Archives for May 2017

37 – Ross Cameron from Lockdown: How To Host Martial Arts Events & Tournaments

Ross Cameron shares how to run martial arts events and details about their exciting grappling tournament, Lockdown.

Martial Arts Events

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • How to manage remote employees and martial arts school effectively
  • The importance of having established business systems and processes across your martial arts schools
  • The prerequisites to running a successful martial arts event
  • When and why you need an event insurance
  • What makes Lockdown a big attraction compared to other grappling tournaments
  • And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.


If you're putting on an event, at the end of the day, you don’t want to be turning around and saying, sorry about it, but I can't afford to pay you. You don't want to be
standing around the official, saying, sorry, we can't afford to pay you.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 37. Today I speak to another gentleman, with multiple hats, which is Ross Cameron. And Ross, a former engineer, I’d say a serial martial arts entrepreneur, who is the owner of Aftershock, Fightcross gyms, multiple Fightcross gyms across Australia and an exciting new grappling tournament event called Lockdown. And we talk a bit about that, we also go into detail about hosting events, how you can host your own events, and everything that goes with it and doesn't sound like an easy process, but obviously doable. So lots to chat about, lots to discover in this episode.

So if you need help with your martial arts marketing, the digital side of things: Facebook, Google, email, converting, having a website that converts: we just created a Facebook group, which is a support group for a lot of the information that we are putting out, so I've been doing a series of online web classes, which you can find more about at martialartsmedia.com/workshop and we pretty much over-deliver in giving away the strategies and methods that we use for top martial arts schools around the country and America and so forth.

So the Facebook group is sort of a support group for that and we share bits of information and I'm starting to upload snippets of videos, things that really help you build your business. So if you want in, it’s a closed group, all that you've got to do is go to martialartsmedia.group, so martialartsmedia.group and request to join. And if you're nice, I’ll let you in – which, I'm sure you're nice. I've had to remove a few people that want to spam this service, that service, and funny stuff so yeah, I'm very on to keeping it clean and keeping it of value and not being one of those groups where people harass you and spam you and just use it for the purpose of marketing. I go with value first, marketing if you need it.

So that's what we're up to. I would like to see you in the group, that would be awesome, log in, say hi, introduce yourself. It would be great to see you and connect with you there. For this episode, the show notes will be on martialartsmedia.com/37, the number 37. And that's it for now – enjoy the episode, lots of great value to share. Please welcome to the show, Ross Cameron.

GEORGE: Good day everyone. Today I'm with Ross Cameron, all the way from Brisbane, how are you, Ross?

ROSS: Excellent. Thanks for having me on George!

GEORGE: Awesome, I look forward to chatting with you about a few things that… how I came across Ross initially was speaking to Stuart Grant from Westside MMA and he was telling me about the Lockdown events, which they were having at their location. So we're going to be talking about Lockdown and we're also going to be talking about events in general and Ross is a man with multiple hats, so this is going to be an exciting conversation. Welcome, Ross!

ROSS: Thanks. We've got lots of events that I'm involved with, I'm the promoter for Aftershock MMA, I'm the promoter for Lockdown, especially the grappling series. I run a fight night with boxing and kickboxing, and then I'm involved in Mixed Martial Arts Australasia, which is a sanctioning body as well so…

GEORGE: All right, cool, so lots of hats. Let’s take all the hats off and take a step back: how did you get into the martial arts game, how did this all evolve to where it is now?

ROSS: I started off doing judo when I was four, fought internationally back in the 80's when Karate Kid first came out, so I've been around the game for a long time. I've got traditional schools and a lot of traditional background and MMA is just where the sports hit it and where my passion's sort of been. I've been a ground fighter in the strike and fight and I just thought, it puts it all together, so…

GEORGE: You're originally from Auckland, did this start… I guess the business side of martial arts, did that side start in New Zealand, moving across Australia, or…?

ROSS: I started in Brisbane because I was over here as a student under Grandmaster Young Ku Yun for about five years. Then I went back to New Zealand and opened some martial arts schools over there, then I came back to Brisbane and then started off in my garage with training my daughter and suddenly I had too many people and had to take it out of the garage, so I started a school. And I grew and grew and grew, so now I've got four schools around Australia and I keep promoting the events to back up what we do in the gym.

GEORGE: Ok, cool. So that's Fightcross, correct?

ROSS: Yes, that's Fightcross, yep.

GEORGE: All right, cool. And you said around Australia, so you're not just in Brisbane?

ROSS: No, we have one in Perth, and three in Brisbane.

GEORGE: So a quick question on that: how do you manage a location that's not in close reach, that's pretty much right across, as far from the country as you can be?

ROSS: A lot of it is, you've got to trust the people that you put in the place, you've got to spend time training them and making sure they have all their systems in place and do it properly and then you have to have your checks and balances in place, so you've got to be able to drill down into their systems and see what they're doing. It’s hard work, everyone thinks it’s easy though, to open another center, but it never is.

GEORGE: Ok. So you guys are very tight on the following the exact same structure and same systems in all locations?

ROSS: Yeah, yeah. I’m an engineer by background; when an engineer, everything has to be systematized.

GEORGE: So there’s Fightcross and then it started the events, I guess, afterward. How did that all get started for you initially?

ROSS: All right: I was looking for events for my fighters that were the first step up to a fight to jump in and I couldn't find anything that sort of fitted what I wanted my guys doing. They could either do BJJ, or they could do kickboxing, or they were going to pro-MMA fights, there was no amateur MMA really around the scene at the time. So I started Aftershock as an amateur MMA, what's now considered C class rules, so: padded, no hit strikes on the ground, and limited striking standing up, so no knees to the face, but knees to the body, no elbows.

So it gets them a good start, they can get a feel for what's the sport like before they actually jump in and get an A class and get elbowed in the face – just stepping stones. And that's another reason we started our Lockdown events: we needed another stepping stone to develop the grappling and wrestling side of the sport. We don't have collegiate wrestling in Australia, so we're sort of behind the 8 ball, trying to catch up with the Americans, the Turkish guys, Russians and suddenly, we're struggling a bit.

GEORGE: So just for everyone listening, could you give a breakdown of what is a Lockdown event exactly?

