Letting Others Talk You Out Of Martial Arts Business Success

Posted by Mike Massie on March 11, 2010

Want To Fail Fast? Make Every Decision Based On What Other People Think…

Nope, I can't do it... but that doesn't mean I'm going to criticize someone else for doing it if it makes them happy and successful.

This morning on our forums, one of our members who is just getting started asked if she should start teaching three year olds.

Apparently, she is good at it and likes teaching that age group. And, there’s a demand for it in her area.

Here’s the thing… she was worried about what other people would think if she started teaching that age group. Of course, this created doubt in her mind regarding the best course of action for her to take in her business.

Thankfully, one of the members of the forum who has been in business for a few years stepped in and told her not to worry abut what other people think.

And I agree with what he said, completely. Running your business according to what other people think is the surest path to failure of any that I’ve seen in over two decades of teaching.

You may disagree with me in this particular instance, but bear with me… I am going to use it as an illustration of why you need to make business decisions based on your own judgment, and not on the opinions of others.

Getting Back To The “Teaching Three-Year-Olds” Dilemma…

Here’s the thing about this particular example – it just makes good sense from a business perspective for her to start this class.

For starters, she is just starting out. In this economy, and especially when you’re launching your school, you just can’t afford to turn away business.

Also, there’s a serious lack of competition in this niche. Think about it – no one wants that age group, and I mean no one.

And the best part is that it’s a hot market if you can handle it and you enjoy doing it.

Personally, I tried running a three and four year old class, and I hated it. But, that’s because I wasn’t good at it. I had plenty of interest though, and if I happened to be good with three-year-olds, I’d have stuck with it.

Would some instructors look down on me for it? Sure, but they aren’t paying my bills.

And, I’ll tell anyone – although I suck at working with three year olds, I greatly enjoy teaching the slightly older 4-6 year old group. In fact, they’re my favorite age group to teach.

So what if other instructors think I’m doing a romper room routine when I run that class? I could care less. I am doing something I love, providing enjoyment for those kids and their parents, and making a living doing it.

Let me tell you – there is NOTHING wrong with that.

Besides, It’s All Relative

When you think about it, anything under age 7 or 8 is just prep for the older kids classes, and any classes from ages 7-8 to teen is just prep for the adult classes. And, adult beginner’s classes are just prep for the advanced classes.

You know… where the “real” martial arts instruction takes place. 

It’s all relative… so who said you have to meet someone else’s standard of what a “real” martial arts class is in your school?

Don’t get caught up in that – it’s the quickest way to worry yourself out of business.

Who Makes The Rules On What A “Real” Martial Art School Is, Anyway?

Ten years ago, you’d have never seen a BJJ or MMA school with a kids program.

Now, every serious full-time BJJ or MMA school has some sort of kids program. Why do you think that is?

Obviously, it’s because we all deal in the same reality when it comes to running a business. What goes up must come down. The sun comes up in the east and sets in the west. Hot in summer and cold in winter. Businesses operate on cash. It’s just common sense.

Personally, if I want to learn combat sports or self defense, I am going to find the most qualified person around to train with. Then, I am going to try a few classes to see if I like that person… if I “click” with them, in other words.

If they are a world champion jiu jitsu player and a good instructor, what the heck do I care if they run a three and four year old class or an after-school pick-up program in the afternoons to make ends meet? How is that any different from them working a part-time job outside of the school to help pay their bills?

Personally (and professionally as well) I think it makes more sense for them to be making that extra income in their school rather than by working a part-time gig.

Why? Because that means their focus isn’t split – and that is going to make the school better because they are going to be able to be 100% committed to running that school.

So Before You Pass Judgment – Check Yourself

So, before you go passing judgment on a martial art school owner for teaching a program that you wouldn’t touch – let me give you some advice… check yourself and remember that you aren’t paying their bills.

Besides, someday you may be in their shoes… and you’d be surprised at how your opinions change when you have to make the rent on a full-time martial art school every month.

Should Demographics Dictate Your Martial Arts School’s Image?

Posted by Mike Massie on November 5, 2009

Know Thy Image

I fully expect some clown to start offering martial arts for pets or some such nonsense at some point - which would be an extreme case of trying to offer something for everyone... or every-pet, in this case.

Trying to be all things to all people is a sure-fire way to become nothing to no one. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t diversify into having multiple programs for multiple age demographics. Not at all… in fact, for most school owners and in most locations I think it’s a mistake to just go after a single demographic.

