[Interview with Yasuo Omura, CEO of Edge Connection Inc.] Through three directions of sales, HR, and finance, growing both the company and yourself together with clients

Edge Connection Inc. supports corporate growth in three directions: sales, HR, and finance. Leveraging entrepreneurial experience from student days and skills/know-how cultivated as a salaried worker, they develop consulting business centered on telemarketing.

“In telemarketing, the person themselves is the product,” says Yasuo Omura, CEO of the company. We delve into the struggles and conflicts until the company’s growth, and the true intentions behind expanding business while insisting on full-time employee adoption.

The “now” connected from trial and error of founding a company with friends during student days

——You started a company in your student days. Could you tell us how that came about?

The biggest catalyst was the abolition of the minimum capital requirement during my university days. Before then, you couldn’t create a company without savings of at least 10 million yen for a stock company or 3 million yen for a limited company. With the abolition of the minimum capital requirement, the savings barrier disappeared, so I started one with friends.

——Did you go to a Tokyo university also from wanting to start a business?

No, in high school my goal was just “to go to Tokyo,” so starting a business in university was somewhat casual. We started with 5-6 members, but ultimately ended up with just me and Brett, an American who I’m still in contact with.

Even though we started a business, we were students, and my impression is that people with less enthusiasm quit. It wasn’t a company that could pay sufficient salaries either, and we actually ran the business for about 2 years from sophomore to junior year.

——We heard you did various businesses.

We challenged a wide range of businesses—restaurant consulting that digitized and analyzed slip data collected on paper, and trying to sell Alaskan craft beer through Alaska-born Brett’s connections.

What particularly stands out is importing craft beer and calling various companies asking for tastings. Many places accepted just tastings, but due to expiration dates, they often didn’t move to handling them.

——Besides craft beer, you also did consulting.

In consulting, we handled 2 stores. One was the restaurant where I worked part-time. Brett had an Oxford MBA, so being able to learn branding know-how from him was significant. The other started from an introduction by my part-time job boss. Both paid a little money, but not enough to live on.

——Doing consulting, were you feeling some challenges?

My part-time job did delivery, but they didn’t take particular data on paper slips, so we didn’t know what menu items were popular. They also did flyer distribution at the time, but designs changed every time. Even as a part-timer, I felt “if designs change this much, people might think it’s a different restaurant.”

——The consulting experience particularly seems connected to your current business.

Yes. After graduating, I joined a company once and enjoyed working, but having the “experience of trial and error on my own” from student days, I felt some dissatisfaction.

After 2 years of salaried life, challenging entrepreneurship again

——After graduating, you first joined Citibank. Why did you choose this company?

I received offers from several companies, but reasoning that Japanese companies wouldn’t suit my personality, I joined Citibank and worked for nearly 2 years.

——Did you still feel salaried work didn’t suit you?

Yes. I started a company again, launching “Edge Connection” with 4 fellow Citibank colleagues, on our own power.

——What’s the origin of the company name?

Since founding members were Citibank colleagues and all could speak English, we wanted a cool English company name. Brett said that from overseas, there are quite a few Japanese companies using English with strange meanings. But “Edge Connection” doesn’t sound strange to foreign ears, so we chose this name.

——Brett, who you co-founded with as a student—are you still running the company together?

No, he’s currently in America serving in an advisory role. We did business together from founding in 2007 until 2008-9, but there was a time when overseas work didn’t go well… I decided to step away from foreign work for now. At that time, Brett decided to return to America, and we are where we are today.

Citibank experience became business nourishment

——You started with 4 people. Did you start the business from phone sales, your current main business?

Yes. Early on, we did sales representation, with compensation of 30% of contract amount upon success. But this approach meant no compensation without contracts, and even with contracts, only 20-30% in compensation—it was quite hard.

Then one word from a business partner became the catalyst for reviewing our business, and the overall business outlook became clearer.

——What was that one word?

At Citibank I was in the “Telemarketing Department” that completed financial transactions over the phone, where we input every detail of what was heard on the phone. Continuing this habit, I took detailed notes during corporate telemarketing after starting my company, and a business partner said, “Even just these notes are good data—I’ll pay you just for making the calls, even without contracts.”