ROSS: A Lockdown is a double elimination submission grappling comp, judged on dominance and submission. You're not scoring points; you're there to submit and finish the person. It's run on a five-minute round and if there's no winner in that five-minute round, they'll do a three-minute round and we're looking for a submission. And the way it works is basically, if you lose, you get put down in the loser's bracket and then you work your way back up into the draw, so you get at least two rolls, compared to the BJJ comps where you're getting one roll or round robin where you are having to roll everybody and carry the injuries.

GEORGE: So there's no striking?

ROSS: It’s done in a cage, so you get to practice your cage wrestling, you get to work cage work, your cage take downs, pressure, cage control – very, very MMA orientated, so we're allowed double leg takedowns to the slams – as long as you're not slamming on the back of the head naturally.

GEORGE: All right. So who has this really been beneficial for as a… I guess, let’s start as a student: would it be for someone who's transitioning to MMA, or would it be for like a BJJ student?

ROSS: We get a huge mix of guys that come in. We get guys that are pure BJJ guys, we get guys that are wrestlers, we get guys that are MMA, Japanese jiu-jitsu guys jump in there as well. Because the rules are not just ground or not just stand-up, we get a huge mix. We get a judo, we get Olympic judo guys in there as well, so it’s a great mix for the students to get in there and actually test their skills. We run different divisions, so we have MMA weight divisions, but we also have beginners, intermediate and advanced.

GEORGE: This has attracted a different crowd of people, so if you host an event, how would it be different to a straight up BJJ tournament, or judo, or so forth?

ROSS: Again, it’s the mix. If you're a classical BJJ guy – and I go to BJJ comps and watch it all the time, and the guys are pulling guard and all the rest of it. And suddenly, they're up against a guy who's a judo guy, who's going to throw them. They start to pull guard and mixing up their throw and they're losing position, so the mix is very interesting. Then you get, say, a BJJ guy up against a wrestler. The wrestler's going to have a dominant body position on top, BJJ guy is going to want to play the bottom game and suddenly you're getting another dynamic in it. It’s really interesting to watch how they play the game and the styles against each other.

GEORGE: Let’s say, Eddie Bravo type tournaments: is this a comparison with that? What would you say the differences are?

ROSS: Not really, that tends to be a very classical BJJ type with 20-minute rounds, they can stall, they can take their time to play the hard card game, they can just inch things out. You've got five minutes and you've got to go, so the pressure is on from the start.

GEORGE: Ok. And then you were saying, submission or dominance: how would you actually score the dominance, based on…

ROSS: Ok, so it's scored very much like MMA. So in MMA, a dominant body position is side control, so dominant body position – the guard is not dominant. Ok? In BJJ, they score guard as being a good position – it’s not dominant in an MMA fight, so we score that the other way around.

GEORGE: Right.

ROSS: It’s just those little things, we're looking at it, scoring it as if striking was involved, but without the striking.

GEORGE: I guess the flipside of that is, what is the downside of it? For a student that wants to go into tournaments and so forth, what would you say is the downside?

ROSS: Downside? The downside is just having another rule set to play with. And I've got a very successful young fella who goes into BJJ comps and Lockdown BJJ comps, because he will do a kneebar and he’ll go, whoops, sorry, that's not allowed in that division – ah, OK. So that's the thing. It’s just about those, keeping that school basis within the rule sets that they're actually working on.

GEORGE: Anything else about the Lockdown events?

ROSS: We’re expanding a lot down around Australia and we're running them sort of in each state and now the idea is that we'll have… over the year, we run points, but not only for fighters, but we also run points for the gyms. So we have the top ten ranked gyms in each state and then we have the top ten ranked fighters for each state for each weight division. And then, later on, this year, we’re having a Grand Prix, where we're actually going to have the best from each of the state rolling into each other for a price and were going to stream that live.

GEORGE: All right. And the price? Any…?

ROSS: Cash!

GEORGE: Cash! Alright, awesome, it sounds like an exciting tournament. Now, for… let’s say martial arts school owners, how would school owners get involved with something like this? How would it be beneficial for them?

ROSS: Ok, they can look on lockdownsubmissiongrapplingseries.com and the benefit to them is, one, it’s a team building exercise. Two, it helps them teach their guys how to corner their fighters. Three, they get involved in growing a sport and developing the skill basics of their crew in an area where we’re lacking. So there's good reason to be involved.

GEORGE: Let’s talk a bit more about events. Let’s say, what's your advice to a school owner that wants to get started in running an event? You laugh!

ROSS: It sounds silly, but everyone looks at events and goes, they're very easy, look what you just have to do. They don't see the hours of work that goes behind it. I have a full-time crew that run my events. We put on… maybe 14 Lockdowns this year. There are 4 aftershocks and there are three HAMMA fight nights that I have got planned this year.

So there are events on just about every weekend that we're involved in. The plan and the preparation to make an event run smoothly is huge! The funding behind it is so important. The understanding that you've got to have insurances. I get phone calls from other promoters constantly asking me how do we get insurance for this and that and I'm like going, you're actually on your 10th or 12 or 13th event and you haven't had insurance? You guys are crazy! And event insurance is not cheap: looking after you fighters, looking after your staff, making sure everything’s good – it’s not as easy as people think it is and there's a lot more to it than is perceived.

So it’s worthwhile for your local martial arts school to run events; it’s at what level they want to run their events. I would suggest that most of them look at something local that they can support, that will help grow their team and get their name out into the community as marketing, develop their social media as their team is involved in different events – that's the smart way to play it.

GEORGE: If you break it down into components, I've had a few guests on board, like a few things that have come up: using their event psychology actually for marketing, I know Darryl Thornton in Melbourne had a good strategy for actually, his open day is an hour event and it’s great for just getting people in an hour, being able to… I guess that confined time of having people in one area for one hour and then giving people a good, irresistible offer, in the end, to join in and he gets about 70+ sign ups on the day by having this whole strategy. So I guess school owners can learn a lot from that component, but going from your knowledge and what you do with events, and being an engineer of course: how do you break it down into components? What's the first thing that you've got to get down first and then move from that point?

ROSS: Ok, really the biggest thing is funding, OK? If you're putting on an event, at the end of the day, you don't want to be turning around to a fighter and saying, sorry, but I can't afford to pay you. You don't want to be standing around the officials saying, sorry, we can't afford to pay you, you know? You need to have your funding, your sponsors, your venue, your day confirmed and then your main card and start working backward. The biggest issues that I find in Australia with events for MMA events is keeping that card together.