Know What Pays Thy Bills

However, I do think you need to know what pays the bills, and be practical about pursuing that demographic and making it the priority in your school. For example…

In my first school, I built the entire school on kids programs. That was my whole image, and even though I taught adult classes, fitness classes, and so on, my entire image was tied up in being a kid-friendly school.

But in my most recent school, I focused more on presenting the message that we had programs for the whole family. Still, I wanted to teach more adults, so I focused more on that.

The thing is, getting kids in your school is usually the easiest task. It’s the adults that are much harder to attract. That’s why I always go for the kid’s market first, then go after the adults once the kid’s programs are paying the bills.

Know Thy Demographic

What’s that have to do with image?

Well, all my ads are pretty much middle of the road as far as raciness goes. The raciest thing I’ve ever run was for my boot camp, and that’s because the model showed midriff and had a belly piercing (it looked good, though – the ads performed well).

Mostly, I’ve stuck with mom-friendly stuff, because in the areas I operated in most of my clients and decision-makers were moms.

Know Thy Target Market

Here’s something to consider, though…

Say you run a gym that’s MMA oriented, and your enrollment is mostly made up of the 20- and 30-something, tatted up, Affiliction-wearing guys.

Chances are good that your kids classes are going to be made up of kids from those households.

So, you’ll still get some “contact” enrollments just by virtue of farming your existing clientele – it’s just going to fall out that way.

But, that “bad boy” image isn’t going to go over well with families who just walk in off the street. Your average soccer mom is going to be turned off by it, and she’ll take her kids down the street to the plain-vanilla-typical-suburban-family-image school down the street.

This is just one example, and I think you can see the converse also applies. If your school is viewed as a “kiddie” school, chances are good that will work against you if you are marketing hard core MMA or adult self-defense programs.

Know Thy Image As It Applies To Thy Demographic

This is why it’s important to understand the demographics of your area… so you can make sure you don’t have an image disconnect between the image your marketing projects and your local market.

In more densely populated urban areas, it may be possible to pick and choose your ideal student by targeting a particular demographic. This is what you see advertisers doing in mass media marketing – the audience is broad enough to allow the advertiser’s to pick and choose their market to a certain extent.

However, your market reach is effectively only 5-10 miles from your location (ten being on the extreme edges of your market).

So, the demographic found in that geographical area absolutely dictates what your marketing image should be.

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Questions? Comments?

Let Mike know! Post your comments below…

Teach More Adults, Now!

Posted by Mike Massie on August 25, 2009

The Challenge With Filling Your Adult Classes

One of the all-time biggest challenges instructors share with me is:

“Mike, how do I get more adult students?”

In recent years, the answer you’ve been hearing is, “Add MMA classes to your school.” Well, I agree – MMA classes will attract more adults in your school… mostly consisting of young, broke types who will gladly spend $80 on an Affliction t-shirt and then tell you they don’t have money for tuition this month.

Personally, I like MMA and I like working with young adults, too – so the pros sort of outweigh the cons in my mind with the MMA market. But, there’s another huge issue that no one has brought up when it comes to MMA filling the void in your adult enrollment…

The Real Truth About Filling Your School With MMA Students

While the FAN BASE of mixed martial arts is undeniably huge, the actual percentage of the population who is really interested in DOING MMA is not that large a slice of the population.

As I said above, they are mostly young (say, 16 – 34) and looking for a harder and more physical type of training. Despite what you may have been told – statistically, that’s not a whole lot of people.

(And I know there are some large MMA schools out there. But, those are generally going to fall into the category of gyms where pros train that are located in large, densely populated metropolitan areas… you aren’t going to find many large no-name gyms in small towns.)

Things I’ve Learned From Teaching MMA

Look, I try to test everything I can (within the bounds of ethics), because if someone says something works, then I want to know about it. So, I offered MMA in my school for over two years.

Here’s what I found:

1. The real market for MMA only accounts for a small percentage of the overall adult population. (If you think I’m off on this, ask yourself why Dana White isn’t rolling out MMA schools across the country.)
2. Most adults want to do some of the MMA training (and it’s fun to do when performed safely), but they don’t want to do hard contact sparring or high impact grappling all the time. (Fact: Women make up 50% of the population. Fact: Many women would like to learn practical self-defense skills. Fact: It is socially unacceptable for a woman to show up to work with a black eye and bruises up and down her arms. Fact: More guys than will admit feel the exact same way…)
3. The young guys who show up looking for MMA training DO want hard contact and high impact grappling (at least, the ones who stick around after the first week, right?).

