Dale Carnegie Japan Podcasts

Public speaking throws up many fears and challenges for all of us. As part of High Impact Presentations, one of our public speaking courses, we have been surveying the various participants for the last four years about the types of things they most want to improve. The most common request, from both Japanese and English speakers, is to “be clear wh…

Previously Ted was the Chief Operating Officer at Picsel UK, Senior Managing Director Fidelity Investments, Chief Marketing Officer at Vodaphone Japan, Executive Vice-President Japan Telecom, President Comuwizards, Area Marketing Vice-President Verizon Wireless, Managing Director Marketing J-Phone, Director of Strategy Ai Touch, Consultant Bain and…

Why are so few business leaders good communicators, given all the education they have received, starting at varsity and then later, through their workplace organisations? Leaders are often told they need to be “authentic”. That means to some, that it is fine to be dull, obtuse, monotone and forgettable. While dramatic oratorical flourishes are not …

“Hey, it’s a jungle out there”. A brilliant meeting followed by a woeful meeting; the emotional roller-coaster world of sales.You’re up and down within minutes, depending on the client’s interest and reaction. You’re always too early or too late for the business chance. The client is never on your timetable, especially your schedule around meeting …

Salespeople are carrying around a lot of baggage with them when they visit clients. The smooth talking, dodgy sales person trying to con us, is the folkloric villain of the piece. Reversing that doubt and hesitation is critical to gaining acceptance as a valuable business partner for the client. This entire problem is magnified when we meet the cli…

It is a big crowd, yet the conversation suddenly dies and a hushed silence now sweeps through the room. All eyes are fixed forward, as the MC tears at the envelope and announces this year’s award winner. Polite applause fills the air as the proud selectee stands up, glances around smiling, shakes hands and navigates between the maze of tables and c…

Previously Martin was the General Manager, Global Treehouse Inc., Director of Operations, North Asia, Oakwood Asia Pacific, Executive Partner Fritz Consulting, General Manager Norfolk Mansions, General Manager Garden Plaza Hotel, General Manager Saigon Floating Hotel, Project Manager Park Hyatt Tokyo, Project Manager EIE International, Food and Bev…

Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust. The first three to thirty seconds is vital, so what do we need to do? Here are three things we need to get right: Pay attention to our dress and our posture! Looking sharp and stand straight – this communicates confiden…

Success is usually thought to be built on a combination of personal attributes such as intelligence, technical knowledge, street smarts, hard won experience (built on failures from pushing too hard), guts and tenacity. Our varsity halls offer a vast array of academic knowledge, information, insights, concepts, theories, tomes, technology and debate…

The hardest sales job in the world is selling something you don’t believe in yourself. The acid test is would you sell this “whatever” to your grandmother? If the answer is no, then get out of there right now! It is rarely that clear cut though. The more important test is whether what you are selling solves the client’s problem or not. Selling clie…

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

Previously Paul was Adjunct Industry Fellow In Mobile Software at Swinburne Uinversity of Technology, Founder of Long Weekend, IT Director enworld group, CTO and Founder Thomson Reuters cvMail. He has a BA in Business, Banking & Finance from Monash University.

There is a lot to do and once you get to a certain scale you realise you can’t do it all by yourself. This is when you need your staff. That is fine, but they didn’t start the business or if it is an established business, they are not the boss on much better money. How do you get your people to actually really care about the business? There are fou…

Corporate learning isn’t working. Heroically, time and treasure are being spent by company leaders to improve staff performance. Inherent in that goal is that we as recipients learn something new or re-learn what we supposedly should know already. Talking to companies interested in increasing people performance, we have noted some common barriers t…

It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless some salespeople are in Japan. Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople. We teach sales for our clients and so as a training company we see the good, the bad and the ugly - a very broad gamut of salespeople. We also buy services and products ourselves …

There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing variety. We consider the length of the presentation, the audience, the purpose of our talk and then we pour the contents into this structure. Generally, in a 30 minute speech we can only consider a few key points w…

Kevin played a number of roles at GPlus Media incuding Sales Director and General Manager. Previously he was a recruitment consultant at Optia Parrners, Training and Development Manager Human Resources at Model Language Studio.