If it’s just making calls… we switched the business content, and the business outlook became clearer.

——So Citibank experience came in handy.

Yes, telemarketing experience proved very useful. For example, when selling financial products by phone, you can’t say definitively “stock prices will definitely rise tomorrow.” The theory is to state objective facts and prompt decisions, like “Given the current economic situation of XX, if you take YY investment policy, ZZ result is expected.”

I only knew this kind of talk, so even when doing BtoB sales, I diverted Citibank-era talk: “Our company has this product. We think it’s good for issues like XX at your company—what do you think?”

——This kind of sales style must have been rare in 2007.

Yes. Sales at the time was often like “I’m in the area so I came to sell!” So our sales style of matching our characteristics with client needs was rare.

With this sales style, not only do appointments get easier to schedule, but when refused, you get proper reasons. That was also a good point.

Company founded by 4 Citibank colleagues. Struggles until the company grew

——What’s your current employee count and average age?

55 people. Of those, nearly 40 are in the call center department.

Average age is around 33.

——You started with 4 founding members. How did the organization grow?

There were twists and turns, but a while after founding, we jumped to about 20 people. But that was short-lived—about 8 years ago, we dropped to about 5 employees.

From there, members grew in a way I’d describe as a triangle getting cleanly bigger—it was when I became the only founding member left.

——Were there difficulties when founding members and other directors were on equal footing?

The “face-saving HR” unique to founding members was one reason why maintaining employee numbers was difficult. Even if later joiners had stronger leadership, we had to give founding members higher positions.

Also, because I knew founding members too well, sometimes I thought “if I demote this position now, they’ll quit.”

——Because the company was founded by 4 Citibank colleagues, you had struggles between company growth and relationships with founding members.

Yes. Now I think such HR judgments don’t help company growth, but until about 10 years after founding, employee numbers fluctuated up and down due to such “considerate HR.”

In telemarketing, “the person is the product.” Why we insist on full-time employee adoption

——Is sales support your main business?

Yes, sales support including telemarketing is our main business.

Besides telemarketing, we do training, document creation, consulting, etc. For anything BtoB sales-related, we handle everything from strategy formulation, regardless of industry.

——Are there characteristics among your clients?

At founding, requests were all from understaffed ventures and SMEs. Recently we receive requests from all kinds of industries and sizes, including major corporations.

The main reason for many telemarketing requests is that younger generations don’t like making appointment calls.

Many companies once had a tradition of telemarketing as a newcomer initiation, but in today’s era, forcing such things makes many people quit, so many companies don’t have newcomers do telemarketing.

——Why do younger generations have such resistance to telemarketing?

I think the cause is that they’ve had smartphones since around middle school. When we were small, there were landlines at home and we received calls from anyone—friends or strangers.

But today’s young generation can call or message anyone with just their smartphone. Growing up in an environment where you can talk only to who you want to talk to from the start, talking to people you don’t know well is more stressful than imagined.

——I see. That makes it feel like sociability is gradually decreasing.

I think it is decreasing. Similarly, X (formerly Twitter) seems to be gradually replacing “society” for them. Many seem to mistake what’s said on X as public opinion.

SNS lets you touch various opinions and thoughts of people worldwide, so you’d think your world is expanding, but actually your world and field of view are narrowing. Considering such background, our current business meets societal needs.

——Is the demand higher for outsourcing telemarketing or for being taught telemarketing know-how?

Inquiries like “please teach us so we can do telemarketing in-house” are decreasing in my impression. I think companies are giving up on in-housing and switching to outsourcing.

——With an average age of 33, your company has relatively young people. What kind of training do you provide for young people anxious about telemarketing?

Training is quite intensive—we teach for 1 month after joining. In telemarketing, “people” are the product, so quitting means losing an important machine from the company. Having the same person stay as long as possible ensures know-how is passed on, becoming a driving force for company growth.

——Is there anything else you’re conscious of in telemarketing business?

We insist on full-time employee adoption, including telemarketing staff. Telemarketing is also work where PDCA is easy to cycle, so skills increase with tenure.