Being a Kiwi, and I have a joke with a lot of Kiwi guys together and we keep it down is that Australians don't like to fight, where the Kiwis love to fight. It’s not too hard to get Kiwi boys that will stick on a card, it’s a lot harder to get some of the Australians to stick on a card. And one of the biggest issue we have in Australia is pull outs to go fight in another card. So they'll come up with an excuse like, I hurt my toes, I can't fight this week, but I'm fighting the next week, is this OK then?

GEORGE: The core part of the event then is who's the main card, because that's got to be the attraction, right?

ROSS: Yep, correct, yep. And a good venue – and it sounds silly, lots of people think going to a pub is the way to go. Most fighters don't want to fight in a pub show. Most fighters want to fight on an event and there's a big difference between a pub show and an event. So if you're running an event, you've got to have good sponsors, you've got to have entertainment, you've got to have good lighting, you've got to have good access, so there's a lot of little bits that go together. And then you've got to have a good team to make it work.

GEORGE: All right, cool, so a lot of components then. How do you go about the marketing? Where does the marketing start? Do you typically go through different clubs?

ROSS: Yeah, your marketing is broad based, so you've actually got to go through, you've got to do a lot of social media stuff, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You've got to go through the clubs and get clubs involved behind you, newspaper and-  it sounds silly, it’s not actually the fact that you're in the newspaper that's going to get you the explosion that you want; it’s the fact that then you can release that to social media.

GEORGE: Yes.

ROSS: There's a lot to it that marketing wise, the average person doesn't get, so it’s knocking on the doors, it’s the hours, it’s going out late at night, putting flyers up through club areas and just drumming up interest.

GEORGE: It sounds like there's a lot of work in just the infrastructure. I actually read once that event organizing was the most stressful job in the world.

ROSS: I would believe it, a lot of greys here!

GEORGE: Ross, I feel were sort of touching the surface, I think there's still a lot that we can talk about here. Anything else in the event spectrum that we can cover, especially thinking about the martial arts school owner here? How can martial arts school owners really get involved, what's the best way to get something from events?

ROSS: As a school owner myself, I really pick the events I put my guys on. I pick the events I put my guys on for two reasons: one, I want to make sure that they're sanctioned and they're well run, controlled events, for the safety of my guys. Two, it means that my men are associated with good brands, OK? I won’t put my fighters on a few shows just because of the fact that their reputation precedes them – in a bad way. I don't want my guys being put in a bad spot, I don't want my guys to chase their money, I don't want all those things. Have you heard of Nitro?

 

GEORGE: Yeah.

ROSS: So my guys fight on Nitro, they fight on Aftershock, they'll fight on Fightworld Cup, they'll fight on Eternal – they'll fight in good, reputable brands just to make sure that that's the way it is – well controlled. And don't get me wrong, over the years I've learned this, so I've turned up there for a fight and gone, where's the doctor? Well, we don't have a doctor. Oh, OK, so… I guess I'm a one-minute man, am I? And I say, over the years you learn that there are certain things that have to fall into place to make a good event.

And those are the things: I want to make sure that my fighters are looked after by having medical, making sure that they're looked after by having financial backing, making sure that there's insurance in place, making sure that the event is not going to fall over, making sure that there's no criminal element involved, you know? It’s all those little things that have to be in line before I’ll put a guy on a show.

GEORGE: Now how would you – because you've had all this experience and you know the event scene. But how would you as a school owner, if you're entering into this arena, how would you go by assessing the risk elements of entering?

ROSS: I’d be talking to other coaches and other reputable gyms around the area. Like you talked about Stuart Grant: Stuart is a great guy and he knows what he's doing. Stuart and I talk, we can discuss what's going on in the industry, we can discuss what shows are happening, he gets it. If people want to talk to people, that's how you build awareness in the game. I've seen it where you've got a guy who walks up to an event, his coach doesn't actually know what he's doing, the fighter’s got no idea what he's doing, and you go, OK, so have you talked to anybody in the industry? Nah Nah, I've just come from Shukokai Karate, or I've come from a traditional school and I've thought of going into an MMA event, a fight.

Do you know how to wrap hands? No, I don’t know how to wrap hands. Do you know how to do this; do you know what you're supposed to be doing? So the best I can do is get on the phone and talk to them, talk to other people. Either that: when I first got involved in MMA, I started ringing other coaches, talking to them, discussing what was going on and now those guys ring me back and we’re still having conversations about where the sport is going, what's going on with people, is this gym any good, do they have the right mentality behind it – all those things.

GEORGE: Cool Ross. It’s been awesome chatting to you. If people want to – because you've got Lockdown and you've got access to a lot of type of events. If school owners want to get you involved, and I don't know at which level you're available to be involved with events, but what's the process they would take?

ROSS: Basically, they can just shoot me an email on my website, so aftershockmma.com, lockdownsubmissiongrapplingseries.com, fightcross.com – they can shoot me an email, I’ll pick it up somewhere. If I don't, someone will get them to me. And the other thing that I'm involved with that'll help all these guys is the fact that Mixed Martial Arts Australasia is a governing sanctioning body, set up by Chris Haseman and Peter Hickmott and myself – if they don't know who Chris Haseman is, just Google him.

Peter Hickmott referees in the UFC, and he's involved in training with the DSR, trains sports combat in Tasmania as well, so he's well known within the governing bodies throughout Australia. We run courses, we run courses on Cornerman courses, Cutman courses, we run officials courses, we run how to wrap hands courses, so we cover the lot and we’re here to help train these guys that want to get involved as well.

GEORGE: Good stuff. Ross – great chatting to you and I hope to be seeing you at a Lockdown event pretty soon.

ROSS: Of course, cheers George, thanks!

GEORGE: All right, cheers, thanks.

There you have it – thank you, Ross Cameron. Don't those Lockdown events sound awesome? I know they do for me – look, obviously, it depends on what martial arts you specialize in. I think it’s exciting, it’s got lots of potentials and I really hope that it all goes well for Ross and they'll be able to grow this into something substantial, which it definitely looks like they are.

