How To Create A Highly Effective Martial Art School Website

Posted by Mike Massie on January 6, 2010

Time To Update Your Website? Let’s Do It Properly…

Effective web marketing caters to the right audience and resonates with the buyer. Your martial arts website's purpose is to get leads, so focus it exclusively on that goal.

There is simply no excuse for having a lackluster website in the information age.

Almost everyone uses the internet these days to research purchases before they buy. That’s why it’s imperative that you keep your site updated and fresh, much like rotating the inventory in your school store.

With it being the New Year, right now is the best time to update your website with new information on your business, especially to announce new hours, specials, and programs. So, rather than doing it halfway, look at your entire site and overhaul your content to maximize your martial arts website’s effectiveness.

And I’m going to tell you how…

Catering To Two Types Of Site Visitors

There are two types of people who will visit your site:

1. People that want to find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible (for simplicity, we’ll call them “surfers”) -
2. And people who want as much information as possible so they can make an informed decision (we’ll call them “researchers”) -

Remember, there’s a reason people research goods and services on the internet before they make a purchase (actually, two reasons).

• They are generally time-strapped and need information fast,
• And they want to get the most up-to-date information possible.

Your job is to provide them with exactly what they are looking for – no more, no less. So, you need to have something for both…

How To Make Sure They Contact You

For the site surfers, your contact info needs to be front and center at the top of your site. Also, you must have a lead capture form on every page possible, as well as an easily located “Contact Us” page.

Be aware that this type of website visitor will skim your information. So, use section headlines to summarize your most important information, and bullet points to provide short, concise benefits for your “surfing” prospects.

Your site also needs to load fast, so cut back on the flash and graphics and keep your site files down as much as possible.

Hint: Multiple videos embedded on the same page can cause a page to load slowly. So, at most embed one or two videos to a page. But by all means – DO have video on your site! YouTube has made it easy for anyone to use video as an online marketing tool, and any school owner would be foolish not to take full advantage of it.

For people who are “researchers”, you should have plenty of information on each of your programs. And, it should be written in such a manner that it caters to the target audience.

And, no matter what the type of site visitor, you must have a call to action on every single page of your site.

Don’t over-complicate this – just tell them what to do and give them a darn good reason to do it. “Call today for more information on classes and to take advantage of our FREE registration special!”

You Need To Have A Clear And Unified Marketing Message

Finally, your website content needs to have a unified tone and theme. Tone is the attitude of the writer conveyed by their choice of vocabulary and sentence structure. Your tone can be light, friendly, serious, upbeat… but above all it must resonate with your target audience!

The mistake most school owners make in writing the content for their martial arts websites is too much variation in tone across the site. When you write one section of your site content in one tone or theme, and another on the opposite end of the spectrum, it can create confusion or skepticism in your prospect’s mind.

Your marketing message is the second half of this equation. This relates to the tone of your site, but it has more to do with what you’re saying than with how you’re saying it. Your overall marketing message should be summed up in 17 words or less, and it should convey your U.S.P. (unique selling proposition).

Once you can do this, your entire site’s content should revolve around your marketing message.

Why is this important? For starters, sending mixed signals to your prospects will create confusion, and a confused mind does not buy.

Second, it’s easiest to sell what you believe in. So, your marketing message should be in complete harmony with your own personality and values.

Wrapping Up Today’s Article On Martial Arts Websites

Look, I know this sounds like a lot to think about, but all you really have to remember are a few key points:

• Update your site regularly. If your site doesn’t currently allow you to do this, get a new site that allows you to edit and update it at will.
• Make it easy for people to contact you, and give them a good reason to do so.
• Provide enough information to satisfy the researchers, and put your most important information in section headings and bullets for surfers.
• Be consistent in your tone and marketing message across your entire site.
• Make sure your marketing message is in line with your core values.

That’s it! All that’s left is to take action on what you’ve learned from this article. Doing so will leverage your martial art school website as a valuable tool to grow your school.

