Posts Tagged ‘Step 2’

A Primer On Martial Arts Marketing In The Digital Age

New to online marketing? Don't worry, I've got you covered in this article.

Martial arts marketing has changed dramatically over the last several years – a fact I’ve pointed out over and over again on this site and my blog.

Without knowing how you need to market in these changing times, you’re sunk. No matter how much you long for the days when the yellow pages were king, those days are long gone.

So, what’s an old-school marketer to do?

Not to worry – I’ve got you covered. All you need to know is where to put those skills to use in today’s digital marketing age.

This article should serve as a primer to help those of you who are “old-school” to catch up with the young guns who grew up with a keyboard in their crib. Read on and see just how you can market your school using old-school techniques in the age of the internet… Read the rest of this entry »

The First 30 Make All The Difference

The first 30 students are always the toughest ones to get, but yet that first 30 will be the foundation that your remaining enrollment is built on.

So, it’s crucial that you have a solid marketing strategy for attracting your first 30 students when you open your doors.

For many instructors who are just starting out, getting 30 students may seem like a monumental task. However, just like any other undertaking, if you break it down you’ll find it’s much easier to accomplish.

So, here’s my “quick-start” marketing plan for getting your first 30 students: Read the rest of this entry »

Efficiency, Sanity, And Profitability Go Hand In Hand

Your profitability and sanity rely on how efficiently your school is run. Setting up your school to be low-stress early on is a sure way to maintain both.

Running a martial arts school can easily become a high-stress nightmare for new instructors. At first when you just have a few students, it’s a piece of cake. However, once you start growing beyond a few dozen students the enormity of managing a school can sneak up on you, until one day you wake up and realize, “I have no life outside my school!”

Well, running a high-stress school is a quick path to instructor/owner burnout, and a good way to ruin your business. Stress and fatigue leads to burnout, burnout leads to complacency, and complacency will soon lead to an empty floor.

I’d like to help you avoid all that. Here’s how to avoid burnout by setting your school up to be low maintenance from the very beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

Why It’s Not Always Good Idea To Try To Build A Better Mousetrap

Learning the business of martial arts is a lot like working your way up through the ranks. You take things in sequence, learning new skills that build on those you learned in previous stages.

One thing I’ve observed since I started offering business coaching to martial art school owners is that we have a tendency to want to do our own thing.

Take for example the numerous styles and systems that exist today. There are as many styles and systems as there are instructors who believe they have something unique to offer. As one of my students once put it, “It seems like every instructor reaches a certain level, then they want to create their own system.”

In similar fashion, I’ve observed that martial arts instructors seem to want to create their own systems for starting and running their businesses as well…

Creating a unique expression that bears the mark of one’s individual personality and preferences is fine in the context of artistic expression. But in the context of running a martial art school, this often has disastrous results.

Mastery In Martial Arts Does Not Translate Into Martial Arts Business Mastery…

Think about it… by the time an instructor decides to codify their unique expression of a martial art style or system, they typically have decades of martial arts experience, study, and training under their belt. Thus, their unique approach is based on decades of trial, error, and experimentation. Read the rest of this entry »

Unfortunately, we can’t halt the march of time, but we can plan ahead to ensure that the coming months go very smoothly in our classroom. As everyone knows, things tend to move at a slower pace around the holidays… at least as far as business is concerned. You’ll likely find yourself with some extra time on your hands on those days when you shut down your classes to observe the holidays. And, that’s the best time to take stock of what you’ve done previously, and to plan ahead to improve your classes in the Read the rest of this entry »

When I first heard the term “rotating curriculum”, I had no clue what the concept was. I think the first person I heard talking about it was one of the billing company guys, and to be honest I really discounted the idea wholesale when he mentioned it. Well, a short while later I found I was having a hard time keeping my classes structured as my school grew. I also found it difficult to keep my instructors on track with their lesson plans – no one really had an idea of what to teach in class, and Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the first part of the year, and now is the time to get organized. While you might think “getting organized” is about as exciting as watching your aunt Ethel rearrange her spoon collection, I’m here to tell you that: Disorganization will DEFINITELY cause your school to under perform… And in extreme cases, even to fail. Let me ask you this:

• Do you find yourself working harder than ever, but yet you feel as though you are hitting the same brick wall, every single month?

Read the rest of this entry »