Martial Arts Insurance Group

Ask The Experts - Answers

March 2019

The Best Referral Program – Bring a Friend.

Read or Listen to 10 minute YouTube podcast (Best option)

I have tried so many different referral programs and most did not work. Fortunately, through trial and error I came up with an extremely effective referral system.

Having an effective referral system should be the most important marketing tool you possess. This is easier said than done. The difficulty is how or more importantly, what is it that motivates students to bring a friend in. When I first decided to create a “Bring a Friend” program (as I called it), I thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. I knew my students loved me and I thought they would instantly jump into action to bring in friends to help me. I was wrong. They did not. I asked for this help until I was blue in the face. I would sign up a student here and there from asking but overall just asking for help was a failure.

From there, I came up with the bright idea that I would give my students something to motivate them to bring a friend in. Back then, money was tight so I decided to give away incentives that didn’t cost me anything. I decided to try to give them gifts of discounts. If a student brought in a friend who signed up, the student would receive a discount. I tried discounts on their monthly payments and I also tried to give discounts on merchandise. Neither option had much appeal. I also tried rewards that were not martial arts related like video games for the kids and restaurant gift certificates for the adults. I tried many variations. Response was dismal and not to my liking.

I could go on with more examples that were mildly successful but now it is time to share the answer that turned my whole bring a friend program around. It became my number one marketing tool. The key to a successful bring a friend program is “Exclusivity”. I came up with the “Ambassador” program. Students who brought in and exposed others to the benefits of training were ambassadors to the art. This entitled them to special privileges that others did not have. It was an exclusive club. I created special classes and seminars that only ambassadors could attend (not taking away the normal training times). The student is now only addressed as Ambassador Smith (whatever the students last name is).

When a student brought in a friend who signed up, I would have a special ceremony. This ceremony was held at the end of class. It only took a couple of minutes. I had all the students sit down while I called the student up in front of class. I presented the student with a special T-shirt. This T-shirt had a really awesome design. You could not buy this T-shirt, you had to earn it. From there I would have the whole class stand up. I would say “I present to you Ambassador Smith”. Then I had the whole class stand and bow to the new Ambassador along with a big round of applause. I made this a really big deal. If a student brought in three friends they were presented with a special Bomber Jacket. It was offered for sale, but at a very high price (over $150). Once again this jacket had a really awesome design on the back and front.

These two items are good examples of utilizing a double edged sword in your marketing. You are motivating students with items of high perceived value and promoting your school outside the walls of your school with very unique and desirable clothing items.

I am sure you can come up with some variations to this system on your own but exclusivity is the key. Make your student standout and feel special.

Please, if you have a good referral program share it. We would love to hear about it.

[email protected]

February 2019

Increasing Your Female Enrollment

Read or listen to 13 minute YouTube

This is a good time to work on increasing your enrollment of women students. Woman students usually makeup the lowest percentage of a school but it doesn’t have to be that way. I have a few schools that have a majority of women students. You would be surprised if you could see all the women in your area that want your services. The big question is how to you get to these women. I asked a few schools to help us answer this question.

I asked several school owners the answer to this question who in turn gave several really good answers. I will convey the top three answers.

The first idea is to deal with hospitals. This really makes sense since hospitals are filled with women. I heard that many hospitals have a department that deal with enrichment of the hospital staff. They organize all kinds of activities for the hospital employees. Many schools said that it is not too hard to set up a program through this department. These departments feel self-defense and physical fitness is a huge benefit for the staff. I am not sure whether setting up women’s self-defense or fitness sessions gain the most students. I was given about a 50/50 response to which is more effective for a larger turnout. I say try them both. Most said that if they were given the space at the hospital they had a better turnout then if they held the initial classes at their school. It seems that the women were more comfortable crossing the line of getting started at the hospital. Some schools said they had a better turnout if the sessions were held for free while others said they would get the same turnout if they charged a $10 per class fee. A few said they liked to use free to get themselves in the door and then added a fee the following year. All said that after the initial session that they had a good conversion rate to full time students.

Several boasted of their success when dealing with PTA’S/PTO’S. The majority said that they use free women self-defense for the mothers and teachers of the school as a way in. A technique that I personally had success with to initiate a relationship with the PTA is through donation. Most PTA’S have some type of auction to raise money for their school. I would offer the PTA a few free one month memberships to my school. They were very appreciative to my offer. I also got free advertising when I was mentioned as an auction item. I always converted the users of the free month into full time students. It was a big win for me. After that the PTA was very receptive to working with me. It takes a little work to cultivate this relationship but is well worth the time. Now I run my self-defensive classes every year with little effort to set up. In fact I had a PTA president call me last week asking when I was going to offer my program. It's great when they call me.

I have never tried this personally but several said they have great success when dealing with Mall’s and big chain stores. Malls and stores are concerned about their employee’s safety and usually are receptive to personal defense training. Most school owners said that they got in the door offering free sessions. The Malls have management companies that you can get a hold of about this. You can talk to the managers of the chain stores. They will ask for a copy of your liability insurance.

It will take some effort getting these programs off the ground but the rewards will be felt for years to come.

I wish good luck to your school.

