Podcasts by The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

284 Failing Salespeople from 2023-04-23T23:12

Are you failing in sales yourself or do you have sales staff reporting to you who are not making their numbers?  Sales is a brutal, metrics ...

283 Self-Promotion from 2023-04-16T15:08

I am infamous in Tokyo.  I always ask the first question of the speaker at an event.  “Oh Greg, you always ask the first question”, people s...

282 Don't Promote People Without Training Them First from 2023-04-09T15:05

In the military, junior officers are the equivalent of middle management in business.  In times of warfare these middle managers are often w...

281 Read The Vibe When Selling from 2023-04-02T15:54

There is a saying in Japan, Kuki wo Yomu, which means read the air or be aware of the atmosphere or subtexts in the meeting.  In sales, we n...

280 Crucial Presentations from 2023-03-26T15:52

Usually when we hear the term “presentation”, we think of a public arena, a big crowd and a lot of formality.  These public occasions are im...

279 Anticipate Issues As A Leader from 2023-03-20T11:50

Wayne Gretzky is famous for the ice hockey quote “skate to where the puck is going to be”  about anticipating where and when the critical ac...

278 Handling The "No Budget" Pushback from 2023-03-12T23:08

“We Don’t Have Any Budget”.  

Yes You Do!

Listen

277 Too Short, Too Long Speeches from 2023-03-05T15:53

This was a gala affair for a very worthy cause.  A grand setting. Beautiful ladies in evening gowns, men resplendent in their tuxedos.  The ...

276 How To Have A Positive Mindset from 2023-02-26T15:42

How do we set up a positive mindset?  More importantly how do we set it up from morning when we awake and when we start work?  What are we f...

275 Pour On The Value from 2023-02-19T15:09

In the profession of sales, “We Don’t Have Any Budget”  is one of the most widespread pushbacks from buyers to our sterling offer. It also a false flag as wel...

274 Speaking Chances Are The Game Changer from 2023-02-12T15:02

A businessman reached out to me after attending my speech on “The Seven Deadly Fails Of Selling In Japan”, which I gave to the American Cham...

271 Make Your Own Style Of Presenting from 2023-01-22T03:57

When we are writing, we can create a style of our own.  The way we use certain vocabulary, the phrasing we apply in our sentences, the types of subjects we tackle.  Wha...

270: Leaders Are So Key In Business from 2023-01-16T02:31

Rising in a company in Japan requires talent, but this is often held hostage to time. Your age, longevity and seniority in the system are factors that often trump talen...

269: Negotiation Dangers from 2023-01-08T08:24

Former American President John F. Kennedy left us with a great quote: “Let’s never negotiate out of fear.  But let us never fear to negotiate”.  Actually, we do fear to...

268 Speaking Spots Must Be Gotten from 2023-01-01T15:54

A businessman reached out to me after attending my recent speech on “The Seven Deadly Fails Of Selling In Japan”, which I gave to the American Chamber of Commerce here ...

267: Leaders Must Listen More from 2022-12-26T05:14

Dynamic, powerful, driven, single-minded leaders get stuff done.  They are resourceful, disciplined, patient, highly demanding of themselves.  They are often poor liste...

266: Selling In Japan Is Different from 2022-12-19T10:13

This is a pretty big subject, so I will pick up a few of the more noteworthy differences.  In the West, salespeople, for the most part, are involved in an occupation fo...

265: Where Should The Formality Line Be When Presenting? from 2022-12-05T10:56

Sometimes we read that when we are presenting it should be just like a conversation with your friend.  The idea is we should be relaxed, inclusive, totally focused on t...

264: The Boss Needs Sparking from 2022-11-27T15:07

 Our education moves through many transitions.  We do our basic academic education at school and university and then we hit the university of life.  Co...

263: Selling Into Each Region Is Different In Japan from 2022-11-20T15:01

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 hor...

262: How To Present As A Team When Selling from 2022-11-13T15:01

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 qui...

261: Nature's Attack Of Productivity Is Real from 2022-11-06T15:00

Brace yourself for everything to take a big hit twice a year.  Speed, attention to detail, output, results are about to fall off a cliff.  No this has nothing to do with currency rates, wars, su...

260: Don't Send To The Client from 2022-10-30T15:00

How I hate those four words – “send it to me”.  I get that heavy feeling in my stomach and around my shoulders.  I know we are now on the path to sale’s hell.  I particularly hate it when I hear...

258: Productivity Lapses In Japan from 2022-10-16T15:00

Brace yourself for taking some big hits in Japan.  Speed, attention to detail, output, results will fall off a cliff.  No this has nothing to do with wars, currency rates, trade regulations, tar...

257: You Need Pain In Sales from 2022-10-09T15:00

When you contemplate this title you are probably thinking about heroic sales efforts, massive privations, sacrifice, striving, discipline, patience and forbearance.  Actually I am not talking ab...

256: Where Are You In Your Presentation from 2022-10-02T15:00

When we are presenting, we can be mentally separating out personal selves from the content of the talk.  There will be facts, data, statistics, details, examples, evidence, etc., which is all ra...

255: Performance Assessments from 2022-09-26T03:03:20

Performance evaluation is not popular anywhere, but especially so in Japan.  Teamwork and so team performance review is preferred to individual accountability here.  Some firms are deciding that...

254: Don't Pitch from 2022-09-18T15:00

Stony motherless silence unleavened by a stony face.  That was the reaction to my questions from this first Japanese buyer and subsequent other buyers. I had studied the American sales guru’s sa...

253: Presenters, Lose the Vice Like Grip on The Rostrum from 2022-09-11T15:00

Good posture never goes out of fashion.  Standing up straight shows confidence, allows good breath control and projects energy.  Given this is pretty simple, then why is it we get this so wrong ...

252: The Persuasive Leader from 2022-09-04T15:00

A friend of mine was lamenting that he had not taken the time to complete our High Impact Presentations Course.  He had had it in the back of his mind for some time, that he really ought to work...

251: Close That Sale from 2022-08-28T15:00

You would think that asking for the order would be the simplest thing in a sales job.  Not the case here in Japan.  Surprisingly a lot of salespeople here in Japan never ask directly for the ord...

249: Stickability Needed from 2022-08-14T15:00

Japanese language has lots of insightful sayings and “mikka bozu” or only lasting as a priest for three days is one of them.  It means we wilt in our determination and fold after just t...

248: Ask Don't tell from 2022-08-07T15:00

In the West, we have all been trained in consultative selling for many decades. The buyers are used to salespeople turning up and asking a lot of questions to find out if there is some way they ...

246: Where are We Going from 2022-07-24T15:00

New Financial Years, new calendar years, new starts or not?  We religiously muscle up and set our resolutions to improve ourselves in the coming 12 months.  Often these resolutions are inwardly ...

245: We Buy Benefits Not Features from 2022-07-17T15:00

Japan loves data and detail.  All good, but it can be a trap when you are here trying to make sales in Japan.  In a Western sales model there is a defined process to go through and the buyer is ...

