Our Korean subsidiary reported that they had an interesting opportunity for our Value Weighing products. Through their daily sales activities, they learned that a cooking school in Seoul was interested in purchasing scales. Mr. Jai Chun Lee, President of ADK determined that our SK was the ideal scale for their application, and realized this could develop into an interesting on-going business outlet. He decided to donate several SK's to the school. Just as he envisioned, it turned into purchases by students graduating from school. This kind of proactive sales activity is a great way to expand business, but I have learned several other interesting things, some related to cooking and some just general observations. After having heard about this success story, Takehiko Ogata of Section 4 passed this information to his agents in Europe. His market information usually turns into proactive measures by his agents. This time, however, much to Ogata's surprise, their reply was, "What is a cooking school?We don't know what you are referring to!" After talking with them over the phone, Ogata realized that cooking schools in Europe are for training people to be professional chefs; however, they don't have schools for the ordinary person to learn to be better housewives. For instance, in Greece there are no cooking schools for "ordinary people."There are public and private "cooking" schools for chefs, bartenders etc. There could be 25 public schools and 6 private ones, and those schools are called Tourism University, offering classes where people pursue professions as chefs and bartenders upon graduation.

In Japan, there are thousands of cooking schools for young women. The purpose of going to such a school, in most cases, is to prepare to be good cooks in the home. We have a term for a bride getting ready for marriage, "Hanayome Shugyo" or "education for a bride to be." Cooking lessons, flower arrangement, tea making are all part of this education. At least, this has been the Japanese tradition, which may be dying in light of more liberal thinking about marriage. I believe cooking schools in Korea have similar purposes to ours, but in Europe and other countries, they appear to have completely different missions.

So what is it I learned? First, never assume anything. If we automatically assign our values or cultural biases to a situation, we may not be able to communicate due to the total difference in concept or tradition of another country

Second, sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Mr. Lee's proactive measure of donating several scales not only earned him the goodwill of the school, but put his scales before a market that may never have seen them otherwise. He has now opened up a new sales channel, which could theoretically allow him to put an A&D or HANA scale in every home in Korea

Finally, marketing and sales are heavily culture-dependent. By this I mean that what is favorable, or even acceptable, in one country, may be viewed in a negative light in another country because of that country's culture, tradition and history. This story is a good example of my point. Not only is food cultural, but how cooking traditions and education are passed from generation to generation differs from country to country. And it can certainly create business opportunities for people who are a step ahead of others in realizing the differences. Remember! You are only limited by your imagination!

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