So that's it from me, again, if you want to join us in the Facebook group, martialartsmedia.group, so come and connect with us there, come and say hi. We look forward to seeing you there, having a chat and see how we can possibly help your business. Awesome – have a great week, I’ll be back here next week with an awesome episode and chat with you then. Cheers!

 

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.

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36 – Graham Slater: The Search For The Next Jackie Chan

Graham Slater talks all things martial arts business and an exciting movie opportunity for school owners.

martial arts business Jackie Chan

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • The importance of getting your assets and martial arts school insured and protected
  • Why working with third-party people is beneficial if you lack expertise in a specific area
  • Graham Slater’s concept of circle of knowledge: why he doesn't think about other martial arts schools as his competition or enemy
  • Why promotion is key and how you can raise awareness about your martial arts brand
  • How to get your students become Hollywood movie stars and become the next Jet Li or Jackie Chan
  • And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.


TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, this is George Fourie, welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 36. I’m really excited to have a guest on board again with us today, who is Mr. Graham Slater. Now, this interview could have gone a lot of directions, but we focused on insurance, protecting yourself as a martial arts school owner. We also discussed marketing and a really, really exciting venture that they have going with a video, a video production show, where you as a martial arts school owner can really benefit from. So listen out for that, we go into details with it towards the end of the episode.

And I also have to apologize to Graham, because I made a bit of a blunder and I've done this once before and I caught it in time, but I'm definitely going to adjust my process with what happens. So, let me fill you in: the way I normally do the podcast interview is, I never really meet the guest. We start talking on Skype, we have a bit of a chit chat and we get to know each other. And the conversation easily gets carried away and I forgot to clearly mention that we are not actually recording the podcast yet. And the conversation kept rolling and about 30-40 minutes in, I actually realized that we made a mistake and that Graham was actually under the impression that we really have been recording.

And we have restarted from that point, so because the story was just… there was so much shared in the first 30-40 minutes, what I decided to do is actually give you the raw, uncut conversation that I was having with Graham and at the end of the show, if you keep on listening after the outro music plays out, the raw conversation between me and Graham will be added onto that, OK? A bit of a bonus for you, we cover a lot of ground. This is a bit of a longer episode if you listen to it all the way through, but we record the podcast as an episode, which is kind of a normal length and cover everything in that and then at the end, you will also get the bonus as such.

Alright, so I hope you enjoy that, I'm going to jump into this, just a couple of things: of course, the show notes are at martialartsmedia.com/36, so that will be the number 36 and a few other exciting things that I will mention at the end of this show, but first and foremost, let’s jump into the interview and please welcome to the show, Graham Slater.

GEORGE: Good day everyone, today I have with me graham Slater all the way from Melbourne. I’m already planning episode 2, the part 2 follow-up of this interview because there’s a lot that we can discuss, but welcome to the show graham.

GRAHAM: Thanks, George, thanks for allowing me on the show.

GEORGE: All right, awesome. So I've got a bit of a background of just how you got started and so forth, but do you mind sharing just how you got started in the industry from the get-go?

GRAHAM: Oh, OK. I suppose, a bit of my story is around on the website, but I started round back in 1973 in the UK, in Liverpool. First from boxing and then I started into Goju Karate. With all the gang warfare from there, so lots of attacks, random attacks you'd experience almost on a daily basis, so the whole mindset was really on self-preservation, you know, what you can do to defend yourself and what really worked. From that, I came to Australia in 1975 and fortunately, I found a Kyokushin karate school, which is just fitting for me because we did full contact in the UK and it allowed me to do that. I don't think I could have done that, because I wasn't a particularly aggressive guy – I was a big guy, but I was hardened by the initial environment.

So that helped me get through that and I did that for about four years, but alongside that I was doing kickboxing and Kenshin Kan and other stuff and my friends were doing aikido and jiu-jitsu, I was playing around with that for that period of time and then I trained in Kyokushin (for 4 years). Then school closed down and then I was training with one George Trench (Shotokai Karate) after a year or so George said to me ‘why don't you open up your own school? And I said, well, I'm only a brown belt and I was really just there for the training.

Well I did that on his behalf and then I found that people enjoyed it and people joined and then he said to me, my instructor said, look, I'm leaving, you can have my two schools as well, so I inherited two other schools, so I couldn't actually learn from other people, because I was teaching 4 nights a week.

So I stuck with that for a while and then I got disgruntled and I was going to pack it all in because I wasn't learning anything, I was just teaching. And then I met another group who had a Japanese sensei, and before I knew it, I was going over to Japan. Just before that, I got into the gym industry and I was a full-time aerobics instructor, a gym instructor. As well as being a martial artist so I was training really 6 hours a day plus, and that really prepared me for that Japan trip.

So when I was over there, it completely changed my life, because the training there was so harsh, so repetitive, so intense, that when I came back, I thought I had to train differently. I was inspired and then, I continued training in Shotokai Karate, mainly focusing on that for that period of time and then, round in 1990, I separated from my teacher and I didn't have another teacher and I was really just a ronin, looking around for more education and training.

So I started training with other instructors, knocking on their doors, saying, hey, I'm Graham, can I train with you? Some were receptive, and some weren't and that was a lot of fun. I started teaching other schools as well, just randomly on special concepts, here and overseas. And in 1993, I opened up schools in the UK as well and then I opened also the karate alliance, which allows to train with other people and have regular instructor meeting, I was thinking of myself, of learning. And then we incorporated the martial arts alliance, which allowed more people from other disciplines to come in who were reluctant as a karate organization and then we launched Martial Arts Australia to focus on the needs of instructors in Australia.

A lot of this was not really intentional, it was really more just for my own enjoyment, to be able to learn from other martial arts people in a formal practice. But we found that in all these conversations, the underlying thing was business support. What we do for insurance, how do we get gradings, what are the tools out there to market my school, how can I raise my profile? so all these questions were coming up and I had a marketing background, I had a business background in a few areas, I thought, maybe we should discuss it and that's what we did and I found the needs got greater and it took more of my time and I had to make a decision: do I close my schools and focus on the needs of school owners, or do the opposite.

But I thought, if I can help school owners do better job, grow the community, that is me doing a better job for the community, because just teaching in a school, I can only influence, I can only positively influence people in my local community and I wanted more than that, I wanted to help more people and the way I could do that – and I haven't got all the time to go into different countries and do that personally, so I thought, well, how can I do what I really want to do? If I help instructors and I put on the right path, enable them and empower them, that's a lot easier.

