Opening a Secondhand Bookstore at 60: Chapter 8 - Work Stories from a Senior (3) Now, for the Proposal!

Characters
Makoto Natsui: Me. An editor and writer, and an old guy.
Shusuke Akaba: Mr. Akaba. An old guy who used to work at a publishing company.
Mr. Akiyama: Natsui's former boss. A genius at winning people over.

The current state of correspondence education.

For those reading this note, many of you might have questions like:
"Why is correspondence education even necessary in the first place?"
"Who does it?"
"Correspondence education in this day and age?"
However, there are still many people who need correspondence education.
There are many people who want to start something new but don't have anywhere nearby to learn, or feel like they wouldn't be able to keep it up if they practiced alone. This is quite common. Especially in the case of Kouta (traditional Japanese songs), unless you live in a major city, there's no teacher nearby. For conscientious people who want to do things properly if they are going to start, correspondence education becomes a strong option.
In terms of generations, it seems many are at the age where they have retired or are about to retire.
"There can't be that many people like that!"
I can hear that voice again.
That's right. There aren't many.
But if you think about it, many businesses in the world are built for those rare people.
Even if you say, "Haruki Murakami's novel sold a million copies!", compared to the Japanese population, that's "only" one in a hundred people. In comparison, if a correspondence course can get a few hundred students, it can somehow manage. A few thousand is considered a huge success in that world.
If we set a goal of 500 students, we only need one in every 200,000 Japanese citizens to think, "I want to learn Kouta through correspondence education."
So, how do we let everyone know about the existence of Kouta correspondence education?
If no one knows about it, even those 500 become uncertain.
That's where newspapers come in. While newspapers are said to be a declining advertising medium today, they are actually still an excellent advertising medium. The core of newspaper readers is 50 to 60 years old and above. This perfectly matches the target demographic for correspondence education. In other words, if you place an ad for correspondence education here, the information will definitely reach this age group.
Furthermore, there's the advertising cost.
Long-established correspondence education companies that have had relationships with newspaper companies for decades can place ads at surprisingly low prices compared to the list price. On top of that, newspapers, which have lost their standing as an advertising medium, are sometimes willing to offer discounts, making them even cheaper to use.
From there, they recruit members by making full use of old-fashioned know-how: advertising -> inquiries -> prospective customers -> enrollment.
Once an inquiry about an ad comes in, it seems they can statistically tell how many people will eventually become members, so things proceed quite systematically.
As for Kouta, the newspaper ad had already been placed, and they were at the stage where the response from readers (i.e., inquiries for materials) was very good.

I roughly summarized the plan.

"The difficult part about teaching Kouta through correspondence education is that you can't have a teacher (like a stylish middle-aged woman) giving detailed guidance on the spot, saying, 'Do it like this!' In this case, the target audience is a generation not familiar with the internet. If we could teach via Skype or something, we could solve the communication issues, but that's not possible to start with. The question is how to overcome that."
The meeting began with a conversation confirming each other's thoughts like that.
And the finalized plan was:
・Fully convey the background and the charm of the worldview of the era when Kouta was frequently sung. Convey how fun Kouta is as a hobby.
・Convey that Kouta can be a gateway to expanding one's world of travel and reading, and that it can suddenly broaden the enjoyment of life.
・The point that repeated practice, unique to teaching materials, is possible. Make it a teaching material that values the idea that you improve by imitating and repeating. Make it a teaching material that allows you to sing famous songs by ear.
・Provide multiple audio sources by gender and vocal range, so that one can first find a singing style that suits them.
・And finally, connect them to local classrooms and teachers.
I created a proposal fully incorporating these ideas in PowerPoint (I'm used to this kind of work) and sent it to Mr. Akiyama.
Two weeks after that day.
I visited Mr. Akiyama's office again with Mr. Akaba.

Visiting Mr. Akiyama's office.