So, what do you think happens when one of your young MMA students tees off on Sally Soccer Mom or Ted Executive? Yep, you lose them – for good!

But, softening up your MMA class is a disservice to your MMA students…

And, you know that you need to attract the MAJORITY of the adult market to have a really strong adult enrollment in your school…

So what are you supposed to do?

Here’s The Answer I Came Up With…

The answer is to offer what most adults really want when they walk into a martial arts school: Fitness and Reality Based Self-Defense.

In case you haven’t heard, at last weekend’s seminar in Austin we introduced and taught two new adult programs…

Fighting Fit™ and the Self Defense Black Belt Program™

Both programs are based on research and field testing I did in my own school during the recent recession, and after three years of research and field testing, and a year of preparation, we’re launching these programs and making them available to martial arts school owners starting in early September.

But, you get to hear about them first on this blog – I’ll be posting more info on the Fighting Fit program next week, but today I’d like to focus on the SDBBP…

Here’s a “teaser” video to give you a peak at what we did at the seminar on August 14th – 16th in Austin:

The Big Question You May Be Asking

I know many of you will be asking, “Why a self-defense program? And, doesn’t this compete with what we already do?”

In answering this, first I’d like to point out that this program is designed to attract people into your school who would NEVER consider doing a regular martial arts program, for whatever reason.

Now, I’m not going to go into a long discussion about why most adults aren’t interested in what I call “culturally-influenced” martial arts…

But I will say that “culturally-influenced” arts are really only for a niche market – which is why the typical market penetration for martial arts schools is only around 1.5% of the local population.

People don’t call your school and say, “Yes, I’m calling because I’d like to be steeped in the martial traditions of a foreign culture.”

Uh-uh. They call and say, “I’d like to learn how to protect myself… I want to learn self-defense.”

The draw is learning self defense, which is why realistic self-defense programs have a widespread appeal with the majority of the adult population… not just a small segment. Everyone is a potential customer when you teach realistic self-defense. Everyone.

Protected Territories

Also, I’d like to mention the fact that we’re providing school owners with protected territories. The idea is to give you an edge over your competitors, by having something no one else in your area has.

Complements Your Existing Programs

Third, the program is designed to complement what you already do. At the first Instructor Seminar, we had instructors from every walk and background… and they all said that the program was brilliant in it’s simplicity and that it could easily be implemented in their schools.

There are several ways to implement this curriculum:

1. It can be taught as a stand-alone adult program.
2. It can be taught as a self-defense component to an existing program.
3. It can be taught in small group classes and private lessons.
4. It can be taught as an add-on program for your BBC, Leadership, and Master’s students.

Obviously, the most profitable way is teaching it as a stand-alone program. But, I understand that different schools have different needs… so I created it to be versatile.

Offers Fast Results – A Major Draw For Self Defense Students

Fourth, it allows you to offer a short-term solution for the every day citizen who wants to learn self-defense now. While the core program has 3 full years of material (laid out in easy to follow and implement weekly lesson plans for each level), the Level I curriculum can be learned in 3-4 months.

The Invisible Adult Market = The Ones Your Never Hear From

The fact is, there are many people who want to learn self defense, but they don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it.

So, the SDBBP allows you to attract that market… and hopefully you’ll also get many of them to stick around for a year or more. And, some of them may even decide to do your other programs as well.

That means you get students you’d never be able to attract with your current programs, and you can feed those students into your core programs as time goes on.

Besides that, the material is a blast… the instructors who saw and worked it were raving about it (check out these videos to hear it in their own words).

It’s Effective

And, finally, it works. When I first started working this material with my students, I had two adults on two separate occasions who had to use it… after only a few months of training and with no prior experience.

In both cases, they came out of their scrapes safe and sound. Now, I’m not saying this is some ultimate martial art – it’s not. But it is a darned solid martial-arts-based self-defense curriculum that is focused on what works for the majority of people.

Interested In Finding Out More?

Our next Instructor Certification Seminar will be held on October 17th and 18th in Tomball, Texas at Champions Combat Arts, 12034 Spring Cypress Rd., Tomball, TX 77379.

For more information, click this link: Self Defense Certification Program

And About That Fitness Program…

I’ll explain more about the fitness program in coming blog posts.

For now, suffice it to say that it will allow you to make karate camp money without the karate camp overhead, time commitment, or hassles… more on that next week.

Until next time,

- Mike Massie