January 2019

Disguising repetition. (YouTube Video)

As instructors, we face the dilemma of making our students proficient in a way that will retain their interest. We all know that in order to be proficient at a technique the technique has to be done thousands of times. The repetitiveness of obtaining this proficiency is what causes our dilemma. How do we teach students to be proficient and still keep their interest?

For thousands of years the combative arts have been passed down through the repetition of doing a technique thousands of times. We all know that this is the only way to become proficient by doing the technique over and over until you become proficient. For many of us this is not a problem. We are so dedicated to learning and improving our techniques that the repetition of this process does not bother us. We are the few. Most people, especially today, have very low attention spans. They want everything immediately. That is why, for martial arts schools, the retention rate is at an all-time low. We have to work in a different and new way to keep our students. The best way is to disguise the repetition in a fun and effective way. Please listen to this 10 minute YouTube video to learn ways that will help you achieve this goal.

December 2018

December is a tough month to gain new students.

More information about these successful programs in this 7 minute YouTube.

December is a very tough month to gain new students. There are not too many things that you can do. During this time of year people are very busy preparing for the holidays, as I'm sure you are. I do have a couple of things that have worked for me in the past that I am going to tell you about.

The first, is I run a special on a two month program and suggest that people give it as a holiday present. I let all my students know that I have this special going. I tell them that there is no greater gift that they can give then physical fitness, self-defense and self-improvement. I also like to promote this on all my social media platforms. A little secret that I do to get my posts shared is that I use video. What I like to do is put up a very cool video with a post about my special underneath it. The video does not have to have anything to do with my special. It just has to be a good video that people want to share. When they share the video my message about the special I am running get shared and people see it. Running the special usually gets me a few students every year. It does not take a lot of work or effort.

The second technique that I use to gain new students during this time of year is to give a gift certificate to the parents and spouses of my students. I tell the parents that the gift certificate is in appreciation for them bringing their children to my classes. I tell them that I realize the sacrifices that they have to make as a family to get their child to my class. I also let the spouses know of my adult students that I appreciate them giving up time with their loved ones so they can train at my school. The gift certificate I usually use is a one-month course, totally free. Listen to the 7-minute Youtube to find out how I designed the certificate and more about running these programs. I have done this technique for years. It has always brought me new students.

The hardest part about gaining a new student is getting them on your floor. These two proven techniques have worked for me year after year after year. They take little work and something you can easily do. Do yourself a big favor and run these programs

As always good luck to your school

November 2018

Black Friday profits

Watch Vlog for more info

This is a fantastic time of year to bring in extra income to your school. I am very excited to talk to you about the holidays that are coming up and the great ways that you can generate income for your school.

Today I would like to discuss what you can do on this upcoming Black Friday to bring in more money to your school and also gain new students. All of your children students will be off school on Good Friday. This is a good time for you to run a special event on that day. You can run this special event all day where the parents can drop off their child at your school. Your students can stay there all day or as long as their parent wish. Many parents still have to work on Good Friday or they may want to go out shopping or run errands so they need someone to watch their child. Another reason why the parents will drop their child off at your school is they don't want their child to sit around the house and do nothing that day. Plus the children themselves will beg to come to your school if you make this a very fun and exciting event. Every year I have students asked me are we going to run the Black Friday event again this year? They get extremely excited about this program if you make it super fun. I like to run different special classes, fun events, games, prizes and snacks. Just a really fun day.

I like to use this special event as a Bring a Friend event. I charge my students a small fee for this event to cover the snacks and prizes but I let the friends that they bring come for free. Most of my students will bring a friend to this event because it is so much fun. I give all the friends a special gift certificate for a low-cost 2 month program that they can ask their parents to give them for Christmas. Every year I gain new students from this idea. The first year you do this you may not get a lot of friends because it's a new program. If you push you can get a few. Make sure this is such a fun event that next year every student brings a friend. This is a big time of year for me to gain new students and this is a great way to do it.

I like to have all kinds of Christmas gift ideas on display for when the parents drop off the children at my school that day. You can go to Century Martial Arts. They usually have a bunch of different gift ideas, new products and fun things to use as gifts for Christmas. Also check with whoever you buy your Martial Arts supplies from. I like to put up these gift ideas along with new equipment designs, fighting gear and other things that the students may want for Christmas. You do not have to stock your school with hundreds of each item. Just have one or two of a lot of different items so you can take orders from the students who want these products. I take the money that day and then order the gifts to be delivered before Christmas.

Another great idea that works for me year every year is creating a Christmas Gift Wish List. I hand these out to the students both children and adult so they can check off the items that they want for Christmas. The student then gives this wish list to their family members so they can get Christmas gifts from your school. You need to get this gift list out as soon as possible because family members only have so much to spend on Christmas and you want them to spend some of their money with you. This idea works great. You need to do it because it will generate a lot of extra income for your school.

I run this special event every year and every year it turns out to be a great success. The first year it may turn out to be slow but each and every year it gets to be a bigger and better event. Do yourself a big favor and put this event together to create more income, increased fun for your students plus a good way to gain new students. This will be a big win for you and your school. Have a great holiday. As always good luck to your school.

October 2018

Halloween promotion that works.

This is another easy and free promotion that should get you new students ever year. It is so simple and it has worked every time for me. You need to print out guest passes on orange stock with black print. I like to add a Halloween design on it.