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Need help with your web marketing? I’ve helped dozens of martial arts school owners to improve their Google rankings and to get more leads from their web marketing. If you’d like to find out more about how your school can get more leads and enrollments through better web marketing, click here to contact me.

Expect Better Things To Come In 2010

Posted by Mike Massie on December 31, 2009

Expect bigger and better things for your school in 2010...

Let’s be honest… 2009 was a difficult year for many martial art school owners and instructors.

For many school owners, it was a year when you saw less interest in your programs than in any previous year in the last decade.

And, for many part-time instructors, it was a year when many of you began looking at teaching as a possible means of income to fall back on should you lose your job.

I certainly hope none of you reading this had to go through that, but the from the emails I’ve been getting I know many of you have. And, quite frankly, I believe that many of you were ill prepared to face an economy that is as bleak as ours has been over the last year… and I want to ensure that never happens to you again.

So, I’m working hard to make the new MASAI website vastly better than anything I’ve provided for you previously. I’m working to get you more content each month, and also to provide you with more articles and lessons that are relevant to your situation.

Of course, with more content and improved services, our prices will be going up for our new members in January 2010.

But as a reader of my blog, I’d like to allow you the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of MASAI membership at our current 2009 prices. Click here to visit the site and take our $1.00 test drive to lock in your membership at our extremely low 2009 rates.

Working hard so you can expect better thing in 2010 -

Mike Massie, still your Martial Arts Business anti-Guru

Martial Arts Referral Marketing Made Easy – Massie’s Three-Step Method

Posted by Mike Massie on April 22, 2009

You may have them, but are you using them properly to generate new business?

Do you know what your biggest source of referrals is? You!

That’s right – you are (or, you should be) the number one source of referrals for your school.

Maybe you never thought about it that way, but if you’re not currently “referring” the people you meet everyday to your school, then there’s definitely something wrong with that picture.

Maybe you’re shy, lack confidence talking to people, you fear rejection, or just feel that you’ll be perceived as being “salesy” if you are constantly talking to people about your school.

Here’s my advice: Get over it.

Here’s why…

1. You should be excited enough about your business to tell everyone you know exactly what you do and how it can benefit them. If you’re not, then you should seriously consider seeking another career. The fact is, from the moment you first decided to open a business, you entered the sales profession. Either get comfortable with the idea of selling face-to-face, or go get a job that doesn’t require personal selling.
2. No one else is going to be as enthusiastic about your business… so who do you think will make the best sales person for your school?
3. You are the face of your business. There’s a tremendous amount of leverage inherent there in your position as a martial arts instructor and business owner. Think about it… if the owner of a local upscale restaurant walked up to you in public and offered you a free table reservation and dinner – wouldn’t you be flattered? I know I would, and I’d be sure to take them up on it just as soon as possible.

Talking To People About Your Business, Made Easy: Massie’s “Three-Step Referral Marketing Method” For Attracting New Business To Your Martial Arts School

First off, think about how many people you interact with in your community on a daily basis. You meet people at the store, at restaurants, getting your car repaired… the list is endless. Each of these people represents a potential client – because, even if they aren’t interested in taking martial arts, they most likely know someone who does.

So, how do you approach someone to tell them about what you do? First, forget all the sales talk, and ditch any terms that the average person on the street wouldn’t be familiar with – it turns people off.

Of course, if someone asks you what you do, it’s okay to have a brief “elevator speech” prepared so you know what to say… but it shouldn’t come off as an elevator speech. Instead, it should be natural sounding, much like how you’d explain to your best friend what you do.

Here’s an example of what NOT to say:

“I’m Sensei/Sabumnim/Sifu/Guro Al Smith from Wasabi-Ryu Goshin-Jitsu Academy. I’m a godan in Wasabi-Ryu Goshin-Nin-Jitsu, which focuses on kansetsu waza and ne-waza from the Nine Hands Seven Fists Three Types of Horseradish school.”

You laugh… because you’ve either said or heard something very similar at some point in your martial arts career.