So that's what I do now, I do that in the ways that they need and because I stick with instructors all day, every day. If I probably in touch with, communicate with probably a 1000 – 1500 school owners in a month, so I get a lot of stories. I don't always talk to them verbally, but I communicate with so many people and their stories and by listening to them, we introduce all the services that we do right now. That's probably it.

GEORGE: Awesome. So Graham, with speaking with so many martial arts instructors and being so in touch with the industry, what is sort of the common problem the common story that always comes up?

GRAHAM: It’s a good question because it’s actually in multiple parts because you've got people who are just opening up a school, or have got a small school of 25 people are the hobbyist. You've got people who are the 100-150 or hoping to go to 250-300. And then you've got these bigger schools around 500 to 1000 or more. But those guys don't need so much. They’re actually doing a really good job, so down below end, the people who are starting up, they don't generally have a lot of confidence in their curriculum, their grading system, their obligation to OHS, the insurance requirements, how to improve their skills to know that they should keep ongoing school searching, and not just stay where they are.

So that's where they are and we can help them quite easily, with some very basic elements that will get them on their way and when they get to the next level, we have a different conversation. And it’s the same in between people. But also, I don't have all the skills and I don't have… there’s a lot of people that, a lot of school owners that have got the fundamental skills of the total management of their school and the staff training and the protocols. See, I don't get down to that because people do that a lot better, it’s stepping outside of that in the general marketing business structure that I come in and introduce services that make the management of their school a lot easier.

And when I don't know something and I think there's a great expert, I'll introduce people to a great expert who will say, hey, you should learn from this guy. He's offering to give you this and you should learn that. And other resources that are available, I put people in touch with that, so I'm really enabling them to find what they're looking for if we don't have it ourselves. That's why we use a lot of third-party people who we trust and prefer and where we give it everything under the one stop shop, so hopefully, I answered that, it’s all different.

GEORGE: Yes, for sure. So and what I'm hearing is, you're not so much into the nuts and the bolts as such, but more in the bigger, sort of a more 30,000-foot view of how the business should work and join together, does that sound about right?

GRAHAM: Yeah, so look, instructors I feel need to look at each other, they need to learn from each other. So that is like a circle of knowledge: don't think about other schools as your competition, your enemy: think about that… the circles that I’m going with locally are very much the opposite, they're all thinking that they're all friends and they’re all doing that and they accept and share their knowledge so readily, one school across here said, you know what I did to get so many people? I did this campaign and it really worked.

But what I do find is I give people a marketing perspective. The old type of marketing with flyers and so forth, that used to work and the percentage was actually quite low then. But in some circles in Queensland, that actually still works! But I don't know whether it works in other places, well actually, people complain about how much they've got to spend and I said, you know it’s a lot easier now to get students into your school than it used to be and you don't even have to leave your lounge room, so all the social media and so forth.

But people don't know how to do that and that's forever changing, so I just put people into the reality of: these are the things that are available to you and it's really easy to refine, but also, not to have unrealistic expectations. You're not going to go from zero to hero in five seconds, you've got to put the work in. If you haven't got a proper curriculum, you haven't got advancements and you haven't got systems in place and staff support and a marketing campaign you keep working on and if you're finding that you're spending more time on the books and not on the floor, your hearts not in it!

So you have to look at constantly be changing and making sure that you are doing something for yourself each day. So I suppose I'm in the mentoring aspect and I say to them, look, you need to protect your assets. And they go, well how do we do that? Well, you need to have insurance and a lot of people don't know how exposed they are. They could lose their house, they can lose this and random people can come into their school and not even train at this school, yet sue them and we've got a number of cases.

So I put a reality check in it, were not sort of alarming them, but saying, look, you need to put protocols in place, like instant reporting. You need to have a proper attendance register, so if that person attended or didn't attend or said he attended, you can say that no one attended of that name on this day – I've got one at the moment, where it’s happened. So some things that they don't know about protecting their assets and school, because I mean insurance, so we hear the risk factors, we hear the stories and I want to put solutions in place so that they never have to go down that pathway. That's what we’re doing.

GEORGE: Awesome. So that insurance aspect goes a long way, because obviously, you need to – yes, you protect your assets and so forth, but then as you say, you're working with kids and you're working with students and there could be accidents, there could be situations to deal with, so you've got that aspect as well, where I guess you can get sued and have those type of implications. So how do you prepare people for that?

GRAHAM: Well, we give them manager manuals, we give them waiver forms, instant reporting, we have got training courses cover that. We just encourage them, ask your instructor: if you're leading your instructor, you're working with your instructor, you open up a school, obviously you are being taught by somebody. But what I'm finding is the school owners aren't teaching the students before they go out and teach or they're leaving early and they haven't grasped that. They haven't looked for that; they didn't know what they needed to know to run a business.

So that's the major issue with a lot of schools, and some of them have been, I've got 25 years of martial arts training, I'm OK – do you know that you're supposed to have first aid? Do you know you need to work with children? You could be fined 25,000 or 5 years of imprisonment. No? So the people say, oh, I've got all these years of experience in martial arts, but they don't have any business sense and they say I'm qualified – well, how are you qualified? Every day I'm speaking to people and I have to ask them about their qualifications and some of them are indignant about it: oh, I've been doing it for so long, I said, look, as far as the insurance companies are concerned, if you don't meet the criteria, you're not insured!

You need to be qualified and they don't want to, so you need to tell me and then I will interpret your qualifications and tell you whether you fit within the parameters of the insurance complaints, or not. If you're somewhere close, we can give you insurance, but you need to do this before we know the following year, you need to do the basics. Have you got first aid? No. Well, you shouldn't be teaching, you need to have somebody there at every class who’s qualified in first aid. People don't know that, because they're not going to be applying the appropriate duty of care, they don't have that. Someone can find a hole and say you're negligent and the insurance company doesn't want that.

So I'm on that end of the business side and the reality check. I use my marketing skills to guide people, but as I say, there’s a lot of good people out there. I find out, I have quite a broad range of skill sets in various different areas, but only limited specialty areas, so you can't be over everything, and also, technology is changing, circumstances are changing, student needs are changing. The number one question that people ask me: how do we get more students? That's it. And I say, look, have you built your profile up? Have you got a website, have you got a Facebook? I've got Facebook – is it active? Uhm, no. Well, I think so. So what do you need to do, what's a profile?