This is how you get these guest passes distributed for free (read more here)

I put the guest passes into bundles and give them to my students and parents of students. I ask that they pass out a guest pass with the candy they give out for Halloween. This could give you 100’s of views. You can’t ask for much more. 100’s of impressions for only the small cost of printing. Please take advantage of this. Free impressions don’t come around every day.

Another fun event that can get you new students. Host a “Bring a Friend’ Halloween party. Host a Halloween party where your students are encouraged to bring a friend to the party. Make sure this is a very fun party. I almost always get a bunch of kids to attend trials from contacting them through this party. Most the friends that attend should do a trial program for you. This is a fun event while you should gain more students.

Halloween is a great time to promote your school for very little cost. You need to take advantage of this. Getting new students takes effort.

Good luck with your school.

September 2018

Moving to the Top of a Google Search

We all know how important it is to be on the first page of a Google search. I don't know about you but I never go to the second page. Do you?, probably not. Even if you are currently on the first page of a Google search doesn't mean that you're going to stay there. You have to do periodic maintenance to your status to make sure you stay there.

So I'm sure you all have a Facebook page maybe a Twitter account or SnapChat. This is a good start but you need to have more social media sites. When I was told this I resisted doing anything about it because I knew I didn't have time to do social media on a bunch of different sites. My marketing guy told me that I did not have to do many posts but creating the site itself was very important because it shows Google that you are a serious business. Another important thing about creating all these social media accounts is that on each one of them you can create a back link back to your webpage. These social media sites have a lot of credibility so a backlink from them gives you a lot of juice to help you get to the top of a Google search. Make sure you get the backlink. If you can’t find the place (usually in your profile) to add your website address to the social media site lookup how to on YouTube.

I reluctantly created around 30 of the social media sites. It did not take me too long. I would do 3 or four a day and soon I created them all. I might do a post a month or every other month to show that I'm active on these sites. Most of the time I create the same post but write it differently and just do three or four a day. It takes me less than 10 minutes a day.

After doing this small amount of work, I've noticed a significant increase in my ranking on a Google search page. I haven't had any leads come in from some of these less popular social media sites but being ranked higher in a Google search has brought me many new customers. What sounded like a very dumb idea to me in the beginning turned out to be a successful venture.

More info on Yubetube https://youtu.be/OjHCgNH6EuQ

As always good luck to your school.

Google My Business / Brand - https://plus.google.com/
Google+ Profile - https://plus.google.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com
Tumblr - http://tumblr.com/
Medium - https://medium.com/
Blogspot - http://blogspot.co.uk/
Gravatar - https://en.gravatar.com/
WordPress - https://wordpress.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/
InstaPaper - https://www.instapaper.com/
Snapchat – https://snapchat.com
Scoop It - http://www.scoop.it/
Delicious - http://del.icio.us/
Diigo - https://www.diigo.com/
Stumble Upon - http://www.stumbleupon.com/
Live Journal - http://livejournal.com/
Storify - https://storify.com/
Xmarks - http://share.xmarks.com/
Bag the Web - http://www.bagtheweb.com/
Pearltrees - http://www.pearltrees.com/
Twitxr - http://twitxr.com/
Netvibes - http://www.netvibes.com/
My Space - https://myspace.com/
Box - https://box.com/
Soup IO - http://www.soup.io/
Folkd - http://www.folkd.com/
Pocket - https://getpocket.com/
Trello - http://www.trello.com
Url Organiser - http://url.org
Plurk - http://plurk.com

August 2018

(Additional information audio on YouTube)

It is funny how you use a marketing technique that works for years and then all of a sudden you stop using it. I don’t know why this happens. I was looking through a back issue of a MAIA magazine when I came across an example of an ad they suggested schools should use. The ad was titled “Back to School Success Workshop”. This reminded me of a marketing campaign that I used to use but for some reason quit doing so.

If it was possible for you to know when someone in your community was interested in the martial arts it would be a great time to send them an ad or some other form of contact. This would give you a pretty good chance of getting them into your school. Unfortunately we don't know when someone wants our product or not. That is why a lot of companies with money will send out constant advertising and constant marketing so they can be in the person's face at the right time. For this reason, this back-to-school marketing is a great idea.

We may not know when someone in our community may want our product but we do know that parents are very interested in their child having a successful school year. So it will be extremely beneficial if you can come up with a reason to get in front of these parents at a time that you know they want information about how their child can be more productive at school. This will give you a great chance of your marketing connecting to the right people. At the beginning of the school year many parents are thinking about how they can get their child to be more successful. So putting out marketing that will reflect this issue has a great chance of being reviewed.

We used a two-week introductory course that was heavily based with life skills. We would have discussions each class about goal setting, self-discipline, honor, respect all those type of things. We would create handouts that the children would take home reflecting that particular life skills that we talked about during class. Another good idea is to give the children homework. This homework would be something real simple where they would go home and discuss with their parent a particular question that we gave them. This was very beneficial because the child would go home and have a discussion with the parents showing the parents what kind of great life skills that their child is learning in this course. We also, at the end of the class, would have the whole class repeat an oath of success. The end of class has the most parents present. This is a good time to present to the parents. This oath reaffirmed the positive attributes that parents are looking for and they leave with a good feeling.

