{"id":41,"date":"2021-07-20T10:39:07","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T10:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evanburkosky.com\/2021\/07\/lorem-ipsum-dolor-sit-amet-consectetur-adipisicing-elit-sed-do-eiusmod-tempor\/"},"modified":"2022-12-19T17:09:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T08:09:40","slug":"partnership-leaders-apac-channel-partner-kpis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evanburkosky.com\/ja\/partnership-leaders-apac-channel-partner-kpis\/","title":{"rendered":"Partnership Leaders APAC Channel Partner KPIs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The following video is a talk I did for Partnership Leaders talking about the partnership ecosystem in APAC with a focus on Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Transcript (auto-generated by YouTube):<\/p>

0:00<\/div><\/div>uh at least locally here so i’ll go ahead all right so partnership leaders member<\/div>
0:07<\/div><\/div>roundtable um it says apac go to market kpis uh<\/div>
0:12<\/div><\/div>really because of my experience this is very japan centric but i’ll try and throw in some apec knowledge as well<\/div>
0:21<\/div><\/div>so a little introduction for the benefit of those on the recording so evan berkowski<\/div>
0:27<\/div><\/div>i been in japan for almost 20 years now working in digital marketing uh<\/div>
0:33<\/div><\/div>specializing in ai analytics uh conversion optimization customer experience<\/div>
0:39<\/div><\/div>optimization cro world so i first arrived in japan um with the idea to do an<\/div>
0:46<\/div><\/div>import business uh and that became my um<\/div>
0:51<\/div><\/div>quite hard to do so the first business i i did in the second year here was an english school uh and eventually reached a point of<\/div>
0:58<\/div><\/div>maximum expansion with that so i co-founded a marketing agency much more<\/div>
1:04<\/div><\/div>easy to expand and then that evolved into founding a software<\/div>
1:10<\/div><\/div>startup and a few other companies after that and then i moved to uh agency side so i<\/div>
1:16<\/div><\/div>worked at a company called e-agency which was google’s largest solutions partner so we’re providing<\/div>
1:23<\/div><\/div>consulting services around google analytics premium and that became the 360 suite<\/div>
1:30<\/div><\/div>and i was the sales manager there i built a team to sell and service software and<\/div>
1:37<\/div><\/div>our primary solution became optimizely so i helped them enter the japanese market and got some<\/div>
1:43<\/div><\/div>first hand experience about the silicon valley style of sas sales i tried to hybridize that and apply it<\/div>
1:50<\/div><\/div>to the japanese market after that i worked at j walter thompson so<\/div>
1:56<\/div><\/div>that is japan’s oldest foreign ad agency uh got a look at the media world and we<\/div>
2:02<\/div><\/div>were trying to look at uh digital transformation from a big data perspective<\/div>
2:08<\/div><\/div>and then i started using my experience helping companies enter the japanese market to become a market entry<\/div>
2:14<\/div><\/div>consultant so i’ve done that for several companies now including parsley an analytics company recently acquired<\/div>
2:21<\/div><\/div>by wordpress uh and full story and then most recently dynamic yield so<\/div>
2:28<\/div><\/div>dynamic yield uh initially i helped them enter the japanese market and then became the country manager<\/div>
2:33<\/div><\/div>uh so going on two years doing that so that’s given me you know a look into japan’s um<\/div>
2:40<\/div><\/div>you know very unique ecosystem both from the vendor side and from the partner side and i’ve had the opportunity to work<\/div>
2:46<\/div><\/div>with quite a lot of partners in japan during that time uh as well as<\/div>
2:51<\/div><\/div>throughout asia pacific so although this talk will again be very um japan centric because that’s my<\/div>
2:57<\/div><\/div>experience i’ll try and talk a little bit about the wider apac region as well<\/div>
3:04<\/div><\/div>i have worked uh i’ve closed deals you know in japan in south korea australia taiwan<\/div>
3:12<\/div><\/div>hong kong malaysia and thailand so i know a little bit about working in those various markets<\/div>
3:19<\/div><\/div>and today we’re going to talk about that talk about japan the channel partner ecosystem in<\/div>
3:25<\/div><\/div>japan talk about you know commonly tracked<\/div>
3:31<\/div><\/div>partner kpis some recommended kpis cultural considerations for selling in<\/div>
3:37<\/div><\/div>this region and a little bit about japan centric sales processes<\/div>
3:42<\/div><\/div>i just thought i’d share some knowledge because this is what i know the most about and then general business culture right<\/div>
3:48<\/div><\/div>now in this post-pandemic world or with corona as it’s called in japan<\/div>
3:56<\/div><\/div>right so first a little bit about the ecosystem in this region<\/div>
4:01<\/div><\/div>and before i get right into this i’ll just talk a little bit about the wider region so one thing that i found<\/div>
4:10<\/div><\/div>a lot of software companies oh and another caveat my experience has been very much in the<\/div>
4:16<\/div><\/div>sas world so i will be focused mostly on the sas business model uh but it applies<\/div>
4:22<\/div><\/div>to the wider software and uh it market and then to quite a few other you know industries<\/div>
4:30<\/div><\/div>and uh types of business models when entering this region um but one thing that i’ve really found<\/div>
4:36<\/div><\/div>working in this region is that a lot of companies try to take a a sort of regional hub approach<\/div>
4:43<\/div><\/div>which is they’ll they’ll open an aipac office and somewhere whether that be singapore tokyo or<\/div>
4:50<\/div><\/div>sydney they’ll try and create a regional hub to service the entire region<\/div>
4:56<\/div><\/div>and and for the most part i actually don’t recommend doing that i’ve analyzed a lot of companies who’ve<\/div>
5:02<\/div><\/div>tried to enter this region and whether they’re selling through partners or selling direct<\/div>
5:08<\/div><\/div>the results are generally the same it’s such a wide region there’s so much linguistic and cultural<\/div>
5:15<\/div><\/div>fragmentation that uh without getting a solid foothold in each market first it’s very difficult to<\/div>
5:22<\/div><\/div>manage from a single hub dynamic guild had a similar experience and this pretty much follows the pattern<\/div>
5:29<\/div><\/div>there was a singapore office going back several years but it was very hard to service the<\/div>
5:34<\/div><\/div>entire region so what i do recommend is picking your largest market<\/div>
5:40<\/div><\/div>um that’s often australia first because of the you know common language uh<\/div>
5:47<\/div><\/div>australia is generally considered uh the next market to test after north america because the culture is very<\/div>
5:53<\/div><\/div>similar to north america um so a lot of companies will start their office there if you can get a foot<\/div>
5:59<\/div><\/div>in the ground and build a good uh partner ecosystem there that’s a good place to do it uh increasingly singapore<\/div>
6:04<\/div><\/div>is more attractive due to tax incentives and again you know english competency and<\/div>
6:11<\/div><\/div>sometimes depending on your business or your customer base somewhere like tokyo can be a good place as well<\/div>
6:18<\/div><\/div>so you start with a a good market where you can get enough customers to support a team locally<\/div>
