Quitting Your Day Job to Start a Martial Art School
Posted by Mike Massie on August 4, 2008
Gary wrote in last week to ask:
Q: “I currently earn $45,000 a year… So, at $99/month per student, I could replace my income and pay for my school expenses at about 45 students. Is this a reachable goal in, 1 year, two years?”
A: Yes, it is a very reasonable goal, but you aren’t going to be able to pay your expenses on a studio and pay yourself $45K a year with only 45 students.
That may cover your rent in an area where lease space is cheap, but you have to consider how much your utilities, advertising, and miscellaneous costs (supplies, cash flow to stock your Pro Shop, etc.) will be each month and factor that in as well.
I currently spend about $800 a month on advertising to generate approximately 20 leads a month, and we typically convert about half of those into memberships each month. (Update: We now spend only 25% of this amount on advertising and marketing due to stepping up our online marketing efforts. – MM)
Drop out rates are climbing due to the economy, so while we are still doing fine, we are planning to spend more money on our marketing this fall to make up for the students who have decided that their other luxuries are more important.
I suggest you use the worksheets in my business manual to determine realistically what your monthly expenses will be, and send those numbers to me so I can look them over. Then, you’ll know where you need to be, enrollment-wise, before you can quit your job.
The good news is, if you teach “X” martial arts you are offering a popular program that tends to do well with adults. However, I would advise you to look at teaching fitness classes as well, such as kick boxing bag classes.
Every “X” school I know makes over half their income marketing fitness martial arts and teaching fitness kick boxing. It’s a much broader audience to market to than self-defense, so be sure to include it in your class offerings.