Mr. Akiyama's office, which I have visited dozens of times, is in Ueno.
The reason Mr. Akiyama chose this location for his office is very easy to understand.
First, it's close to home. One train ride, a 30-minute commute; that's convenient.
However, he seems to get so immersed in his work that he brings a cot to this office and stays over most weekdays, not returning to the home where his wife is waiting.
Next, there are many delicious restaurants in Ueno.
Mr. Akiyama is obsessed with eating delicious food, and he is also a huge glutton.
Even though he is in his late 60s, he normally eats about three times as much as I do.
Moreover, he knows many delicious restaurants, and being a genius at winning people over, he is on good terms with all the owners and landladies of those shops.
That's no surprise. In Mr. Akiyama's case, once he decides, "This place is delicious!", he just keeps going to that shop. He shows his face every single day, for 5 days, 10 days. He is friendly, the conversation is fun, he doesn't make unreasonable demands, he has good taste in ordering, he enjoys what is served by saying it's delicious, and he pays well.
Since such an ideal customer comes every day, there's no way the shop staff wouldn't like him. Special things not served to other customers naturally start being served to him.
Perhaps because he spends such gorgeous days, Mr. Akiyama's body has been growing steadily in recent years, and the shirts he wears are definitely 2L. However, since he eats good food, the complexion of his gentle face is very good.
Mr. Akiyama has a small worry, too.
"There's a sushi restaurant I frequent right next to my office, but there's a huge window next to the counter where the owner is, and you can see the sidewalk outside well. Every time I pass in front of the shop, I always make eye contact. Then I can't help but stop by. But you know, sometimes I want to eat something other than sushi. When that happens, I go out of my way to take a detour and return to the office from the other side."
That's a worry that is quite detached from the rest of the world.
These obsessive habits of Mr. Akiyama don't end with just delicious food.
His love is also directed toward books (materials).
He wants to make every book he is interested in his own and keep it at hand. He also wants to keep the collected materials (documents) neatly lined up in front of him so he can pull them out at any time.
He has a tendency that is like adding Mr. Akaba's wife and me together.

Because of that, the office, which was initially neat and spacious, became filled with books and documents in just a few years. The walls on both sides, except for the window parts, are bookshelves. From those bookshelves, huge bookshelves are placed in a T-shape, dividing the room, with a desk (and a cot) in the back and a conference table in the front. In other words, when you sit at the conference table, you see nothing but bookshelves, books, and documents in three directions in front of you, making for a magnificent scene.
I don't even feel like counting the number of books, but I wonder if there are about 2 to 3 tons of paper lined up.
Today, the meeting started while surrounded by books in such an office.
"Oh? Mr. Akiyama, did you add more bookshelves again?"
"That's right, somehow, I just couldn't help it."
"You are a digitization expert who has created hundreds of e-books and even operates a library, yet this amount of paper is amazing."
"It really is, isn't it? Even though I've been doing a lot of 'jisui' (digitizing purchased paper books myself), it's still like this."
After the usual small talk, we moved on to the topic of the plan.
"The plan I received from you, Natsui-kun, the other day is interesting as expected. We'll go with that. I took the plan and the structural proposal you gave me and turned it into this proposal for submission."
Saying that, what he showed me was, as expected of the presentation genius Mr. Akiyama, a truly magnificent proposal.
Mr. Akiyama's proposal is a brilliant one that makes you think, "It's already finished!"
The proposals we make end up being, or rather, naturally become, content like, "We've thought of this kind of plan, this kind of interesting idea! How about it?" Even if we know it, that's how it turns out.
However, Mr. Akiyama's proposal is completely different.
As you flip through the pages, the course curriculum and teaching materials are all ready, and the content is, "Look, it's already finished this interestingly!" "All that's left is for you to give the go-ahead and provide the budget, and everything will proceed just like this!"
To put it more simply, it's not "Shall we do this?" but content that says, "It has become something this wonderful!"
Mr. Akiyama's talk is added to this, so the other party is firmly put in a headlock, and all they can do is give the OK as if sending a signal to give up, he always creates such formidable proposals.
The proposal for this Kouta correspondence education was exactly that kind of content.
"This will work, it's going to start!"
As I was impressed by Mr. Akiyama's proposal as always,
"If we submit this, we have to start working on the teaching materials as early as the week after next," said Mr. Akiyama.
"Is that so! Then, while doing this work, let's also actively propose plans to acquire a new generation, young people, into the world of Kouta."
"Sounds good, sounds good."
"The other day, I brainstormed various ideas with Mr. Akaba, and we will summarize the plans from here on, but I think videos and characters are easier to reach young people. I've been looking at various Kouta sites, and while there are lesson videos and text explanations about techniques and history, there are no beautiful videos that convey the worldview of Kouta. Also, a Kouta character that would be liked by women and others. I think it would be interesting to make this too. I made a Kouta cat character with AI as a trial, so I brought it."
While showing pictures like a sexy cat master singing Kouta, the conversation heated up even more.
The future of Kouta is bright.

Three weeks after that. While summarizing Kouta plans for young people, days passed where I just thought, "I wonder what happened after that."
The proposal must have been submitted already, but the correspondence education company can't make an immediate decision, so it will take time. But, well, I thought it might be about time, but I also felt it was a bit much to contact them from my side asking, "How is it going?" "Let's hurry up and make the teaching materials!", so only time passed.

*The "Kouta correspondence education" mentioned in the article does not exist. Or rather, it has absolutely no relation to anything that actually exists. Also, the "Kouta Association" in the article does not exist. Or rather, it has absolutely no relation to any actual organization.

(To be continued)