The Opener, Done Right

So, here’s an example of how to speak in a language most people can understand and relate to… the language more commonly known as WIIFM (“what’s in it for me”):

“Hi, I’m Jenny Smith. I teach martial arts classes that help people like me… I used to be overweight and afraid that I wouldn’t know what to do if I was attacked. So, I took up martial arts and kickboxing, and now I teach it to people who are like me that want to lose weight and learn self-defense.”

There’s your opener. Simple, just the facts, and with an interesting back story that is just enough to peak someone’s interest, without feeling like you’re pitching them on something.

Notice that there are no promises whatsoever in that little speech – just facts. Promises will automatically put people on the defensive, because they immediately sense that you’re trying to sell them something.

If you think about it, you really can’t promise anything to anyone, because you have no idea what they’ll do with your services. There’s no integrity there when you make promises you can’t deliver on in a conversation. So, avoid making promises when you are telling other people about your school.

The Next Step – Making A Genuine Connection

Now, the average person would take this opportunity and jump right into inviting your new prospect to your martial arts school.

And, that would be a mistake. The next step is to show the person you are speaking with that you have a genuine interest in their thing – whatever it is. So, now would be the time to ask them, “What do you do?”

Take this opportunity to ask them a few questions, and please, be sincere in your interest. If you don’t care about people enough to be genuinely interested in who they are and what they do, once again you should probably find another line of work.

Now, after you’ve shown you are actually interested in the person you are talking to, it’s time to invite them to your school.

Finally, The Invitation

Your next step after you’ve made a connection is the invitation. This is where you actually invite the person to your school.

It’s important to do this in a way that shows you like the person you are speaking with, and in a way that is both personal and without any pressure.

Here’s how you do it:

“Sam, I have to get going, but I’ll tell you what… here’s a card that’s good for one free month of classes at my school. Feel free to use it yourself or to give it to a friend. But, do me favor and hang on to it – it’s good for $150 worth of lessons and only my staff and students can give them out. You have my card, so feel free to call me if there’s anything I can do to help you with (whatever their thing is). Great talking to you!”

Easy, right? But no matter how easy or simple this seems, don’t underestimate the power of this Three-Step Referral Method. I personally have used this method to help build my school when I had almost no marketing budget to speak of, in a town where the previous martial arts school had all been “cut and run” operations.

Tip: You can use VistaPrint to quickly create custom business cards online. Click here to get started.

By going out, shaking hands, and putting a friendly, personal face on my school, I was able to change the image of what a martial arts school was about in that community. Further, I got to know a lot of people in my town, made some really strong connections, and ended up getting as many students from referrals as I did from my more traditional (and costly) marketing methods.

So, go get some cards printed up that have your business card on the front and a guest pass on the back and start shaking hands and meeting people in your community today.

You’ll be amazed at what this simple method does for your business.

Until next time,

Staying Focused On Your #1 Job In Your Martial Arts Business

Posted by Mike Massie on April 8, 2009

This cat knows where its attention should be focused on - she knows where the payoff is at...

It’s so easy to lose focus and get distracted from your primary mission in your martial arts business – especially if you haven’t defined it yet.

One of the most basic things I teach my members at the SAMAS site is that, until you reach your ultimate enrollment goals, your primary job function as a school owner is NOT:

• Revising curriculum and class content;
• Customer service;
• Cleaning your school;
• Coaching students for tournaments;
• Taking students to tournaments;
• Winning tournaments;
• Getting new certifications;
• Getting more rank;
• Or learning how to use some new-fangled school management software.

Instead, until you hit your ultimate enrollment goals, your number one primary job function is recruiting new students…

Or, more specifically, building revenue.

That’s it. Anything you do that doesn’t directly impact your enrollment and income numbers is secondary or tertiary – and, should subsequently be way down on your list of “to-do’s”.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you just ignore all those things… but what it does mean is that you need to focus the majority of your time and energy on getting more students.

