Posts Tagged ‘Successful School’

The Top Things Successful School Owners Do To Achieve Financial Success

When you think about successful school owners, do you ever wonder how they get to where they are? You see, everyone wants to enjoy success, but the reason so few do is because so few people are willing to do the work to get there. Every successful school owner understands this. As millions of people have learned from Stephen Covey’s books, successful people tend to follow the same success habits in their daily lives to achieve and maintain that success. And, starting and running a martial art school is no different. There are things every successful school owner does on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to achieve success. And if you want to be a successful school owner, you need to do those things. Here’s my list of the success habits that successful school owners follow. I suggest you make each one of these habits part of your daily routine for the next month, until they become a habit for you as well.

Success Habit #1: Showing Up

Successful school owners show up to work each day. And, that doesn’t mean showing up 5 minutes before class – it means they invest long hours outside of teaching classes into their business. For every hour you spend on the floor, you should be spending two productive hours working on your business. This includes time you spend doing strategic planning, on marketing, on staff development, on planning events, on public relations, on curriculum, and yes, even on personal and professional development.

Success Habit #2: Being Present

Successful school owners are present with their students, staff, Read the rest of this entry »

Knowing and Doing the Basics is the Key to Martial Arts Business Success

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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Don’t Get Too Comfortable With Your Success – A Small Amount of Worry Is A Healthy Thing

One of the most difficult truths to convey to instructors is the fact that complacency will destroy your business.

I very nearly learned this lesson the hard way a few years after opening my first school. When I opened that school, the main challenge I faced was overcoming the negative impressions previous schools had left on the local community.

However, after about six months I was able to develop a positive reputation as an honest school that provided quality martial arts instruction. I enjoyed a period of a few years in which I was the sole full-time school in the area.

Yet, this period was to be short-lived as two chains (one local, one national) opened branch locations in my town in the following years. And, it caught me completely by surprise.

Ah, complacency. It can sneak up and hamstring you if you’re not careful. Let’s examine what we need to do to stay on our toes without going crazy with worry.
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How One Little Piece of Paper Changes the Whole Dynamic Between You And Your Students

Why use membership agreements?

This seems to be an ages-old controversy among martial art school owners, and it’s one that bears examining.

First, let’s examine why there is so much controversy surrounding the use of membership agreements in the first place.

If you’re against using membership agreements, I’ll bet it’s because of one of the following three reasons:

1. You’ve seen them used unethically in the past,
2. You’ve seen them used ineffectively in the past,
3. You’ve seen them used inconsistently in the past.

Can You Run A Successful School Without Them?

Everyone wants to know this, and here’s my honest answer after running schools for over 15 years and speaking to literally hundreds of school owners:
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Decide Now What Type of School You Want, Or You’ll Be The Proud Owner of Someone Else’s Ideal School

Seriously, have you ever really asked yourself that question? It’s an important one, because without knowing the answer and planning for it, you might very well end up with the kind of school you never wanted. This topic is really all about having a vision for your business – an overarching concept of what you desire your business ultimately to look like. Your “perfect” school, if you will. It’s not enough to just have your doors open and be enrolling students, because you ultimately are the person who shapes and molds your school into Read the rest of this entry »

The Holy Grail of Martial Arts Marketing – Group Enrollments

When I bring up doing group enrollments to most of my martial arts business coaching clients, they typically nod their heads and tell me what a great idea it is…

Then they do nothing to implement what I’ve just shared with them. Why? Because most instructors struggle so much to get just one student, enrolling 10 or more at once seems like a pipe dream to them.

It’s Possible – If You Know How!

Well, it’s not a pipe dream. I actually started doing them way back when I first started my school, and refined and perfected the formula after observing how other successful school owners conducted their own group enrollments. Yes, it takes planning, and yes, you have to lay some groundwork to reap the rewards, but honestly -

If you could enroll as many students in a single hour as you typically do all month long, would you be willing to do a little legwork to make that happen?

Sure you would – and here’s how to do it:
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A Good Graduation Ceremony Both Attracts And Keeps 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 »

After Marketing Comes Selling – Where The Real Fun Begins…

Many would-be school owners and aspiring full-time instructors have convinced themselves that they don’t need to know how to sell to be successful. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Accept this now – you have to be a good salesman (or “sales person” if you prefer) in order to run a successful school. However, this doesn’t mean you have to use sneaky tactics or adopt a hard sell approach to enrollments.