This is just an introductory course for the children. You have to make sure that this course is a hundred percent super exciting for the children. If this class is exciting and fun the children will beg their parents to sign up at your school. So if the child is begging to join and the parents sees that you teach success you have a really good shot at getting new students.

This is a rare time of the year where you know what the community is looking for. All the parents are very excited wanting their child to have a great school year and you can benefit from this. This is a very beneficial program to run and it's an easy way to get new students. As always good luck to your school.

July 2018

(Additional information audio on YouTube)

Something that I always had great success with was hosting an end of the summer party. I really didn't call it end of the summer party because that's kind of a negative name because the kids have to go back to school soon and especially in the north where the crappy weather is coming. I pretty much called it a different name every year. Just pick a really cool name that sounds fun and go with it. There are many benefits of running such a party.

During the summer many of your students take a break. The summertime is a very active time for families and they do many things which does not allow them time to participate at your school. The longer someone takes off the greater chance is that they don't come back. So you want to get them back to your school and you want them to be excited. So running this party is a great reason for them to come back to your school. And what a fun time it will be. This gives you a good reason to get on the phone and call every student that has not been coming to class. You can really hype up this party and how it will be great to have them back and what a fun time it will be.

This party can also be used as a great recruiting tool. I make this party a big bring a friend event. So all the students can bring one or more of their friends, which is highly encouraged. Now your students are there with their friends having a great time. It is a great opportunity to get their friends to sign up at your school. I don't try to actually sign them up at the party but what I do is I offer all the friends a free two-week. I have a high success rate of these friends coming in. This is mainly because they have such a good and fun time at the party. Most sign up for my regular program. So I highly recommend this party so you can bring in new students.

With all this being said the party that you create better be a fun time. I suggest that you get with some friends, family and maybe some of your closer students to come up with a plan to create a fun event. Maybe even a different location than your school. Sometimes I run it at a park.

Another good idea that you can do to help offset some of the cost of this party is to partner up with some of the local businesses in your shopping plaza along with others in the community around you. I go to my fellow business people in the neighborhood and I tell them if they can contribute to my party that I will promote their business to my students. This is appealing to many different businesses because I am a family oriented martial arts school. These businesses are highly motivated to connect with families in the community. I have them supply drinks, food, party favors, coupons and all kinds of different things to help make the party great. This process may take you a little while to get going at first. You may only get one or two businesses to work with you. This is an event that you run every single year and every single year you will add one or two businesses to help you. So eventually you have many businesses that come out to your party and it becomes this really big event for the businesses, your students and you.

This may not sound like a real beneficial tool to motivate your students and to get new prospects but it really is and it's something that you need to do. It is extremely effective.

As always, good luck to your school.

June 2018

Google My Business Page

Additional info on this YouTube video: Here

I hate talking about Search Page Optimization (SEO) almost as much as I hate doing it. I would rather talk about some really cool martial arts technique or some fun ways to teach a new program or anything other than this. We do not want to do SEO but we all know we have to do it. We know this must be done in order for us to get our martial arts school up at the top of the first page of a Google search. The top of the search page should increase the likelihood of many new students. Even if you are already on the first page, you still need to do maintenance to make sure you stay there. Whoever gets to the first page or even the top of the first page and continues to do proper SEO will stay there and you will not be able to beat them. If the person on the top is not doing their best at SEO you can do a better job and take that person's place. I am going to give you a few things to do maybe every other month or so to help you get to the top of the search page. You should probably do more but I know most of you won't. So at least do these Basics because like I said, you need to get to the top of the first page.

I will assume that if you are still reading this article you already have a web page. You need to create a good website where people want to stay once they get there. You need to take a good look at your website to make sure it is a place where a person will remain. Does it contain the information they may be looking for? The longer the person stays on your site the more credibility Google will give you in a search result.

The first thing you need to do is create a Google My Business page at https://www.google.com/business/. If you do not already have one then get one because there are many things that you can do with your Google My Business page that will help bring students to your door. If you do not have a Google My Business page then I will enclose a link to a quick video on how to create a proper Google My Business page (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1y_0k06MPc). This Google My Business page is extremely important because it is weighted very heavily by Google as to how it ranks you, where it ranks you and why it ranks you. Plus customers are used to using it and they will contact you from it if it is optimized in a good professional way. I am also including a link to another YouTube video that will show you how to optimize and use your Google My Business page so it will help you gain more customers ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvcdY_U-DAc&t=213s).

Once you have your Google My Business page created it will be time for you to go get reviews. Reviews are one of the most important things that can help you rank high in the Google Map area. It’s at the top of the search page and in the organic search which is the part of the search page that you do not have to pay for. What I suggest you do is to ask all your students to give you a 5 Star rating on your Google business page. Make sure that when they do a rating for you it is not done at your school. Google will recognize the IP address as being the same as the one for your school and it will actually give you negative points. So make sure your students do give you a 5-Star rating and that they do it at a different location. The more 5 Star ratings that you get the higher credibility Google will give you. The more credibility you have the better Google will rank you.

I know all this stuff is really boring and not what you want to do but it is necessary to improve your business. So watch the videos and get your Google My Business page together and you should see increased traffic flow to your school. As always good luck to you and your school.

