Posts Tagged ‘Curriculum’

The Top Things Successful School Owners Do To Achieve Financial Success

When you think about successful school owners, do you ever wonder how they get to where they are? You see, everyone wants to enjoy success, but the reason so few do is because so few people are willing to do the work to get there. Every successful school owner understands this. As millions of people have learned from Stephen Covey’s books, successful people tend to follow the same success habits in their daily lives to achieve and maintain that success. And, starting and running a martial art school is no different. There are things every successful school owner does on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to achieve success. And if you want to be a successful school owner, you need to do those things. Here’s my list of the success habits that successful school owners follow. I suggest you make each one of these habits part of your daily routine for the next month, until they become a habit for you as well.

Success Habit #1: Showing Up

Successful school owners show up to work each day. And, that doesn’t mean showing up 5 minutes before class – it means they invest long hours outside of teaching classes into their business. For every hour you spend on the floor, you should be spending two productive hours working on your business. This includes time you spend doing strategic planning, on marketing, on staff development, on planning events, on public relations, on curriculum, and yes, even on personal and professional development.

Success Habit #2: Being Present

Successful school owners are present with their students, staff, Read the rest of this entry »

Knowing and Doing the Basics is the Key to Martial Arts Business Success

Do you have your basics down? Not your martial arts basics, but your business basics. Find out by reading this article.

Do you have your martial arts business basics down?

You know – those top priority concepts, skills, and tasks that are essential to running a successful martial art school?

Maybe you haven’t given much thought to what those are… but if you’ve read Small Dojo Big Profits, you know about the 80/20 rule (Pareto’s Principle).

Pareto believed that eighty percent of your results come from just twenty percent of your efforts, and I’ve found this to be true in my own businesses.

That’s why it’s so important to know what those “20% activities” are. Once you do, you can focus in on those activities, and cut out most of the extraneous stuff. By doing so, not only will you become more productive, but you’ll also have more time away from your school.

So, let’s examine the “basic foundation” of running a successful martial arts school, and then we can look at which daily tasks and goals we need to focus on to leverage our workday and maximize our effectiveness.
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Summer Intensive Kids Camps

It seems that school owners in some areas are experiencing difficulties in filling their summer camps this year. Whether this is due to the current economic conditions in those areas, or due to waiting too long to start advertising their camps (I suspect the latter), there’s always a way to salvage these situations to make the best of things.

Back in 2006 at around this time of the year, I was facing a major crisis in my school. Sky-high fuel costs were causing a major budget crunch for most families in my area, and as it turns out our community was one of the first to show signs of the mortgage fallout. Bottom line was, only about half of my after-school karate kids were staying through the summer, and I was facing a major budget crisis of my own if I didn’t make up that income fast.

So, I borrowed an idea from another instructor and decided to hold “Summer Intensive Training Camps” in my school. I posted a description of how this works in the forums last week. Here’s how you do it: Read the rest of this entry »

Success Or Failure Is Often Determined By Internal And Not External Factors

If it were easy, everyone would conquer it.

Why is it that some school owners can open a school under the worst of conditions, yet meet with great success…

While others may open their business under the best of conditions and fail miserably?

I think it’s apparent that success or failure is more often determined by internal rather than external factors.

And I would have to say that, in most cases, it has to do with three qualities: confidence, commitment, and the willingness to experience failure. Read the rest of this entry »

A Built In Retention Program

While black belt is the pinnacle of achievement for most students, black belt club can be a way to reward your most dedicated students and improve retention.

While some schools are resistant to the idea of having an elite membership in their studio, the fact remains that many of your students will jump at the chance to belong to such a program.

The reason is that you already have students who are extremely dedicated and motivated to train… so why not offer them a program that recognizes and rewards them for their commitment?

Black belt club is a perfect way to do this. And, before you get worked up into a tizzy, let me clarify by saying that the way I set up my BBC has nothing to do with selling belts. Instead, it’s all about keeping the program quality high and rewarding good students.

Here’s how I do it: Read the rest of this entry »

Lesson Plan? What The Heck’s A Lesson Plan?

The most common response I get from instructors when I ask whether they use lesson plans is:

“Naw, not really… mostly I just wing it.”

Winging it may seem like the thing to do when you’re an experienced instructor, or when the thought of one more weekly chore seems as daunting as squaring off against Fedor with both hands tied behind your back. (What do they feed that guy, anyway? Oh, that’s right – other MMA fighters…)

But, a return to the venerable, oft-maligned lesson plan can greatly improve your ability to teach more effectively… and to do so on a consistent basis.

Let’s look at some reasons why lesson plans are a must if you want to grow your school: Read the rest of this entry »

So, What’s Next?

Knowing what comes after black belt can be a great way of keeping students' interest once they reach 1st dan.

For new school owners, this may not seem like it’s even worth worrying about yet… but I’m here to tell you it’s something you need to consider if you’re past your first year in business.

You might think it’s only important to have a strong program up to black belt, because that’s what most of your students are after, but that’s a dangerous misconception that can hurt your school’s long-term growth.

Now, some martial arts systems already have tons of curriculum in place for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree black belts (Note: Just having a new form to teach them isn’t going to cut it).

And in other systems (like BJJ, for example), the road to black belt is so long, the main challenge you face is keeping students until black belt. However, if you fall into either of these categories, you still should read this article because there are still pitfalls to keeping students long-term you may not be aware of.

So, sit tight and take notes while I tell what works in keeping students through black belt and beyond.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, Just What Is “Front-Loading”?

It’s piling on too much curriculum in the beginner and intermediate stages of training. Usually, instructors do this because they want to impress students, keep them around, or even because they want to prove their students are better than everyone else’s, because they “know more.”