6:26<\/div><\/div>i will say one thing although i’m a big fan of singapore and i think business is very easy to do there<\/div>
6:32<\/div><\/div>singapore is a very small market so if you’re actually selling to the singapore market uh most of the other<\/div>
6:37<\/div><\/div>companies located in singapore are also regional hubs so<\/div>
6:43<\/div><\/div>there isn’t actually that much of a large domestic market especially for uh b2b or<\/div>
6:49<\/div><\/div>enterprise level sas software uh so it it’s often better to start somewhere like japan<\/div>
6:55<\/div><\/div>now this is the strategy that i recommend for a company like dynamic yield or for most of the companies i’ve worked<\/div>
7:00<\/div><\/div>with start where your largest potential market is and if you do a good you know total<\/div>
7:07<\/div><\/div>addressable market analysis that should tell you where you’re able<\/div>
7:13<\/div><\/div>to start or where you naturally create your first partnerships that’s where you probably want to start<\/div>
7:18<\/div><\/div>so one reason why this presentation is so japan centric in addition to my personal experience<\/div>
7:25<\/div><\/div>it’s also because i find japan is a good place to start in this region it is<\/div>
7:30<\/div><\/div>the largest actual uh enterprise software market in asia pacific<\/div>
7:38<\/div><\/div>uh and it is the third largest uh sas market in the world all right so the specifics about the<\/div>
7:44<\/div><\/div>channel partner ecosystem here a lot of these are just the basics but i’m sort of outlining them<\/div>
7:50<\/div><\/div>you know for anybody who might be new to this world you’ve got your referral partners solutions partners reseller partners<\/div>
7:57<\/div><\/div>agencies and consultancies so referral partners in japan this can be very important<\/div>
8:05<\/div><\/div>most business is in this region and this goes for i would say you know chinese-speaking<\/div>
8:12<\/div><\/div>cultures as well as south korea and perhaps the wider region<\/div>
8:17<\/div><\/div>things are very much relationship-based so it can be very valuable to get a<\/div>
8:23<\/div><\/div>referral often referral partners are consultants or just well-connected people uh often who are<\/div>
8:31<\/div><\/div>late stage in their career you know they’ve worked for a long time at somewhere they’ve built a vast personal network<\/div>
8:37<\/div><\/div>and those personal relationships open doors for example i i know a couple of people<\/div>
8:42<\/div><\/div>at denso who are now in their 60s or 70s<\/div>
8:47<\/div><\/div>but they could pick up the phone and call pretty much anybody in japan and get a meeting so these type of door openers are very<\/div>
8:54<\/div><\/div>valuable um extremely valuable for getting initial introductions however that’s usually all they do uh<\/div>
9:00<\/div><\/div>they’ll get you an initial meeting but they’re they have no ability to uh<\/div>
9:06<\/div><\/div>follow up or or you know to help you go through all of the stages to close the deal it really is just that initial referral<\/div>
9:13<\/div><\/div>and that’s all they do and they do specialize on it and do that very well um<\/div>
9:18<\/div><\/div>but if you want follow-up you probably need to work with a solutions partner so solutions partners obviously you know<\/div>
9:24<\/div><\/div>provide services they provide consulting services and solutions and support for technology in a region<\/div>
9:32<\/div><\/div>like japan where people don’t speak that much english they can provide your first level of<\/div>
9:39<\/div><\/div>support in japanese so they’re like a bridge they’ll take all of your various customer inquiries and frequently asked<\/div>
9:47<\/div><\/div>questions and and support issues and then pass them on to an english speaking team at hq<\/div>
9:53<\/div><\/div>often solutions partners are able to sell to their existing network they may provide or they may represent other software<\/div>
10:01<\/div><\/div>they may have other consulting services so they can sell to their existing network and sell to their<\/div>
10:08<\/div><\/div>customers who are using software that may be complementary to yours that’s a cross-sell or an upsell<\/div>
10:14<\/div><\/div>they’re usually able to both open and close the deals they’ll have actual marketing staff to create an<\/div>
10:20<\/div><\/div>inbound funnel and sdrs to follow up with it as well as account executives or sales directors uh to work the deal cycle and they may<\/div>
10:27<\/div><\/div>have some outbound business capability as well although that’s usually limited to reaching out to their existing<\/div>
10:34<\/div><\/div>network and again cross-selling or upselling to that network<\/div>
10:39<\/div><\/div>they can assist with marketing efforts in terms of doing webinars localizing content doing press releases<\/div>
10:46<\/div><\/div>creating case studies and so on in the local language and of course this is very important<\/div>
10:52<\/div><\/div>across apac and then you’ve got your reseller partners so reseller partners they tend to you<\/div>
10:59<\/div><\/div>know take ownership of the deal and the customer relationship with a good reseller partner they manage<\/div>
11:06<\/div><\/div>they may manage the entire relationship and rather than co-selling you may not even<\/div>
11:12<\/div><\/div>have much contact with the end customer they are often the most able to drive sales<\/div>
11:19<\/div><\/div>they’re incentivized i usually have structured reseller<\/div>
11:25<\/div><\/div>partner deals with about a um i would say an industry average of about 25 up to 35 percent<\/div>
11:33<\/div><\/div>uh commission on the first year arr so whether you’re doing that<\/div>
11:42<\/div><\/div>uh on it as a discount on list price uh and then the agency may mark that<\/div>
11:48<\/div><\/div>back up again and provide their services on top of that uh they’re incentivized by this deal commission to do all of the hard work<\/div>
11:55<\/div><\/div>and to hire the necessary people to run sales<\/div>
12:01<\/div><\/div>however there is a limitation in japan and i find that this is common to<\/div>
12:06<\/div><\/div>all partner types they’re excellent farmers uh they’re able to do excellent<\/div>
12:13<\/div><\/div>account management um you know get you through the very long deal cycle in japan<\/div>
12:19<\/div><\/div>uh keep the customers happy but they are almost without exception<\/div>
12:25<\/div><\/div>very poor hunters um which means that they’re not really able to go out and<\/div>
12:30<\/div><\/div>and get new deals they’re not really able to go to make new relationships even a reseller partner incentivized by<\/div>
12:38<\/div><\/div>a large part of deal commission is going to have a culturally a very hard time<\/div>
12:44<\/div><\/div>going out and talking to people that they don’t know at all they have to sell to their existing<\/div>
12:51<\/div><\/div>network or they have to get a personal referral to someone in order to start a new<\/div>
12:56<\/div><\/div>conversation and this is uh you know certainly very true in japan i’ve seen it to be very true in<\/div>
13:02<\/div><\/div>south korea as well but i think it’s again it’s pretty common to the wiser wider asia pacific world is that it’s<\/div>
13:09<\/div><\/div>just hard to get past all of the cultural barriers to talk to someone that you don’t know<\/div>
13:15<\/div><\/div>or that you don’t have a friend to introduce you to for this reason a hybrid model a<\/div>