May 2018

Martial Arts Summer Income

Additional information on YouTube

I would like to talk to you about adding extra income to your school during the summer months. The summer months can be quite difficult for many schools to generate money. For one, the weather is usually nicer and people want to get outside, especially in the North. I have been contacted by many schools to give them ideas about summer income. I did talk about this subject last month in “Ask the Experts” column. So you can go back and read or listen to the information that I put up about summer camps. Summer camps is the best and most efficient way to bring in income for your school during the summer. So I would definitely try to implement a summer camp.

Although these events are designed for your students to have fun they are also useful to bring in much need summer income. You can charge to enter the events, admission of spectators and concession fees.

An additional idea that you can use for the summer is what I like to call Karate Games. Karate Games is a day of fun and excitement for your school. Karate Games is where I would have all kinds of fun events for my students to enter and compete to have a really good time. An example of one of the events that I did, makes me laugh thinking about it. I would get a long 4 by 4 something like 6 ft or 8 ft long. I made a base at the bottom of it with two by fours so it could be laying on the ground and wouldn't flip over when people stood on it. I would have a student stand on each end of the four by four. They would walk across the 4 x 4 like a tight rope. In each of their hands they would have a blocker where they would meet in the middle and they would battle each other with these blockers, trying to knock the other person off. The winner got to move on while the loser would be eliminated. This was one of the funniest events for the students. They would go into battle, knock each other off the 4 by 4 while laughing and get back in line to do it again. Now this was also a very fun event for the adults. For the advanced adults, the blockers aren't such a big thing to knock each other off. So I would have those adults stand on one foot while they battled. You talk about laughing, the adults laughed so hard they almost fell off from that. And then we would have prizes or Medals for the ones who could battle the best.

Another event was to have a telescoping rod that was an upside-down L shape. You can make it at all different heights. At the end of the rod we would have a ball tied to it. The students would have to go up and kick the ball and each time that they would go through the whole row of students we would move it up to the next level. We would always make the first couple of levels easy so every single kid or every single adult would have a chance to go through a few rounds. After the third round it would start to get a little bit more difficult. Eventually you would get down to the last child or the last adult in their categories. This was a very fun event and made everyone laugh and have fun.

We would come up with all kinds of different events for our students. All of them were designed to create fun ways to do martial arts. So get with your staff or if you do not have staff get with your higher belts or parents and design some fun things for your students to do. Some of my schools would get with the parents and the higher belt adults and go out to have refreshments while they planned a fun event. So even down to the planning was designed for fun. Remember the more fun the students have the more they're going to stick around. If the parents have fun they’re going to show up to more classes. Research has shown the more parents that come to class the higher your retention will be.

Another event you can run during the summer to bring an extra income is an inter-club tournament. We would call these tournament parties. This is what it sounds like. We would have a tournament but in a party frame of mind. Besides the martial arts events that the students would compete in there were refreshments and different kind of fun things for the parents and kids to do. Like one of the events that we would run that was really funny is a program like King of the mat. You would start off with your two lowest ranking belts. They would fight each other. The winner would stay up and the loser would have to sit down. After that, the next ranking belt would step up and face off with the winner. Of course the winner would stay. Eventually the higher belts would win out but every once in a while a lower-ranking belt would move up the ladder significantly and it would be really exciting. The students had a lot of fun doing this and ask for it even in our regular classes. You have everybody sit around in a circle and everybody watches this event. A lot of fun.

So these are just a couple of things that you can do to generate extra income during the summer. Get with your staff, higher-ranking students, parents and your friends or whoever you need to and create some fun activities. You can charge money for all these fun activities. If people are having fun they do not mind to pay. Fun, fun, fun is the name of the game.

Please do me a favor. Do a Google search for Martial Arts Group insurance. When the search comes up look to the right side and you will see our Google my Business page. All of you should have a Google my business page. It will help with your Google standing and make you go up higher in the search. On our Google my business page please give us a 5-star rating. It will really help us out. If you cannot give us a 5-star rating please contact me and let me know why. So I can bang some heads around because great service is key to us. Ha ha.

As always good luck to your school.

April 2018

"Additional Information on YouTube”

I would like to talk to you today about all the benefits of running a special summer program or summer camp. This all day or half day session can be run as a one week camp or an all summer session. I would highly recommend running an all summer program because this program should be able to generate a minimum of $4000 a week. Even if your job won’t allow you the time off it would be in your best benefit to find someone to run the summer program for you. Maybe one of your trusted upper belts can help you. Even if you split the profits with them it will be a great generator of income for your school. I find it very hard to look away from a minimum $4000 per week income.

An additional benefit to running a summer program is that it is a great way to gain new students. Soon many parents will be looking for a program to place their children in for the summer while they are at work. They have to find a place so why can’t it be your place? The idea, for a parent putting their child into a program that will increase their child’s self-discipline, physical fitness level and all the many benefits your program can supply, is very appealing to them. Once you have them in your summer program you should be able to sign them up to your regular classes once the summer session ends. Granted that you show the parents that you can build their child’s character. You can make good money while gaining new students. This is win-win for everyone.