Why? It should be obvious, but for those of you who haven’t clued in yet -

It’s because without a sufficient, stable, and steady income… your school is sunk!

It doesn’t matter how many trophies you win, how cool and complete your curriculum is, how fancy your school is, how cool your uniforms are, how sharp your demo team is, how tough your black belts are, or how worshipped you are by your students…

If you don’t have enough students to pay the bills and pay yourself at the end of the month, none of that other stuff is worth a hill of beans.

...and the payoff is readily apparent.

So, while you’re in your growth phase – and until you hit your ultimate enrollment goal, you’re always in your growth phase – stay focused on:

• Marketing -
• Advertising -
• PR -
• And getting referrals -

Whether you like it or not, and whether you accept it or not, your first job title as a school owner is “Professional Marketer”.

Accept it, embrace it, and watch your school thrive.

On Martial Arts Business Consultants

Posted by Mike Massie on February 16, 2009

“Consulting”, The Next Great Career Opportunity in Martial Arts

Did you know you could make a million dollars as a “martial arts business consultant”?

Oh, it must be true because… everyone is doing it.

But let me tell you a couple of secrets about “consultants” –

1. Just because you can do something well, doesn’t mean you can teach someone else how to do it well, too… I mean, how many times have we seen great fighters who start coaching and teaching and are lousy at it?
2. And, no matter how great they say they are, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to help you… However, they’re virtually guaranteed to help themselves – to your pocketbook, that is.

The Job Of A Consultant, Brilliantly Explained

You know, there’s this great book that explains the job of “consultant” brilliantly… it’s called 100 BS Jobs by Stanley Bing. (Well that’s really not the name, but the full name isn’t really appropriate for a general audience blog…)

“Consultant” is #27 on the list, right after “Construction Flag Waiver.”

I’m not making this up – let me show you:

Yes there really is a book called that and consultant really is number 27 on the list

It’s actually one of my favorite books in the “business humor” category. I keep it on my bookshelf next to my desk, and thumb through it when I need a laugh or two.

Anyway, I am only telling you this because:

a. I hope you’ll recognize the blatant sarcasm in this article, which in turn will hopefully further drive home the point I’m about to make…

and

b. I am fairly certain that, if you’re still reading this, you’re as tired of the proliferation of “consultants” in this industry as I am.

And although Bing’s book is obvious satire, I think he’s right on the money, so to speak.

Which is why I’ve never been “in” the “consulting” business.

But, let me tell you how I got into the “helping martial arts instructors” business…

Man Gets Seriously Hacked Off, Writes Combination Exposé and Business Manual

“Mike, I really liked your book… there’s just one thing,” the martial arts software guy told me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You seem really angry in it.”

Yes you too can be a martial arts business consultant

This was no news to me. At the time I wrote it, I had just sold my first school, a very profitable 150-180 student cash machine that I’d had a ton of fun teaching at… until I got caught up in the “big school dream”.

Which I caught (like a bad flu) from a martial arts business consultant, I might add.

And, in the pursuit of the “big school dream”, let’s just say I became a bit disillusioned with the whole martial arts school consulting industry.

Which I think is a farce, in case you haven’t noticed.

So, I wrote a book about it, from the perspective of all the things I had learned in 10 years of running schools, falling flat on my face at least three times, then building a highly successful school that had extremely high profit margins…

…by doing the exact opposite of what the martial arts school consultants tell you to do.

I stayed small, kept my staff minimal, did almost everything myself, kept my happy butt on the floor teaching as many classes as possible, and was, well, happy.

And Then, I Lost My Freaking Mind

Then I decided to almost triple my square footage in order to expand my school to mammoth and previously unheard of proportions, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Yep, I had it bad. Until a crooked landlord saved me from myself. Guy took our money, and we never did get into our huge new space. Eventually, we went through arbitration and got our money back and then some… but that’s another story.