13:22<\/div><\/div>co-selling model or even a direct sales model can often be the most effective way to get new<\/div>
13:28<\/div><\/div>business because if you have bilingual multicultural sales staff who’ve been<\/div>
13:34<\/div><\/div>trained in a more western a hunter type model whether that be hunting with you know<\/div>
13:39<\/div><\/div>nets or spears going out and creating a new relationship<\/div>
13:44<\/div><\/div>is something that people are able to do if they’re not uh completely entrenched in the local<\/div>
13:50<\/div><\/div>culture if they’re not so native that um they’re sort of beholden to the cultural norms<\/div>
13:56<\/div><\/div>uh with a little bit of an international team it’s a lot easier to go out and and start new conversations start new<\/div>
14:01<\/div><\/div>relationships uh and get your sales going that way uh all right now agencies um i this might actually be<\/div>
14:09<\/div><\/div>sort of japanese english uh i’ve been in japan so long sometimes i forget what is native english and what isn’t<\/div>
14:15<\/div><\/div>but when we say agency in japan we’re usually talking about media agencies um<\/div>
14:21<\/div><\/div>and certainly in japan because uh these companies own so much of the<\/div>
14:26<\/div><\/div>market they are the uh you know the gorilla in the room as it were<\/div>
14:31<\/div><\/div>um now there the entire media agency world in japan is currently going uh<\/div>
14:38<\/div><\/div>undergoing a massive transition um so the three big silos<\/div>
14:44<\/div><\/div>are number one denture that’s the single largest ad agency in japan and i think the densa aegis<\/div>
14:51<\/div><\/div>network densa international is still the largest media agency in the world<\/div>
14:58<\/div><\/div>so number two is hakka hodo they’ve always been the number two to denzes number one um<\/div>
15:05<\/div><\/div>so they try very hard they’re often a very good partner to have because they as the underdog they try so hard and<\/div>
15:11<\/div><\/div>then adk assats dk they’re the third sort of silo and almost every other<\/div>
15:18<\/div><\/div>agency even consulting agencies or systems integrator is somehow aligned with those three<\/div>
15:24<\/div><\/div>silos when i worked at um e-agency we were aligned with the adk silo and so<\/div>
15:33<\/div><\/div>when i first started there wasn’t actually an outbound sales culture because all of the all of the work came down the<\/div>
15:39<\/div><\/div>pipeline from adk it was all referrals within this single silo and that’s how most agencies do business<\/div>
15:45<\/div><\/div>in japan um but again it is changing because the consulting world is coming and eating so<\/div>
15:51<\/div><\/div>much of the traditional media agency pi that they have to get more competent at<\/div>
15:57<\/div><\/div>their consulting services the value-added services so the old business model of course<\/div>
16:03<\/div><\/div>was ad placements taking a commission on creative or media placement<\/div>
16:10<\/div><\/div>that’s no longer enough so now it’s often not just acquisition but also conversion<\/div>
16:16<\/div><\/div>optimization uh making sure that um you know the the ad campaigns<\/div>
16:21<\/div><\/div>are accountable that they’re actually showing an roi and of course this requires the digital<\/div>
16:27<\/div><\/div>world to show roi on on media spend so it’s kind of dragging them these<\/div>
16:34<\/div><\/div>agencies kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone in the tv world uh in into the digital world<\/div>
16:41<\/div><\/div>now of course again this is very japan centric but japan has like six or maybe seven<\/div>
16:48<\/div><\/div>uh terrestrial tv channels and uh they own everything you know every every<\/div>
16:55<\/div><\/div>with such a limited number of channels everybody in japan watches the same few tv channels and and so they’re all<\/div>
17:02<\/div><\/div>seeing the same advertising and companies like denso they just absolutely own<\/div>
17:07<\/div><\/div>almost the level of thought control of the populace this world so it’s very hard for them to shift out of it<\/div>
17:13<\/div><\/div>they’re lagging behind in their digital transformation for this reason in some ways they see<\/div>
17:18<\/div><\/div>the online world as cannibalizing their traditional tv world and print media world uh but things are<\/div>
17:24<\/div><\/div>changing out of necessity uh and this is partly because of the global agencies the foreign global<\/div>
17:30<\/div><\/div>agencies in japan that are leading this charge so wunderman thompson uh i think was last year the year before<\/div>
17:36<\/div><\/div>the merger between um j walter thompson where i used to work and wonderman has created the new<\/div>
17:42<\/div><\/div>combined agency warner and thompson commerce is uh increasingly very strong uh in this<\/div>
17:48<\/div><\/div>region and then the traditional uh you know their sort of cohorts like uh<\/div>
17:53<\/div><\/div>publicis uh merkel and so on uh merkel being more and more a a<\/div>
17:59<\/div><\/div>consultancy rather than a media company uh so the other consultancies um<\/div>
18:06<\/div><\/div>in japan transcosmos is very strong they actually started in the call center world<\/div>
18:12<\/div><\/div>so they used to do outsourced you know basically answering the phones and then they got into uh outsourced<\/div>
18:19<\/div><\/div>website management website creation and now they’re into conversion optimization personalization and so on<\/div>
18:25<\/div><\/div>uh and then there are other companies like gap rise who specialize in bridging the market between japan and<\/div>
18:32<\/div><\/div>other nations especially israeli startups ad flex and principal these are all<\/div>
18:38<\/div><\/div>agencies that i’ve worked with and then the big ones like accenture imj<\/div>
18:44<\/div><\/div>uh deloitte pwc nielsen and so on so they’re moving more and more into the<\/div>
18:50<\/div><\/div>it world martech world with more and more analytics and big data<\/div>
18:55<\/div><\/div>and then the systems integrators uh so this again is unique to japan but<\/div>
19:00<\/div><\/div>i’ve come across it in taiwan and hong kong and some other markets as well uh but especially in japan the systems<\/div>
19:07<\/div><\/div>integrator world is extremely fragmented we don’t see many global systems integrators in japan<\/div>
19:13<\/div><\/div>instead we see thousands tens of thousands of of small niche companies uh<\/div>
19:21<\/div><\/div>just incredibly fractured there’s a culture in japan of outsourcing to these<\/div>
19:26<\/div><\/div>companies and that’s one reason why almost everybody outsources to them and so there it supports a large number of<\/div>
19:31<\/div><\/div>them but there’s no standardization they all try to do custom development and they all want to<\/div>
19:39<\/div><\/div>they’re very protectionist so they try and lock their customers into their legacy systems these are almost always uh boxed<\/div>
19:47<\/div><\/div>software systems not sas so customers are are very often trapped in<\/div>
19:54<\/div><\/div>legacy systems that are several years out of date and so if you’re trying to sell sas in<\/div>
20:00<\/div><\/div>japan you have to be aware of this because you’ll often get trapped on something like a cms that’s<\/div>
20:05<\/div><\/div>hasn’t been updated for 10 years and the php version is way out of date and the database doesn’t work correctly and so<\/div>
