Saying Yes to Japan

Two years ago, I attended a presentation at the Japan Society in New York by Tim Clark whose book "Saying Yes to Japan: How Outsiders are Reviving a Trillion Dollar Services Market" (co-authored by Carl Kay), had just been published.

I had been receiving Tim's newsletter on entrepreneurship in Japan for a while and had been in contact with him. I listened to his presentation and immediately went out and bought his book. Finally, someone was writing about what I believed in and was building a business on - the changes taking place on different levels in Japanese businesses. These changes were being lead by the 'new thinkers' and entrepreneurs as well a some larger companies that were doing things differently and having great success. 

Large Japanese manufacturers have long dominated their markets, but in terms of Japanese consumer service providers, there was an absence of Japanese from the international market. Tim and Carl examined the history and future of Japan’s service sector in their book and offered innovative ways for outsiders to take advantage of the huge opportunities in the Japanese system.  They provided profiles of innovators from around the world who were using their “outsider” perspectives and some Japanese as well to successfully identify basic customer needs in areas such as real estate, finance, and health care that were not being met.

In the course of building my consulting company, I often turned to his book for inspiration. When dealing with a market such as Japan that is known for traditionalistic thinking and ways of doing things, it is very challenging for a small business such as myself to get in there and play on that field. I often felt discouraged, not because I didn't believe in what I was doing, I absolutely did. I was discouraged because it was very hard to convince people of change even though the world was changing. When I came upon this book or read Tim's original newsletter, I was inspired and encouraged to keep going because they were like minded people out there. I just had to find them. And I did. I started connecting to the right people and companies and got one project after another.

When I wanted to start this business blog, I also looked to it for encouragement to just do it. The time had come for a blog like this, Japan-US business news from the people doing it, sharing their work experiences, their challenges, their successes and lessons learned with the community at large. This would be a great teaching tool I thought so I went ahead and haven't looked back since.

So back to Tim and Carl's book. It is a must read for any entrepreneur, either Japanese or American. It shows that there are people our there just like you. People who see an opportunity or have an idea that might go against the grain of traditional Japanese business but they went for it anyway and so can you. This is the time to do it. The conditions in business today and in technology allows us to have success with amazing new concepts or to tweak a traditionally based business and gain success in a whole new way.

So I personally recommend this book as not only a great inspirational read but as a celebration of the people Tim and Carl write about because they had the courage to take a chance and go for what they believed in and through hard work made it happen. That is worthy of celebration.

Comments

[Tim Clark]

Yvonne, many thanks for the very kind words about the book. There are always opportunities, even in mature markets, and though Japan has begun a gentle decline in population and economic clout, it still offers outsized rewards to the industrious.

Looking forward to seeing your new blog prosper!