Teaching Martial Arts is a Business Based on Relationships

Teaching martial arts by its very nature requires a great deal of interaction and trust

There was a time when I had more students than I could handle, and I was miserable.

Let me explain.

As my school grew larger, it was nearly impossible to provide individual attention to each and every student. Pretty soon, I found myself filling the role of a human resources manager more than a floor instructor.

Now, that may be fine for some martial arts school owners, and I know there are several who are happy teaching the occasional class or just their black belts and spending most of their time counting bills… and I’m not knocking it if it makes them happy.

However, for me personally, I enjoy knowing every student’s name, what they like to do, how their grades are, where they work, and so on. And, it’s my experience that when you do, your school has a “personal touch” that leads to greater student satisfaction and higher retention.

(Not to mention the lower overhead due to reduced payroll… but that’s a story for another post.)

Now, there are certain things you can do to add even more of a personal touch for your students, and that includes staying in touch with them when they aren’t in class. There was a time when you pretty much had to do this manually, and I have to admit that in the past I tended to avoid writing good job notes, birthday cards, and MIA letters.

At my old school I just passed it along to my assistants, but currently I don’t have that option.

Thankfully, there are now technologies and systems you can implement in your school, very inexpensively I might add, that will allow you to automate a lot of the work that goes into keeping in touch with your students.

I have started implementing just such a system in my school, and I love it. Even with the limited time I have, I can now keep up with the “high-touch”, relationship side of running my studio.

And, that’s really what it’s all about… if you want to have a strong school, you MUST build strong relationships with your students.

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Mike Massie is the author of Small Dojo Big Profits and runs a martial arts business coaching website for new instructors and small school owners, StartingAMartialArtSchool.com.