I stopped trying to attract customers, and my customer base grew. This is a true story.

How should I go about attracting customers?

I am often asked this. But to be honest, as long as you are consciously trying to "attract customers," I believe you have the order wrong.

There are things you should do before you focus on attracting customers.

First, decide who you are delivering to. But it is okay to change it along the way.

The most important thing to do before attracting customers is to decide who you are delivering to.

If you start using social media without knowing who you should be attracting, you won't know what to post. You won't know who you are writing for. As a result, your posts won't resonate with anyone. So, try to clarify the "person" you want to reach.

However, what you decide at the beginning is not necessarily the final answer. I myself have made many adjustments to get to where I am today. You decide on a tentative target first, and then refine it while observing the reactions. This is the realistic way to do it.

Many people are convinced that they "must not change it halfway through," but changing it is not a failure. It is a process of increasing accuracy.

The perspective that you don't need to attract a large number of customers

There is another important perspective.

In the case of a high-unit-price style where you work directly with clients (like in my case), you don't need to attract that many people.

My private lessons are 12,000 yen per hour. The number of customers needed to earn a stable monthly income is smaller than you might think. You don't need to attract 100 people. In extreme terms, if you have 10 customers, it is enough to make it work.
In reality, some people take multiple lessons, and I also hold higher-priced lessons at events, so this isn't exact.

You might first need to let go of the image that "attracting customers" equals "gathering a lot of people."

Aim for a state where "word-of-mouth is spreading" rather than "trying to attract customers"

What I consider ideal is not being conscious of "trying to attract customers," but a state where, before you know it, word-of-mouth has spread.

Referrals from a single customer are the most powerful form of customer acquisition. The level of trust is high from the start. The repeat rate is also high. And that person will refer others again.

I believe that creating a state where word-of-mouth spreads naturally is something that should be done before focusing on attracting customers.

Specific measures that spread word-of-mouth

However, for word-of-mouth to spread naturally, you need a mechanism in place.

I will introduce a few things that have been effective in my experience.

Referral Campaign
By creating a system to reward those who bring a friend, it became easier to generate referrals.

Doubles Pair Practice
By establishing a style of coming in pairs, it naturally created a movement of 'let's invite a friend'.

Hosting Tournaments and Providing Advice
Hosting tournaments and offering advice to participants there. This added value led to lessons. In fact, there are several groups that connected to lessons through this flow.

Referral Chains in Schools and Communities
There are cases where referrals chain within a community, such as from seniors to juniors at school. This wasn't something I aimed for; it just happened before I knew it.

Summary: Attracting customers is a 'result,' not a 'means'

When you make attracting customers your goal, things often don't go well.

Give your all to the person right in front of you. That person becomes happy. The person who was happy tells someone else. The person they told comes to visit.

This is the natural flow. I believe that attracting customers is something that happens as a 'result' of this flow.

What you should do before trying to attract customers is to seriously make the person right in front of you happy.

Kotaro Hayashi, Representative of tennis-peak Co., Ltd.

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