20:11<\/div><\/div>on uh so you have to be aware of this um it’s it’s almost unavoidable these<\/div>
20:18<\/div><\/div>companies are so entrenched that they often not just build the website<\/div>
20:23<\/div><\/div>and back-end systems but manage everything as well and they are the gatekeepers so they’re potentially very useful<\/div>
20:29<\/div><\/div>allies as well because if you want to sell new software into this market uh often they are the decision makers or<\/div>
20:36<\/div><\/div>or at least the stakeholders um now the the channel partner ecosystem in general<\/div>
20:41<\/div><\/div>uh in this market it it’s good for priming the pump i wouldn’t say that uh you know a<\/div>
20:48<\/div><\/div>partner sales model should be your only strategy<\/div>
20:53<\/div><\/div>a good channel partner it helps prime the pump gets the initial flywheel spinning but it’s not enough to<\/div>
21:00<\/div><\/div>build a self-sustaining sales engine ultimately you have to build a co-selling model or you have to build<\/div>
21:07<\/div><\/div>eventually a direct sales model and this has been the case time and time again if you look at<\/div>
21:13<\/div><\/div>oracle and salesforce and marketo all of the the large especially sas<\/div>
21:19<\/div><\/div>companies that have entered the japanese market this is always the case they’ll often work with a channel partner for the first few years but<\/div>
21:25<\/div><\/div>eventually they outgrow the usefulness of that partnership<\/div>
21:31<\/div><\/div>or they need to even even if they maintain the partnership for many years and and that happens as well they do ultimately<\/div>
21:37<\/div><\/div>have to build their own direct sales engine now this is partly again because<\/div>
21:43<\/div><\/div>channel partners are so often great account managers great farmers but not very good hunters in order to<\/div>
21:50<\/div><\/div>grow the market beyond the personal network that the channel partner already owns<\/div>
21:56<\/div><\/div>you very often have to build your own direct sales model and the only way to do that is with a hybrid model that<\/div>
22:02<\/div><\/div>takes the best of the sort of western uh very incentivized commission based sales<\/div>
22:09<\/div><\/div>model and hybridizes that with the japanese model and we’ll talk more about that in a slide or two um so again you’re<\/div>
22:17<\/div><\/div>you know you’re you’re able to get a good head start uh with a good channel partner ecosystem uh<\/div>
22:23<\/div><\/div>so for the first year or two it’s always the best way to get into the market they’re leveraging their existing<\/div>
22:28<\/div><\/div>relationships again they’re they’re cross-selling uh they’re packaging your tech with existing tech and wrapping their support<\/div>
22:35<\/div><\/div>services around it to create a very easily marketable package and they can assist with you know the<\/div>
22:41<\/div><\/div>localization the translation which is a huge lift you know it’s very difficult to localize your site and your<\/div>
22:48<\/div><\/div>marketing materials and your sales process and and your your um you know inbound uh lead gen everything<\/div>
22:55<\/div><\/div>in into uh the local languages uh so having a good partner to assist with all this uh is essential all right so<\/div>
23:03<\/div><\/div>what sort of kpis should you be tracking once you get a good partner network set up well some commonly tracked partner kpis<\/div>
23:11<\/div><\/div>are just how many partners you have in the region and obviously you know it it’s good to<\/div>
23:18<\/div><\/div>have a few key partners but this metric number of partners in the region it<\/div>
23:23<\/div><\/div>that alone doesn’t really tell us anything uh so you you might spend a lot of time in<\/div>
23:29<\/div><\/div>your first year or two signing up you know five partners or ten partners and hq may<\/div>
23:34<\/div><\/div>feel that this is making progress but it’s not always the most effective use of time it first<\/div>
23:41<\/div><\/div>of all it takes a very long time to sign up partners in this region just localizing your partner agreements and<\/div>
23:48<\/div><\/div>getting through the legal process can take six months to a year to to longer in some cases<\/div>
23:54<\/div><\/div>so it can often be more effective to focus on developing a few you know very meaningful deep partner<\/div>
24:00<\/div><\/div>relationships with partners who have either a very targeted network<\/div>
24:06<\/div><\/div>or a big enough network that they can drive a lot of sales volume so you’re not you know essentially<\/div>
24:14<\/div><\/div>running dry in the first year or two but there’s there’s enough potential to get you for through a couple of years<\/div>
24:20<\/div><\/div>at least uh so another commonly tracked metric is<\/div>
24:25<\/div><\/div>deal registrations um yeah so sure it’s good to track how<\/div>
24:30<\/div><\/div>many deals you’re registering and this can be through both you know inbound and outbound sales activities<\/div>
24:37<\/div><\/div>but again not very meaningful without insight into how many touch points does<\/div>
24:44<\/div><\/div>it take to close these deals what’s the overall time to close uh<\/div>
24:49<\/div><\/div>what are your overall close rates uh per salesperson and so on so just the number of deal registrations<\/div>
24:56<\/div><\/div>it often isn’t enough uh without these more ancillary metrics to to give you<\/div>
25:01<\/div><\/div>insight and again you know in your first year or two you have to be aware of this initial partner spike that you’re going to get<\/div>
25:08<\/div><\/div>when a partner first signs up they almost always drive an initial spike during that first six months to a<\/div>
25:14<\/div><\/div>year because they’re just cross-selling but after that spike it can often completely plateau<\/div>
25:21<\/div><\/div>because again they’ve just run their network dry and they’re not able to go out and hunt and create new leads uh another metric that’s<\/div>
25:28<\/div><\/div>commonly tracked would be revenue via partners um this yeah i mean if you’re making<\/div>
25:33<\/div><\/div>money you’re making money that’s good but it’s most meaningful when it’s accurately tied to attribution so you<\/div>
25:38<\/div><\/div>can see how much runway you have how much future there is with this partner and their overall marketing<\/div>
25:44<\/div><\/div>effectiveness i.e can they continue to generate revenue uh then another you know common kpi<\/div>
25:51<\/div><\/div>is the number of people trained and certified um yeah this this can be a good metric because it indicates how committed they<\/div>
25:57<\/div><\/div>are uh if they’re not getting anybody trained or certified on your tech um you know it’s it’s not likely that<\/div>
26:05<\/div><\/div>they’re ever going to be successful uh but you know you could get 200 people trained and if you never<\/div>
26:12<\/div><\/div>actually close a deal then it’s meaningless so uh sure it’s good to track how many<\/div>
26:17<\/div><\/div>people are trained but it’s most meaningful when it’s actually tied to win rates uh all right so more<\/div>
26:23<\/div><\/div>recommended partner kpis these are some of the kpis that um you know both i found personally and<\/div>
26:30<\/div><\/div>uh my mentors have told me and my research has shown me uh to be more effective<\/div>
26:38<\/div><\/div>so first of all partner engagement uh are they regularly logging into the partner portal uh<\/div>
