As an English presentation and speech consultant, living and working in Japan, the majority of my clients are either local hires working in multi-national firms that are having trouble presenting in the international corporate environment, or they work in domestic Japanese businesses that want to expand into the global market and need to be able to do sales and marketing presentations that are up to international standards.
In either case, I’m generally called in after a disastrous experience. I’ve heard horror stories of audience members having loud conversations, falling asleep or walking out in the middle of a presentation. One bewildered executive even told me of being cut off and dismissed in mid-sentence by an ill-tempered American businessman.
That used to puzzle me. While I understand that it is more difficult to present in a language that is not your native tongue, such negative reactions are extreme even by American standards. The presentations couldn’t possibly have been THAT bad, could they? These same executives were very experienced at presenting in their own language.
The answer came to me from a student of mine. I teach an online, presentation skills class at a famous, internet-based MBA program here in Japan. The students watch video lectures, post videos of their own presentations and then interact with me and each other through an online forum.
My students are mostly working executives, in their thirties and forties, at large, multi-national firms. They have many years of experience in both the domestic Japanese and global workforce.
When I asked them, as part of a discussion exercise, to describe a typical Japanese sales presentation, one woman’s answer both shocked and amused me.
Question: How are most Japanese business presentations organized?
Answer: Most of presentations are organized something like this:
1) Introduction: 15min
This part is the most important for the presenter because they have to introduce their company’s long, long history.
2) Body: 20min
Suddenly they talk about a product which they want to sell today. Unfortunately they don’t raise any problems or present solutions; they just announce their commercial slogan.
3) Conclusion: 1min
They just tell audience the telephone number or URLs to contact them.
4) Extra: 10min
There are no questions from the audience, but they want to exchange business cards.
At first, I was sure she was joking, but none of the other students disputed her answer, and when I showed it to some friends who work in Japanese companies, every one of them said that, while a bit exaggerated perhaps, it was not that far off the mark.
I think I’m beginning to understand the source of the problem.
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