『The Sales Japan Series』のカバーアート

The Sales Japan Series

The Sales Japan Series

著者： Dale Carnegie Japan
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The vast majority of salespeople are just pitching the features of their solutions and doing it the hard way. They are throwing mud up against the wall and hoping it will stick. Hope by the way is not much of a strategy. They do it this way because they are untrained. Even if their company won't invest in training for them, this podcast provides hundreds of episodes with information, insights and techniques all based on solid real world experience selling in Japan. Trying to work it out by yourself is possible but why take the slow and difficult route to sales success? Tap into the structure, methodologies, tips and techniques needed to be successful in sales in Japan. In addition to the podcast the best selling book Japan Sales Mastery and its Japanese translation Za Eigyo are also available as well.Copyright 2022 マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ 経済学
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  • Should We Worry About Our Competitors?

    Should We Worry About Our Competitors?
    2026/07/28
    Competitors can damage your margins, poach your best people, outspend you, undercut your prices and introduce technology that makes your current offer irrelevant. Worrying about them, however, is not a strategy. The better response is to build a competitive moat before you desperately need one. That means creating distinctive value, stronger client relationships, better delivery systems and advantages that rivals cannot easily or cheaply reproduce. How Much Attention Should We Pay to Our Competitors? Leaders should understand their competitors clearly, but they should not allow competitors to dictate every business decision. The objective is informed awareness rather than corporate paranoia. The intensity of competition depends on the market. In a commodity sector, price and supply capacity may determine almost everything. In a narrow market with only a few suppliers, gaining market share may be extremely difficult. Currency movements, technological disruption, regulatory changes, capital availability and the loss of key employees can also alter the competitive balance overnight. A rival with hundreds of salespeople may reach far more potential buyers than your team of twenty. A heavily funded newcomer may willingly destroy industry pricing to purchase market share. These threats are real, but constantly reacting to them can pull your organisation away from its own strategy. Do now: Identify the three competitor actions that could most seriously affect your revenue, margins or client retention. Why Is Competing on Price So Dangerous? Price competition is dangerous because a rival with deeper pockets can sustain losses for longer than you can. Once buyers become accustomed to discounted pricing, restoring the previous market rate can be painfully difficult. Many companies spend years building their prices to a sustainable level. Then a new entrant arrives and offers a similar product for substantially less. The newcomer may not need to make an immediate profit. It may be funded by a parent company, private equity, venture capital or profits from another division. This creates a zero-sum battle of winners and losers. Smaller firms often cannot match the discount without destroying their own margins. The answer is not always to become cheaper. It is to make direct price comparison harder by changing the value equation. Instead of allowing an apple-to-apple comparison, create a musk-melon-to-apple comparison. In Japan, premium musk melons command extraordinary prices because buyers perceive them as a completely different category of value. Do now: List the services, expertise, guarantees or outcomes that could move your offer beyond a direct price comparison. What Is a Competitive Moat in Business? A competitive moat is an advantage that protects your clients, revenue and market position from attack by rivals.Strong moats are valuable to buyers and difficult, expensive or time-consuming for competitors to copy. A moat might consist of proprietary technology, trusted relationships, specialist expertise, exclusive distribution, superior service, faster delivery, a powerful brand or a deeply embedded client ecosystem. In business-to-business markets, the moat may be the accumulated trust created through years of reliable execution. The irony is that companies usually need to build these defences while business is going well. Unfortunately, good times create complacency. Leaders are busy serving current demand, employees are fully occupied and there appears to be no urgent reason to invest in protection. That is precisely when the work should begin. Once the crisis arrives, the organisation may lack the time, cash or management attention required to respond properly. Do now: Ask what clients would genuinely miss if your company disappeared tomorrow. Their answers reveal the foundations of your moat. Why Do Companies Wait Until a Crisis to Innovate? Companies delay innovation because the cost and inconvenience are immediate, while the danger of doing nothing appears distant. A crisis suddenly reverses that calculation. Our experience at Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training illustrates the problem. Business was surging during 2018 and 2019. Revenue was strong, demand was high and the organisation was occupied with delivering training. Everything looked pretty peachy. Then Japan confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January 2020. Clients began cancelling scheduled programmes, and the outlook changed dramatically. We had no sufficiently developed moat against the disappearance of face-to-face delivery. Dale Carnegie had conducted virtual training internationally since 2010, but introducing it properly in Japan required curriculum translation, instructor development, producer training and financial investment. Before the pandemic, those barriers encouraged us to dawdle. Once survival was at stake, we found the money, time and determination remarkably quickly. In retrospect, the capability should have been built before...
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    15 分
  • Controlling Your Public Image As a Salesperson

