Why aren't sales increasing even though I'm working hard on my skills and social media?
A few months ago, a solo salon owner came to me for advice.
I post on Instagram every day and list on Hot Pepper Beauty.
I've created new menus and reviewed my pricing.
Yet, my monthly revenue has been stuck bouncing between 300,000 and 500,000 yen.
I feel like I'm doing everything I can.
But for some reason, my sales just won't go up.
What am I missing?
I still remember the look on her face, like she was about to cry, as she said that.
Do you want to know what happened to her three months later?
Her monthly revenue more than doubled.
It wasn't because she got more new customers or spent more on advertising.
She simply changed the 'order' of her customer acquisition.
Doesn't this story pique your interest a little?
Why things don't add up even when you're 'doing everything'
The words she said at the beginning really struck a chord with me.
'I'm doing everything I can.'
But the answer was already hidden within those very words.
Posting on Instagram every day.
Changing Hot Pepper coupons regularly.
Adding new menu items.
These are all actions meant for 'gathering' customers.
But the customers you gather don't return.
They don't sign up for coupon books or ongoing courses.
Every month, you're starting from zero again.
You're pouring water into a bucket, but for some reason, it won't fill up.
Do you have that feeling?
The problem is that there is a hole in the bucket.
You are continuing to pour water without plugging the hole.
That is the true nature of a state where you are putting all your effort only into 'gathering'.
At first, she also thought, 'If I work harder on Instagram, things will change.'
She thought, 'If I make my Hot Pepper coupons even better, it will work.'
But that wasn't it.
Before putting effort into attracting customers, there was a design that needed to be put in place.
In business, there is an 'order' that is often overlooked.
Over the past 16 years, I have specialized in attracting customers for solo salons and chiropractic clinics, working with over 4,000 people.
I have conducted over 1,000 individual consultations alone.
Through that experience, a clear pattern common to those who are not succeeding has emerged.
That is, out of the three-stage flow of 'attracting,' 'nurturing,' and 'contracting,' they are only doing the 'attracting' part.
'Nurturing' refers to the process of deepening trust with customers through interactions before their visit and during their initial treatment experience.
'Contracting' refers to creating a natural flow toward follow-up appointments, coupon books, or ongoing courses.
Only when these three are in place do sales begin to accumulate.
However, most people focus only on 'attracting,' and the other two are completely missing.
That is why the customers who do come don't stay.
The exhaustion of having to attract new customers every month never stops.
This is not because you lack effort or your skills are poor.
It is simply that no one taught you the order in which things should be done.
An 'everlasting' customer attraction method that is not swayed by trends and keeps bookings and applications coming in.
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https://utage.actdream.net/p/system_opt_c?ftid=KwZv0y0mI1u6
What happens when you learn about 'nurturing' and 'contracting'?
What the owner mentioned earlier worked on was the design of this 'nurturing' and 'contracting'.
What they specifically changed was the interaction before the visit and how they engaged after the initial treatment.
What they learned and incorporated by studying psychological marketing were the perspectives of emotional psychology and linguistic psychology.
Just by incorporating this way of thinking into the message exchanges before the visit, the state of the customers coming for the first time changed completely.
Even though it was their 'first time meeting,' they started coming with the feeling that it 'wasn't their first time meeting.'
And during the treatment, they didn't just perform the service; they refined the design of the experience so that customers felt they 'want to keep coming here.'
As a result, follow-up appointments started to be made naturally.
Even when talking about coupon books, the 'feeling of hard-selling' disappeared.
The person themselves told me that customers started asking, 'I want to continue, what should I do?' on their own.
Three to four months later, their sales had more than doubled.
They didn't use any special sales pitches or special advertisements at all.
They simply put the steps in the correct order.
The reason you aren't succeeding right now is not your fault.
I want to tell you something clearly right here.
Even if your customer acquisition isn't going well right now, it's not because your skills are poor.
It's not because you aren't trying hard enough, either.
Among the people I have consulted with, only a very small number of salons have closed due to poor skills.
In most cases, the cause of the failure lies elsewhere.
'Even when new customers come, they don't return.'
'I feel like the customer's face stiffens when I talk about coupon books.'
