380 Dress For Success When Selling In Japan
THE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Release Date: 04/01/2024
THE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
You manage to get the appointment, which at the moment is seriously job well done. Trying to get hold of clients, when everyone is working from home is currently a character building exercise. You ask permission to ask questions. Well done! You are now in the top 1% pf salespeople in Japan. You do ask your questions and quickly realise you have just what they need. Bingo! We are going to do a deal here today, so you are getting pumped. But you don’t do a deal, in fact you leave with nothing but your deflated ego and damaged confidence. The...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Salespeople have sales tools which often are not thoroughly thought through enough. These can be flyers, catalogues, slide decks, etc. They can also be proposals, quotations and invoices. Usually the salespeople are given the tools as they are and either don’t ask for improvements or don’t believe the marketing department has much interest in their ideas about the dark art of marketing. Consequently, there are some areas for improvement which go begging. Flyers, catalogues and slide decks tend to be very evenly arranged. Every page is basically presented in...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
I hear some people say translating terms like “nemawashi” into English is difficult. Really? I always thought it was one of the easier ones. Let's just call it “groundwork”. In fact, that is a very accurate description ,from a number of different angles. Japanese gardeners are superstars. There is limited flat space in this country, so over centuries gardeners have worked out you need to move the trees you want, to where you want them. They prefer this approach to just waiting thirty years for them to turn out the preferred way. It is not...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Minato-ku or the “Port Area” is a central part of Tokyo, which used to be harbourside for goods being delivered to the capital in ancient times. My three barbers’ stories are tales of customer service opportunities gone astray, in a country where customer service is the envy of the rest of the world. Each story brings forth a reflection on our own customer service and how we treat our buyers. My apologies to Gioachino Rossini for lifting the title idea for this piece from his famous opera. Barber Number One worked in a men’s barber shop in the Azabu Juban shopping...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
There is no doubt that the pandemic has made it very fraught to find new clients in Japan. The new variants of the virus are much more contagious and have already overwhelmed the hospital infrastructure in Osaka, in just weeks of the numbers taking off. Vaccines are slow to roll out and so extension after extension of lockdowns and basic fear on both sides, makes popping around for chat with the client unlikely. We forget how much we give up in terms of reading and expressing nuanced ideas through not having access to body language. Yes, we can see each other on screen,...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Japan is a very hierarchical society. I am getting older, so I appreciate the respect for age and stage we can enjoy here. Back in my native Australia, older people are thought of having little of value to say or contribute. It is a youth culture Downunder and only the young have worth. “You old so and so, you don’t know anything” is reflective of the mood and thinking. As a training company in Japan, we have to be mindful of who we put in front of a class and in front of clients. If the participants are mainly male and older, then it is difficult to...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
When we read commentary about how we should be recruiting A Players to boost our firm’s performance, this is a mirage for most of us running smaller sized companies. If you are the size of a Google or a Facebook, with massively deep pockets, then having A Players everywhere is no issue. The reality is A Players cost a bomb and so most of us can’t afford that type of talent luxury. Instead we have to cut our cloth to suit our budgets. We hire C Players and then we try to turn them into B Players. Why not turn these B Players into A players? This is a...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
If we try to hide the bad news for the buyer will that work? How long with it work for? Bernie Madoff died in prison, his wife left in a perilous state, one son dead from suicide and the other from cancer. I call that family devastation. He got away with his lies and cheating for quite a while. He offered modest, but steady returns. He told people he had no capacity to take their money, then rang them back at a later stage to say there was an opening. They were grateful for the chance to give him their money. The 2008 recession showed who was...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
If we try to hide the bad news for the buyer will that work? How long with it work for? Bernie Madoff died in prison, his wife left in a perilous state, one son dead from suicide and the other from cancer. I call that family devastation. He got away with his lies and cheating for quite a while. He offered modest, but steady returns. He told people he had no capacity to take their money, then rang them back at a later stage to say there was an opening. They were grateful for the chance to give him their money. The 2008 recession showed who was...
info_outlineTHE Sales Japan Series by Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
The buyer is King. This is a very common concept in modern Western economies. We construct our service approach around this idea and try to keep elevating our engagement with royalty. After living in Japan for 36 years and selling to a broad range of industries, I have found in Japan, the buyer is not King. In Nippon the buyer is God. This difference unleashes a whole raft of difficulties and problems. My perspective is based on an amalgam of experiences over many decades and I am generalising of course. Not every buyer in Japan is the same, but those foreigners who know Japan will...
info_outlineI recently launched a new project called Fare Bella Figura – Make a Good Impression. Every day I take a photograph of what I am wearing and then I go into detail about why I am wearing it and put it up on social media. To my astonishment, these posts get very high impressions and a strong following. It is ironic for me. I have written over 3000 articles on hard core subjects like sales, leadership and presentations, but these don’t get the same level of engagement. Like this article, I craft it for my audience and work hard on the content and yet articles about my suit choices get a lot more traction. What I take away from this is people are interested in how we present ourselves in business.
The thesis of Fare Bella Figura is that first impressions are so important. In sales, people judge us hard based on how we look, before we even have a chance to open our mouths. If we don’t get that initial visual interaction correct, then we can be playing catchup to correct an unhelpful first take on us. “Clothes maketh the man” is an old idea and is related to this first impressions equation.