244: You Don't Need To Sell From The Stage from 2022-07-10T15:00

The organisers of public presentations are usually not very happy for the presenter to start flogging their company’s products to the audience.  They are looking for good information for the ass...

REVIVAL: 100: The Power Of Passion When Speaking from 2022-07-03T15:00

Listen to our most popular episode in presentations for The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show!

Formulistic presentations may tick the boxes, but definitely don’t ignite much enthu...

243: Business Saboteurs from 2022-06-26T15:00

It sounds quite obvious not to hire people who are dangerous.  The problem is people can have a nice resume, can sound quite articulate in interviews and we buy this false persona.   They can al...

242: The Stress of Sales from 2022-06-19T15:00

When we are under stress our concentration and productivity levels are much lower than normal.  Sales has to be one of the most stressful occupations on the planet.  It is an emotional roller co...

240: Accountability Starts With The Leader from 2022-06-05T15:00

Holding our people accountable is one of the basics of being a leader. They flounder, deadlines pass unheeded, things get missed, work is not completed to a satisfactory standard.  Why is that? ...

239: Incentivising Salespeople from 2022-05-29T15:00

Life is full of various rhythms and flows.  We have a set piece most mornings.  Arise, eat, get ready for work, head out the door.  We work, finish, go to the gym, hobby, etc., or go straight ho...

238: Selfish Presenters from 2022-05-22T15:00

My regular Rotary meeting held every week at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo has a featured speaker.   Our speaker this time was a celebrity in his eighties and very well known to the audience.  Rot...

237: Leaders Make Or Break The Firm from 2022-05-15T15:00

How do you run your business.  Sharp on the cost control, right on top of the quality, working hard on building the brand, watchful of competitors, full throttle on appealing to shareholders and...

236: Salespeople To Avoid from 2022-05-08T15:00

If you meet any salesperson who doesn’t ask you questions before explaining their widget run!  This person is not a professional in sales, so don’t bother talking with them because you should on...

235: The Big Perspective Is Needed When Presenting from 2022-05-01T15:00

The podium is a powerful place for powerful ideas.  The audience has no idea what you are going to say and where you are going to take them during your presentation.  In Japan, at least, they wi...

234: Coach For Team Japan Excellence from 2022-04-24T15:00

The younger generation are the future and they want a different type of boss.  That boss has to be a new model - persuasive, able to sell the WHY of the job, razor focused on building the team m...

233: Sales Objection Handling Mastery from 2022-04-17T15:00

Brain fog can hit salespeople when they hear a buying objection from the client.  As soon as they recover, they spring into action.  Usually, it is the wrong action. It involves arguing with the...

232: The Mindset For Presentation Success from 2022-04-10T15:00

Our mental approach to our activities determines our success.  We know this in sports and in business, but when it comes to speaking in public, we somehow manage to forget this vital point.  In ...

231: The Boss Is Not Allowed The Luxury Of Reacting from 2022-04-03T15:00

Are you moody? You might say no. You see yourself as an upbeat individual, smoothly navigating your way through the workday. Good, but the workplace is roiling with confirmed, card carrying boss...

230: Leads Are The Lifeblood Of Sales from 2022-03-27T15:00

Marketing plays a key role in generating leads.  They are trying to maximise the accuracy of the segmentation of the data base, to make offers that resonate specifically with different segments....

229: How Can I Leverage My Presentation Content from 2022-03-20T15:00

We go to a lot of effort to prepare for our presentations.  We find the best quality information, assemble the slides to showcase that data and we make big efforts for the successful delivery of...

228: Be Responsible For Yourself In Business from 2022-03-13T15:00

There are billions being spent in the beauty business, the weight loss, fashion and entertainment worlds.  These are the fantasy lands from where we receive our images of success.  By comparison...

227: Salespeople Need to Have Self-Awareness from 2022-03-06T15:00

Listen well enough to the client’s needs.  They miss the key cues, misunderstand the problem, can’t override their fixation on what they want and do most of the talking during the sales call.  T...

226: Why Do We Have To Put Up With Substandard Presentations from 2022-02-27T15:00

This global company is a household name in Japan.  They have spent a fortune getting the brand name known here. <...

225: Leaders Need To Provide Visionary Leadership from 2022-02-20T15:00

If we want to influence others with our visionary leadership, then we have to start with ourselves and clarify what is the vision we have for ourselves.

If we are to live intenti...

224: Audit Our Salespeople Expectations from 2022-02-13T15:00

Really Understand Your Expectations Of Your Sales Team

We hire people and they don’t perform as we expected.  The time passes and the numbers are not rolling in.  We thought they...

223: How To Be More Persuasive from 2022-02-06T15:00

We run training on presentations and public speaking continuously. These three requests to be more concise, clear and persuasive, often come up from the participants, regarding the nominated are...

222: Trust Is Earned from 2022-01-30T15:00

Leaders gain automatic trust by dint of their position power.  Title and authority ensure people will toe the line, laugh at our jokes, tell us “Yes”.  This type of trust only goes so far though...

221: How To Professionally Present Products from 2022-01-23T15:00

Selling dull stuff is, well, dull.  We are supposed to be enthused about our widget but what if it doesn’t generate all that much enthusiasm in us? 

Industrial products are rarel...

220: Monotone Mania from 2022-01-16T15:00

Speakers are under assault.  Mobile phones tempt audiences to escape us to the internet and before you now it we have lost our audience to our message.  Putting people to sleep by the way we del...

219: Yes Boss, Whatever You Say from 2022-01-09T15:00

As leaders in Japan, one of our biggest fears is ignorance.  We may come up with a genius idea that is actually rubbish.  The age, stage and power hierarchy here ensures no one wants to stand ou...

218: Build Your Sales Bridges from 2022-01-02T15:00

The sales process is a process with different phases and stages.  The skilled salesperson knows how to navigate their way through these phases in the conversation with the buyer.

217: Why I Don't Like Videos In Presentations from 2021-12-26T15:00

There are so many competitors for our audience’s attention today.  The last thing we need are “own goals” by letting the slide deck or the video steal our thunder.  We must be the dominator on s...

216: Freedom Is All In The Mind from 2021-12-19T15:00

We cannot stop remembering the past.  We cannot stop thinking about the future.  We learn from the past, good and bad and we prepare for the future, before it arrives.  These are survival mechan...

214: Be Chatty When Presenting from 2021-12-05T15:00

We often see presenters elevated up on stage or positioned at the front of the room, flanked by or under a screen, and protected from the audience by a rostrum.  In Japan standing above your sea...

213: Subtle Discrimination Against Women In Japan from 2021-11-28T15:00

Change happens slowly in Japan.  Getting more women into leadership positions requires a lot of other moving parts to kick in.  One of them is changing the mindset of male line managers regardin...

212: Always Be Selling from 2021-11-21T15:00

 We rush about chasing deals.  We nail one down and race off hunting for the next one.  Sometimes we need to switch from hunter to farmer and see if there is more to that first deal. We need to ...

211: Low Energy Doesn't Work When Presenting from 2021-11-14T15:00

If we don’t grab their attention and interest, then our message is lost to them as they head off to the internet. 