So if you think about a student, they want to be able to look to their instructor and brag about you as their teacher, because reflect on them being good. So they want to say, my teacher is this, that, he's fantastic, have a look at him online, have a look at my teacher. This is my teacher, that's why I'm so good; even if I'm not so good, I feel as though I can make a claim of that. So if you understand the psyche of the students, you just play that game. I remember, every time I was teaching, I was going out in a big hall and parents would come in they would say to me, are you qualified? And I’d have to have this conversation to justify that I as qualified.

So what I did, I put out cut-outs and photos of me on a big laminated board and I put a couple of them and I actually had a couple of articles, so when they come in now, they come in and talk to me. I’ll just say this, this is a couple of things I've done over the years, it’s a bit of school history. Oh – where do I sign? Just negates the conversation. So if you've got a good website, a good Facebook, it's active, it looks credible, you have good brochures, people are just going to go: well, you've got the lasses and then when you meet them face to face, it’s all professional, they go, right on, I want to join this school.

And then they bet down and they decide whether they like the curriculum and so forth, there are all the elements, but you want to get them into the door by making sure all those are right. If you've got videos of you talking and presenting, you put those in there as well, some of your achievements and trophies, people are just afraid to stand on a box and say, hey – I'm really good! There a point where you can do this as a third person, and that's what changed when I did.

I’m quite reserved, English reserved and I wouldn't normally get up, soapbox and say, I'm pretty shit hot and this and this. But now I’ll say, look, I'm going to put down some of my achievements, and you can make a decision yourself. And it does positively influence about 80% people that see it. 10% perhaps think you're an egotistical maniac and 10% are indecisive and I always work with the 80%, like most of us all should.

GEORGE: That resonates with me so much, but you know, I think the perception that you think the people that are thinking you are showing off: the only people that would actually really think that would be the other instructors that don't have their profiles up, and that's not who you're trying to impress anyway. You're trying to install trust really, with the students.

GRAHAM: Trust, that's exactly right.

GEORGE: And to show, yes, I've got this problem, I want to train martial arts, but why can you help me? Only to answer that in my head before going ahead, cool, this is what I want to do, but how do I know you can help me? And you know, the old saying of, you are as good as Google says you are. Because if people can't find you, they can't find that information, they're going to get their own assumptions. And you better not hope that it's coming from some dodgy forum where people are just bad mouthing each other and that's the things that come up.

I really resonate with that, because that's a big thing we talk about, it’s really about that positioning and putting good information and content on your website and pages that people can find you and then make educated decision, that when they walk in, they can say, and obviously when they see you that it's congruent with what they've seen the message that they have seen online resonates with what they see when they see you as such.

GRAHAM: Absolutely, yeah. I look at other people that don't do that, that are too reserved and they don't get students and the revenue and they get disgruntled and there happen to be some fantastic teachers out there that just fall out of it because they just don't get the students and the revenue. But they can't all have the broad based skills and a lot of them don't feel they have the place to go to ask people, so we want to be the place to go where we can put them in touch with people. If we can't do it ourselves, there are lots of places that we can put them in front of. Because we want to see those good instructors who are doing a good job in their community prosper, so they can still stay out there.

So that's probably part of it, but yeah, promotion, promotion is the key, because imagine when someone comes up to you: they've only come to your door because of they've just Googled. They got there because they got some base information and made a decision, and everybody is time poor, they want the information they want to see, they want to go, he's confident, they've got good classes, it’s in the location that I want, the instructor is qualified, he's got a bit of a profile – so they're ticking off all the points that satisfy them and then, they go, oh it’s got a free entry – it’s not a free program, it’s an intro program, it's $50 or $99, yeah I'm OK. I’ll pay that and I’ll join in.

A lot of people are giving them for free and we know that free is not always a good thing. So a lot of guys that I talk to now are actually doing an intro program where you pay and it gives a uniform, allows them to fit in a lot easier and then they feel part of the school, they made a commitment both sides and then they can upgrade them just before that intro program – that's been the most successful stories that I'm hearing.

GEORGE: Definitely.

GRAHAM: Yeah.

GEORGE: Awesome so, let’s dig a bit deeper into marketing because that's a topic I like to discuss and you've got a lot of knowledge about that. So what is behind the website and the profile and so forth, what is your the big picture guidance that you’d like to give instructors moving forward with growing their school?

GRAHAM: Well, usually what we do is not always the same as. it’s not always relating to what a martial arts school owner does. So if I said to you I have 25 websites, you probably wouldn’t know that, but I've got 25 different websites. We've got different industries in different areas, where we want to move our competition out of the space in Google. So we do that by multiple domain names, pointing and redirecting, getting all the appropriate wordings for the search strings, having content, not duplicating content and just making sure every page is targeted for what we want to put out there.

School owners can have more than one website, so for example, people don't take up the advantage of what we have. We got a school directory in here, which is one place where someone can find you. You can set it up as profile, you can link it to your Facebook, its free. You can do that, you can have your Facebook, you can have your Twitter and you can have a mobile app, which you can get from us for free as well. So the mobile will squeeze everything in there, you can put your social media, any other website in that one hand.

So you've then got one, two, three, four places where people can find you, you've got your own website and if you want, you can get another website and call it a different name and point it. You can actually put your name if you've already got an existing school, it says it's John Smith’s Karate in Bentleigh – why not put John Smith’s Karate in Fitzroy, if it’s a branch and you have a separate site for that. And you can do other things, so you can actually bump out the spaces, but also make everything specific.

So understanding how all that works to get maximum space, multiple spaces to push out your competition is important. That's an area that I've learned, but I haven't got my head around it, and that's changing, obviously with Google algorithms as well, but I have people over here that are really experts, who keep in touch with all that and then what we do, we have experts in different fields, they're constantly working on that and we’re relating that information and working out what our needs are and the same thing, we’re looking at instructors and saying, what do these school owners need, what's pushing them out, why aren't they getting the right position?

