Selling Into Each Region Is Different In 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 having lived in Kobe/Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo and having made sale’s calls in other provincial centers.

If we go from south to north and start in Kyushu in Fukuoka, there is a local dialect and basically everyone went to school there and graduated from the local colleges and universities. Foreigners are not calling on companies all that often down there, so there is still something of a rarity factor at play here. Back in the good old days, when companies had generous entertainment budgets, the local staff were really glad to meet you. This was a grand occasion to use you as the excuse to have a big night out on the town on the firm’s dime. My ego took a bruising when I finally worked out it wasn’t the Story charm, that was generating this great enthusiasm for a night out on the town. That big spending night out culture has gone by the wayside, but the rarity interest factor is still at play. Language is an issue though, because the English speaking capability is still underdeveloped in most of Japan. The local burghers are quite cautious and conservative too. It will take a lot of patience to do business here, but it can be done. It just normally requires a lot more time than your company’s leaders or shareholders are prepared to give you.

Kobe was opened as an international port on April 1st, 1868, so it is one of the most open minded towns in Japan regarding international business. They have had foreigners living in their midst for a very long time, so there is nothing special about us from a uniqueness point of view. Trade has meant dealing with the outside world and being flexible about it in the process. The denizens of Kobe often have a better level of English than other parts of Japan and they enjoy being seen as one of the most international cities in the country. I always found people there open to discussing business.

Osaka is an ancient merchant town with a merchant mentality. It was the center of the great commodity markets in Japan for salt, rice and soy beans. One of the great things I like about this city is they will give you a “yes” or a “no”. Often, the reluctance to tell you “no” in Japan, leaves the whole decision piece dangling, without any clear idea of where we are going with this. Not in Osaka. If they like it, they will explore if there is a deal to be done and some money to be made. They are proud of their local dialect and this is a big divider between insiders and outsiders. As a foreigner, we are so completely outside of all consideration, that in a way, we are probably better accepted than their despised rivals from Tokyo.

Kyoto I always found very closed. The aristocratic capital of Japan for centuries, it features a defined smallish city area hemmed in by mountains. The interconnectivity of the local people is pronounced. Their families have lived here for centuries, they know each other and they know who is a “blow in” and who isn’t. Even for other Japanese salespeople from out of town, Kyoto is a hard market. If you are from the outside, you are “out” for the most part.

The area around Nagoya has produced the three most famous warrior leaders in Japanese history, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Tokugawa family Shoguns, closed the country off from the rest of the world. When I say “closed”, this was upon pain of death for entry or exit. This went on for hundreds of years. In my experience, Nagoya is still relatively back there in a time warp – still closed off. I didn’t find the local mentality particularly open to foreign business and there wasn’t much English going on around there either. I said that in Osaka you get a “yes” or a “no” and that this knowing where you stood was attractive. In Nagoya, they do the same thing and the answer is usually “no". The pride of businesspeople in Nagoya is to have an exceptionally humble looking headquarters, with lousy office furniture, stained, aging carpets and everything very much down at heel, but to also have a huge pile of cash sitting in the bank. I found they were extremely tight with their money too.

It is the only place I have seen, where when a new shop opens and they put those decorative flower arrangements out front on the street, that passersby will shamelessly take handfuls of the flowers away with them. They justify this on the basis that it is a waste to see them die and it is much better to have them home at their place. It is a rough and tough market. In a word to the wise, they have one little commercial idiosyncrasy that will kill you. You meet, negotiate, agree the price and sometime later the agreed goods turn up at the seaport or the airport. This is when they like to renegotiate the price with you!!

“Character building” is how I would describe doing business in Nagoya. The locals are very aware of who they are and don’t open up to “foreign” Japanese from distant places like Tokyo. So, in one sense, they are very fair and they are closed minded to everyone, not just foreigners from overseas.

Tokyo is a really a first class international city and so different to when I got here over forty years ago. The tallest structure here when I arrived was Tokyo Tower, which seems incredible today, when you take in the ever accumulating city skyline. English is widespread, people are sophisticated, very international and everything works well. Getting a decision though can be seriously painful. Because Tokyo is often the headquarters for companies, the scale of businesses being here is large. As a consequence, there are many, many people who have to be consulted. Getting them to agree can take an age.

Sendai and Sapporo are a bit like Fukuoka to me, in the sense that they are not often visited by foreigners, seeking to do international business. The capacity to speak English is sparse and the local businesspeople are rather conservative. Sapporo at least, is an international destination during the ski season, so there are pockets of more international business there. Expect to have to keep coming back many times to build the trust. Things will move slowly and in small test increments.

When I first lived here in Japan in the suburbs in Kunitachi, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I always imagined that the rest of Japan was like Tokyo. It was only when I travelled around Japan selling in the late 1980s and then later lived in Nagoya in 1992 and in Kobe in 1996, that I realised that Tokyo was not Japan. The regional differences are so important. Of course, we can do business anywhere in Japan, and ultimately I did have success in regional centers. The key success factor though is to know what is different locally and to have a defined, different strategy for each major center. Did I mention you need a lot of patience?