“The good is the enemy of the great” is a clever saying and ver...

210: Educational Trends Not Matching Industry Needs from 2021-11-07T15:00

Japan has a very efficient education system around the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.  There was an effort to bridge the creativity gap with other countries but that was abandoned.  ...

209: Buyer Style Knowledge Is Key from 2021-10-31T15:00

We usually think in terms of cultural differences with the West, when we are dealing with this unique country, Japan.  In fact, personality style differences of the buyer are much more important...

207: Entrepreneur Top Requirements from 2021-10-17T15:00

There are many things which impact an entrepreneurs success. 

Usually, when we think about how to succeed in our own business, we favour things like sufficient cash flow and capi...

"Best of the Best" Encore 206: Nemawashi Is A Key Skill In Japan from 2021-10-11T03:00

Understanding the basics of Japanese business requires we have to know about nemawashi and what it means for us.  

Nemawashi is a very important word in Japanese.  It is made up of two wo...

205: Slide Decks And Presenting from 2021-10-03T15:00

Today we are going to look at the proper use of visuals when we are presenting.  Many people ask us at Dale Carnegie, what should I do with preparing my slide deck for my key note presentation? ...

204: Dealing with Taxing People from 2021-09-26T15:00

The playbook on how to deal with difficult people wasn’t anywhere in sight throughout our entire schooling.  When we went to work this playbook was also missing from the induction training and f...

203: Japan Is Very Formal In Business from 2021-09-19T15:00

Emperors and fishmongers.  The opposite end of the social spectrum, but in Japan, I discovered the levels of formality in meetings was unnervingly similar. 

Formality in Japan is linked v...

202: How To Pump Up An Audience from 2021-09-12T15:00

Storytelling by the speaker combined with audience participation is a winner.  We shouldn’t go crazy and over do it of course, but we definitely should use this technique.

Whenev...

201: Sports Lessons Which Instruct Leaders from 2021-09-05T15:00

The classic half-time locker room Churchillian oratory from the coach, whipping the team into a frenzy for the coming onslaught is now gathering dust in Hollywood’s archives.  Today’s most succe...

200: Why There Are Few Sale's Case Studies In Japan from 2021-08-29T15:00

All of the sales text books tell us, use case studies with clients who have been successful, to sell the next client.  Case studies are great for gaining credibility with potential cients, so it...

199: Getting Close With Your Audience In Japan from 2021-08-22T15:00

Engaging our audience is one of the prerequisites for having persuasion power.  Smart people sometimes make simple errors which diminishes their ability to get their messages accepted.  

...

198: Boss Induced Aggravation Antidotes from 2021-08-15T15:00

Conflict with bosses can often be a fundamental difference in personality types.  These differences are usually reflected in communication styles which don’t match.  If we know these things abou...

197: We Will Get Back to You from 2021-08-08T15:00

Understanding why people don’t buy immediately after your brilliant presentation in Japan is a critical component of success here.  Aggressive American style wrangling with the buyer just won’t ...

196: How To More Be Authentic When Presenting from 2021-08-01T15:00

You have genius within you, as yet untapped and never before displayed.  You have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in business.  You have witnessed folly, fun and the fantastic.  Your collect...

195: Public Enemy Number One - People from 2021-07-25T15:00

Rage, blind rage destroys relationships and intercompany teamwork.  We are all working around with super sort fuses today, impatient, irritated and volatile. Today let’s look at how we can head ...

194: If You Are Wrong Fess Up from 2021-07-18T15:00

Mistakes are either great learning exercises or catastrophes damaging the trust in the brand.  Step one is getting people to admit they made a mistake.  Finding out about a major mistake when it...

193: Presenters Can Learn From Script Writers from 2021-07-11T15:00

Most of the presentations we listen to are a tour de force of data and less than fascinating facts.  Yet the rest of our lives are overflowing with dialogue.  Today we will look at what we can d...

192: Staff Shortages Change The Business Dynamic Entirely from 2021-07-04T15:00

We are running out of young people in Japan.  Covid has slowed down some major structural changes which must happen.  The implications of staff shortages are dynamic for Japan.  Let’s explore so...

191: Buyers Have No Urgency So We Have To Create It from 2021-06-27T15:00

Having a buying need and doing something about it can often be quite disparate ideas.  There are many things we would all like to do in business to grow our companies.  The constraints are usual...

190: Enthusiasm Is Key When Presenting from 2021-06-20T15:00

Positivity in life is electric and it can impact others very quickly. Our mindset and energy output are engines driven on the fuel of enthusiasm. In this week’s show we take a look at why being ...

189: Adrenaline And Leaders from 2021-06-13T15:00

The brain when triggered by fight or flight impulses, releases adrenalin into the larger muscle groups.  It also fires up the brain and the mouth, but not always in the right order.  Today we lo...

188: Don't Snatch Defeat from Victory in Sales from 2021-06-06T15:00

Sales is easy if you know what you are doing.  It is a flow, where each step intersects with the previous one and is a build toward a “yes”.  Once we get to the final stages of the sales cycle, ...

187: Huge Auditorium Presentations Are Complex from 2021-05-30T15:00

Owning the room is doable with an audience of one hundred people but much more challenging when there are five thousand people in an auditorium.  Today we look at how to own the huge room.

186: The Art of Leading a Foreign Business in Japan from 2021-05-23T15:00

Running a business in Japan is not for the faint hearted.  Plenty of big companies with deep pockets have failed here.  There are plenty who have succeeded though.  Let’s pull back the velvet cu...

185: Sales Objections, Welcome from 2021-05-16T15:00

Getting an objection from a buyer is a joy.  Getting nothing is a pain.  At least when they object, they are displaying some level of interest to know more.  Many salespeople fear objections, bu...

184: How To Defeat Imposter Syndrome As A Presenter from 2021-05-09T15:00

Presenting exposes a lot about us to our listeners.  In this modern age it is more and more important that we can be professionals when we present.  Knowledge is power in the presenting stakes, ...

183: Can Leadership Be Automated? from 2021-05-02T15:00

As a species, we like to dominate rather than be dominated, which is why we are trashing the planet so vigorously.  Given we like to be the boss, robots are not going to get very far whipping us...

182: Basics Are Everything from 2021-04-25T15:00

The sale waits for no man.  Either you make that sale or your competitor does.  If it is a non-starter then start moving on to the next prospect.  Life is Latin for TIME.  That is all we have, s...

181: Practice Makes A Lot Better When Presenting from 2021-04-18T15:00

Practice makes Perfect except when presenting.  Why?  Because as businesspeople, we just don’t get enough speaking opportunities to become really excellent.  Repetition is key and with it freque...

180: Straight Talk Means Trouble A Plenty from 2021-04-11T15:00

Japan doesn’t appreciate embarrassing truths.  The temptation to be right can be overwhelming to Western business people and is a fatal mistake in Japan.  This is a land founded on harmony and t...

179: How To Scuttle Your Brand from 2021-04-04T15:00

Jan Carlzon wrote a fascinating book called Moments of Truth on how to maintain the trust in your brand, through the many changing touchpoints the company has with the consumer.  Today we look a...

