Posts Tagged ‘Perspective’

After 8 years of coaching people on how to start and run martial arts schools (12 if you count the time I spent doing it for free for my friends) I’ve heard just about every excuse for failure imaginable. The other day, I was telling a client that I was starting another studio. He asked me if I’d been out of it long, and I explained that I sold a studio in ’09, and that I am re-entering the market because I believe now is a great time to be a school owner. Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping Adult Students Interested Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible…

As hard as it is for some schools to attract adult students, you’d think they’d put more effort into keeping them around.

Even so, adult retention presents a real issue to school owners across the spectrum of styles and markets.

Adults seem to have ten times the distractions of children, and they don’t have parents paying for their lessons who make them go to class twice a week.

Work, family, dating, finishing a degree… these are just a few examples of things that can distract adult students and that may be competing with you for their attention.

So, how do you keep adults attending class?

I don’t have the 110% solution to that issue, but I can offer some helpful suggestions that may help boost your adult retention. Here are a few simple strategies you can use that may help increase your adult enrollment and boost your adult class attendance.
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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 »

One of the most common questions I receive from instructors, and the one that seems to cause most new instructors to have sleepless nights is, “How much should I charge?” This seemingly harmless question somehow ends up becoming an area of confusion and frustration for new instructors and seasoned studio owners alike. Mostly, the reasons for this boil down to the following reasons: * Many instructors place too little value on what they have to offer * And even those instructors who feel they are Read the rest of this entry »