On the contrary, these tactics will work against you as you grow your school. Tricking or manipulating potential students into signing up often creates problems down the road, especially if your programs and customer service are substandard.

Instead, learning to be a good salesman as a martial art school owner requires learning how to treat people right, and selling by demonstrating the value of your programs. Remember – telling informs, but showing convinces. And, only the truly convinced will invest both their money and their time into becoming a long-term member of your school.

Treat ‘Em Right, And They’ll Stay – But First, You Have to Get Them To Try It Out

The thing is, demonstrating value requires that you actually get the prospective student (hereafter referred to as a “prospect”) to try your school out. The introductory course is where the real convincing occurs (this is sometimes called a “trial course” – language you should avoid, since it suggest a lack of commitment on the student’s part). But in most cases, a bit of selling is required to convince a complete stranger to try your school.

So, how do you do it? It’s simple really, if you follow a few basic principles. And while I can’t really go over the complete sales process in a short article, I will go over the basic principles here to get you started. Read the rest of this entry »

Martial Arts Business Success Step #1 – Get Your Marketing And Lead Generation Down Pat

Until a student walks in the door and you collect a check, you aren’t in business.

You can get business cards printed up, tell everyone you’re starting a martial art school, and even sign a lease on a building, but not one of those things really mark the transition from “wannabe” to bona fide school owner.

The only thing that does is getting paid – that’s it. And, you cannot and will not get paid without marketing your school and services effectively. Period.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve counseled struggling school owners who gave little if any consideration to marketing when launching their school. And by the same token, I’ve also counseled school owners who wasted considerable time, effort, and resources on highly ineffective and grossly inefficient marketing methods.

If you want to launch and run a successful school, start with becoming an expert marketer. This article will teach you the fundamentals of marketing and lead generation, which marketing and advertising methods are best suited to small businesses, and how to best implement those methods for the greatest effect. Read the rest of this entry »

“Building It” Fast Is Simply A Matter Of Following What Works In The Majority Of Successful Martial Art Schools…

Starting a martial art school is tough – and growing a martial art school is even tougher.

That’s why I spent a lot of time in my first school analyzing my operations and comparing them to what successful school owners did. I traveled and spent time with them, observing first-hand what they were doing to grow their schools.

From those observations, I compared what successful instructors were doing, and settled on the activities that were most common among the schools I observed…

It’s not like I kept a bunch of data tables and graphs; it was nothing so complicated as all that. Basically, if I saw a lot of successful instructors doing something, I figured it was important and made note of it.

Then, I made sure I was doing those exact same tasks and activities in my own school on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Now after 15 years of doing this, I’m able to boil down the key elements to martial arts business success into a very simple formula and very thorough checklists, ensuring that I’m hitting on all eight cylinders in my martial art school operations.

This month, I’ve decided to share that formula and most of those checklist items with you in the remainder of this article. Want to hit 100 martial arts students fast, and then continue that growth? Read the rest of this entry »

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Chances Are It’s What You’re Not Doing That’s Hurting Your Business…

Let me start this article by stating up front – the following may sound like one big long pitch for my stuff, but hear me out. I’ve advised hundreds of martial arts instructors over the last seven years, and indirectly helped thousands more via my newsletter, websites, blogs, and instructional materials. In that time, I’ve come to identify certain traits successful martial art school owners seem to all share, as well as traits that unsuccessful instructors share (or lack) as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting and Running A Summer Camp: My Own Experience

The first summer camp I ever ran was back around 2000, the summer after I got married. Oh, I had done some piddly little day camps and a Spring Break or Christmas Break camp or two, but nothing on the scale of what we were about to attempt. In preparation for this momentous event, we had just flown in to spend four days with a very successful school owner who ran after-school and summer camps at 3 schools in a large city in Florida, and I had seen for myself how successful his camps were. Read the rest of this entry »

In the business world, secrets are funny things. Many times, successful business owners will spend a great deal of time, money, and effort guarding information that is seemingly insignificant… to the uninformed. And this strikes at the heart of what this tip is about today. For those who don’t know any better, the way a successful school owner operates their school may seem virtually identical to the way someone operates who is just getting by. However, it’s the often the little things that make all the difference in whether someone fails or succeeds in business. That’s because Read the rest of this entry »