178: Understanding Using Data When Presenting In Japan from 2021-03-28T15:00

How much is enough data in a presentation?  How much is too much?  Generally speaking, most presenters have a problem with too much, rather than too little information.  Your slide deck is brimm...

177: Charisma For Leaders from 2021-03-21T15:00

“Born to lead” is nonsense.  Many things shaped that person in order for them to achieve credibility with others.  Of course, we can become a “leader” as part of our company designated hierarchy...

176: Cut the Excuses Baby from 2021-03-14T15:00

“I would be able to sell a lot more except for all the extraneous, external factors over which I have zero control”.  Actually, you have never heard this line of argument before from a salespers...

175: Dealing With Ambush Speaking Requests from 2021-03-07T15:00

Suddenly you hear your name being called upon and you are being requested to make a few remarks.  Uh oh.  No preparation, no warning and no escape.  What do you do?  Extemporaneous speaking is o...

174: You Can't Do It All by Yourself from 2021-02-28T15:00

The hero’s journey is for the very, very few.  I did it my way, I slaved away in a garret and got to the top, I realised the American dream – all good stuff, but an illusion for most.  The reali...

173: The Easy Way Of Selling from 2021-02-21T15:00

The object of a sale is to exchange a good or a service for money.  The degree to which that money can exceed the variable and fixed costs associated with delivering it, determines the success a...

172: Using The Power Of Rhetorical Questions from 2021-02-14T15:00

Questions in general are powerful tools for speakers.  They bring focus to key points we want to get across.  They are particularly useful in getting our audience engaged.  They also have danger...

171: Leaders Who Have R.E.A.L from 2021-02-07T15:00

We love acronyms!  Our workplaces are thriving with them such that we can hold extended conversations composed entirely of seemingly impenetrable codes.  They are handy though and this one R.E.A...

170: Stand For Your Beliefs from 2021-01-31T15:00

Proof, data, evidence, facts alone are not enough in selling.  The first thing a buyer buys is us.  We have to stand out amongst our competitor rabble.  We have to bring enormous energy and beli...

169: More Presenting Pizazz Please from 2021-01-24T15:00

Pizazz is one of those unusual words, that sounds kind of cool, but is a bit vague.  In presenting terms, we are really looking at being more interesting and engaging and doing that in a sparky,...

168: Project Team Leadership, How Hard Can That Be from 2021-01-17T15:00

Projects are too common.  Because of this we take them for granted, seeing them as part of everyday work, but we don’t approach them properly.  We usually gather the team together and then dive ...

167: Sales And Showmanship from 2021-01-10T15:00

Tricky area in sales, showmanship.  The word has a certain odor about it that reeks of fake, duplicity, con game, spruker, carnival barker, etc.  Yet, like storytelling, this is an important par...

166: Minimalist Presenting from 2021-01-03T15:00

Zen study is a way to strip out all of the non-essentials in life.  The noise, the distraction, the things that are not so important.  People sit around concentrating on their breath cycle or on...

165. Project Management Fundamentals from 2020-12-27T15:00

Projects have been around for a long time of course and in the modern era we have accumulated a vast amount of best practice on how to manage them.  It isn’t usually that we don’t know what to d...

164: How to Provide Great Customer Service from 2020-12-20T15:00

Great service is so fleeting and  illusive. You encounter it and then like the morning mist, the next minute it is gone.  One company representative is so spectacularly helpful and then next one...

163: Business Lessons Straight From The Karate Dojo from 2020-12-13T15:00

I have often thought there are so many lessons from the martial arts for our businesses.  Here are my musings after 50 years of training in traditional Shitoryu Karate.

...

162: Salesperson Bitchiness from 2020-12-06T15:00

Sales is a tough enough job without having additional complications.  Clients can be very demanding, often we depend on logistics departments and production divisions, to get the purchase to the...

161: You Make The Brand Not The Other Way from 2020-11-29T15:00

My eyes are slowly closing.  I am sitting in the front row but I am struggling to stay awake.  There is something about this presentation that is not working.  I thought, it must be me.   I must...

160: Is Forty The End Of The Line For Most Leaders from 2020-11-22T15:00

Sport is a popular source of inspiration for corporate leadership.  Coaches attend off-sites and make good money telling business executives how to be better people motivators.  Sports journalis...

159: The Art Of Cold Calling In Japan from 2020-11-15T15:00

Cold calling always creates a debate amongst the sales community.  Some say it has seen it’s day, others defend it as part of the sales resource bank for getting leads.  I don’t think anyone sug...

158: Are You the Chief Mood Maker? from 2020-11-08T15:00

When you are on the executive floor, the carpet is thick, the mood is quiet and the décor is sumptuous.  It is a world removed from the scramble going on floors below.  Maybe you are in your own...

157: How to Make Project Planning Simple from 2020-11-01T15:00

It sounds so obvious that we should have structures for doing our project planning.  Projects are part and parcel of the fabric of work life and they constantly arise.  It is surprising though t...

156: How To Totally Smash Your Price Is Too High (Part Two) from 2020-10-25T15:00

When we are haggling over the price with the buyer and they say, “this price is too high”, “that is out of our budget”, “we can’t afford it at that level, can’t you drop the price”, “we never pa...

155: How To Totally Smash Your Price Is Too High (Part One) from 2020-10-18T15:00

Pricing is usually set by the boss and salespeople are just there to get out and sell at that designation.  The provenance of that price point can be quite varied.  In some cases, there is a car...

154: Create Raving Fans When Presenting from 2020-10-11T15:00

We can speak to a group. Then there is another level, where we try to totally captivate our audience.  What makes the difference?  The content could even be the same, but in the hands of one per...

153: The Secrets Of Successful Project Team Management from 2020-10-04T15:00

Projects are simply too common.  Because of this we take them for granted, seeing them as part of our everyday work, but we don’t approach them properly.

We certainly don’t apply...

152: Be Careful of Client White Noise from 2020-09-27T15:00

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 sho...

151: Don’t Be Dull And Dusty from 2020-09-20T15:00

Sometimes you see a confident presenter really bomb.  It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, the contrast is vast.  If they are totally hopeless as their default mode as a speaker a...

150: More Power To The Positive from 2020-09-13T15:00

We can control 100% of our attitude.  Yes, but often we don’t.  There are few things we can be 100% in control of and our attitude would have to rank at the top of things we really need to contr...

149: Self Delusion Has No Place In The Sales World from 2020-09-06T15:00

Sales is one of the few things in business you can measure accurately and immediately.  Are you getting greater efficiencies from your internal systems?  Is the marketing working?  Are our team ...

148: Differentiate Or Continue To Suffer from 2020-08-30T15:00

Education can be a barrier to intelligence sometimes.  This is often the case with people educated in very hard skill disciplines.  They are asked to absorb vast amounts of complex information a...

147: The Art of the Possible from 2020-08-23T15:00

“We all have possibilities we don’t know about.  We can do things we don’t even dream we can do”.  This quote from one of the pioneers of the self-help movement, Dale Carnegie, marked a major ch...

