About Fanbase Building.

I never thought I’d see a future where I’d go to see my clients myself! It’s an idea that goes against the idea of attracting clients.

Since starting my own business, I have been at the mercy of attracting customers. I spent money on online advertising and created free booklets to attract potential customers. The booklet caused a buzz. It gained a lot of fans and sales were strong for a while.

But one day I realized that I was working for the cost of advertising. For a long time, working to pay for expensive advertising would become a “must-do” and would exhaust me more and more. So one day, 12 years ago, I started to break new ground for a “zero advertising cost”.

In other words, I decided to focus on fanbase building. However, I was concerned that the repeat customers at that time were mainly sole traders and did not match the target audience I wanted to reach. But how could I change my target?

When I was thinking this, my English conversation teacher suggested, “Why don’t you hold a seminar for businessmen only? People are not feeling well, so you should cheer them up”. And when I informed my newsletter readers, that’s exactly what I found potential clients. The seminar series continued for several years, changing form.

Eventually, I started to feel that those I want to make happy are not only businessmen but also those in every walk of life.

That’s when my English teacher said to me, “ONE DAY ONE UNIT is your concept. Why don’t you make a notebook?” I was surprised again. I thought that this was something that the whole of humanity needed to do, to organize the personal foundation, as opposed to improving sales or getting results. And after I made the notebook, my English teacher said to me, “Why don’t you teach how to use the notebook in your online community”.

Since then, the 1D1U community has been going on for more than four years. Even during the pandemic, it continued without any problems because it was completed online.

Then, at the end of the pandemic, I gave a seminar in Osaka face-to-face for the first time in three years. I had previously taken the bullet train but decided to go by plane.

When I started to think that it would be nice to fly regularly, a client of 1D1U Community came to Tokyo by plane and was very pleased when I organized a one-on-one seminar. It was a new way for me to attract clients.

So why don’t I go to the members of the 1D1U community and organize a group session? The thought suddenly came to me. So I decided to start with the furthest trip to Kyushu.

When the date for the Kyushu seminar was decided, to my surprise, three participants from the Osaka seminar expressed a desire to join the Kyushu seminar! When I also decided to hold the Hokkaido seminar, people from Osaka and Nagoya also expressed a desire to attend the Hokkaido seminar.

I was aware that attracting customers was about people coming toward me, but I realized that it might be about people following me where I am going.