates. In a deflationary economy at least you were not losing money, but that has changed now we have inflation. We are seeing Chinese and other foreigners working at convenience stores. Students can work up to 38 hours a week, which surpasses the work week in France.
 The Japanese government is adding immigrant workers without openly calling it immigration. Is immigration really needed when we have such low white collar productivity and low wages? Do we need to bring in mass immigration to maintain or expand the population levels? Wage growth has not occurred yet, despite companies hoarding massive cash surpluses under their corporate futons. Also, somehow the laws of supply and demand have not kicked in yet. There is a shortage of staff for child care facilities, but wages are not attractive enough to staff them. Nurses are in short demand, but salaries are not moving up much yet. Delivery workers are in short supply and there needs to be a substantial wage increase to fill the vacancies more easily.
Japan is looking to robots to help cover the staff shortages. This plays to Japan’s love of robots and their technological might. What would be more impactful would be to free up the latent capacity of white collar workers. They have very low productivity because of the culture of work here. Spending long hours as a tatemae or superficial show of devotion and loyalty is not helping. The amount and quality of work being produced is more important.
 There is a slow rhythm of work in Japan. In the big cities like Tokyo, people are tired in the morning because of the late nights and long commutes. Working long hours is tiring and as Parkinson noted “work expands to fit the time”. Just hanging around the office to show your devotion is nice, but not all that helpful. This is the exact opposite of a productive work culture focused on outcomes.  Work from home has freed up people from commute torture, but from what I can see, there doesn’t seem to be any increase in productivity as yet.  Staff lifestyles are better, but company results are n