Dinner with the Yakuza

10/30/20 • 8 min

The phone rings in my office. I picked up; the Sales VP asked me to come to his office as our Japanese partners arrived to greet them. I was not prepared. I was in jeans and a t-shirt as we had to install a lot of computers for the new shops. Anyway, I went down.

Our Japanese partner, who brought a translator with him, a woman was standing there, and I greeted him the European way. The translator translated, and of course, as European, I looked into her eyes.

That’s not done! Let’s say I completely messed up the first impression to put it nicely.

To fix it, the day after, I went back, wearing a suit and followed the Japanese politeness rules. The Japanese partner just replied politely “Nice to meet you”, and that was it, they sign the deal for the next fashion season, and they left back to Japan.

Writer’s note

To put this in the right perspective, I was Head of IT worldwide for a Fashion company during the day, during the night I did PR and the Japanese partner was interested in our Kids Fashion Line. The Japanese partner was the CEO; let’s call him Haruto. This story happened around 20 years ago. I can talk about it, but I will not reveal names. people who know me, know about who I am talking about, that’s enough and that the story is real

Easier said than done… a whole table of business people not talking about business. And as you can expect… they started talking business. I needed to chance the subject fast. First about easy, simple topics, but every time Ranbir and Haruto switched to business.

I had no other choice than going some more explicit, some more non-political correct matters. So I asked about Tattoos.

Haruto second hand told me that Tattoo’s in Japan are related to specific cultural groups, and Ranbir said to me that Tattoo’s in India are often related to religion. I explained Tattoo’s in Europe is more about fashion and expression of the individual.

After 10 minutes talking the culture and religion parts of Tattoos, Haruto put his hand around my shoulder, he started to speak English to me, saying “I like you, I observed you, and you came here with us while others don’t want to join us. Then he told that his friends and partners have the jacket tattoo (the typical tattoo of the Yakuza)

The only thing I could reply was “you speak English?” He laughed and bowed his head

Learn more:
https://frederik.today/blog/dinner-with-the-japanese-mafia-yakuza

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Our Japanese partner, who brought a translator with him, a woman was standing there, and I greeted him the European way. The translator translated, and of course, as European, I looked into her eyes.

That’s not done! Let’s say I completely messed up the first impression to put it nicely.

Writer’s note

To put this in the right perspective, I was Head of IT worldwide for a Fashion company during the day, during the night I did PR and the Japanese partner was interested in our Kids Fashion Line. The Japanese partner was the CEO; let’s call him Haruto. This story happened around 20 years ago. I can talk about it, but I will not reveal names. people who know me, know about who I am talking about, that’s enough and that the story is real

I had no other choice than going some more explicit, some more non-political correct matters. So I asked about Tattoos.

The only thing I could reply was “you speak English?” He laughed and bowed his head

Learn more:
https://frederik.today/blog/dinner-with-the-japanese-mafia-yakuza

Sponsors:

Start your shopping with a great deal
Enjoy more than 45.000 deals, offers and coupons inside your favourite Messenger App

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wethebusiness)

Previous Episode

Brand Purpose - The Myth Debunked

When we think of purpose-driven companies, who do you think of?
I think of Like Patagonia

Over the last seven years, an idea that is widely promoted in the advertising and marketing world is "brand with a purpose outperform those that don't have one."
Brands with a purpose = are that brands which have a purpose beyond profit.

The evidence supporting brand purpose comes from the book Grow, written by Jim Stengel and ex-CMO of P&G.

He came up with his finding after selecting 50 brands with the highest loyalty from Millward Brow's 50.000 strong database. Then he searches for a link between those 50 brands and he found one, Brand Purpose.

Next, he looked at the chosen brands' stock value growth between 2000 and 2011. He saw his 50 brands grew with 393% instead of 7% loss for the S&P 500 benchmark.

Stengel's conclusion was, brand purpose is driving business success.

The book and results had a tremendous impact. Top guru's and CEO's of marketing agencies jumped on it, declared that they are "utterly convinced."

I won't be me if I don't dive deeper to see if the theory is correct, the purpose of my speech tonight.

Let's dive into the next questions:

Is the data correct?
Does the theory predict past and future?
Does a purpose link the brands?

Learn more:
https://frederik.today/blog/brand-purpose-the-myth-debunked

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Next Episode

Robots making 1MM/Month (no humans are hurt)

How do you feel about the idea a company makes 1 million per month, and no staff is on the payroll, only robots? When I asked this during my speeches, I get answers like terrible, fraud etc.

Let me start with a story

2,5 years ago, I woke and I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. There was no way I could get out of my bed. No, I didn’t have an accident the evening before. I was paralyzed in my mind. I was sick of the idea I had to go to my clients I was consulting.

Did you have such a feeling before?

That morning I took a decision. I quit! Yes, finished, Basta, no more consulting. As a consultant, I was making good money. So my solution was to take some time off and write a book.

The Title: “The company that makes 1 million/month, run by robots only.”

I finished my contracts and started writing my book. After a few days, I stopped. Why would I write a fiction book? I am not a fiction guy.

Why would people take my book serious? It would be my first book, to write a book on AI, robots, the future of companies on the Level of Da Vinci Code would be challenging and chances of success very low. One must stay realistic.

I decided that to become successful with my book; I need to proof it.

Learn more:
https://frederik.today/blog/the-company-that-makes-1-million-month-and-runs-by-robots-only

Sponsors:

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