Posts Tagged ‘Budget’

As part of the MASAI 30 Students in 30 Days Challenge, I’ll be posting some special martial arts marketing articles specifically geared toward the quickest ways I know to get students and grow your school.

Today’s article is geared specifically on how to get to the top of the local search listings… FAST!

MASAI 30 Students in 30 Days Coaching Article #1: How to Get to the Top of Google Fast

Getting to the top of the Google listings is powerful, powerful stuff. And, this is the fastest way I know to get to the top of the Google search engine results, for free.

(Of course, Google Adwords will get your site seen quickly, but it takes a bit more search engine marketing technical know-how, and it costs money. Do both if you have the budget, but start with this method, first.)

It’s not hard, it just takes some work… but you can easily knock this out in an afternoon.

Here’s what you need to do:

Read the rest of this entry »

Speed Kills…

Sometimes you're better off taking your bike instead of the express route... especially when it comes to growing your school. Move too fast, and the results can be disastrous.

In the past six months, out of the hundreds of site members we have, I’ve had just three site members contact me to tell me they were either closing their schools or scaling back on their operations…

Although this is an extremely low percentage of failure – especially during an extended recession – I believe that it will be instructive to examine reasons why these schools didn’t make it, in order that we can all avoid making the same mistakes.

In each case, these folks were new school owners or instructors who were in the early stages of launching a school. In two of the three cases, the instructors were teaching in part-time locations, yet they both cited a lack of cash-flow as the reason for their having to “close” their schools. (Note: In the third case, the instructor lost his lease and couldn’t find another suitable location within his budget – a reason totally beyond his control.)

What went wrong here? Upon further probing, the reason in each case was made plain. In their impatience with starting a new business, they just moved ahead too fast and it killed their schools – a very common mistake. This is something I’ve had experience with in the past myself, and which led to my developing the Small Dojo Big Profits method of starting a martial arts school.

Now, before I go on here let me state that there’s no shame in making mistakes when you’re starting a business. Believe me, every successful business owner can rattle off a least two or three major mistakes they made when they were first starting out. The only shame is in not learning from your own mistakes or from those of someone else, which is why you should read this article carefully to avoid these very common mistakes. Read the rest of this entry »

Martial Arts Business Success Step #1 – Get Your Marketing And Lead Generation Down Pat

Follow my steps to martial arts business success and you'll soon become a martial arts business "master".

Until a student walks in the door and you collect a check, you aren’t in business.

You can get business cards printed up, tell everyone you’re starting a martial art school, and even sign a lease on a building, but not one of those things really mark the transition from “wannabe” to bona fide school owner.

The only thing that does is getting paid – that’s it. And, you cannot and will not get paid without marketing your school and services effectively. Period.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve counseled struggling school owners who gave little if any consideration to marketing when launching their school. And by the same token, I’ve also counseled school owners who wasted considerable time, effort, and resources on highly ineffective and grossly inefficient marketing methods.

If you want to launch and run a successful school, start with becoming an expert marketer. This article will teach you the fundamentals of marketing and lead generation, which marketing and advertising methods are best suited to small businesses, and how to best implement those methods for the greatest effect. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Fear of Loss to Retain Members

This has to be the simplest retention strategy, ever… and one of the most effective.

It relies on the persuasion principle known as… Read the rest of this entry »