In the mean time, I lost a lot of sleep, a ton of hair, my health, about a third of my students (which I quickly replaced – good riddance, abandoning their instructor during a crisis, who needs ‘em?), had a few panic attacks, and did a LOT of soul searching.

Sanity Returns to Massie-ville

I finally realized I was killing myself in pursuit of someone else’s idea of success.

Heck, I was happy running a “small” school – a term, I might add, which many “consultants” unfairly deride – teaching most of my classes, maintaining low overhead with a heck of a lot less worries and a lot more face time with my students.

I hated being a manager, which is what most of those martial art school mini-tycoons become, I might add. Although I would like to say, if that makes you happy, have at it. I’ve known some very nice people who run large schools, and I don’t hold that against them – it makes them happy, and that’s all well and good.

Me, I prefer teaching over being a human resources manager. But hey, that’s just me.

But Getting Back To My Book…

So, when I later sold my first school at the height of its success, it was really in order to take stock of my situation and recharge my batteries. (However, I made the excuse to myself and others that I wanted to attend law school, and actually scored high enough on the LSAT to get accepted to a very prestigious school. Six weeks of learning that B.S. profession was all it took to cure me, though. “Lawyer”, #54 in Bing’s book…)

"But somewhere in your heart you want to come in from the cold." That's classic.

Of course, I ended up venting all my frustrations with the martial arts consulting industry into a 200+ page business manual, which ended up becoming a sort of underground hit.

Which is how I fell into the “martial arts instructor helping business”, almost by complete accident. You see, when you write a business manual that actually helps people be more successful in their business, people start to ask you for help.

So, I started giving it to them, in the form of a free newsletter, then a website with free articles, then a low-cost coaching program for aspiring and struggling martial arts school owners, then, this blog.

I’m actually happy with the way it all turned out. I get to help martial arts instructors, and also help them avoid allowing consultants to help themselves to their money. Not that I work for free – I’m not that altruistic, for goodness sakes.

But, I tend to operate on the principle of economies of scale; thereby allowing me to charge a reasonable amount for the products and services I do charge for, which makes it easy for most instructors to have access to them.

(By the way, I did actually start another school about three years ago, which I built up to around 100 students – in the midst of a recession, I might add – then sold it to a good buddy of mine who was teaching for me. Will I start another one? Who knows! But, after I take some time off, I’m sure it won’t be long before I start teaching again.)

Which Brings Me To My Latest Project…

So, my latest project is designed to help those of you who have found you simply can’t belong to everything, and probably don’t care to belong to most of what’s out there, anyway.

Good for you.

That’s why I started The Martial Art School Alliance International, for folks like you.

The goal of The Martial Art School Alliance International (or M.A.S.A.I., for those of you who are addicted to acronyms) is to:

1. Serve the actual instructors who are in the trenches everyday,
2. And to increase the level of professionalism in the martial art industry.

Look, we have MORE THAN ENOUGH CONSULTANTS – please, no more – but what we haven’t had is a truly neutral and unbiased professional association for the martial arts industry… one that is not just an advertising mechanism for industry special interests.

Not that I blame martial arts billing companies, equipment manufacturers, or martial arts franchises for creating and running organizations that help them sell more of their products and services. That’s just good business sense, on their part – more power to them.

It’s just that – and I think you’ll agree with me on this – those organizations often do a better job of selling than they do of serving. That’s because when you create a service organization whose first purpose is to sell, well, you are bound to do a crappy job of serving people.

The reason is painfully obvious: they’re pursuing two entirely separate business goals that often end up in opposition to one another.

That’s why, in all other legitimate and recognized professions, their professional associations maintain a clear delineation and separation from the special interests in those industries.

The martial arts profession should be no different, and we as martial arts instructors have every right to belong to an association that is “by martial arts instructors, for martial arts instructors”.

And, if you still want to belong to everything, including M.A.S.A.I. – we don’t mind at all.

Just watch out for those “consultants” – they’re everywhere these days.

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To learn more about The Martial Art School Alliance International, visit:

http://www.MartialArtSchoolAlliance.com