146: Chasing Buyer “No” Replies from 2020-08-16T15:00

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....

145: What Pro Public Speakers Do from 2020-08-09T15:00

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 wi...

144: Peter Drucker, Leadership And Japan from 2020-08-02T15:00

Peter Drucker has this great quote. “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion and under performance.  Everything else requires leadership”.  That is a very profou...

143: Don’t Work For Idiots In Sales from 2020-07-26T15:00

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 m...

142: Elegantly Accepting Your Kudos from 2020-07-19T15:00

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 Busine...

141: New Staff Development Challenges from 2020-07-12T15:30

Sakaiya Taichi, well known author and futurist,  made an interesting observation about the current trend of Japanese society.  He referred to Japan’s current lack of yoku (desire), yume (dreams)...

140: Real World Business Negotiating from 2020-07-05T15:30

We have many images of negotiation thanks to the media.  It could be movie scenes of tough negotiators or reports on political negotiations with lunatic led rogue states.  Most of these represen...

139: Nerves Need Not Nobble Your Presentations from 2020-06-28T15:30

Speaking in front of others makes many people tongue tied and nervous.  They struggle to get through a simple presentation, internally, in front of their colleagues.  A public audience is someth...

138: Be In Control Of Your Attitude from 2020-06-21T15:30

We can control 100% of our attitude.  Yes, but often we don’t.  There are few things we can be 100% in control of and our attitude would have to rank at the top of things we really need to contr...

137: Follow Up Sales Hell from 2020-06-14T15:30

Time is of the essence.  Patience is a virtue.  Worthy aims but sometimes we mix these aspirations up in sales.  We are not moving quickly enough and miss the chance.  At other times , we are im...

136: The Influencer's Secret Playbook from 2020-06-07T15:30

Don’t think of a pink elephant.  Did you think of one when you read that sentence?  It shows how easily we can we swayed by images.  If I had said don’t think of the letters p-i-n-k-e-l-e-p-h-a-...

135: Getting To Great Ideas from 2020-05-31T15:30

We find it frustrating when we have good ideas or suggestions but all we receive is rejection or even worse criticism of our ideas.  Part of it can be the culture of the organization.  I was lis...

134: Pushy Or Prescient from 2020-05-24T15:30

Pushy salespeople are very, very annoying.  They try to bug you into buying and we really don’t like it.  We may actually buy, but we don’t like them anymore and probably won’t become a repeat b...

133: Know Your Target from 2020-05-17T15:30

Know Your Target

I was at a speech recently, given by a very prominent  person, an extremely experienced speaker, to a very prestigious audience.  It should have been a triumph, but it wa...

132: Your Efficiency Is A Mirage from 2020-05-10T15:30

The disappearance of Executive Assistants and Secretaries reflects the dominance of the keyboard and a DIY approach to work content creation by leaders.  Once upon a time, the majority of boss c...

131: Sales Skills Or Boozing Skills from 2020-05-03T15:30

A LinkedIn post I read recorded how an American sales guy got off the booze and the client entertainment rat race.  It got a lot of coverage and comment because it obviously struck a chord with ...

130: Be Clear Or Be A Disaster from 2020-04-26T15:30

Most talks and presentations we hear, we cannot recall.  Why is that?  We were there presumably because we had an interest. The presenter no doubt made an effort to share something of value with...

129: Switching Your Mindset About Putting Things Off from 2020-04-19T15:30

Switching Your Mindset About Putting Things Off

We know we should do that project or piece of work but we resist.  We may even be bold and get it into our To Do list, maybe...

128 Defending Your Price from 2020-04-12T15:30

Salespeople don't set the price of what they sell.  This is usually an obscure outcome decided by someone else inside the machine.  It might actually be an elaborate process, where multiple vari...

127 How To Work The Room When Presenting from 2020-04-05T15:30

Getting up in front of people is confronting for a lot of speakers.  Beady eyes are boring into you, a sea of serious faces is scary, the lights are painfully bright and the pressure feels inten...

126: Setting Your Team Up For Success from 2020-03-29T15:30

Beginnings are important in business.  It might be the start of a new calendar year, a new financial year or the launch of a new project or initiative.  Often we get straight into the launch and...

125 Really Sad Questions From Salespeople from 2020-03-22T15:30

Three woeful contributions from salespeople include "we have this widget", "you should have it?" and "we can discount the price".  What a mess right there.  Yet, left to their own devices, this ...

124 The Professional's Guide To Presentation Rehearsal from 2020-03-15T15:30

Every performance is better when practiced beforehand and presenting is no different.  We don’t do it for a multitude of “good” reasons, none of which abrogate the need to make the time and put ...

123 The Details Can Derail You from 2020-03-08T15:30

“The Devil Is In The Detail” saying, reflects ancient wisdom about taking careful notice of small things.  The semi-amusing reflection on this saying is that it was created centuries ago, when w...

122 How To Cold Call from 2020-03-01T15:30

Cold calling is an unheralded intervention into someone's already packed schedule.  They are distracted by the phone from what they were concentrating on, so they are automatically annoyed.  The...

121 The Hard And Soft Of Presenting from 2020-02-23T15:30

Hard and Soft When Presenting

It is so easy to become “Johnny One Note” when presenting.  We get locked into a modality of voice and body language power. We just k...

120: Get Your Hustle On from 2020-02-16T22:27:44

Smart people in sales are a problem.  They have expansive brains, intellectual curiousity and strategic depth.  They are quick to spot the big picture solutions for clients.  Internally they are...

119 When Selling Timing Is Key from 2020-02-09T15:30

It always astonishes me that many salespeople have very little sense of proper timing to start selling their product or service.  In the sales call, they are in a rush to get down to business.  ...

118 Three Absolute Fundamentals for Success from 2020-02-03T11:06:46

118 Three Absolute Fundamentals for Success

Highly knowledgeable people are often at a big disadvantage in business.  They have expertise and experience.  Their opinion is sought after, t...

117 How You Can Generate Ideas from 2020-01-19T15:30

How to best tap into the idea potential of our work teams?  We know that the success of the organisation will be determined by the quality of the ideas we generate and the capacity to execute th...

116 Lawyers Aren't Special. They Need To Sell Their Services Too from 2020-01-12T15:30

Lawyers have spent a lot of time studying to pass their bar exams.  When they graduate, they are the white collar galley slaves, shackled to legal partner’s teams, doing the grunt work for years...

115 Surprisingly, Smart People Are Often Clueless At Presenting from 2020-01-05T15:30

Japan is an interesting place.  So many things here are ultra modern, high tech, totally nuanced and sophisticated.  You take it for granted that your refrigerator door opens from either side an...

114 HQ Never Understands Japan from 2019-12-30T01:17:06

HQ Never  Understands Japan

One of the dubious delights of running an international business in Japan is dealing with the Mother Ship or it’s Regi...

113 Consistency In Sales Is Critical from 2019-12-22T15:30

Consistency In Sales Is Critical

We all know that consistency is a fundamental requirement if we are going to establish trust with others.  We ask buyers to purchase from us on t...