“Front-loading” a curriculum is a sure-fire way to frustrate and discourage new students, and can potentially leave you struggling for things to interest and motivate your advanced students later down the road.

The problems with front-loading are that some students will feel overwhelmed with all the information you’re throwing at them. Furthermore, by running through curriculum too fast you can fail to provide the student with enough time to internalize the correct method of performing techniques, which only occurs through repetition and instructor feedback (except in rare cases with students who have near-perfect kinesthetic recall – Bruce Lee was such an individual).

How To Avoid A Front-Loaded Curriculum

So, how do you avoid front-loading your students? Simple – by following an organized and pedagogically correct training progression. You’ll best accomplish this by laying out your curriculum, technique by technique, and organizing it in such a way that:

• It is taught in a logical progression, from (Stage I) gross motor skills (stationary stance training, single technique performance, and solo drills), to (Stage II) fine motor skills (emphasizing the finer points of technique performance, such as body alignment, weight distribution, skeletal alignment, and timing, as well as two-person drills), to (Stage III) complex and compound motor movements (combinations, technique combinations in motion, and sparring);
• Introduction of new techniques and skills are spread out evenly over time;
• And, the assessment of learning and technical progress is limited to skills that are appropriate to the student’s age and experience level, while still allowing for the introduction of techniques, drills, and skill-sets that are slightly beyond the student’s level… thus allowing for the student to experience success in training while still challenging them physically and intellectually.

Example Of A Correct Technique Progression

As an example of how this might be done, let’s take a simple skill – a front kick. Stage I: At the beginner level, emphasis is Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a dilemma most martial arts instructors face when they start teaching kids (well, those who are honest and have integrity, anyway). That is, how do you handle belt rank promotions for kids?

Obviously, kids don’t have anywhere near the emotional maturity, logical deduction, motor skills, strength, or learning ability adults have. Granted, kids can do a lot of things many adults can’t (full splits in three weeks, anyone?) but generally speaking they simply cannot perform like adults when it comes to retention of techniques, application of techniques, and performing like an adult black belt.

So how do you handle belt rank promotions for kids without lowering standards or becoming the thing you hate most? Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping Them After They First Step In The Door…

I do the same intro course process that I learned from Jim Mather 15 years ago. I’ve tried many other ways to do intros, and I always go back to this one because it has never failed me… Plus, we enroll 90% of the people who show up for their first lesson with this process. Here’s the skinny on what it entails – it’s pretty basic, but I’d rather do something simple that works than something complicated that doesn’t:

• 1Week for $19.95, including a free uniform, a 20 minute private or semi-private classes (I’ll schedule up to 3 at a time) and two group classes.

The private lesson is done either right before their first group class or the day before. Office staff catches the parents Read the rest of this entry »

Last month I wrote to you about planning your classes out for the new year ahead of time. This will ensure your classes are exciting, that you have less work and stress next year, and that you have more time to focus on enjoying teaching. In short, planning out your entire year’s worth of lesson plans ahead of time will make you more effective as a teacher. Planning for your marketing in the new year is no different, and in fact I’d say it takes an even higher priority than planning your classes. Why? It’s putting the horse before the cart… no students – no classes! So, let’s look at how you can plan your marketing cycle out for the year, based around the marketing approach that I teach all my coaching clients to use to build their enrollments rapidly.

Planning The Cycle…

Remember last month when I explained how to break your curriculum up by year, quarter, and month? We’re going to do roughly the same thing with our marketing plan, but we need to take other factors into consideration – namely:

• Seasonal swings in inquiries and enrollments -
• Seasonal “windows of opportunity” for certain markets and age groups -
• Seasonal and holiday promotions -

Now, let’s just take the first quarter of the year… we obviously have the New Year holiday to kick things off… the opportunity here is to attract adults who are looking to lose weight and get in Read the rest of this entry »

Unfortunately, we can’t halt the march of time, but we can plan ahead to ensure that the coming months go very smoothly in our classroom. As everyone knows, things tend to move at a slower pace around the holidays… at least as far as business is concerned. You’ll likely find yourself with some extra time on your hands on those days when you shut down your classes to observe the holidays. And, that’s the best time to take stock of what you’ve done previously, and to plan ahead to improve your classes in the Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the Member’s Only marketing video content page. Select a video from among the topics below, and click the link to begin viewing.

You will need to have the Adobe Flash Player plugin installed in your browser to view some of these videos. Click here to visit the Adobe site to get the browser plugin.

Marketing Videos

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When I first heard the term “rotating curriculum”, I had no clue what the concept was. I think the first person I heard talking about it was one of the billing company guys, and to be honest I really discounted the idea wholesale when he mentioned it. Well, a short while later I found I was having a hard time keeping my classes structured as my school grew. I also found it difficult to keep my instructors on track with their lesson plans – no one really had an idea of what to teach in class, and Read the rest of this entry »

Although most of the martial arts school owners and instructors I have coached don’t want to have a huge mega-studio, many of us would like to earn a comfortable living teaching between 150 and 200 students. While for some that may seem like an easy goal, for many others reaching 150 students seems near impossible.

The biggest hurdle to most school owners in hitting their enrollment goals is that they tend to look at different aspects of their business in isolated terms. Over here we have “curriculum”, here we have “advertising”, here we have “retention”, here is “billing”, then there’s “scheduling”, “pricing”, etc.

The problem with this is that it leads to a skewed sort of thinking – that is to say, you start to think that one part of your operations won’t affect the whole. And that can be hazardous to achieving your goal of having a small, profitable studio.

Let me explain… Read the rest of this entry »