Episode #192: Running The Japan Operation

Running the Japan Operation.

Running your own business is challenging anywhere, but Japan adds a bit of a spice to the broth. Unlike Western countries where salespeople are prepared to work on a one hundred percent commission basis very few Japanese staff are attracted by that option. Again, this opportunity to move wage costs away from fixed to variable is less available here. This means there must be a base salary plus bonus or commission arrangement, and the base will be relatively high, especially if you are a foreign operation as you need to attract potential employees. Of course, if you are a prestigious mega corporation encapsulated by a powerful brand, this attracting staff challenge may not be such an issue. If you're a small, medium enterprise, an SME, then attracting people becomes more competitive.

If your team needs to speak some English, some reasonable level of English, then the wage bill goes up immediately. There is also a limited supply of Japanese who want to work in an international environment and that number is declining rapidly as less and less young people go overseas to study.

We are currently in the midst of a real turning point regarding the internationalization of the younger generation. The young don't want to learn English and they don't want to live overseas because everything is so wonderful here in Japan, and it's safe. In the future, they are going to become almost impossible to hire for SMEs, as we are simply outbid by bigger companies.

Marketing in Japan, especially in Tokyo is a remorseless pit into which you have to throw lots of money.

Cold as opposed to warm approaches are also tricky. Sending a direct mail piece to someone unknown goes straight in the bin. Any email from a nonentity simply gets deleted unread.

You can cold call here, but you really need to know the person's name. If you don't, you will usually get blocked at the entry point. You are promised that your message will get passed on and a return call offered, if they are uninterested. You will never hear back from them.

There is always the issue of what you're offering, may work overseas, but it won't work here. If you bring global statistics, then there had better be a Japanese component of the survey, or the whole thing is just dismissed as irrelevant. That means you have to pay to run the same survey here to show the significance of your findings for the Japanese market.

The good news is that in Japan, you do get paid by clients.

Also Japanese companies prefer the devil they know, so if you supply value, then you can expect repeat business.

Staff are hardworking and diligent. People are honest, neat, polite, and things work here also. There is also fantastic infrastructure. The rule of law applies here, and legal disputes that have to go to court are few and far between.

Japan is still the third largest economy in the world. Many foreign companies have done well here. They have found the formula for success, but few have done that rapidly. Long term planning, patience, grit, and sustainability take on different dimensions here in Japan.

All in all, Japan is a land of opportunity. Progress just comes more slowly here, and with great difficulty. But if you stick it out, then it will come. There are plenty of foreigners who have made a success of their businesses here. Adapt some samurai style grit and keep going.