    Controlling Your Public Image As a Salesperson
    2026/07/21
    Once upon a time, salespeople could live several different lives. There was the polished professional who met clients during the day. Then there was the private version who could enjoy a heroic night out, behave like a complete goose and assume nobody important would ever hear about it. Those days are gone. Today, buyers can search your name before you meet. They can inspect your LinkedIn profile, read your comments, watch your videos, examine your photographs and decide whether you look credible—or dangerous—from the comfort of their office. You are already being judged. The only question is whether you are helping to shape the verdict. Why Does a Salesperson's Public Image Matter? Your public image matters because buyers are deciding whether they trust you before you have even shaken hands. In the old days, a potential client might know your company name, your job title and whatever gossip was circulating within a fairly small business circle. Your family life, weekend behaviour and questionable karaoke performances usually remained safely separated from your professional reputation. Social media blew that arrangement to pieces. Now buyers can discover professional articles, recommendations and client advice. They can also discover angry political rants, embarrassing photographs, customer complaints and evidence that you occasionally lose all adult supervision after 10:00 p.m. That online material becomes part of your sales presentation whether you intended it to or not. A strong public image creates familiarity and confidence. A careless one can kill the deal before the meeting invitation is even sent. Do now: Search your own name as though you were a suspicious buyer with a large budget and a low tolerance for nonsense. Do Buyers Really Research Salespeople Before Meeting Them? Of course they do. Buyers investigate us in exactly the same way we investigate them. Before meeting a prospect, salespeople check LinkedIn, company websites, press releases and industry news. We want to know who we are meeting, what they care about and whether there is any useful common ground. Buyers are not sitting around waiting helplessly for us to arrive. They are doing their own research. They look at our employment history, qualifications, recommendations, connections, articles and public comments. They want reassurance that we are credible. They are also hunting for red flags. I have seen candidates listen to executive interviews before attending job interviews. Potential employees research the leaders they may work for. Prospective clients consume podcasts, videos and articles before contacting a training provider or professional adviser. The first sales conversation may therefore begin long before you enter the room—and you may not even be present. Do now: Assume every prospect has already inspected your LinkedIn profile and prepare it accordingly. What Should Buyers Find When They Search for You? They should find useful proof that you know what you are talking about—not a digital graveyard or an endless stream of self-congratulation. A polished profile is helpful, but anybody can write that they are "passionate," "dynamic" and "results-driven." LinkedIn is bursting with passionate, dynamic, results-driven people. Evidence is much more persuasive. Publish original ideas. Explain a customer problem. Share a useful framework. Record a short video. Write an article. Join a podcast. Analyse a trend in your industry. You do not need six podcasts, three television shows and thousands of articles. That level of content production is clearly the behaviour of someone who needs a hobby. You do, however, need enough current, relevant material to show buyers that you understand their world. Your content should help them conclude, "This person knows something useful," rather than, "This person appears to enjoy posting motivational quotations over photographs of mountains." Do now: Select one client problem and publish one practical, original response to it this month. What Online Content Can Damage a Salesperson's Reputation? Anything that makes buyers question your judgement can damage your reputation faster than you can say, "That photograph was taken out of context." Photographs of you completely smashed at the local boozer may be hilarious to your mates. They are less amusing to a risk-conscious buyer considering a major contract. The same applies to abusive comments, offensive humour, public arguments and extreme opinions. You are entitled to have personal views, but you are not entitled to control how every client reacts to them. Politics and religion are especially effective ways to divide an audience. Unless either subject is central to your professional work, entering those battles publicly may deliver plenty of emotional excitement and absolutely no revenue. Other people make this more complicated. You can control what you upload, but you cannot completely control what your colleagues post. If everyone in ...
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    13 分
  • You Have Three Seconds For An Effective First Impression