So we’re helping them work as it’s all changing and trying to give them the best decision to be found. And what are you teaching? You look at someone's site and you say, I don't know what you're teaching, what is your product? I can't even see a timetable. People are lazy, they want to look at the product that you're selling, they want to see that you're qualified, look at the timetable and know how to contact you straight away, so if you haven't got that call to action, there's no incentive. Everything we do is all based around that, but the other I guess is passive income.

You're only getting paid when you've got instructors in front of you. I wanted to be earning money while I'm asleep. So I created passive income earners, so from drawing from different countries and different time zones, so instructors can do the same. They can have an instructor curriculum, a video curriculum, they can have a bi-correspondence course, as their profile grows, the people will come in different countries and go, oh, I've heard of that guy! I would love to train with this guy, how can I get access to him? And they go, oh, you've got an instructional course.

And some people say, oh, but I can't grade him, you can watch my videos, but people don't understand the full package that motivates them and drags them to buy your product is, they want the credibility. They want to learn the skills, they want to be validated for the skills and assessed, and say, hey, look, I'm this great! So we’re going to feed all those areas for the person to say, oh hey, I’ll pay your subscription, I’ll learn from you. So those things are valuable and that's what we’re building on. We want school owners to have a passive income.

GEORGE: Let's go a bit onto that because I know you were sharing earlier how this infrastructure that you've put in with the video broadcasting and the things that you've set up for instructors and then I would like to finish up with an exciting project that you are doing for martial arts students. But firstly, if we can talk about the video project and so forth?

GRAHAM: Yeah, we created a full-time facility. Among other things, it’s a video studio. It has various different movable sets from action to instructional to news desk board lounge and all that stuff. So we've opened that up to school owners who can come in there depending on their profile, we will film them for free and we’ll do a profit share in selling their product, OK?

Some who haven't got a profile means that you have to do the work. We’re not going to invest in you unless you've got a good curriculum, present well and we can market you. So if we have to do all those elements for you, you've got to pay. But the facility is there and an economical way for them to raise their profile and develop a passive income, so we know the stats, we know the people who do it well, how much they're earning, so we know it’s out there and they can get a good return on their investment.

But moving on to the new project is Action Star TV series and competition. That's particularly exciting for me because I was involved in one ten years ago, K star, where it was a search for the next Jackie Chan/Jet Li. Very, very exciting. So now we've brought it back, we've developed it ourselves, we developed action star entertainment, we've got two other partners Glenn Coxon and Peter Mylonas and we've commandeered, or we've actually got alliances with the stunt academy and anime studios and so forth. And what it brings together is the TV series where any individual, whether in sporting industry, fitness or martial artist, potentially a martial artist, there's more of a demand for martial artists, you can walk into a competition, you can do some performance, you'll be training stunts and acting and win a movie role, only movie star, straight away.

So you don't have to do multiple auditions as an actor, train and all this. You can walk off the martial arts audition floor and walk into a movie role. And we've got all the training preparation and enabling you. Then it’s up to the individual if they take it any further, so we’re very excited about that. A bit like “So you think you can dance,” or “Australia's Got Talent,” but the grand prize for this year 2017 is they fly to Hollywood. They've got training in the stunt academy, they've got acting and they've got movie roles. So it’s pretty exciting.

GEORGE: Wow, that's awesome. So how can martial arts school owners benefit from the Action Star?

GRAHAM: Great question! What they get to do, they send their students into the competition, they will get the kudos of creating a pathway for their students to become movie stars – that alone is a great benefit. What we do is, we validate their input and we actually post their school, the students need to be represented by a martial arts school, so we get the connections there. So they get the opportunity to instructor gets to brag, my students are entering into the action star competition. It's big news, he may be the next Jet Li, he may be the next Jackie Chan.

So they've got the opportunity, they can ride on that promotion, we will give them the tools to raise their profile by being part of the Action Star program. So that's the main thing, I think students are going to get some kudos from this, but they need to validate, and also in part of the filming we include the instructors from that school as well, and they can actually help them with the fight choreography for that school and get the kudos for actually helping them with their fight scenes as well – there are lots of benefits for the school owners, don't you worry about that!

GEORGE: Going back to what we were talking about your profile and so forth, just having – even if they just actually enter, just having that as part of their movement would give you so much traction.

GRAHAM: Yeah, there's something to talk about in social media – oh, follow John! Vote for my student! They get the vote as well and then you see who's really popular and they ride it out. And, I didn't know young Johnny was that popular, he's got thousands and thousands of people voting for him. I’ll make sure I look after that student, well, they should be anyway, but a little more about what's going on, then you think about an idea that will complement action star: what else could I do in the community that would give me that sort of traction and attention? So it opens up the mindset of thinking, that worked about action star, we’re going to follow in the voting, what elements in there that triggered the community to respond? And then you work out your own next campaign, so it just stems from there.

GEORGE: Awesome. Graham, it’s been great chatting to you. Where can martial arts school owners get in touch with you for this or anything else that we've discussed?

GRAHAM: The competition, they can go to actionstar.tv – www.actionstar.tv, Kapow TV, kapow.tv is a lot of videos and free videos and stuff about a lot of things that we've done. And of course, if someone wants to help in the business side of things and insurance, you can go to martialartsaustralia.com.au. And that should cover it.

GEORGE: Awesome. Graham, awesome chatting to you, we’ll have all those links in the show notes and I’ll definitely like to follow up this conversation and do this again.

GRAHAM: Yeah, thanks George for having me on the show. Hopefully, I've been of some help to some people and put a few messages out for them. Yeah, it’s been great working with you, thanks, George.

GEORGE: Awesome thank you.

GRAHAM: Cheers.

GEORGE: Cheers.

And there you have it. Thank you, Graham, I hope you enjoyed the interview, and I'm really excited about the video project that they have happening, really, really exciting stuff.

If you need help with your marketing, we have just started releasing our workshop, weekly workshop that we've been doing, which is at martialartsmedia.com/workshop and what I’ve been doing is, I've unpacked everything out of my mind about what we do and how we help martial arts school owners and I've put it into a visual presentation. It’s interactive, we cover a lot of ground and I give you the core foundations of what it takes to position yourself as the authority martial arts school in your area.

