Posts Tagged ‘new students’
Prepping For Summer….
You can download this summer kids martial arts ad in multiples sizes and formats in the member's download area.
When summer rolls around, some school owners rejoice while other wait in grim preparation for what is often their worst months of the year.
So what makes the difference? For the most part, it’s planning ahead and adapting to the circumstances.
And, this involves nothing more than making sure you have some extra income generators running over the summer months, and also having some killer summer specials going to attract new students all summer long.
Summer Income Generators
By far, the best summer income generators are summer camps. That’s the good news.
The bad news? They are a ton of work! Even so, without them you may find yourself in dire straits come the end of summer. That’s why I suggest school owners knuckle under and learn to enjoy running summer camps each year.
The key to running successful summer camps is having a proven plan to follow. Planning and organization are key, and will make the difference between making tons of extra cash over the summer or working your fingers to the bone for little extra gain.
If you have no idea how to run a summer camp, I suggest you get my summer camp system and read it through. Then, follow that simple system to success this summer and add several thousand dollars to your bottom line each month to boot. Read the rest of this entry »
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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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Martial Arts Business Marketing Challenge
All right – I’m throwing down the gauntlet… all in the name of good fun and seeing some school owners achieve massive martial arts success during the final quarter of this year.
So, I’m having a contest for MASAI members during the month of October 2010. Click here to join MASAI The goal? Simple… get participants to challenge themselves to enroll 30 students in 30 days or as close to it as possible (well, really in 31 days… but “30 students in 31 days” just doesn’t have the same ring to it). The reward? This is the fun part – I’ll be rewarding any school owner who can document their progress toward enrolling 30 students in 30 days with the following prizes:
Once You Fill Your School, You Have to Work to Keep It Full
There are easier ways to keep students in your school than joint-locking them in the parking lot.
As I’ve said many times, when you’re starting a new martial art school (or any business) your first priority is building revenue. Cash flow is what runs a business and what keeps it running. Without cash flow your business simply will not grow.
Now, building cash flow is a function of marketing and sales. We market to attract new prospective clients, and then use effective sales tactics to enroll them in our programs. Simple, right?
However, one thing many school owners overlook is retention systems. Retention systems allow you to keep the cash flow that you have, so you aren’t spinning your wheels by taking one step forward and two steps back in growing your school.
I’ve seen this happen many times with new school owners as well as with experienced but under-performing school owners who begin implementing my recommended marketing practices in their business. If they don’t have quality-control and retention systems in place to handle the sudden influx of students, they’ll have a very hard time keeping those students they worked so very hard to get, and that’s a crying shame. Read the rest of this entry »
Attack Of The Killer Guest Pass Ideas, Part 2
Here's a whole stack of guest pass referral program ideas so you can open up a can of whoop-butt on your marketing...
Just in case last month’s gargantuan list of guest pass referral ideas wasn’t enough, you’ll find the second half of my big list of 99 ways to use guest passes to get more students at the end of this article.
But first, let’s review a few key points from last month’s article on using guest passes…
Basic Concepts For Using Guest Passes Effectively
A few key points about using guest passes that will greatly enhance their effectiveness as a marketing method for your school…
- Guest passes are most effective when you convey and retain a high perceived value for the guest passes.
- So, make sure you PRINT THE ACTUAL VALUE ON THE GUEST PASS. For example, “Valued at $100.00″.
- You may find it helpful to only allow staff and students to hand out free guest passes. While this will limit the number of ways you can use guest passes, you will find it creates a very high perceived value in the eyes of the recipient. I always tell my staff and students, “Only staff and students are allowed to give these out, and they’re worth over $100 each. So, be sure you tell whoever you gift them to how much that little card is worth!”
- One way to get around that issue of limiting distribution is to have two different guest passes; a one month guest pass that only staff and students may give away ($100+ value), and a “FREE WEEK!” guest pass that you use in all other guest pass promotions ($25+ value).
Although a guest pass is basically a business card with value, if you treat it nonchalantly you’ll blunt the effectiveness of this marketing method. So, work hard to retain the value of your guest passes! To get a solid introduction to using guest passes in your school, you should read the following articles FIRST before starting to implement the ideas listed later in this article:
Using Referral Programs to Get New Students
Using Holiday Guest Passes To Get New Students
My BIG List Of Guest Pass Referral Program Ideas…
Now without further ado, here’s the second half of my BIG list of guest pass marketing ideas:
A Good Graduation Ceremony Both Attracts And Keeps Students
Making your martial arts promotion ceremonies meaningful and memorable is an effective way to both keep and attract students.