26:45<\/div><\/div>whether that be some software that you’re using like a bridged sales force or something like that or just a google sheet where you’re<\/div>
26:52<\/div><\/div>tracking deals are they you know logging in every day or every week<\/div>
26:57<\/div><\/div>at least and registering what’s going on in the pipeline are they completing training in a<\/div>
27:03<\/div><\/div>reasonable amount of time are they registering you know both the<\/div>
27:08<\/div><\/div>the leads that they’re generating from their marketing activities uh and how the deals are going so<\/div>
27:15<\/div><\/div>as well as you know actual meaningful metrics like the number of touch points the time to close<\/div>
27:21<\/div><\/div>what type of conversations they’re having are they emailing more are they phoning or is it all zoom calls<\/div>
27:27<\/div><\/div>you know what what exactly are the metrics they’re using uh and then partner capabilities so this is a<\/div>
27:33<\/div><\/div>good kpi because you want to know if they can both sell uh create new business and retain that business<\/div>
27:39<\/div><\/div>if their churn rate is too high obviously it’s it’s not uh not valuable uh so<\/div>
27:45<\/div><\/div>look for ways to measure their their pre-sales their technical sales competency<\/div>
27:50<\/div><\/div>uh their ability to implement correctly onboard support and then get to the renewal<\/div>
27:57<\/div><\/div>one thing i’ve found in this region is that a lot of partners especially the sort of<\/div>
28:05<\/div><\/div>aggressive partners who will reach out for a relationship they tend to be the underdogs<\/div>
28:11<\/div><\/div>they’re usually number two or three in their field and so they’re more aggressive and<\/div>
28:16<\/div><\/div>they’re looking for you know foreign companies to partner with but this often means that they’re<\/div>
28:21<\/div><\/div>very small and they may not have the necessary resources to actually do full technical<\/div>
28:28<\/div><\/div>implementation and consulting or they’ll often say that they can and<\/div>
28:33<\/div><\/div>then it turns out that they have to outsource it so they’re working as part of a team you know they’ll work<\/div>
28:41<\/div><\/div>with another systems integrator or they’ll work with an outsourced development company or something like that<\/div>
28:46<\/div><\/div>so it’s good to evaluate you know whether they actually have the capabilities to not just sell but also you know on board<\/div>
28:54<\/div><\/div>train maintain and support all right then marketing effectiveness this is a good<\/div>
28:59<\/div><\/div>kpi can they engage in solo uh both solo and joint marketing activities which lead to<\/div>
29:05<\/div><\/div>a good percentage of meetings booked and can they do this consistently beyond just the first year<\/div>
29:11<\/div><\/div>and are they continuing to invest in generating localized case studies so<\/div>
29:17<\/div><\/div>it’s it’s not just a matter of getting new deals it’s a matter of publicizing them<\/div>
29:23<\/div><\/div>and then making sure that you’re creating good case studies so that you can get referrals uh again this is kind of japan centric<\/div>
29:30<\/div><\/div>but i’ve found it to be pretty true across the entire region um word of mouth uh<\/div>
29:37<\/div><\/div>perception um what people are actually saying about your product is absolutely essential uh<\/div>
29:46<\/div><\/div>one single negative perception is like 100 times stronger than positive so it’s very important to get<\/div>
29:52<\/div><\/div>localized case studies i’ve always said there’s a rule in japan that it doesn’t matter how good<\/div>
29:58<\/div><\/div>your case study is if it didn’t happen in japan it didn’t happen japan is just so<\/div>
30:04<\/div><\/div>different from the rest of the world that if you haven’t had a success story that<\/div>
30:10<\/div><\/div>worked in this market they assume it’s just not going to work for this market so it’s very important to get local case<\/div>
30:17<\/div><\/div>studies and then it’s good to measure customer satisfaction with your partners<\/div>
30:24<\/div><\/div>so you can do independent um you know net promoter scores or you can do<\/div>
30:30<\/div><\/div>independent surveys or just talk with your customers uh find out you know if you’ve got the<\/div>
30:36<\/div><\/div>right partner match for the right customer um you know and sometimes this isn’t the case and<\/div>
30:42<\/div><\/div>it’s often good if you’ve created a large enough partner network for the region that you have multiple options it’s<\/div>
30:48<\/div><\/div>often good you know to go to a prospect um especially if you’re if you’re<\/div>
30:53<\/div><\/div>generating leads through your own efforts uh go to the prospect and ask which<\/div>
30:58<\/div><\/div>partner they would like to work with say maybe they’ve worked with this media partner before for some acquisition maybe they’ve<\/div>
31:04<\/div><\/div>worked with this partner for some consulting or cro uh let them choose who they feel most comfortable working with because often<\/div>
31:11<\/div><\/div>you know certainly this is the case in japan but across the wider region as well if it’s a large enough partner<\/div>
31:16<\/div><\/div>they’ll have worked with your customer and that customer will most likely have worked with some other potential partners as well<\/div>
31:22<\/div><\/div>and they’ll know who they’re comfortable working with okay so uh i’ll go now to<\/div>
31:29<\/div><\/div>you know a bit more japan centric uh again you know this is my area of<\/div>
31:35<\/div><\/div>expertise so this is where i can talk to uh the most uh<\/div>
31:41<\/div><\/div>but many of these are applicable to the wider region as well so obviously uh trust is key<\/div>
31:46<\/div><\/div>again the traditional japanese sales process is entirely relationship based<\/div>
31:53<\/div><\/div>it is extremely high touch very important to have regular contact<\/div>
31:59<\/div><\/div>again referrals and word of mouth are essential and you have to develop and maintain<\/div>
32:05<\/div><\/div>relationships over years and years and this means you know going for dinner with your<\/div>
32:11<\/div><\/div>customers and with your partners you know going for drinks obviously<\/div>
32:19<\/div><\/div>drinking is still a big part of business across all of apac and i think it will be even post coved<\/div>
32:27<\/div><\/div>when we’re going back to shops again because it’s just a part of the culture that it’s very hard to speak<\/div>
32:33<\/div><\/div>directly partly because of social hierarchies whether they be seniority or age based<\/div>
32:39<\/div><\/div>or what have you just very very difficult to have a frank an open conversation<\/div>
32:45<\/div><\/div>unless there’s the excuse of i’d been having a couple of drinks so it’s<\/div>
32:52<\/div><\/div>really funny i’ve seen time and time again when i’ve gone for dinner with my my japanese colleagues or co-workers<\/div>
33:00<\/div><\/div>or customers you know we’ll all sit down<\/div>
33:05<\/div><\/div>the it’s still very formal and stuffy atmosphere everybody’s got their tie on and stuff<\/div>
33:11<\/div><\/div>you’ll sit down the drinks will come you’ll do the kampai you know the cheers and uh the<\/div>
33:18<\/div><\/div>person that you want to talk to will have like one sip of their beer<\/div>
33:24<\/div><\/div>lean back and like oh okay i’m drunk now we can talk and and then they’ll talk frankly<\/div>