So it’s a really exciting workshop, I've put a lot of time and effort into it and frankly, I should probably be charging for the workshop. But it’s my way to get my message across and the value that we provide, so it’s arguably one of the best 90 minutes you will spend on your business and if you just apply one of the things that I mention in this workshop, it could be worth a lot for you. So I highly recommend it, it’s at martiartasmedia.com/workshop. Jump onboard and check it out and I hope to see you on one of the workshops.

Alright – thanks a lot for joining us – as I mentioned, show notes as well on martialartsmedia.com/36 and I look forward to seeing you again next week with another awesome guest or solo show, that will depend, we’ll have to see. I have a few great guests lined up.

So that's it for now, have a good week and remember: we've got the bonus of the uncut conversation with Graham and me when the music finishes, so if you want to hang around and listen to that, I’ll chat to you soon. Cheers!

 

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Any other disputes will be resolved as follows:

If a dispute arises under this agreement, we agree to first try to resolve it with the help of a mutually agreed-upon mediator in the following location: Perth. Any costs and fees other than attorney fees associated with the mediation will be shared equally by each of us.

If it proves impossible to arrive at a mutually satisfactory solution through mediation, we agree to submit the dispute to binding arbitration at the following location: Perth . Judgment upon the award rendered by the arbitration may be entered in any court with jurisdiction to do so.

MartialArtsMedia.com may modify these Terms of Use, and the agreement they create, at any time, simply by updating this posting and without notice to you. This is the ENTIRE agreement regarding all the matters that have been discussed.

The application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, as amended, is expressly excluded.

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is very important to us. Accordingly, we have developed this policy in order for you to understand how we collect, use, communicate and make use of personal information. The following outlines our privacy policy. When accessing the https://martialartsmedia.com website, will learn certain information about you during your visit. Similar to other commercial websites, our website utilizes a standard technology called “cookies” (see explanation below) and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

Use of Cookies

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site”s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser”s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

IP Addresses

IP addresses are used by your computer every time you are connected to the Internet. Your IP address is a number that is used by computers on the network to identify your computer. IP addresses are automatically collected by our web server as part of demographic and profile data known as “traffic data” so that data (such as the Web pages you request) can be sent to you.

Email Information

If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received online, mail and telephone. This also applies when you register for our website, sign up through any of our forms using your email address or make a purchase on this site. For further information see the email policies below.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?

Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing customer service and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.

will not obtain personally-identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us, nor will such information be sold or otherwise transferred to unaffiliated third parties without the approval of the user at the time of collection.

We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Email Policies

We are committed to keeping your e-mail address confidential. We do not sell, rent, or lease our subscription lists to third parties, and we will not provide your personal information to any third party individual, government agency, or company at any time unless strictly compelled to do so by law.

We will use your e-mail address solely to provide timely information about .

We will maintain the information you send via e-mail in accordance with applicable federal law.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

Our site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us and our partners by reading the unsubscribe instructions located at the bottom of any e-mail they receive from us at anytime.

Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter or promotional materials may opt-out of receiving these communications by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

Choice/Opt-Out

Our site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us and our partners by reading the unsubscribe instructions located at the bottom of any e-mail they receive from us at anytime. Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter or promotional materials may opt-out of receiving these communications by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

Use of External Links

All copyrights, trademarks, patents and other intellectual property rights in and on our website and all content and software located on the site shall remain the sole property of or its licensors. The use of our trademarks, content and intellectual property is forbidden without the express written consent from .

You must not:

Acceptable Use

You agree to use our website only for lawful purposes, and in a way that does not infringe the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else”s use and enjoyment of the website. Prohibited behavior includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any other user, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue within our website.

You must not use our website to send unsolicited commercial communications. You must not use the content on our website for any marketing related purpose without our express written consent.

Restricted Access

We may in the future need to restrict access to parts (or all) of our website and reserve full rights to do so. If, at any point, we provide you with a username and password for you to access restricted areas of our website, you must ensure that both your username and password are kept confidential.

Use of Testimonials

In accordance to with the FTC guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising, please be aware of the following:

Testimonials that appear on this site are actually received via text, audio or video submission. They are individual experiences, reflecting real life experiences of those who have used our products and/or services in some way. They are individual results and results do vary. We do not claim that they are typical results. The testimonials are not necessarily representative of all of those who will use our products and/or services.

The testimonials displayed in any form on this site (text, audio, video or other) are reproduced verbatim, except for correction of grammatical or typing errors. Some may have been shortened. In other words, not the whole message received by the testimonial writer is displayed when it seems too lengthy or not the whole statement seems relevant for the general public.

is not responsible for any of the opinions or comments posted on https://martialartsmedia.com. is not a forum for testimonials, however provides testimonials as a means for customers to share their experiences with one another. To protect against abuse, all testimonials appear after they have been reviewed by management of . doe not share the opinions, views or commentary of any testimonials on https://martialartsmedia.com – the opinions are strictly the views of the testimonial source.

The testimonials are never intended to make claims that our products and/or services can be used to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate or prevent any disease. Any such claims, implicit or explicit, in any shape or form, have not been clinically tested or evaluated.

How Do We Protect Your Information and Secure Information Transmissions?

Email is not recognized as a secure medium of communication. For this reason, we request that you do not send private information to us by email. However, doing so is allowed, but at your own risk. Some of the information you may enter on our website may be transmitted securely via a secure medium known as Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL. Credit Card information and other sensitive information is never transmitted via email.

may use software programs to create summary statistics, which are used for such purposes as assessing the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, uses software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

makes no representations, warranties, or assurances as to the accuracy, currency or completeness of the content contain on this website or any sites linked to this site.

All the materials on this site are provided “as is” without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of merchantability, noninfringement of intellectual property or fitness for any particular purpose. In no event shall or its agents or associates be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of profits, business interruption, loss of information, injury or death) arising out of the use of or inability to use the materials, even if has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages.

Policy Changes

We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy at any time with or without notice. However, please be assured that if the privacy policy changes in the future, we will not use the personal information you have submitted to us under this privacy policy in a manner that is materially inconsistent with this privacy policy, without your prior consent.

We are committed to conducting our business in accordance with these principles in order to ensure that the confidentiality of personal information is protected and maintained.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding this policy, or your dealings with our website, please contact us here:

Martial Arts Media™
Suite 218
5/115 Grand Boulevard
Joondalup WA
6027
Australia

Email: team (at) martialartsmedia dot com

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