Cold calling is dead! No cold calling is not dead! Lots of debate and advice on this subject and many a fortune funded as a result no doubt. For Japan it is not dead but it is diabolically hard. We need to select ideal prospects who are not presently clients. We need to list companies up who are look-a-likes for current clients or fit into our swee…

"I don’t understand!". Well in Nippon, particularly, what a pandora’s box or treasure trove that statement is, depending on your point of view. Employees who respond in this way may have a number of subterranean issues bubbling away. As managers, our ability to plumb the depths of what they are saying is integral for success. Here are 5 hidden mean…

Do you subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc? The following morsel popped into my inbox the other morning, “People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care–Anonymous”. Wow! What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others. This piece of sage …

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. We know we have to make a presentation, so we get straight into the details and logistics, without spending even a moment on our proper mindset for the activity.…

Prior to his posting in Japan, Bob was working for Evernex in Hong Kong as a Senior Account Manager. Previously he working in Italy as a Sales Manager for Fwebcreative. He has a Masters Degree from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and a license, Administrative and Social Economics from the Universite Paris-Sorbonne and an Undergraduate degree fro…

There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing. We consider the length of the presentation, the audience, the purpose of our talk and then we pour the contents into this structure. Generally, in a 30 minute speech we can only have a few key points we can cover,…

I am putting this content together for me to remind myself that psychosomatic illness is a real thing and there are plenty of graveyards with ambitious thrusting leaders pushing up daisies, because the stress killed them. Being an Aussie male is a health hazard. We are taught from a young age to harden up, soldier on, keep going no matter what. “Sh…

We have all seen it – the pendulum swings of organisational change. You can basically break out your stopwatch and get the timing down perfectly. The new CEO arrives and reverses whatever the predecessor was doing. If things had been centralised, now everything will be decentralised. Then here we are five years later, another CEO and we reverse cou…

We may not have the chance to give that many public presentations in a year, but usually we will have some common themes which we can speak on. As businesspeople, we will have our areas of expertise and experience and based on those attributes, the hosts will invite us to present. Basically, in the lull between hostilities, we do nothing and just w…

Prior to heading Wipro in Japan, Dhruv was at Tata Consultancy Services in Japan in a variety of roles: Manufacturing Vertical Deputy Head, Head of Automotive Engineering, and Consultant. He originally came to Japan with Wipro as a Product Development Engineer. He has an MBA from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies and an Undergraduate De…

Sales cannot run like a manufacturing production line. We are not making industrial cheese here. This is more like an artisanal pursuit, closer to art than science. Yet, every sales force on the planet has targets which are usually uniform. Each month, the sales team has to deliver a specified amount of revenue, rolling up into a pre-determined ann…

I have a short fuse for idiocy. I know this about myself, so I have to work on me, to calm down and not just verbally unload both shotgun barrels into the idiot. Like everything, there is best practice about giving errant staff feedback. I find a useful ploy is to “time separate” my irritation with them from when I deliver the feedback. When I get …

Pitching for the business is quite different to selling to a client representative we may be meeting in a meeting room. In the latter case, we have only one or sometimes two people to persuade, but in a pitch it could be department representatives from many parts of the firm. The worst possible pitch environment is when on this occasion you have ha…

The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan. Audiences here are polite and wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt the speaker. Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared. I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happene…

Prior to this position Erwann was Trading Department Director at Saint-Gobain Japan, Vice-President Glass Japan at Saint-Gobain, Sales Planning Director at MAG-ISOVER Japan, North and South Asia Pacific Sales and Marketing Leader at Owens Corning, Sales and Marketing Director NSG Vetrotex Japan, and Commercial Attaché at the French Embassy in Tokyo…

As professionals how do we grow in our business careers? Academic studies usually form the platform to which are added: on the job experience; books, articles, blogs and websites; mentors showing us the short cuts; cleverer colleagues providing insights and continuing professional development through training are the usual solutions. One of the iss…

Delegation is a perfect tool. It is always in pristine condition because it stays on the shelf and gathers dust there, rather than getting dinged and banged around through robust application by leaders. Why is that? Fear is the biggest driver, followed by poor time management. The accountability sits with the boss, no matter what delegation has bee…

