Market Entry · Sales Representation · Japanese Web · Local Operations
We represent overseas companies inside Japan. We test whether the demand is real, choose the route to market, approach partners and hold the meetings ourselves — in Japanese, from Ginza, and reported back to you in English.
Challenges
Japan rarely fails on the product. It fails on the four things below, and all four are about execution rather than strategy.
We believe Japan is a fit, but we have no way to test whether the demand is real before committing budget.
Distributor, retailer, e-commerce or direct? Choose the wrong route and the effort never converts.
Nobody speaks for us in Japan. Hiring a local salesperson first is too large a bet to make blind.
Our Japanese-language presence is thin, so buyers cannot verify who we are before agreeing to meet.
Service
Most engagements start at 01 and stop there if the answer is no. Nothing below requires you to have an entity, an office or staff in Japan first.
Demand, competition and the barriers that actually stop entry — mapped side by side rather than listed. You get the category to start in, the sequence to follow, and an honest read on whether to proceed at all.
We source partners, make first contact, design and hold the meetings, and report back in English — including what was really said in the room. You do not hire in Japan to find out whether Japan works.
The part overseas companies can least do for themselves. Site, search and social written for Japanese buyers rather than translated at them, so that the people you are about to meet can look you up first.
The receiving side: pricing built for the Japanese market, customer-facing materials, enquiry handling and the day-to-day running — so that the demand you created does not arrive somewhere nobody is standing.
Why us
Most firms deliver a market study and stop at the point where the work begins. We carry on into partner sourcing, first contact and the meetings themselves.
Most of our practice takes Japanese companies abroad. We spend our days with exactly the kind of company you want as a partner here — so we know how the decision gets made on their side of the table.
Boardroom intent and shop-floor reality break apart in a new market. We stay in the gap between the two until the plan is something people can actually run.
Process
Five stages. You can stop after any of them, and the second is deliberately placed before anyone spends money on the market.
What you sell, where you have already tried, and what a result would look like. Free of charge, held online.
We separate what is a product question from what is a market question, and put the open points in priority order.
Channel, pricing structure and the first accounts to approach — matched to your capacity, not to an ideal case.
We approach partners, hold the meetings and handle the Japanese-language side, reporting back in English.
What the market said is fed back into the route. Most first routes need one correction; that is expected, not a failure.
Background
We do not publish client case studies. Where an example is relevant to your situation we will describe it in the meeting, with that client's permission.
Not visited — worked in. Market research, partner meetings and time spent at the point of sale.
Our founder established and ran an overseas branch in Hong Kong, from registration through to a working sales operation.
Head of global marketing and sales at companies ranging from roughly ¥10 billion to over ¥100 billion in annual revenue — and hands-on work with small firms since.
Founder
The work has always been the same: study the market, set the strategy, go there, and sell it yourself. More than sixty countries, much of it spent on the sales floor rather than in the meeting room.
Company size changes the budget, the headcount and how long a decision takes. A different market changes the customs and the shape of the competition. What does not change is the core of the job — know who buys, decide the order in which to reach them, and execute. The conditions differ; the structure of the work does not.
That is why this practice sells as well as advises, and why it can look at Japan from both directions — the side trying to get in, and the side already here.
FAQ
Profile
Access
About 3 minutes on foot from Higashi-ginza station (Tokyo Metro Hibiya line / Toei Asakusa line), exit A7.
About 10 minutes on foot from Yurakucho station (JR Yamanote line / Tokyo Metro Yurakucho line).
Please call ahead before visiting the office.
Contact
The first consultation is free and can be held online. Whether Japan is the right move at all is a fair question to bring to us — and if the answer is no, we will say so.
Get in touch