It is also a great way to increase your retention rate of your current children students. Because of what we teach, there has to be a lot of repetition and sometimes classes get a little boring for the kids. It is hard to present an exciting class day after day. The summer program can add a whole lot of excitement into your children. Since the sessions are so much longer you can do so much more with that time. Not only can you teach your curriculum but you have plenty of time to add fun and exciting things to do. This will leave the impression that your school is a very fun place to be. The more they have this feeling the less likely they are to quit. I don’t know how many times one of my Black Belts have come up to me thanking me for making sure they didn’t quit. It is our job to get them to their goal. This is a great way to increase retention and make much need income for your school. Once again a great win-win scenario.

It is especially important to run the summer program if you already run an after school program. Your current afterschool parents will need a place to host their children during the day for the summer. I am sure that you spent a lot of time, energy and money building this clientele to begin with. The last thing you want to do is send them somewhere else for summer care. You never know they might not come back. They may like the new place better. Keep your current parents happy and host a great summer program.

Hosting a summer camp will also increase your retail sales. More students means more sales. You can also sell items that are specifically targeted towards the summer program. A special summer T-shirt is a good example of this.

I talked to many schools that do run summer programs asking what they charge the parents per week. For a full day program I would estimate the cost charged at $195 per week. You should easily be able to get a minimum of 20 students for this program. You have current students to target and there are 100’s of local families that will be looking for a place to host their child for the summer. 20 students will give you an estimated $4000 per week. That is really good money for doing something that you love which is also a huge benefit for the community. It is hard on parents to find a good place to take their children for the summer. You can really help them out while generating much needed income for your school. Some schools also give an additional option for some of the students to attend a half-day session. This is a good option because not every child needs to come for a full day. Having this option should increase the number of potential students. A good question is how much should you charge for the half-day students. I would say if you charge the average of $195 that $145 or $150 is a good charge. It gives them a break on tuition but it also is a number that makes it worth your wild. It should be good for the both of you.

As always, before you start anything new program you should investigate your state and local laws regarding your endeavors.

I discuss more details about running the summer camp in the YouTube video. You should listen to it. This can do so much for your school.

Please do me a favor. Lookup Martial Arts Group insurance in Google. If you like our service give us a 5 Star rating on the right side of the search results. It is our Google My Business page. We are trying our best to server you. If you have any questions you can email me at [email protected]. As always good luck to your school. Take Care

March 2018

Greeters can make a huge difference in your closing rate

Hear how this process works at https://youtu.be/vQOAP9EPGFo

Greeters can make a huge difference in your closing rate. I know that most of you have some type of greeting process for prospects but it needs to be refined. A greeting done correctly will close the majority of prospects before they even set foot on your floor. Granted you show them a fun and exciting class.

I stumbled on this beneficial technique kind of by accident. A father and son finished my introductory class and it was time for me to close them to more of a long term program. I was sure that they would sign up because they were super enthusiastic about the training. I brought the father into my office and I starting my sales presentation. I was so sure that he would sign up that I cut my presentation short. The father told me he would love to signup but money was tight. He asked if there was anything I could do. While I was thinking he jumped in with a proposal of his own. He said that if I was ok with him signing up and letting his son train for free he could bring me a bunch of new members. I wasn’t too enthused about this. I have heard this story before and no one really brought me enough members to make it worth it. Even though I had my doubts, I granted his son a free membership anyways. I really liked the father and the son was really polite. Both were the kind of people that would make my program look good within the community.

Believe or not he started bringing me new members. By the time these people came in they were practically closes already. The father really hyped me up. This was working out great! I was very happy with the deal. I knew I couldn’t make this deal with everyone. The father worked out because he was a special person. How do I wish I could teach the sales skills this guy had.

The father bringing me new students helped me at that location but I couldn’t duplicate it for my other schools. Getting new members was great but the biggest benefit came from something I observed. This was a gold mine and it was something I could duplicate at all my locations.

I noticed that after I greeted a new prospect, the father would greet as well. He greeted every new person even if he didn’t bring them in. It was more than just saying hello, there is the locker room and we will get class started soon. He would take the prospect around and introduce them to everyone in the class. He really made them feel welcome. The father would immediately come up to the prospect at the end of class. He would ask them how they liked it and if they had any questions or needed any help with what they have just learned. A new spirit took over my school. Soon it was just a normal process for all the students to make the new person feel welcome. The current students would go out of their way to help and make the prospects welcome.

I refined the greeting process and made sure that all my schools were simulating the technique. I found out that children greeting the children prospects benefited the prospect and the student greeter. The prospect was made to feel welcome while the student was proud to be given the important position of greeter. Being trained to be a greeter made many kids come out of their shells. We all know that if a student feels important and needed they are far less likely to quit. The parents of the greeter student loved to see their child stepping up into this roll. They saw their child as a leader. This benefitted everyone.

I would also take the parent of the prospect child over to the gallery and introduced them to all the current parents watching class. This created an environment of camaraderie amongst the parents. It also made me bond to parents sooner because it got me out to mingle amongst the parents during these introductions. This also increased the number of parents that stayed to watch class. You need parents to hear your message. They can’t hear it if they drop their child off and leave.

My closing rate soared. Hardly anyone left the school without signup to one of my programs. The greeting process was implanted in all my schools to great results. We signed more students while making them more comfortable while having more fun for all.

