301 Your Face Is More Powerful Than Any Screen
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Release Date: 10/15/2023
How To Defeat Imposter Syndrome As A Presenter
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
We don’t get the chance to do so many public presentations in business, so it becomes a hard skill set to build or maintain. The internal presentations we give at work tend to be very mundane. Often we are just reporting on the numbers and why they aren’t where they are supposed to be or where we to date are with the project. These are normally rather informal affairs and we are not in highly persuade mode when we give them. We should be clear and concise, but we probably don’t really get out of first gear as a presenter. Obviously, giving public talks is a lot...
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Create Raving Fans When Presenting In Japan
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
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 person it is dry and delivered in a boring manner. Someone else can take the same basic materials and really bring it to life. We see this with music. The same lyrics, but with a different arrangement and something magical happens. This new version becomes a smash hit. Speeches are similar. A boring rendition is given a delivery make over and suddenly has the...
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Real World Business Negotiating In Japan
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
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 representations however have very little relevance in the real world of business. A lot of the work done on negotiations focuses on “tactics”. This is completely understandable for any transactional based negotiations. Those are usually one off deals, where there is no great likelihood of any on-going relationship continuing between buyer and seller. This is false flag. The...
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Be Careful of Client White Noise
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Sales people are always under pressure to meet their targets. In high pressure situations, this creates certain behaviours that are not in tune with the client’s best interests. We know we should listen carefully to what the client wants, before we attempt to suggest any solution for the buyer’s needs. We know that by asking well designed questions, we can possibly come up with an insight that triggers a “we hadn’t thought of that” or “we haven’t planned for that” reaction at best. At worst, at least they know whether we have a solution for them or...
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Spellbinding Speech Endings
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience. The energy often quickly drops away, the voice just fades right out and there is no clear signal that this is the end. The audience is unsure whether to applaud or if there is more coming. Everyone is stuck in limbo wondering what to do next. The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained. It sometimes reminds me of classical music performances, when I am not sure if this is the time...
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Selling Into Each Region Is Different In Japan
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Japan is a big small place. It is about the same size as the UK, but is covered in mountains, the latter making up 70% of the land area. We have very few of those horizon stretching field vistas like they have in England. This mountainous aspect has led to quite strong sub-regional differences here, especially reflected in language, customs and cuisine. England has these too, but I think Japan is more pronounced in this regard. These differences pop up when you are selling here as well. The following are my experiences having sold in all of these cites and...
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How To Present As A Team When Selling
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
In business, we are asked to present as a team. We may be pitching for new business and the presentation requires different specialist areas of expertise. This is quite different to doing something on your own, where you are the star and have full control over what is going on. One of the big mistakes with amateur presenters is they don’t rehearse. They just turn up and fluff it. They blow up their personal and organisational brands. When in a team environment, you absolutely cannot neglect the rehearsal component. There will be many sessions needed...
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313 Taking Questions When Presenting In Japan
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
The Question and Answer component of talks are a fixture that we don’t normally analyse for structure possibilities. Having an audience interested enough in your topic to ask questions is a heartening occurrence. When we are planning the talk though, we may just neglect to factor this Q&A element into our planning. We may have considered what some potential questions might be, so that we are prepared for them, but maybe that is the extent of the planning. We need to go a bit broader though in our thinking about the full extent of the talk we are going to give. ...
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312 Productivity Will Determine Japan's Future
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
During the “bubble years” of surging economic growth, Japan could not keep up with the supply of workers for the 3K jobs – kitsui, kitanai, kiken or difficult, dirty, dangerous undertakings. The 1985 Plaza Accord released a genie out of the bottle in the form of a very strong yen, which made everything, everywhere seems dirt cheap. Japanese people traveled abroad as tourists in mass numbers for the first time. They often created havoc in international destinations, because they were so gauche – a bit like we have been experiencing with mass Chinese tourism. Companies bought up foreign...