33:30<\/div><\/div>uh it’s funny after just one sip they have this uh cultural excuse um and often what<\/div>
33:37<\/div><\/div>what they’re trying to say is what they couldn’t say uh directly in a meeting um and this can<\/div>
33:44<\/div><\/div>be absolutely essential because uh the way most meetings are held in in<\/div>
33:49<\/div><\/div>this region is you’ve got a lot of people in the meeting it’s often a lot of junior people and then<\/div>
33:56<\/div><\/div>mid-level management and and senior management stakeholders and you don’t necessarily know who<\/div>
34:02<\/div><\/div>is what position who is the most senior person in the room and they often won’t talk and sometimes<\/div>
34:09<\/div><\/div>they’ll even look like they’re asleep or literally be asleep and the junior people have to carry the meeting<\/div>
34:15<\/div><\/div>also you know it’ll seem like a meeting might go on for two hours and a lot be said but you come out of<\/div>
34:22<\/div><\/div>the meeting not knowing what the decision was what the consensus was or what the people on the other side of the table are even<\/div>
34:28<\/div><\/div>thinking so you have to have a champion or a stakeholder that you can<\/div>
34:34<\/div><\/div>follow up with to find out what people were actually thinking because of the very strong groupthink<\/div>
34:41<\/div><\/div>culture in the region people just don’t want to speak their opinion they don’t certainly don’t want<\/div>
34:47<\/div><\/div>to be the only one speaking their opinion so they they’ll wait and they’ll do some consensus building back of the office or<\/div>
34:54<\/div><\/div>sort of reading the air and looking for nonverbal cues and stuff to find out what the whole team thinks and then as a<\/div>
35:01<\/div><\/div>team they’ll come to a general consensus and if you’ve got a good champion you can follow up with that person usually<\/div>
35:07<\/div><\/div>over dinner or drinks to find out what actually happened in that meeting and how their site actually<\/div>
35:12<\/div><\/div>feels now this is changing because of course you know during a pandemic<\/div>
35:18<\/div><\/div>uh you can’t meet up for drinks and and get this um you know inside track on what your<\/div>
35:24<\/div><\/div>your contact is thinking and feeling uh so that has shifted more to like instant messenger if you’ve<\/div>
35:30<\/div><\/div>managed to connect on on whatsapp or the japanese equivalent um would be line<\/div>
35:36<\/div><\/div>or uh i’m forgetting the other one wechat or whatever these are or facebook messenger<\/div>
35:44<\/div><\/div>if you’ve got a direct contact line uh to your champion you can often message them afterwards<\/div>
35:50<\/div><\/div>and uh have a more frank conversation so i always try to get an instant messenger<\/div>
35:57<\/div><\/div>contact um and then try to follow up you know within that day or later that night or a<\/div>
36:04<\/div><\/div>day or two later to find out what was actually going on and that’s where you find out what what the actual consensus was um all<\/div>
36:11<\/div><\/div>right so part of this consensus building necessity leads to a very long sales cycle uh easily three times that of the usa or<\/div>
36:19<\/div><\/div>email and this is partly because of a culture of very much preparation uh things are<\/div>
36:26<\/div><\/div>very process based so it’s often like 80 preparation 20 execution<\/div>
36:32<\/div><\/div>which is often the inverse of the western model where we want to feel like we can you know do most of the work on the fly<\/div>
36:39<\/div><\/div>and then work out a few details as we get to it as necessity arises but certainly in japan<\/div>
36:45<\/div><\/div>people want to be as process based as possible they want to mitigate risk<\/div>
36:51<\/div><\/div>and so a very long preparation cycle whether it’s going through the legal process or<\/div>
36:56<\/div><\/div>going through every possible permutation of a contract and what might go wrong uh that can take months and months it<\/div>
37:02<\/div><\/div>can even take years but once all of that work is done they’ll sign and expect implementation to happen like<\/div>
37:09<\/div><\/div>immediately so you know a very long process and then all of a sudden things are going very very slowly all of<\/div>
37:15<\/div><\/div>a sudden they’ll go very very quickly so you have to be ready for that um when it’s go time you have to move<\/div>
37:20<\/div><\/div>quickly now again part of the reason why it’s like eighty percent preparation preparation<\/div>
37:26<\/div><\/div>is because internal alignment is key uh all stakeholders uh have to sign off<\/div>
37:32<\/div><\/div>in japan they have to literally sign off they have to stamp a consensus document which is called a<\/div>
37:39<\/div><\/div>lingisho which means the circle document so basically it goes around it’s a document that’s<\/div>
37:46<\/div><\/div>printed up whether it be a purchase order or a contract or a hiring decision or even the the smallest sort of most<\/div>
37:53<\/div><\/div>insignificant seeming things every potential stakeholder attached to that decision and even people who it seems have no<\/div>
38:01<\/div><\/div>attachment to the decision but just out of tradition have to be included this document is literally put on their<\/div>
38:07<\/div><\/div>desk and they have to literally sign off on it on this these<\/div>
38:13<\/div><\/div>chops that are created in khan and everybody uh signs and if there’s a<\/div>
38:19<\/div><\/div>single con dissenting person then it gets held up so you know if if tanaka’s out on holiday<\/div>
38:26<\/div><\/div>or sick or something that document sits on his desk until he comes back and physically signs it<\/div>
38:32<\/div><\/div>this is changing actually this morning’s news article is that uh 99<\/div>
38:38<\/div><\/div>of these stamp requiring policies are going to be eliminated at the government level and this is<\/div>
38:45<\/div><\/div>partly driven by the pandemic because uh this paper-based workflow was preventing people from being able to<\/div>
38:52<\/div><\/div>do remote work so it’s changing but it’ll be decades probably before it’s completely<\/div>
38:57<\/div><\/div>gone and there will always be this uh stakeholder alignment necessity um now this is partly because<\/div>
39:05<\/div><\/div>decision making uh in this culture is always done by committee in order to mitigate the risk to individuals<\/div>
39:11<\/div><\/div>uh and this is because of the way that career advancement happens<\/div>
39:16<\/div><\/div>specifically in japan but i’ve seen this across apec as well so a japanese manager gets ahead in<\/div>
39:23<\/div><\/div>their career by mitigating risk by never taking any personal responsibility the reason is because<\/div>
39:29<\/div><\/div>uh hr is structured in such a way that when somebody starts their career<\/div>
39:35<\/div><\/div>even if they’re a fresh university graduate you know age 22 or whatever it is they basically start on day one<\/div>
39:42<\/div><\/div>not knowing anything but they’ve got 100 points and throughout the their career<\/div>
39:48<\/div><\/div>they can only ever lose points they can’t win points back so you start with 100 and every time you<\/div>
39:54<\/div><\/div>make a mistake you lose a point the only way to get ahead is not make<\/div>
40:00<\/div><\/div>any mistakes and then by doing as little as possible<\/div>
40:05<\/div><\/div>by staying in the company as long as possible you’re promoted because of seniority<\/div>