'I can't shake the feeling that I'm starting from zero every month.'
The people who have these kinds of worries are the ones working the hardest to 'attract' customers.
But if you just increase the volume of acquisition without a design for 'nurturing' and 'contracting,' the situation won't change.
The students who came to me were in exactly that state at first.
They studied Hot Pepper Beauty and used coupons from successful salons as a reference.
They imitated the posting style of accounts that were growing on Instagram.
But no matter what they tried, nothing changed.
In the midst of that, after having an individual consultation with me, the moment they learned about the 'design before acquisition,' their words changed.
'I see, the order was reversed.'
I have heard these words hundreds of times.
If you just change the order, you can get completely different results with the same amount of effort.
The true nature of the 'fully booked but nothing left in hand' problem
There is one more thing I want to tell you.
Among my students, there was someone who was 'fully booked every month,' yet when they looked at their bankbook at the end of the month, they had almost nothing left.
They were busy. But their sales weren't accumulating.
They said they were on the verge of their physical and mental limits.
The cause of this was setting 'a full house' as the goal.
A full house is something that arrives as the 'result' of proper planning.
If you make that the goal itself, you end up in a state of 'I just want to fill the seats with anyone'.
When you gather just anyone, the number of customers who don't return increases.
Because they don't return, you have to gather new customers again.
Gather them again, and they leave again.
The reason they couldn't escape this loop was that there was no plan for 'who I want to come' in the first place.
Three to four months after that student organized their plan, their situation changed.
Nearly 80% of the slots were naturally filled with returning customers.
New customers were smoothly entering the remaining 20%.
Even though the working hours were the same, the sales were completely different.
This is the reality for those who organized their plan before 'gathering' customers.
It's just a matter of 'knowing or not knowing'
I will be honest.
The three-stage process of 'gathering,' 'nurturing,' and 'contracting' is simple when you hear it.
However, whether or not you know this makes a huge difference in the results.
How have the students who learned from me changed?
There are several people whose Hot Pepper Beauty reservations have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled.
There is someone who went from zero inquiries to attracting 140 people in two months and achieving 6.06 million yen.
There is someone whose repeat rate improved from 35% to 68%, and whose monthly sales increased by 1.8 times.
This is not a story about special talent.
People running a chiropractic clinic alone.
People operating a small beauty salon in a rural area.
Even people who originally said, 'It's impossible for me to sell things myself'.
They just learned the method, organized the order, and put it into practice.
And what they all had in common was the one phrase I mentioned at the beginning.
'I see, the order was reversed.'
This realization was the beginning of everything.
An 'everlasting' customer attraction method that isn't swayed by trends and keeps bookings and applications coming in
↓
https://utage.actdream.net/p/system_opt_c?ftid=KwZv0y0mI1u6
What will happen if you just keep 'gathering' customers like this?
Finally, let me ask you one thing.
If you continue as you are for another year, what do you think will happen?
The listing fees for Hot Pepper will continue to be charged every month.
You have to keep updating your Instagram every single day.
Even if you attract new customers, they don't repeat and just drift away.
When that cycle continues for another year, or two.
Will your physical strength run out first?
Will your money run out first?
Will your motivation run out first?
In my experience, most owners who just kept 'gathering' customers like this eventually felt like, 'Maybe I should just close the business,' one day out of the blue.
But that is a future that can be avoided.
By just changing the order, you can get completely different results with the same amount of effort.
You don't need to think it's 'too difficult'.
The mechanism of how people's hearts are moved never changes, no matter the era.
Once you create a design rooted in that, you can achieve a stable state of customer attraction that won't be shaken, even if social media trends change or platform specifications change.
Having read this article today, you are already one step away from that.
All that's left is 'whether or not you know the correct design'.
I share the overall flow of 'gathering,' 'nurturing,' and 'contracting' introduced here, as well as the thinking behind how to apply it to your salon or chiropractic clinic, in my email newsletter.
If you are wondering what you should do for your own salon, please feel free to receive it from here.
An 'everlasting' customer attraction method that isn't swayed by trends and keeps bookings and applications coming in
↓
https://utage.actdream.net/p/system_opt_c?ftid=KwZv0y0mI1u6