    You Have Three Seconds For An Effective First Impression
    2026/07/14
    People form an initial impression of you remarkably quickly. Whether the precise time is three seconds, seven seconds or slightly longer, the practical lesson for salespeople, executives and client-facing professionals is the same: your first impression begins before you start explaining your credentials, company or solution. In Japan, where professionalism, preparation and attention to detail carry considerable weight, leaving that impression to chance is risky. Your appearance, facial expression, eye contact, voice and opening question all influence whether a buyer initially sees you as credible, trustworthy and worth listening to. Here is how to intentionally engineer a strong first impression when meeting a client. How quickly do clients form a first impression? Clients begin evaluating you almost immediately, often before either person has spoken. Your appearance, posture, facial expression and general composure provide the first available evidence about your professionalism. The exact number of seconds will vary according to the person, situation and research method. However, buyers do make rapid judgements when meeting a salesperson, consultant or executive for the first time. They are subconsciously asking: Does this person look prepared? Are they confident? Can I trust them? Will meeting them be a good use of my time? This matters in both Japanese and international business. A buyer in Tokyo may pay particular attention to formality, punctuality and courtesy, while a buyer in Sydney or New York may respond more strongly to energy and directness. In every market, inconsistency creates doubt. If you claim to offer precision but appear disorganised, the buyer notices the contradiction. Do now: Decide what three qualities you want the client to recognise immediately, and make sure your appearance and behaviour communicate them before the meeting begins. How should a salesperson dress for a first client meeting? Dress so that nothing about your appearance distracts the buyer from your message. Cleanliness, fit, coordination and attention to detail are more important than wearing expensive clothing. Scuffed shoes, food stains, poorly fitting clothes, untidy hair or a worn belt may seem like minor matters. Unfortunately, buyers can interpret these signals as evidence of carelessness. It is difficult to promote a high-quality solution while looking as though quality control does not apply to you. For men wearing business attire, the belt should normally coordinate with the shoes, the tie knot should sit neatly against the collar and the jacket and trousers should fit properly. Women and men should both consider whether their clothing is suitable for the client, industry and level of formality. A technology startup may accept a more relaxed style than a Japanese bank, insurance company or government organisation. The goal is not flamboyance. The goal is visual credibility. Do now: Before leaving for the meeting, check your shoes, clothing, hair, accessories, bag and business materials from the buyer's point of view. Should you smile and bow when meeting a Japanese client? Yes. A natural smile followed by an appropriate bow communicates confidence, warmth and respect before the business conversation begins. Some salespeople become so focused on being formal that their expression becomes severe. Others rush through the greeting because they are nervous or worried about what to say next. A calm smile helps remove tension and tells the client that you are pleased to meet them. In Japan, the bow remains an important part of professional etiquette. The depth and duration will depend on the situation, but a controlled, respectful bow is generally more effective than an exaggerated performance. When exchanging business cards, handle the card carefully, look at it and avoid immediately stuffing it into a pocket. International professionals should adapt without becoming artificial. Japanese buyers do not expect every visitor to behave exactly like a Japanese executive, but they do notice sincere preparation and respect for local business customs. Do now: Practise a simple sequence: make eye contact, smile naturally, greet the person clearly and bow without rushing. How much eye contact is appropriate in Japanese business? Make clear initial eye contact to establish confidence, but avoid staring continuously. In Japan, balanced eye contact is usually more comfortable and culturally appropriate than an unbroken gaze. Eye contact tells the buyer that you are present, composed and interested. At the beginning of the meeting, several seconds of direct eye contact can help establish a connection. After that, allow your gaze to move naturally rather than trying to maintain constant visual contact. Cultural expectations differ. Western sales training often emphasises strong eye contact, while Japanese communication may involve more intermittent eye contact, particularly when showing respect to someone senior. ...
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    12 分
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