Hey guys, curious if anyone has experience running ads in Japan and can give advice. My wife and I are the “regional agents” (kinda like master franchisees) for Anytime Fitness in Taiwan. I would like to run some ads in Japan to attract Japanese to open gyms in Taiwan. Japan is Anytime Fitness’ 3rd largest market (they have over 1200 locations) and I think Japanese have an inherent interest in Taiwan so it could be a good fit.
Any suggestions or tips on how to reach potential investors/business owners over there?Thanks!!
A few other details:
we know the biggest Japanese operator, but a couple years ago they bought the rights to Germany and have totally focused their efforts and resources to building out the German market so they don’t have time for Taiwan yet.
there are a bunch of Japanese operators who have invested a ton into Malaysia. Unfortunately it is not appropriate for us to reach out directly to them and step on our Malaysian partners’ toes. But if they were to come to us on their own it would be ok
of course a Japanese AF operator/investor would be ideal, but even someone from outside the industry might be interested because they have witnessed AF’s success. We have had Singaporean and Australian investors from other industries (two huge AF markets) come to us because of their familiarity with the brand as consumers.
The Japan market is a tough nut to crack but I finally have thriving business here. When I tried contacting potential distributors/customers myself it was like hitting a brick wall. I even acquired a business manager visa at one point to gain credibility but nothing opened any doors.
What finally worked was hiring a Japanese expert in business and administrative law ( shihō shoshi ) to be my intermediary and doors started opening then. I had to gain his trust initially and that required a lot of face to face interaction at first but because his business is meeting with clients getting face time was just a matter of being willing to spend 5,000 yen per hour consultation fee.
Even now I use his intermediary services weekly anytime I need to open doors and clear up confusion with just about any organization I deal with here from car rental companies to local government officials.
In English his profession is called judicial scrivener, which in practical terms means he’s an expert in business law, customs, and protocol.
Japanese business culture relies heavily on trustworthiness, which is difficult to achieve if you don’t speak fluent Japanese. Hiring a “sponsor” of some sort is the only way I’ve found to get past that barrier and it’s worked well for me where nothing else I tried even budged the needle.
Also to get them invest overseas will be hard when most have no interest outside of Japan. Now only 17% of japanese have passports mostly because they fell no need to go out of Japan. My family in Japan, some relatives have no interest to north of Kansai region.
Interesting. yes this could be true regarding the mindset of many Japanese currently. Of course, as it relates to our industry, most are expanding to other markets since AF is getting a bit saturated in Japan. In addition to Germany and Malaysia, I know Japanese investors are pushing into the Philippines and Indonesia as well.
It’s been much easier for me to integrate into Taiwanese society than Japanese society and I’ve been trying hard to be seen as an asset in my community there in Japan. If anything it seems some older people are more open about their negative feelings towards foreigners these days because it’s become acceptable in the last year or so to show those feelings due to developments in national politics.