Good Luck to your School

https://www.igomag.com Martial Arts Insurance

February 2018

I could go on with more examples that were mildly successful but now it is time to share the answer that turned my whole bring a friend program around. It became my number one marketing tool. The key to a successful bring a friend program is “Exclusivity”. I came up with the “Ambassador” program (give it a better name if you have one). Students who brought in and exposed others to the benefits of training were ambassadors to the art. This entitled them to special privileges that others did not have. It was an exclusive club. I created special classes and seminars that only ambassadors could attend (not taking away the normal training times). The student is now only addressed as Ambassador Smith (whatever the students last name is).

I am sure you can come up with some variations to this system on your own but exclusivity is the key. Make your student standout and feel special.

Please, if you have a good referral program share it. We would love to hear about it.

January 2018

A great drill that makes your students better and will also get you more students

This drill comes from a game that I played as a child. I initially added it to my instruction for something fun to do. It wasn’t too long that I noticed huge benefits to my students. Their sparring skills improved immensely from doing this drill. This is so much fun that all my students beg to play. Another side effect of adding this to my intro programs was that my enrollment percentage went way up.

https://youtu.be/k9Ej4ewilw0

December 2017

This holiday promotion goes a long way.

You make up a gift certificate to give to the parents of your youth students. The one I used offered the parents a free course. Place the gift certificate in a Christmas or Holiday card. I offered parents a choice from a variety of courses/activities.

For example, I would have courses for self-defense, weight loss, flexibility, physical fitness, etc… You should add as many options as you can come up with. You want to list an option that will appeal to their needs and wants. What buzz word will bring them to action? It doesn’t matter since your goal is just to get them on your floor. I found that if a parent used the gift certificate, they were 90% more likely to sign up for continued instruction. This promotion has always gotten me new students.

It has an additional side benefit. Even if a parent chose not to use the gift certificate, they were still very appreciative. I can’t tell you how many came up to me and thanked me for being so thoughtful. It let them know I cared about them.

You should take every opportunity you can, to demonstrate to parents that you appreciate them. It really helps your student retention.

I wish you merry Christmas and happy holidays.

November 2017

Christmas and Holiday Profit

You need to get your Christmas marketing together now! Here are two options that have been very profitable for me in the past. They work every time. This is the time of year where people spend money and if you plan right they will spend it with you.

1. Create a gift wish list and hand out to your students. This is a list of martial arts oriented gifts, I add pictures, of a number of items that your students can checkoff. This gives your student’s family ideas for gifts for your students. The family purchases (or orders) these gift from you.
2. Host an all-day training (free or charge) on Black Friday. This is where parents can drop their child off at your school for supervision. You can have fun classes and games planned. You can market this as an extremely fun day. The kids don’t have school and many parents need a place for their kids to go while they go to work or shop. This gives you an opportunity to get the parents into your school to see all the gift options (on sale) you have on display. Make an inviting gift display. Plus this will give you goodwill for helping out the parents.

This works every year!

Click here to listen to a 2 ½ minute audio with some helpful tips on this.

November 2017

October 2017

Halloween promotion that works.

This is how you get these guest passes distributed for free (read more here)

Halloween is a great time to promote your school for very little cost. You need to take advantage of this. Getting new students takes effort.

Good luck with your school.

September 2017

I have a friend, and she has around 900 students. I noticed a huge increase in the amount of students she has, almost 280 more, just since last year. So, intrigued, I went to visit her, and when I arrived, she gave me a tour of her school, and it looked real nice, a great facility. So after the tour I asked her what the main reason was that she gained so many students in that short period of time. Well of course, there were all the usual reasons, like good marketing, but her marketing hadn’t really changed, no, the thing that had the biggest impact and the real reason for the large and quick growth, was the way she did her introductory classes. Her method is very exciting, and I am going to tell you about her intros and why they are so successful.

She uses a 3 class introduction to her school. The first thing I noticed was that she had an assistant. Having an assistant is great, and it is very important for introductory lessons because it can take a lot of the stress off of you. Having an assistant frees your time to make a good impression by mingling with the parents. You can either hire an assistant or have a volunteer from one of your older classes.

Another thing you want to do is teach your intros very near to where you have the parents sit. A parent who is making a decision whether or not to join your school wants to hear exactly what you say. They need information to make a decision. The words that you say and the actions you have their child perform need to be well thought out. You don’t just show up to class and wing it. Every word spoken and all actions called out should be positive and designed to show the parent what a positive teacher you are and that their child will flourish at your school. To reinforce this issue, my friend has a school motto that the kids would have to learn and be able to repeat. It has all the good stuff relating to respect, discipline, dedication and such. It wasn’t long but got the message to the parents about what she stands for. You could see the parents light up when their child repeated these encouraging words.

On day 3, they would do something very unique, they would test the kids for their white belt. This didn’t take very long, all they would do is execute a block and a punch, maybe a kick too, plus they had to recite the all-important motto. At the end of this testing they created incredible excitement. Everyone stood and clapped. You should see the sheer joy in the kids and the parent’s eye. Then she stood next to each child and took a picture with the child holding their new white bel. The picture went up on a special board. After watching all this I can see why she is so successful. Wow!

You have to specify to the parents that day 3 is going to be a very important day and special for their child, because the white belt is their kid’s first big step. This is important because it usually gets both parents there, so you don’t get “I have to check with my spouse” when you ask them to sign up their kid for your classes. This is such a fun and exciting day for both the parents and the child it is rare for them not to sign up.