40:12<\/div><\/div>whoever has you know the least amount of mistakes after 40 years becomes chairman of the<\/div>
40:17<\/div><\/div>organization it’s the inverse again of the western system where on day one you start with zero you don’t know anything<\/div>
40:23<\/div><\/div>and you try to win points and if you make a mistake you lose points but you can come up with a good idea or take some<\/div>
40:29<\/div><\/div>risk and win points back and you can sometimes get to 100 quite young and become the ceo of the company<\/div>
40:35<\/div><\/div>at still quite a young age this is you know because of in japanese<\/div>
40:40<\/div><\/div>culture the group is so important that the group is always considered wiser and more<\/div>
40:47<\/div><\/div>intelligent and more correct than the individual no matter how genius the individual might be<\/div>
40:53<\/div><\/div>it’s not possible that that person could be smarter than the group so you always have group based decisions<\/div>
40:59<\/div><\/div>yeah cultural issue so designed by committee decision making by committee is always preferred<\/div>
41:05<\/div><\/div>group is always again smarter than the individual harmony and teamwork are the ultimate goal to<\/div>
41:11<\/div><\/div>the point that this is reality uh certainly in japan whatever is most harmonious is the<\/div>
41:18<\/div><\/div>reality all right so this leads us to the japan sales processes<\/div>
41:24<\/div><\/div>uh the sales methodology um in japan right now it’s kind of<\/div>
41:29<\/div><\/div>unfortunate but there’s not a good culture of sales training there used to be<\/div>
41:35<\/div><\/div>um when japan was going through its uh economic miracle and and rising to power and companies had a lot<\/div>
41:42<\/div><\/div>of budget for training people until about the mid-90s<\/div>
41:48<\/div><\/div>training was pretty good you know there were actual sales coaches and there would be a well-structured<\/div>
41:54<\/div><\/div>methodology for training sales people but when the bubble economy collapsed<\/div>
42:00<\/div><\/div>training was one of the first things to get cut and so most organizations today<\/div>
42:05<\/div><\/div>they basically just do on-the-job training where you shadow uh a senior salesperson<\/div>
42:12<\/div><\/div>and try and learn from them unfortunately most sales people are not<\/div>
42:19<\/div><\/div>good trainers because for the most part the veterans the ones who are really<\/div>
42:25<\/div><\/div>good they’ve figured out how to sell through their own unique<\/div>
42:30<\/div><\/div>formulas their own personal relationships their own scripts their own strategies and<\/div>
42:36<\/div><\/div>they don’t want to give it away they want to retain their status as being a good salesperson so they don’t<\/div>
42:41<\/div><\/div>they don’t really want to teach that to anybody else and there isn’t a good like coaching um<\/div>
42:48<\/div><\/div>and there isn’t really a structure of having like a sales manager or a vice president of sales in most japanese<\/div>
42:54<\/div><\/div>companies uh it’s usually a very flat system kind of every man for themselves and traditionally there was a<\/div>
43:00<\/div><\/div>very high turnover in sales so you just didn’t have very many professional people<\/div>
43:07<\/div><\/div>there isn’t really a culture of data-driven sales so crm you know measuring metrics<\/div>
43:13<\/div><\/div>uh tracking how many touch points it takes to close a deal uh you know the core um basic<\/div>
43:20<\/div><\/div>fundamentals of a good data driven sales process they they still don’t really exist in japan<\/div>
43:27<\/div><\/div>it’s much more relationship based again everybody just figuring out what works for<\/div>
43:32<\/div><\/div>themselves there also isn’t usually a culture of<\/div>
43:38<\/div><\/div>commission so usually no individual quotas uh or incentives um bonuses are are tied<\/div>
43:45<\/div><\/div>to the overall team or company performance uh so it’s not like sales people are getting a commission they’re usually<\/div>
43:52<\/div><\/div>getting a salary and then if they do really well they might get an individual bonus at<\/div>
43:58<\/div><\/div>the end of the year or maybe twice a year at certain set seasons but more often it’s their group their<\/div>
44:05<\/div><\/div>division or the entire company so you might be the best performing sales person in the entire company you could be 10 times better than the next<\/div>
44:11<\/div><\/div>sales person um and still not get a bonus or get any incentive<\/div>
44:17<\/div><\/div>be no different than anybody else in the company so it’s kind of<\/div>
44:23<\/div><\/div>de-incentivizing for the hunter type of sales process that is is<\/div>
44:29<\/div><\/div>actually very successful in the west uh it’s much more incentivizing for the<\/div>
44:34<\/div><\/div>farmer type of model the account manager model where you you know you take your time and you<\/div>
44:39<\/div><\/div>develop good relationships with your client base and you don’t risk anything that would damage those relationships or<\/div>
44:46<\/div><\/div>even risk creating new relationships because it’s just not in your best interest<\/div>
44:52<\/div><\/div>there are exceptions and these are usually the global companies that have a foreign presence so when i’m looking<\/div>
44:59<\/div><\/div>to hire i’ll look for sales people who have done some time at either oracle<\/div>
45:05<\/div><\/div>salesforce sap or microsoft i find that they have the best<\/div>
45:10<\/div><\/div>training systems they tend to put out the best sales people who are then successful and<\/div>
45:16<\/div><\/div>and go on to top-tier careers at other companies and this is because it’s a hybrid system it’s a hybrid of the the western<\/div>
45:22<\/div><\/div>uh incentive based system with the japanese relationship-based system so if you can crack that formula and<\/div>
45:29<\/div><\/div>create a good hybrid model then you’ll you’ll likely do pretty well obviously<\/div>
45:34<\/div><\/div>it’s absolutely essential to localize all sales materials and present them in japanese<\/div>
45:40<\/div><\/div>english is taught for you know minimum six years everybody can read english but nobody’s that<\/div>
45:46<\/div><\/div>comfortable with it unless they’ve spent time living overseas and increasingly japan is becoming<\/div>
45:52<\/div><\/div>uh you know as the pendulum has swung away from globalism like many other nations<\/div>
45:58<\/div><\/div>is more inward looking right now so even the young generation isn’t you know traveling overseas that much english is<\/div>
46:04<\/div><\/div>just not really that spoken um western processes uh although you know<\/div>
46:10<\/div><\/div>if they’re necessary for business they’re they’re respected they’re not something that most people are uh investing in so you need<\/div>
46:18<\/div><\/div>you can’t be presenting materials in english even uh graphs and charts and images you have to<\/div>
46:24<\/div><\/div>get access to the original files that you can edit those and and localize them uh and<\/div>
46:29<\/div><\/div>also there’s a culture in japan of providing<\/div>
46:35<\/div><\/div>as much dense information as possible there’s something about this culture<\/div>
46:40<\/div><\/div>that just abhors white space so you have to use powerpoint you have<\/div>
46:45<\/div><\/div>to use like 10 or 12 point font and fill up your slides just absolutely the<\/div>
46:52<\/div><\/div>complete opposite of of what would be recommended in a western uh presentation model<\/div>
