327 Do You Need To Speak Japanese To Sell In Japan?

<p style="font-weight: 400;">There are many non-Japanese speaking business people doing deals with Japanese companies.  They may be flying in for meetings or may be based on the ground here.  Even those locally based may not have sufficient fluency to conduct a sales meeting in Japanese, even though they make speak some level of Japanese language. I don’t know if I would call myself “fluent”, because I know how complex the Japanese language is and I know that often I cannot always understand everything being said in the meeting.  Having said that though, I have sold multi-millions of dollars worth of goods and services to Japanese buyers, so something must be working.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The further you get out of Tokyo, the higher the degree of requirement for a Japanese business level capability.  The situation is improving though, as younger people are generally better at English than their parents, regardless of where they are living in Japan.  So the provinces are certainly not a wasteland of opportunity, but be prepared for more problems finding someone to be the counterparty with sufficient English to hold the meeting.  The flip side is the rarity of speaking with a foreigner is attractive to a lot of regionally based business representatives.  In Tokyo, talking in English to a foreigner is a bit blasé and nothing that special.  In Ehime, the reaction will quite different.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The key to any sales success is your kokorogamae - your true intention.  If you are fully focused on the buyer succeeding and want to be a trusted partner, one who is gripped with a burning need to foster the relationship so that there are continuous re-orders, then the counterpart will feel that.  Most Japanese can read English much better than they can speak it.  This presents the opportunity for you to marshal your resources and provide a clear picture of what you offer, why it is going to be a benefit to the buyer and a ton of detail on the how.  If this has been translated into Japanese