112 Why Lawyers Are So Bad At Presenting from 2019-12-15T15:30

112 Why Lawyers Are So Bad At Presenting

Lawyers are smart people, but sometimes do self-defeating things.  They are discovering that unlike the “good old days”, there are many service al...

111 Okay Boss, Motivate Me! from 2019-12-08T15:30

Okay Boss, Motivate Me!

“Motivate me” must be one of the saddest requests a leader can receive.  The request may not be so blunt...

110 How To Control Your Mood In Sales from 2019-12-01T15:30

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, “wha...

109 We Are Always Sorry In Japan Before We Get Up To Talk from 2019-11-24T15:30

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 capabl...

108 Japanese Leadership Legend Mr. Atarashi's Big Breakthrough from 2019-11-17T15:30

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 somethin...

107 The Power Of Sales Stories When Selling from 2019-11-10T15:30

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 c...

106 Show Me How Great You Are, Don't Tell Me from 2019-11-03T15:30

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...

105 Success Formula For Leading Project Teams from 2019-10-27T15:30

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 te...

104 Hard Sell Hell from 2019-10-20T15:30

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 ca...

103 The Danger Zone When Presenting from 2019-10-13T15:30

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...

102 How To Persuade Followers from 2019-10-06T15:30

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 Corpor...

101 How To Find Golden Clients from 2019-09-30T07:30

Prospecting For Golden Clients

Do you have a clear image and understanding of your perfect client?  Authors often mention about writing for their ...

100 The Power Of Passion When Speaking from 2019-09-24T07:30

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 ...

99 Leaders, How To Get Your Act Together from 2019-09-17T19:00

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, persona...

98 Stop Being Hopeless In Client Meetings from 2019-09-10T19:00

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 ...

97 Technical Presenters Biggest Mistakes from 2019-09-03T12:46:45

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....

96 Ignore Your Business School Advice from 2019-09-03T12:44:55

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 imp...

95 Winning Sales Follow Through from 2019-09-03T12:42:51

 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 jugglin...

94 The 400 Face Presentation from 2019-09-03T12:39:40

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 b...

93 Dealing With The Most Difficult People from 2019-09-03T12:35:52

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 ...

92 Every New Sales Year You Are Back To Zero from 2019-09-03T12:32:45

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 en...

91 Don't Mystify Me With Your Presentation from 2019-09-03T12:30:12

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, plen...

90 Negotiating With The Difficult from 2019-09-03T12:27:45

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 por...

89 Presenting Our Sales Materials from 2019-09-03T12:25:45

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 salesp...

88 What Is The Correct Breathing Method When Presenting from 2019-09-03T12:23:35

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 e...

87 How To Not Win Friends And Not Influence People from 2019-09-03T12:21:28

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...

86 The 105 Centimeter Salesman from 2019-09-03T12:18:55

How is it possible that a salesman who can barely see over the counter become the top salesman in his company?  We all think we have our problems but compared to Toshiya Kakiuchi we have nothing...

85 Where Should I Stand When I Am Presenting from 2019-09-03T12:16:38

Most presenters fail to consider the importance of where to stand when presenting.  In today’s show we will go into some detail on how to adjust for different venues, how to engage with your aud...

84 How To Master The Daily Info Tsunami from 2019-09-03T12:13:26

The pace is unrelenting.  The world is producing information at a prodigious rate and somehow we are supposed to keep up with it all.  In todays show we will explore some ideas on how we can bet...

83 New Client Acquisition from 2019-09-03T12:08:26

If we don’t have a nice flow of new clients we cannot expand the business or replace clients who have dropped out.  The marketing team have their role to generate leads and the sales team have t...

82 Using Your Hands from 2019-09-03T12:05:45

New clients are the lifeblood of businesses.  Keeping clients is difficult, things change and they disappear. They have to be replaced.  How do we replace them?  In today’s show we look at two e...

81 Professional Leader As The Coach from 2019-09-03T12:03:04

Leaders become leaders because they were the best at their job, their tasks, their function. They are promoted and then left to their own devices to become a leader.  The lucky few actually get ...

80 True North In Sales from 2019-09-03T12:00

What are we on about with this sales lark?  Are we in sales to make our fortune or to make the client their fortune?  The difference in perspective is massive. For a long and successful career i...

79 Don't Read It from 2019-09-03T11:57:12

Nervousness when presenting can make us do strange things.  Two of those are reading our speeches or trying to memorise them. Both are a potential disaster and best avoided.  We think we have to...

78 Good Leader Habits from 2019-09-03T11:55:04

We all know we are the product of our habits, yet we do nothing about elevating our behaviours.  We also know that certain things work better with people than others and we should focus on the t...

77 Sales Delusions from 2019-09-03T11:52:54

Sales has been coopted by Hollywood, creating a stylized version of reality.  Sharp suits and conman ways are portrayed as the profession.  The truth is more prosaic, fundamental and involves si...

76 Your Own Leader Voice from 2019-09-03T11:41:59

The new Japanese financial year has already started now and I hope that last year’s results went well for you.  The reason I do this show is to help as many people as possible improve in the are...

75 War Declared On Soft Skills In Japan from 2019-09-02T13:22:01

Have you enjoyed a hanami or cherry blossom flower viewing party this year.  One of the great Japanese traditions I have to say. Today we are talking about when the system fails you, what do you...

74 Value Understanding In Sales from 2019-09-02T13:19:41

happy sight . Our office location in Akasaka is a good one because the streets around here are full of trees in full bloom and it is really a magic time to be in Japan. If you haven’t experience...

73 Speaker First Impression Mastery from 2019-09-02T13:16:59

If you are in Tokyo, are you enjoying the early flowering cherry blossoms yet?  A fantastic pink canvas is heading our way. Today we are talking about in this Age of Distraction you have two sec...

72 How To Meet And Connect With New People from 2019-09-02T13:13:40

How is everyone’s kafunsho or allergies to the cedar and cypress pine  tree pollens going?  Don’t worry, I am suffering with you if you belong to roughly half the population here in Tokyo who ar...

71 Create Great Customer Service Every Occasion from 2019-09-02T13:10:56

Well this is the time everyone is driving their results over the line, with the approaching financial year end looming on the horizon.  I hope it is all on track!  Today we are talking about do ...

70 Get Your Presentation Rhythm Going from 2019-09-02T13:02:51

We hear a lot about the current age of disruption but it is also the age of distraction.  If you are a speaker, then today’s miniscule attention span problem on the part of your audience is defi...

69 Nice Or Nasty Bosses from 2019-09-02T13:00:10

Boss positions over others are often the last refuge of insecure people.  They are like little Napoleons, bossing everyone around, flaunting their status power.  They don’t have great personal a...

68 Negotiating. What Is Your Preferred Process from 2019-09-02T12:57:40

Negotiating is one of the dark arts isn’t it.  The problem for most of us is that we usually spend very little of our time actually doing any serious negotiations in business.  The majority of t...