Selling to idiot buyers sounds a bit harsh doesn’t it, but I am sure we have all had a version of this experience. It usually manifests itself in the pricing component of the transaction. We provide value, but the buyer is too inexperienced, uninformed, basically stupid, has a massive ego or is lacking in context to appreciate why they need to pay …

We often mix up words like metaphor and analogy, using them in the wrong context. Anecdote is another word we often use, but sometimes are not sure what it means. Basically, it is storytelling about a real incident or about a person. I was reminded of the power of the anecdote the other day, when listening to a presentation to a select private grou…

Previously Victor was Area Vice President, Japan and Guam for Marriott International, Managing Executive Officer, Chief Sales Officer & Chief Develomental Officer, Prince Hotels and Resorts, General Manager, Corporate Planning Department Seibu Holdings, Regional Vice President, Sales and Marketing, IHG Hotels Group Japan, Senior Vice President, Ope…

All of our problems walk on two legs and talk back”. I can’t recall when I first came across this expression, but it is true isn’t it. Most business problems can be fixed with more capital, technological breakthroughs, greater efficiencies, patience and time. People problems though are much trickier. An after work drinks session erupts into an alco…

Japan is a country where accountability and responsibility are avoided at all costs. This is most often seen in staff engagement surveys where Japan usually comes last in the world. One of the key questions western survey designers use for these global questionnaires is, “would you recommend our firm as a place to work for your relatives and friend…

Understanding client’s needs presumes we care about what they want. For many salespeople this isn’t even a topic in their mind. Their understanding is that they turn up and tell the client all about their widget in microscopic detail and somehow the client will buy once they have all of that data. Now this approach may work with certain analytic pe…

The chances of this happening anywhere is pretty remote, but especially so in Japan. Audiences here are polite and wouldn’t be so rude as to interrupt the speaker. Having said that, things can happen for which you are not prepared. I was delivering my debut speech in Nagoya, as the founding Australian Consul, in Japanese, and the unexpected happene…

Prior to coming to Japan, Petra has had a number of roles for Ikea in Sweden as Global Business Area Manager Bedroom, Textiles and Rugs, and as Deputy Retail Manager in Poland.

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 brimming over with goodness. And you just can’t bring yourself to trim it down. After all the effort you went to assembling that tour de force, you want to get it a…

There is no one way to lead, but there are different perspectives on how to lead. We might need a certain variety in one environment, but a different model in another ecosystem. Often the danger is dragging the same model around with us which worked well in one locale and trying to slam the square peg into the round hole at the new shop. I have tri…

Imposter syndrome is a fact of this sale’s life. If we try to avoid that and strive for safety by staying in our lane and just repeat the same actions, we will probably master what we need to do to complete the job. The problem is organisations keep moving the goalposts every year and they want higher revenue productivity. The market also moves on …

I had an interesting collision of presenting styles recently. We were conducting one of our High Impact Presentations Courses and I was one of the two instructors for this programme. On Day One, a very important pivot takes place. They do three presentations that day and during the third one, they stop focusing on themselves. In the first two, they…

Previously Vincent was Managing Director of Swarovski Japan, Japan Sales Director for Van Cleef &Arpels, Japan Deputy Senior Manager at Cartier, Product Manager at Pernod Ricard Japan. He has an EMBA from the Hult International Business School.

Finding clients is an art and so is building trust and credibility that you can actually help them solve their business problems. We might be very charming when we first meet the client, sending out a competency vibe that the client relates to. They are open to our inquiries into the current state of their business, where the gaps are located and t…

What are the starting points, the basic requirements of leadership? There are actually many, which is why books on leadership are both numerous and thick. Today, let’s look at four of the basics we need to be effective as a leader. 1. Self-Aware In this category, we are living an intentional life, where we decide what happens to us, rather than bei…

We have products and services to sell and there are key details about their features which we need to explain to the buyer. Clients need to know what they are getting for their money, so fair enough. In Japan, the client will lead you down the road of morbid detail about the ins-and-outs of the purchase, as they suck you dry for all the information…