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311 Value Triumphs All In Sales In Japan
The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
We believe in our product and we are very knowledgeable about the facts, details, specs, etc. We launch straight into our presentation of the details with the buyer. Next, they want to negotiate the price. Do we see the connection here, between our sales approach and the result, the entire catastrophe? The reality is often salespeople are slogging it out, lowering the price, hurting their positioning of the brand, lowering their own commission. Unfortunately, in Japan, once we have established a discounted price for the product or service, it is very difficult to move...
info_outlineWe have all seen it. The presenters face is expressionless, wooden, devoid of emotion or life. It is usually well paired with a horrific monotone vocal delivery, to really kill off the audiencecompletely. Presenting is a serious business, so these presenters present a very serious physiognomy. Somehow, scowling is thought to be good too, to show the gravitas these heavyweights bring to the occasion. These are powerful people, who by definition, must look powerful. Technical people, in particular, love this no frills approach and smiling is definitely well off their list of possibilities.
To be fair, there are presentations where levity, smiling, frivolity are totally inappropriate. A remembrance ceremony for the fallen heroes and heroines in battle, would be an occasion for an austere face. Losing all the shareholder’s value through some idiocy would be another. A serious face however, doesn’t have to be an expressionless face. Recalling lost loved ones in a heartbroken community, can see the presenter’s face stricken and tortured with pent up emotions. When I gave eulogy for my mother at her funeral, my face was ashen and pained.
In business though, in most cases, we can use our faces as an additional communication tool with our audience. We are using tonal variety in our voice, our hands for gestures, our eyes for audience engagement. We should also be using our faces too. A raised eyebrow can speak volumes. It can indicate curiosity, incredulousness or doubt. Turning our face to the side and tilting our head to go with it, can show scepticism or cynicism. Pursing our lips together then pushing them forward in a pout shows disagreement or disapproval. Pulling our head back from the neck shows shock or surprise. Physicality is one of the tools available to the presenter.
When you think about it we are incredibly active using our face in normal conversation. If we filmed you speaking and played it back you would be amazed at how much facial expression you are employing. Stand you behind a podium or put you on stage in front of an audience though and maybe all that natural communication ability sails out the window and is replaced by a wooden you instead.
When we look at theatre performances, television, movies, comedic acts we can see facial tools being well employed to drive home messages. I enjoy the popular drama from Italy, Inspector Montalbano and the Italian culture really makes great use of the face to communicate emotions. They are just talking, but it looks like they are arguing and of course the gesturing is on fire. We should stop watching these shows just for the entertainment value and start re-watching them for what we can learn about how to employ our face more powerfully when presenting.
In the same way, when we are speaking, we hit key words with a louder or softer volume for effect, we should start employing our face to do the very same thing. When you want to raise doubt about some proposition someone else is putting forward, look for a suitable facial expression to back up that message. When you want to appear sceptical of some idea, then bring your best sceptic face to the fore. When you want to look happy, a huge smile will do the trick to convey that feeling.
This is very hard to coordinate when you are starting out. These days I have so much going on with my voice, eyes, gestures, body language I am not even aware of it. Watching myself on video with the sound turned off, I can see how much natural variety I am bringing to the talk. It wasn’t like that at the start. My very first public presentation in my life was in Japanese to the Sundai Yobiko cram school students who were forced to listen to me. I was so nervous, I managed to finish a 25 minute speech in 8 minutes. I am sure my face was not only wooden, but also bright red from all the stress I was feeling.
Like anything to do with public speaking this facial involvement takes practice. Presenting in front of a mirror is a good chance to see how animated you are. Video is better though and these days everyone has a smart phone with a very good quality camera lens included. Try doing the same piece with repetition to see if you are bringing your face into the communication. Also check you are doing it congruently with the content you are addressing. Over time, you will start creating appropriate facial expressions for that piece of the content without even noticing it. To be a more effective public speaker, get your face more involved!