67 The Biggest Myth In Presenting from 2019-09-02T12:54:01

Urban myths usually spring from a scintilla of truth and then morph into something unrecognizable from the original.  I am sure Professor Mehrabian is mystified how his original research has bee...

66 Hey Leaders - Do You Scowl Or Smile from 2019-09-02T12:51:29

We all know first impressions are so important and so hard to unwind.  Well given we know that, why are we so hit and miss with the process of forming first impressions.  In customer service, th...

65 Not A Sales Thank You, Repeat Sales Please from 2019-09-02T12:48:47

Quotas, budgets, targets, feared employment oblivion all drive salespeople toward making sales.  Some go for the whales, but often don’t even get a minnow. Others grab everything they can get.  ...

64 Design Your Talk For Success from 2019-09-02T12:46:04

Okay, I have a presentation to give, so which slides can I use?  Bad idea.  This is the last thing you should be doing, in terms of preparing for your talk.  You have the topic, but who will be ...

63 Japan's Work Rhythm Is Different from 2019-09-02T12:43:28

Every culture has their work rhythm.  Some are a start early, go home early preference, the mainstream is probably more a nine to five approach and Japan has its late evening finish.  There are ...

62 Le Sales Killer from 2019-09-02T12:41:01

Getting buyers to hand over their hard won cash is a daunting task in many ways.  We salespeople love a challenge though, so we often conspire to make it harder than it has to be, by killing the...

61 The Winning Presentation Mindset from 2019-09-02T12:38:54

Mindset is a big deal in sports.  We understand that it is important in business too, but we sometimes miss the point that it also applies to how we approach public speaking.  We can exude confi...

60 Haste Makes Waste from 2019-09-02T12:35:54

 Modern life is full of contradictions.  We have vast computing power in the palms of our hands. Yet, some choose to play mindless games on their device.  Others are busily scrolling through the...

59 How To Prepare For Your Presentation from 2019-09-02T12:33:42

We have been requested to give a talk, so where should we start?  Should we jump straight into pulling together all the slides for the presentation?  Absolutely not.  We need to prepare this tal...

58 No Mistakes Allowed In Japan from 2019-09-02T12:30:52

We all want to go to heaven, but none of us want to die.  We all want change, but we don’t want to change.  These are some of the typical contradictions we find in human society. Another one con...

57 Ideal Sales Environment Construction from 2019-09-02T12:28:38

 Sales is a difficult world, but there are certain environments which lend themselves more toward making salespeople successful. If we are allowed to flourish, the chances are high that we will ...

56 How Not To Blow Your Acceptance Speech from 2019-09-02T12:26:16

When you are under the spotlight in business you have to shine.  Yet, so often, we see people catapulted to the top as an award winner and they do a dreadful job with their acceptance speech.  Y...

55 Learn To Outperform The Competition from 2019-09-02T12:23:10

Honey works better than vinegar in attracting people and their cooperation.  We know that, so why do we forget this at work.  We are short with people and too much occupied with our immense stat...

54 Can't Cold Call In Japan. Oh Yeah, Really from 2019-09-02T12:21:07

Unrequested contacts are frowned upon in Japan.  Direct mail goes straight in the bin. Emails from unknowns are deleted. Incoming phone calls are neglected and never called back.  This is grossl...

53 Big Boozy Crowds And Public Speaking from 2019-09-02T12:18:58

We live in a micro attention span world.  We are also becoming more and more self centered around what we want and why we need to have it right now.  A lot of the older courtesies and societal m...

52 Upping The Team's Care Factor from 2019-09-02T12:15:29

Cooperation is a key request within organisations.  Within small teams it tends to work well but it gets more challenging when you are trying to get other sections or divisions to cooperate with...

51 What Successful Negotiators Do from 2019-09-02T12:12:18

Tricky negotiators are losers.  They can only survive in a one shot business, because people won’t want to deal with them again.  Most of us in business are looking for lifetime, continuous, con...

50 How to Deal With Stage Fright from 2019-09-02T12:09:42

 I absolutely hated the prospect of public speaking. In fact, I was a whimp and ran away from every chance I had to speak in public.  Careers are funny things, because at some stage you get to a...

49 How To Keep Departure Damage To A Minimum from 2019-09-02T12:07:20

The classic brutalist image of a departure from the firm is from the finance industry. The departee is handed a garbage bag to collect their chattels and are unceremoniously stripped of their en...

48 Key Things Not To Do When Negotiating from 2019-09-02T12:04:56

We rarely meet super pro negotiators in business.  Often the other side are just like us, rank amateurs.   Because we are just turning up to negotiate, we are often at a disadvantage because we ...

47 How To Incinerate Your Personal Brand from 2019-09-02T12:02:35

When we represent our organization in a public venue delivering a talk there are two brands on display.  Our companies brand, because everyone will make a judgment about the entire organisation ...

46 One Minute To Star from 2019-09-02T11:59:55

What are you like on creating first impressions with people you meet for the first time? We are all aware that establishing “know, like and trust” relationships with clients are three key ingred...

45 Few Presentations Are Clear Enough from 2019-09-02T11:57:25

We are only down to a few seconds today, when we start a talk before the audience decides their phones are more interesting than we are and they escape from us to the internet and social media. ...

44 Middle Managers Are Your Firm's Lifeblood from 2019-09-02T11:54:35

Middle Managers are going to be the leadership group most directly interacting with the younger generation of employees.  We are on the cusp of entering the first ever free agent era of workers ...

43 Old School Japanese Service from 2019-09-02T11:52:27

Customer service is a crowded field, with so many consumer products and services duking it out for survival.  How do you stay in operation and how do you sustain that over hundreds of years?  Th...

42 Presentations Backed By Evidence Do Better from 2019-09-02T11:49:41

It is a fine line we have to tread.  We want to be supplying data etc as evidence to support what we are saying.  However, there is the danger that the data overwhelms the point we are trying to...

41 How Do You Make People Feel from 2019-09-02T11:47:32

Maya Angelou noted, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.  Quite true isn’t it but recognizi...

40 Bad Buyers from 2019-09-02T11:43:55

The Buyer is God not King in Japan and that difference is huge here.  There are so many cases of buyers treating sellers like dirt. The top prize has to go to the pharma industry dealing with ha...

39 Keys To Owning The Room When Presenting from 2019-09-02T11:41:56

Should the business presentations world be a democracy where anyone can speak?  Actually no.  Who wants to sit there and be hammered boring, unprofessional, dismal speakers?  What we really want...

38 Finding Your Confidence from 2019-09-02T11:39:21

Our collective level of confidence can make a huge difference in the workplace.  If we are prepared to try things, we will learn more and faster.  Naturally, not everything will work, there will...

37 The Death Valley In Sales from 2019-09-02T11:37:33

Sales is an emotional roller coaster.  It is also a roller coaster of results.  We have sales rolling in and we think this is great.  We are kept super busy servicing the deals we have struck.  ...

36 Conquering Public Speaking Nervousness from 2019-09-02T11:35:23

Anyone presenting in public eye is going to experience fear.  I am a veteran, having done over 500 public speeches and usually I am relaxed about speaking in front of an audience.  But put me in...

