Posts Tagged ‘Mistake’

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 »

Multiple Marketing Methods Spell Lead Generation Success For Smart School Owners

A good marketing plan includes numerous sources for generating new leads and business.

I always talk about multiple source lead generation, and I often say I don’t care where a lead comes from. I felt I needed to provide some clarification on this, so I don’t give the impression that you don’t have to track your lead sources.

What I mean is that I’ll take a lead from ANY source – the lead doesn’t know where it came from. (I’m about to get off on a tangent, but bear with me here because this will be highly instructive.)

Why You Need To Cultivate Multiple Lead Sources

Here’s the deal – relying too much on one lead source is a serious mistake.

Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »

A Confused Mind Never Buys…

Handing out unnecessary information just for the sake of doing it can actually hinder the enrollment process by creating confusion in the mind of the prospective student.

Recently, a MASAI member asked me how many sheets of information he should hand out to his new students and prospects.

Apparently he’d been told by an “expert” that he needed to hand out a ton of information to new students, ostensibly to increase the likelihood that his prospects would enroll…

Well, if you’ve been reading my materials for any length of time, you know that I hold a strong dislike for unnecessary complexity in any shape or form in any process – be it in business systems, martial arts technique, or teaching methods.

And, the above situation is no exception. Let me explain why I think overloading new prospects with information is a mistake, and allow me to show you how to make your enrollment process much, much simpler.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s No Need To Be Afraid Of “FREE”

Let me ask you a question…

What have you given away for free lately?

Now, I’m not talking about giving away a bunch of free lessons – that’s not very wise, and if done too much it’ll cheapen the value of your service in the prospects eyes.

Think about it, you don’t see doctors giving away free surgeries, or attorneys advertising “First Case in Court Free!”

However, there are times when you can give away something for free and have it work in your favor. The trick is finding ways to do this while meeting two very important criteria:

1. First, the free offer must perform the function of enticing the prospect to give up something valuable – either their contact information, their commitment, or their time -
2. Second, the free offer must NOT be constructed in such a way that you are giving away too much value and thereby reducing the perceived value of your services (and I’ll explain how to determine whether this is so – read carefully because this is important!)

Meeting these two criteria is crucial to your free offer’s success. Fail to meet either one and you’ll end up on the losing end of the deal, every single time.

So, how do you do this? Here’s how… Read the rest of this entry »

Oftentimes, prospective martial arts business owner start their schools without ever taking the time to write out a specific game plan for their success. I know that I was guilty of this mistake when I made my first few attempts at opening my martial arts business. Oh, I did all the “business owner” things; I secured a location, had business cards printed (they made me feel like I was officially in business), put an ad in the paper, and told everyone I knew about my programs. Yet, my first few attempts at opening a martial arts business were Read the rest of this entry »

As a martial arts school owner, you have a million things on your mind. Student recruitment, testing, curriculum, overhead – the list goes on and on. The last thing you’re probably worried about is your website. However, more and more consumers are going online every day to research products and services before they buy. And, many of these consumers are doing their buying research after hours, when you aren’t open. For such consumers the internet is the primary way they research their buying decisions. Consider the fact that over 200 million searches are done Read the rest of this entry »

Solomon Brenner is a martial arts school owner, and is the author of Black Belt Parenting. He has developed a unique and effective system that teaches parents how to continue the lessons their children learn in the dojo at home. We feel it is a good resource to use in your school for student retention and thought we’d share a few excerpts for your perusal.

Challenging Your Child to Success

Parents have the job of challenging their children. Unlike criticizing them when they make a mistake, challenging them will help motivate them to improve and will introduce them to the concept of “cause and effect.” When the bedroom is clean (cause), there’s time for an extra hour of TV (effect). When a child misbehaves, the effect should be a learned lesson, not a prolonged punishment.
Read the rest of this entry »

As a martial arts school owner, it is important that you understand the “why’s” and “how’s” of hiring and training staff. I don’t want you to make the mistake that many school owners make and hire people that you don’t need.

For some reason, the martial arts industry has gotten the notion that a martial arts studio has to have a lot of employees with fancy-sounding titles in order to be successful. This is simply not true, for a variety of reasons… Read the rest of this entry »