Posts Tagged ‘Fifteen Years’

A Simple, Effective Strategy

Mat chats are one of the easiest, most effective ways to increase retention and customer satisfaction in your school among your children’s classes. I’ve been doing them for over fifteen years, and I have consistently experienced greater retention and improved parent feedback in classes where I do regular mat chats. The great thing is, they take very little time to prepare, and when done properly I am positive you’ll find them to be a rewarding addition to your programs.

How to Do a Martial Arts Mat Chat

When to Do Them The best time to do a mat-chat is at the end of your kid’s classes, right before your “fun drill” time. This serves two purposes:

1. It serves as the best time to teach kids life lessons, because they will still be in “focus mode” from their regular class time;
2. It allows parents who may just be stopping in to pick up their child to hear what you’re teaching their children.

Most parents would never know about 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 »

After operating various martial arts schools and programs for over fifteen years, one thing that I have learned is that my students are my best advertisement.

What I mean to say by that is, I get more people that call or stop by to join classes who say they heard about us from “a friend” than I generally get from paid advertisements.

That tells me that my students say positive things about the school (which really makes me happy). And, if you are offering a quality program and treating your students right, you’ll likely get quite a bit of new students from referrals as well.

In fact, referrals can end up being your number one source of new students. And once you start getting them, you don’t want them to stop!

So, in order to encourage referrals, it’s a very good idea to offer a referral incentive program in your studio. We’ve used one for years that has worked very well for us.

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