Posts Tagged ‘Martial Arts Instructor’

Want to know how to make sure your martial art school fails miserably?

If you ever wanted to know how to tank a martial arts school, here’s a list of the top ten ways to fail in your martial arts business…

The Top Ten Ways To Tank Your Martial Arts School

1. Start Your School By The Seat Of Your Pants – Business plans? Business mentors? Business education? Who needs ‘em? Just wing it and you’ll be sure to end your career as a professional martial arts instructor before it even begins.
2. Put Pride And Ego Before Profits - If you want to fail big and fail fast, let your ego make all your business decisions instead of your common sense. This will lead you to rent a facility before you have any students, and you’ll also be likely to rent a lot more space than you really need. Sure, you’ll have the biggest nicest facility in town, but you’ll likely only have bragging rights until the first month’s rent is due…

Read the rest of this entry »

Honesty And Integrity As A Central Approach To Customer Service In The Martial Arts Industry

Many years ago when I started training in the martial arts, customer service was definitely not a closely examined issue. You paid your tuition, attended class, practiced at home, and that was enough. From the student’s perspective, as long as the school was open and classes were held as scheduled, all was well. And, from the instructor’s perspective as long as the students paid tuition on time and showed up for class, he or she was satisfied with the arrangement. However, for better or for Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit it – I’m a bit of a tech junky and gadget guy. Thankfully, I have matured enough that I don’t just go out and buy every new techno-gizmo that comes along… However, I will get something if I think it will help me increase my profits in my business.:) Now, the great thing is that each year hardware gets less and less expensive, taking the sting out of buying new and useful gadgets (but I’m still resisting the iPhone thing).  And software costs are certainly decreasing as time goes on – especially Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve said many times before, planning and goal-setting is crucial to your success as a martial arts instructor. Or, as someone once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going how will you know when you get there?”

The first step to developing a comprehensive plan for your business is setting goals for profits. Since the majority of our income is derived from tuition payments, we must set profit goals that are based on our enrollments, renewals and attrition.

Setting goals and adopting performance guidelines based on these numbers is one of the most basic management tasks you need to complete if you are to become successful running your studio.

Here’s how to do it… Read the rest of this entry »

When small business owners think about low-cost martial arts marketing ideas, they usually picture themselves running around a Wal-Mart parking lot placing fliers on cars (actually, sticky notes work better and are faster, but that’s for another article…), or perhaps walking up and down the side of the road in a gorilla suit with a sandwich sign over their shoulders (I actually saw a local martial arts school that did this – and yes, the gorilla was wearing a uniform).

However, as a martial arts instructor, your best low-cost form of advertisement is word-of-mouth. The thing is, sometimes you need to encourage your students to talk about your school. Guest pass programs are one way to do this; another method that has worked quite well for me in the past is to host Bring-A-Buddy nights a couple of times a year – during back-to-school time, in January, and right before school lets out for summer.

Basically, here’s how it works: Read the rest of this entry »

Black Belt Club, Shmack Belt Club…

A lot of people in the industry make a big deal out of Black Belt Club upgrades – in fact, some business systems that are being taught revolve around upgrading students to BBC after only a few weeks.

To me, this is like the old illegal “bait-and-switch” sales tactic, where a business advertises a product or service at an extremely low price to get people in their store and then tells the customer they are sold out (or gives some other excuse) and offers to sell them a similar product at the regular price. Shame on those schools that line their pockets by upgrading all their students to a BBC program right off the bat!

Because of the widespread use of these types of tactics, I suggest you find other names to use for your upgraded memberships. For example, I recently spent some time with an Israeli martial arts instructor, and suggested he call his upgraded memberships “Krav Club.”

You could also use the terms “regular” membership, then “Gold” and “Platinum” level for the elite/upgraded programs you offer. The possibilities are endless; the object is to choose a name that is unique and that separates your elite memberships from your typical run-of-the-mill martial arts school.

Okay, enough with the soapbox lecture. Here’s what I recommend you do to make your BBC something your school can be proud of -

Benefits – What Your Elite Program Will Provide

It’s common sense – if you’re charging more, you need to offer more. Typically, you’ll want to offer the students in your upgraded programs something you don’t offer in your basic programs.

You can do this in one of three ways: Read the rest of this entry »