47:00<\/div><\/div>you you have to put all your information on the slides you have to allow people to read them as<\/div>
47:07<\/div><\/div>you yourself are reading off the slides don’t just put up a picture and tell a story about it you have to have<\/div>
47:12<\/div><\/div>everything written out that’s the expectation that’s that’s how it’s done in this market uh it’s weird but that’s how it’s done<\/div>
47:19<\/div><\/div>and it makes for just horribly ugly slides but that’s that’s what they want<\/div>
47:26<\/div><\/div>when it comes to the actual sales pitch risk mitigation is always the strongest<\/div>
47:31<\/div><\/div>pitch you know in sales we talk about away positioning and towards positioning<\/div>
47:36<\/div><\/div>towards being moving towards an opportunity here’s more market share here’s a you know cost reduction or something you<\/div>
47:42<\/div><\/div>can get in japan that moving towards something never works because that’s risky you have to<\/div>
47:47<\/div><\/div>talk about moving away moving away from risk risk mitigation<\/div>
47:53<\/div><\/div>no one ever wants to be first so you’ve got to leverage a personal relationship to get someone to be first and then<\/div>
47:59<\/div><\/div>you’ve got to play that up as much as possible create as much social proof as you can<\/div>
48:04<\/div><\/div>again case studies are essential and they must be localized into japanese uh<\/div>
48:10<\/div><\/div>all right so those are those are the main points now things are changing so much because of the pandemic<\/div>
48:15<\/div><\/div>obviously it’s now no longer in person meetings it’s a zoom workflow<\/div>
48:20<\/div><\/div>people are getting used to this it’s taken a year i would say that<\/div>
48:25<\/div><\/div>some people are still even after a year still waiting to get back to normal so they’ve done<\/div>
48:31<\/div><\/div>nothing a lot of companies they’ve just put everything on pause and they’re waiting until<\/div>
48:38<\/div><\/div>uh work gets back to normal but it’s not ever going to get back to normal the way it was so we’re always going to<\/div>
48:44<\/div><\/div>have this this new reality in japanese it’s called with corona that has become the the key word and<\/div>
48:52<\/div><\/div>sort of forward-thinking companies are getting used to this so zoom or teams or meat or whatever it<\/div>
49:00<\/div><\/div>is that allows you to get access that’s become the standard people are remote working<\/div>
49:05<\/div><\/div>and this does actually break down some cultural barriers you you there are fewer gatekeepers now so you<\/div>
49:11<\/div><\/div>can get more access to key decision makers and uh and stakeholders so<\/div>
49:16<\/div><\/div>although you were slowed down by the need to get people on a zoom call and the technological issues associated with<\/div>
49:22<\/div><\/div>that we’re also kind of conversely sped up because uh there are fewer gatehole gatekeepers now uh phoning doesn’t work<\/div>
49:30<\/div><\/div>so much everybody’s remote working you can call into the office and you’re just gonna get an answering machine<\/div>
49:36<\/div><\/div>um it’s not like people are forwarding their office number to their home uh or their mobile number uh for the<\/div>
49:42<\/div><\/div>most part the phone isn’t really working so well right now so email or<\/div>
49:47<\/div><\/div>webinar just trying to get people on a zoom meeting is is most important uh matters of course are<\/div>
49:53<\/div><\/div>still essential more so uh in this market than probably any other region on the planet<\/div>
49:59<\/div><\/div>you do have to follow basic protocols so be very careful about understanding<\/div>
50:05<\/div><\/div>if somebody’s older than you if they have more seniority than you or not you don’t have to go through the whole bowing and exchanging of meishi or<\/div>
50:11<\/div><\/div>business cards that’s not so much required but respect is absolutely<\/div>
50:16<\/div><\/div>essential uh if you’re on time for a meeting in japan you’re late uh you know you’ve always<\/div>
50:23<\/div><\/div>got to be five minutes early if you’re too early uh it’s bad matters it’s a faux pas if you’re<\/div>
50:29<\/div><\/div>more than you know five minutes early you’re late always five minutes on the dot that’s<\/div>
50:34<\/div><\/div>when you have to log in and start your zoom calls so give yourself a buffer between zoom calls<\/div>
50:40<\/div><\/div>now also keep in mind the expectation is that if it’s an actual meeting it’s going to be an hour long there’s no<\/div>
50:46<\/div><\/div>30-minute meetings or 45-minute meetings in japan so you pretty much have to either juggle<\/div>
50:52<\/div><\/div>things really well or maybe have an assistant if you’ve got back-to-back zoom calls you’ve got to get somebody to start the<\/div>
50:58<\/div><\/div>call for you five minutes early and then you get onto the call or you just space your calls out more<\/div>
51:03<\/div><\/div>than an hour apart and and schedule other tasks in between now conversely<\/div>
51:09<\/div><\/div>as foreigners don’t ever try to be too japanese you know it’s more effective it breaks down more<\/div>
51:15<\/div><\/div>barriers and allows you to be more efficient if you are just yourself obviously knowing the<\/div>
51:21<\/div><\/div>culture is helpful knowing japanese is helpful um but uh japanese especially are very<\/div>
51:27<\/div><\/div>forgiving of foreigners we’re not held to the same standards and so we can actually get away with<\/div>
51:33<\/div><\/div>quite a lot and that allows us to be actually more efficient all right so we’re one minute before the<\/div>
51:40<\/div><\/div>end um we’ve got a little time for q a uh i think gilad you’re still the only person on<\/div>
51:46<\/div><\/div>the call so it’s a good chance for you any comments or questions uh about these slides<\/div>
51:53<\/div><\/div>well not not more than i ask you on a regular day but<\/div>
51:58<\/div><\/div>everything everything is pretty clear thank you for<\/div>
52:06<\/div><\/div>well i hope it was uh helpful for everybody um again i created a local quicktime uh<\/div>
52:13<\/div><\/div>screen recording here so hopefully that works all right and i’ll share that with partnership leaders um but<\/div>
52:20<\/div><\/div>yeah if anybody has any questions feel free to reach out to me at any time it’s uh evan.burkowski gmail.com<\/div>
52:28<\/div><\/div>or just message me through the partnership leaders slack channel all right thanks have a good day<\/div>
52:34<\/div><\/div>everyone live on youtube all right thanks glad<\/div>
52:39<\/div><\/div>bye<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following video is a talk I did for Partnership Leaders talking about the partnership ecosystem in APAC with a focus on Japan.\u00a0 https:\/\/youtu.be\/xc_nWFUbHY0 Transcript (auto-generated by YouTube): 0:00uh at least locally here so i’ll go ahead all right so partnership leaders member0:07roundtable um it says apac go to market kpis uh0:12really because of my experience this is very japan centric but i’ll try and throw in some apec knowledge as well0:21so a little introduction for the benefit of those on the recording so evan berkowski0:27i been in japan for almost 20 years now working in digital marketing uh0:33specializing in ai analytics uh conversion optimization customer experience0:39optimization cro world so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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