As mentioned, passing telemarketing skills to juniors creates a good chain, leading to cost merit long-term too.

With three pillars of sales, HR, and finance, you can be involved not just in sales support but in company “management”

——You also do finance and HR services. Could you tell us about those?

For finance, we advise on M&A mediation, money management, and prevention against fraud. This also leverages Citibank-era experience. However, such services often arise from chat at meetings. Recently with COVID making meetings online, the case count for such services has decreased.

For HR, we have HR evaluation system construction and personnel placement licenses, so when sales support requests include wanting to hire salespeople, we also provide sales talent introduction services.

——Do you plan to start new businesses going forward?

Not really for now. If we can cover the three directions of sales, HR, and finance, we can do most things for clients. When customers want to grow a business, if they come to us, we’d like to demonstrate the effect where customers grow by cycling through three pillars: sales support, hiring, teaching good money use.

For that, we need to closely integrate sales, HR, and finance services, and how to strengthen integration of these three is our challenge for the next several years.

——So you’re involved not just in supporting sales but in important parts of client companies.

Yes. Opportunities to discuss management or sales policies with executives come easily. Being able to talk with such executives while young is a major benefit.

Work styles regardless of where you live

——What are the roles of your 3 locations in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Miyazaki?

Miyazaki (Nobeoka) has the strongest call center function. Fukuoka is between Tokyo and Nobeoka, with a regional character where we can hire both consultants and call center staff. I think Fukuoka may become the largest base in the future.

——Since many client companies have headquarters in Tokyo, is consulting the main business in Tokyo?

No, consultants themselves are in Fukuoka and Nobeoka too, not just Tokyo. With online meetings being the norm recently, area boundaries don’t matter much. There’s no call center team in Tokyo currently, but you can of course work as call center staff.

The key point is that you can do the same work at any of the 3 locations. There are cases where people move from Nobeoka to Fukuoka according to family life stage.

——What kind of talent suits your company?

Simply put, “honest people.” Since the business model has people as the product, perfection from the start is impossible. “You should change XX about yourself” is often heard in this workplace—about speaking more slowly to gain trust, about grooming, etc.

I think those with growth motivation surprisingly have pride, so people who “can honestly enjoy their own changes” are best suited. When told “you should change XX,” do you think “why am I being told this?” or do you find your own change enjoyable—this difference is significant.

——What age range do you want to come?

I think 25-30 years old. We have younger people in the company, but those with a certain amount of work experience are probably more suited.

——So you can grow yourself in this environment too.

Yes. Starting from sales support and supporting client companies with three pillars of sales, HR, and finance, we want to be a company where not only clients but ultimately the people working in our company can grow themselves.

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[Interview Postscript]

Edge Connection Inc. Company Information

Company Name	Edge Connection Inc.
Location	Tokyo Headquarters AIOS Gotanda Ekimae 3F, 1-11-1 Nishi-Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Fukuoka Branch Tenjin Nishi-dori Center Bldg. 5F, 2-5-28 Tenjin, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka Inside Sales Center Nobeoka Station West Exit Block Bldg. 2F, 3-101 Sachimachi, Nobeoka City, Miyazaki
Representative	Representative Director and CEO: Yasuo Omura Director: Miki Cho Overseas Advisor (Founder): Brett Yule Executive Officer: Yuki Uno Executive Officer: Miwa Nagatomo
Capital	12.4 million yen
Employees	55
Business	1. Marketing Consulting Business We get voices from the field at the front line of sales and connect that to strategy decisions for customer acquisition. 2. Sales Consulting Business We handle sales department launches/improvements and new product sales strategy formulation. 3. Management Consulting Business We provide consulting specialized for small and medium-sized venture companies. 4. Sales Training Business We provide sales activity training. 5. Personnel Placement Business We mainly conduct personnel placement for sales positions. 6. Japan Expansion Support Business for Overseas Companies We support sales channel development for overseas companies entering Japan. 7. M&A Mediation Business We create M&A cases using our sales scenario building know-how and call center. 8. Fundraising Support Business We consider optimal fundraising methods together based on financial conditions.

Edge Connection Inc. Job Opening Information