Graduation night is a concept I picked up from observing successful school owners from around the country. When I started my first school, I tried to network with and visit as many successful school owners as I could, both to exchange ideas and to observe their “best practices” in action.
One thing I observed was that, in many of the most successful schools, they used belt promotions as a means of both increasing their retention and to promote their programs. For retention purposes, nothing beats getting the family members of your students involved and giving them an opportunity to see their loved one in action.
In addition, this is also a powerful incentive for your students to perform well and stay committed to their training, because they want to be able to “show” their family how they are progressing in their martial arts training.
Likewise when it comes to attracting new students, there are few things more powerful than third-party endorsements. And, the best third-party endorsements are those people can witness with their own eyes. As they say, “Seeing is believing”. Well, when friends of your students see them getting recognition for their hard work, and enjoying doing their martial art, it is a powerful recruiting tool for your school.
Holding regular scheduled graduation celebration events where students are ENCOURAGED to invite their friends is a great way to achieve both of the above objectives. Here’s how… Read the rest of this entry »
“Are You Nuts? You Want Me To Give Away Free Classes?”
It's easy to get focused on your current students and forget you need to attract new ones. Using guest referral passes is the second most effective marketing method among martial art school owners.
In the recent survey I posted on my blog and in the member forums, guest passes (sometimes called VIP passes) came in at number two as the most effective form of advertisement and marketing for martial art school owners. This doesn’t surprise me a bit, as I’ve been using guest passes as an effective form of marketing since I was first introduced to them in the late 90′s.
Of course, my first reaction to using them was probably similar to that of most instructors. “What? You want me to give away free classes? Are you nuts?” The thing is, I was networking with some very successful instructors at the time, and I was able to verify the effectiveness of guest pass programs firsthand by observing their results. And, soon after I learned how to effectively implement them in my own school, we found they were in fact a great way to get new students.
Basic Concepts For Using Guest Passes Effectively
A few key points about using guest passes that will greatly enhance their effectiveness as a marketing method for your school… 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.
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Do Your Enrollment Numbers Look This Good?
I don't promise you that money will fall from the sky when you join MASAI... but you will discover how to get (and keep) new students.
Capitalizing on Seasonal Trends…
This month’s ad is a unique take on the typical after New Year fitness ads you usually see. The idea is to do a seasonal tie-in, while still capitalizing on the public’s current seasonal interest in health and fitness.
We suggest you use in print ads, fliers, take ones, and get it blown up to hang in your front window…
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.
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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 »
How To Increase Your Martial Arts Enrollments in 2010
Everyone wants more martial arts students in 2010. Here's how to get them.
- Make sure your school is in tip-top shape. First impressions are everything. It won’t do any good to get a ton of people in the front door, if the front area of your school looks like a dump. Make sure everything is cleaned, mopped, dusted, and polished at least twice a day, and that all equipment is Read the rest of this entry »
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Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
In the 14th century, a Franciscan friar and logician by the name of William of Ockham came up with one of the most famous rules of logical deduction… a rule that is still being applied today in a variety of fields and vocations.
The rule is popularly referred to as “Ockham’s Razor”, and it is often expressed like so:
“Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.”
In other words, the simplest solution is generally best. This principle, when applied to business systems, will help keep you sane while reducing your workload immensely.
One of the most common mistakes well-intentioned school owners make is to create complex, complicated systems to manage and run their schools. If you’re doing this, here’s how to fix it… Read the rest of this entry »
The Importance of Retention Strategies, and “Treading Water” in the Martial Arts Industry (Part 1)
Author: M. Massie
By Michael Massie
When you are first starting your school, building your revenues through marketing and recruitment is your first and foremost priority.
Due to the fact that your overall enrollment numbers are relatively low, retention is not an issue at this early stage in the game.
Why Retention Becomes So Important After Your First Year
However, as time goes on your enrollment numbers will increase, thereby making retention an increasing concern for your school’s growth after your second year in business. Here’s why… Read the rest of this entry »
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"Small Dojo Big Profits" way!