The other thesis of Fare Bella Figura is that I dress for the meetings I am going to have that day, rather than some random selection of what is back from the dry cleaners. We are going to make an impression with the buyer one way or another, so I want to be in control of that impression as much as is humanly possible.
I believe there is a direct link between how we present ourselves and the degree of credibility we can instil in the client. If we make a mess of the fabric and colour combinations, we are screaming “unsophisticated”. I do not recommend for men to ask their wives for advice. Study this “dress for success” topic for yourself and become the master of your own universe.
If we are turning up with ancient stains on our tie, or our suit, it is interpreted as sloppy and there is now a strong doubt about our quality consciousness. If our shoes are scuffed or not displaying a high shine finish, it says we are lazy, not detail oriented and unreliable. The term “down at heel” means “poor” and it comes from the fact that the back of the heel of the shoe has worn down and has not been repaired. Either we are too poor and obviously not a success in the sales profession to be able to repair it, or too indifferent and either way, it is a bad sign for the buyer.
If we are wearing a brown or tan belt with black shoes or vice versa, it says “hick” and someone who lacks common sense. The exact matching tie and pocket square colour combination is another faux pas these days. Would we want to accept these types of salesperson as our “trusted advisor”? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t take their advice on anything if they can’t even dress themselves correctly.
Suits too large or too small are another bad indicator. They have either lost a lot of weight, but haven’t bothered to get their suit taken in, or they are getting chubbier and haven’t had the suit taken out, because they won’t spend the money. It isn’t that expensive to alter an existing suit, and the difference is total. If the suit trousers are too long or too short, it looks off – go and get them altered or replace them.
Style and fashion are difficult to navigate. Suit jacket lapels get skinnier, ties get wider and then get narrower, trousers get slimmer and then get fuller, socks get discarded when wearing shoes – all sorts of temporary fashion trends take over the dictates of what is appropriate. Suits can last more than one fashion trend and you have to debate with yourself whether that wide lapel is still going to present the right image with the client when everyone else is wearing a narrower lapel these days.
I struggle with this. I have a favourite double breasted Versace suit from years ago and because the style is dated; I don’t get to wear it much or at all and that seems a waste. However, if I am dressing for my client, then the answer is simple – leave it in the wardrobe for a day in the future when that trend makes a comeback.
My mantra when I leave the house every day is to check my look in the mirror and ask myself, “do I look like one of the most professional people in my industry?”. If I don’t, then I go and make a few changes, until I am satisfied I can pass that test. Here is a caveat. For a lot of men in Europe, they will be wearing a jacket and trouser combination, rather than a suit and the American trend is to much more casual clothing. In certain industries, like IT, you will hardly see anyone wearing a suit. Now I sell in Tokyo and everyone here wears a suit. I remember I was so surprised when met the President of a gas stand and he was wearing a suit, so men’s suits are predominant here. Therefore, I dress for this business environment and you should do the same for your reality.
There is a correlation between the quality of our clothing and our personal financial success. Buyers judge us based on what they see. If we look cheap and nasty, they won’t want to trust us with their business because we don’t look successful. On the other hand, if we are overdressed, it can have a negative consequence. It can make them feel inferior, so the balance is important.
If we roll up in our expensive Brioni or Kiton suits and Rolex watches, and they are just a salaryman tasked with purchasing goods and services for the company, they can feel inferior and experience some discomfort. We look a bit too sharp to them and they don’t want to get cut. As I say, getting the balance right is the key.
We will make an impression on the buyer based on what we wear, so we need to determine what that impression will be. We don’t leave it to luck or chance. We make sure it is the right choice – the one that leads to the deal getting done.
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About The Author
Dr. Greg Story, President Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training
The bestselling author of “Japan Sales Mastery” (the Japanese translation is "The Eigyo" (The営業), “Japan Business Mastery” and "Japan Presentations Mastery" and his new books "How To Stop Wasting Money On Training" and the translation "Toreningu De Okane Wo Muda Ni Suru No Wa Yamemashoo" (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのは止めま
Dr. Greg Story is an international keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. He leads the Dale Carnegie Franchise in Tokyo which traces its roots straight back to the very establishment of Dale Carnegie in Japan in 1963 by Mr. Frank Mochizuki.
He publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
Has 6 weekly podcasts:
1. Mondays - The Leadership Japan Series,
2. Tuesdays – The Presentations Japan Series
Every second Tuesday - ビジネス達人の教え
3. Wednesdays - The Sales Japan Series
4. Thursdays – The Leadership Japan Series
Also every second Thursday - ビジネスプロポッドキャスト
5. Fridays - The Japan Business Mastery Show
6. Saturdays – Japan’s Top Business Interviews
Has 3 weekly TV shows on YouTube:
1. Mondays - The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show
Also every Second Thursday - ビジネスプロTV
2. Fridays – Japan Business Mastery
3. Saturdays – Japan Top Business Interviews
In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development.
Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making, become a 39 year veteran of Japan and run his own company in Tokyo.
Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate (糸東流) and is currently a 6th Dan.
Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.