This is definitely something to think about. Give it a try. Good luck with your school.

August 2017

Back to School

It is back to school season. You need to be ready because this is the time of the year that parents choose to put their kids in something new. You want to make sure that they know you exist and that you are the best option for their children. I know a lot of you do not have a large marketing and advertising budget, but if you do have some money use it now, it’s a great time to do so.

Something that is working very well is Facebook marketing. I would look into making a good Facebook page for your business. Put up pictures and write about what these kids can really get out of martial arts besides just exercise. Make sure to tweak your page to make it very clear how effective your program is for kids. Show pictures of promotions or pictures of what these students are achieving. It is worth using marketing money on Facebook.

This would also be a great time to consider what has worked for you in the past in terms of advertising and apply it at this time. Track exactly how much money is being spent on advertising and whether or not that money made students sign and how many actually come in through the door.

A low cost method is to have volunteers from your school help pass out flyers in local neighborhoods. It’s a great and low-cost way to get your name out in the community. Afterword you could at the end of the day throw a small party for your volunteers to thank them for their help.

If you are not already connected to elementary schools, it is so important to make sure that you get connected. You can you network with these schools by volunteering to do things like anti-bullying seminars. You can meet with the PTA at the school and tell them you are a community service based school and that you can help volunteer for them, like putting on demonstrations for fundraisers for instance or whatever else they need. One of the things we do at our martial arts schools is we helped local elementary schools by volunteering on the first day to guide parents and assist in the parking area. Due to our help, the elementary schools in our area love us and give us the ability to gain new students from their school. This has helped us become very successful and it is key to gaining more students.

It is also a great time of the year to run a “Bring a Friend” (Referral) program. The timing is great because parents are looking for programs for their kids so this would be a great point to have your students tell their friends about it. If you want to learn how to run a successful bring a friend program you can refer to a previous article in “Ask the Experts” column (see below).

This definitely the time a year to get out there and make things happen. Good Luck to your school.

July 2017

I Have To Think About It.

I remember when I first started off with my own school, I sometimes had a hard time getting people to sign up as a student. I didn’t have a problem getting people to come in for appointments or running a good introductory class, but always had a problem when I finally got them into the office and asked them to sign up. I was usually met with “I have to think about this.” This perplexed me, as I offered an excellent introductory class. I researched my sales training books and found the 3 main reasons that they would not agree to sign on the spot.

The first reason is, you didn’t really answer their questions. These people will have questions every time. Maybe about price, maybe about contracts and schedules, or maybe even about billing. Questions are very important, and dodging them is a terrible idea which can be a complete deal breaker, same with answering incorrectly. You must answer questions with correct and easy to understand answers. Don’t mess that up. A thing I found funny is that some will have questions and not ask them. I like to make sure prospects understand all the information I want them to have by asking questions. For example, I will ask them what days work best for them. This is to see if they understand their training day choices. You get the drift.

Another reason could be, you did not succeed in quelling their concerns. As with starting anything new, this person will be unsure. People fear the unknown. So make sure to address a person’s voiced concerns and potential concerns that have not been voiced. A good way to quell these concerns is the risk reversal technique, where you convince a person that the risk of something is on you, not them. This technique is used a lot in marketing, and is very useful. It’s all about how you are able to communicate this risk, if you cannot, then it’ll be harder to get them to sign up. A good question to ask is what concerns they may have about training. Do they fear getting hurt? Do they feel they will learn too slowly? And so on… Say a prospect has fears of learning to slow and looking bad. You can reverse the risk by telling them that the speed at which they learn falls upon your teaching staff. My team and I are experts in teaching new students. Your coordination is farther along than you think. You will have no problem picking up what we want you to learn. Ask questions to investigate if the prospect has any fears or concerns.

The last reason is that you improperly conveyed the value of what you’re doing. If you can’t convince the potential student that the instruction you are giving is equal or greater in value than what they are paying, they most likely will not sign up. You can’t do this convincing from an office, that’s why you need a great introductory class that will convince them to sign up and pay you, because if the intro class is bad, then you probably won’t be able to change their mind.

June 2017

Don’t waste your time or money promoting your school.

Most schools, at the very least, waste a large portion of their time and money while promoting their school. There are two extremely important factors that you must be in control of. Until you are, don’t start any promotions. Interested prospects will only look into your school one time. So if they don’t like what they find they won’t contact you and most likely nor will they in the future.

Factor 1: “Stack the Deck”

Factor 2: “Catch the Ball”

Stack the Deck – Tara did it! She ran a successful promotion that attracted the attention of 39 prospective students. Good job. Unfortunately, she has no idea that the promotion worked. The phone didn’t ring, no appointments on the website and only one person walked in the door. She thought the promotion was a failure. When in reality, 39 prospections from the time and money Tara invested was a great return. What went wrong?

Catch the Ball – Let’s say Tara did “Stack the Deck” correctly and now she has many prospects who want to make contact with her school. Tara took my advice and tracked all the contact to her school. This time Tara knows that the promotion was a success. She was very excited about the results of her new promotion idea. Unfortunately, her excitement was short lived. She only ended up converting one prospect. Gaining one student was a poor return on Tara’s investment. What went wrong?

Click here to listen for this topic.

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