35 People Issues Are Always Hard from 2019-09-02T11:33:12

Dale Carnegie Training conducted a global survey to examine what are the key people issues organisations are facing.  The research identified three common macro trend areas: Leadership Developme...

34 The Holy Grail Of Sales from 2019-09-02T11:30:28

We hadn’t thought of that or we hadn’t planned for that are holy grail of sales.  This is what the client is saying silently to themselves because you have asked a really, really smart question ...

33 Presentations Can Be Scary from 2019-09-02T11:28:13

Speaking in front of groups is a learnt skill, except that we don’t bother to learn. Oh, so and so is a natural, they have the gift of the gab.  We hear these types of things and imagine that an...

32 Leading The Next Generation from 2019-09-02T11:25:17

Who would have thought we would be seeing the job mobility we are witnessing today in Japan. This is a recent phenomenon and it will become a bigger topic for discussion going forward.  The inab...

31 Principled Salesperson from 2019-09-02T11:23:09

There is no doubt that having a solid personal philosophy for how we deal with others is a sound idea.  Few people however bother to develop a personal approach, so they are always floundering a...

30 Spellbinding Speech Endings from 2019-09-02T11:19:33

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 drops away, the voice gradually fades out and there is no...

29 Be More Self Aware from 2019-09-02T11:14:33

If we want to improve we need to change.  We can’t keep doing the same things in the same way and expect an improved outcome. Einstein defined that as “crazy”. This means we have to institute so...

28 Don't Sell Me, Tell Me from 2019-09-02T11:12:20

Nothing happens in business until a sale occurs.  By the way, we are all in sales, whether we know it or not. If we are doing sales properly we are providing an immensely valuable service to our...

27 Best Practice Women Presenters from 2019-09-01T10:16:54

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 author of Japan Sa...

26 End Your Stress from 2019-09-01T10:14:47

We create stress for ourselves don’t we.  We often do this through being disorganized and time poor at the same time.  We get into a habit of how we work and it is usually not the most effective...

25 No Credibility, No Sale from 2019-09-01T10:12:06

 How do we build trust at the start of a business relationship?  We are an unknown, we have no established track record and we have to get over that situation.  There is best practice about how ...

24 To Be Good You Have To Be Clear from 2019-09-01T10:10:24

Being able to get up in front of a crowd of strangers and speak with confidence and persuasive ability frustrates the vast majority of people, because they don’t feel they can do that.  They are...

23 Leading Introverts from 2019-09-01T10:08:19

Often we are not tapping into the full brain and experience power of our team.  This happens because of the way we go about sourcing ideas.  The extroverts take care if themselves.  They are boi...

22 Sales Belief from 2019-09-01T10:06:36

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 we are bringing th...

21 Two Minutes To Speaker Oblivion from 2019-09-01T10:04:35

Your name is called, you are ushered up to the podium.  You are in the limelight, all eyes are on you, here is your chance to shine.  You blow it. The brand damage both personal and professional...

20 Workplace Idiots from 2019-09-01T09:57:17

Mistakes happen.  How we deal with them becomes a crucial skill as the leader.  There is always the contradiction between asking people to do new things and then being upset when mistakes result...

19 The Ideal Sales Ecosystem from 2019-09-01T09:53:34

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 we are bringing th...

18 Storytelling Is A Winner from 2019-09-01T09:51:24

Having the ability to influence decisions separates the leaders in business from the rest.  Getting others to accept our suggestions and recommendations is not easy.  Everyone is so much more op...

17 Develop Your Superpower As A leader from 2019-09-01T09:49:19

We need the leader to provide direction, hope, guidance, the way forward. That same leader needs to be able to communicate the vision for the team and to build the people power under their accou...

16 Listen To Win from 2019-09-01T09:47:24

Scrolling, thumb typing, constant checking on updates seem to be the new skill sets we need to make in this screen addicted modern business world.  In reality, the key missing skill...

15 How To Be Likeable And Trustworthy In Sales from 2019-09-01T09:44:38

We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don’t like and very, very rarely with people we don’t tr...

How To Speak To Unruly, Alcohol Fuelled Crowds from 2019-09-01T09:41:44

Booze and chat are the enemy of event programme speakers.  The level of audience rudeness, especially here in Japan, is gobsmacking.  Japan is such a polite society with a couple of exceptions a...

13 Dealing With Your Own Mistakes from 2019-09-01T09:11:58

The dealing with mistakes culture in Japan is definitely in the tough love category. This makes innovation and engendering creativity difficult here because, the penalties for failure far outwei...

12 How To Engage And Retain High Potential Employees from 2019-09-01T09:08:41

Talented staff are hard to keep.  They have options and are free agents, selling their services to the company that offers them the most attractive home.  Do you have that home for them now? Wan...

11 Sales People Don't Care from 2019-09-01T09:05:33

I thought “Yes!” at last, I have found my perfect Japanese salesperson.  This guy is good, really good at sales.  Just what we need to get the results moving around here. Actually, he was a liar...

10 Japanese Elites Who Can't Cut It from 2019-09-01T09:03:29

Imagine the consequences when you combine dead data with a dead delivery?  You have a massive bromide of frightening winter surf Hawaiian North Shore proportions, thundering down to bludgeon uns...

9 Disagree Agreeably from 2019-09-01T08:59:44

Never use "but" or "however." No matter how much you empathize with someone, if you follow up your positive sounding statement with words like "but" or "however," it will negate everything prior...

8 How To Lead In Our 4 Gen Work World from 2019-09-01T08:57:27

The projections are that the total number of the youth population in Japan of those aged up to 34 years of age, will halve by 2060.  Put that in context. It has already halved in the last twenty...

7 Presentations Effectiveness from 2019-09-01T08:55:06

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

Well, where is ...

6 Middle Management Madness from 2019-09-01T08:52:13

Leadership is critical in business and the ability of companies to keep tapping their talent to make sure they always have the most competent leaders is a crucial task.  The system actually work...

5 You Can't Cold Call In Japan. Really? from 2019-09-01T08:49:29

Welcome back to this weekly edition every Monday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show"

I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Well, where is t...

4 Motivational Leadership Part Two from 2019-09-01T08:48:03

Sales guru Zig Ziglar had a great saying, “If you can help enough people get what they want in this life, you can get what you want”.  Pretty simple idea isn’t it.  It is the same idea when we a...

3 Motivational Leadership Part One from 2019-09-01T08:45:30

As leaders, how well do we know the hopes, fears, dreams and situations of our team?  In the old model, the personal lives of the team members was thought to be an off limits area for bosses.  N...

2 How To Work Well With Difficult People from 2019-09-01T08:42:07

How To Work Well With Difficult People

People skills are really one of the key basics of leadership.  Fortunately, leading is easy.  Getting other...

1: Not Meeting The Leadership Challenge Is Quietly Killing Us from 2019-08-18T05:14:53

Careers are cut off at the knees and businesses destroyed when people problems are allowed to fester.  Getting the people part right is not just fundamental, it is critical in any business.  Iro...