If growing and scaling your martial arts business is taking longer than you’d like, this simple shift might help.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
- One simple shift to get results faster
- Why martial arts business owners struggle asking for help
- Do this ‘hack’ to boost your marketing results
- And more
*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
TRANSCRIPTION
Do you struggle asking someone to help you? Is there some sort of pride? Because, let's face it, sometimes asking for help is kind of a vulnerable thing, right? You expose a weakness in a way.
Hey, George here, hope you're well. Want to quickly chat about moving faster, getting things done faster, and struggling less.
So, a quick backstory: when I got started online marketing – it was a bit of a different world. We didn't have access to social media and this two-way conversation on the internet that we really take for granted – this way to communicate flawlessly and send messages back and forth, and video chat, and so forth. It was a bit more old school, it was quite difficult to get information.
To get information, you would really have to read, you know, the coaching movement wasn't that big either. You would have to buy – well, in my circle, at least, you know, it wasn't, probably was, it just wasn't in my sphere of what I was exposed to.
So, you know, I just started out with books and really, really struggled to get things done and learn things. And you know, when I look back on it, it's not a way I'd recommend to get started with anything. Take martial arts, for example, and imagine buying a book and trying to learn martial arts – you're going to struggle, right, because you don't have a coach, you don't have someone that's actually helping you and showing you, and directing you, and correcting your moves, and putting you in the right direction.
When I got started, it was a big struggle. I started out direct response marketing with Google Ads and I saw that as the only viable way to get people to buy things online. It's all there was, right? I mean, there was maybe Yahoo and a couple of other things. No Facebook, no social networks, unless you could advertise on MySpace. It was a big struggle – it was a really big struggle, I lost so much money.
And now, if I look at it, it wasn't actually a lot of money. It was nothing compared to what I'd lose now in a campaign to figure things out. But, when you've never made money, and it just feels like you are pouring money into this hole, and there's never a return, other than seeing somebody might have clicked on it. You just don't know why, and you don't know who to ask. It's kind of a dark road.
I think I've shared this story before, but I mean, I poured money into Google, day in and day out. I reached my last 300 bucks, it was my last 300 bucks that I was ever going to spend on this business thing. And I was really about to throw in the towel, because it was just too difficult. I got to about $32 left, and I made a sale for $37.
The best 37 US dollars I've made in my entire life, because I got a conversion. I've got somebody in a country different than mine to buy a product from me without ever seeing me. That was the most exciting moment of my life, because that was opportunity – and grew from there, one sale came after the other. The reward of that was just phenomenal.
But, would I recommend anybody struggle like that to get it done? No. It's too hard. That comes down to really what I'm trying to get across in this podcast is – do you struggle asking someone to help you?
Is there some sort of a pride, you know? Because, let's face it, sometimes asking for help is kind of a vulnerable thing, right? You expose a weakness in a way.
And I know for a lot of guys, it's a hard thing to do. Sometimes, I think there's even some, there could be like an ego attached to it, right? Something that, “I've got to figure this thing out myself and get it done myself”, almost like a pride of, you know, “I figured it out, I struggled through this”. It could go even deeper.
Like, maybe there's a deep-rooted belief about money, where you feel that money doesn't come easy. It's hard to make money. And because it's hard to make money, you kind of got to struggle to make your money, and that gives you some sort of significance. I don't know, I often see that – it can be hard to ask for help.
So, how would I recommend doing things now, is just get a coach, just speak to people who have done the things that you're trying to do. In our case, it's helping martial arts school owners with lead generation, marketing, and where I don't have the knowledge, I ask other martial arts school owners for help. And we co-create different projects, and we create information that can help other school owners as well.
But at the end of the day, you need to have a coach, and a coach is just someone that can look at it from the outside looking in, and can see where you're potentially making the same mistakes, and the same pitfalls that the coach had, and can help you correct the course.
No matter what business you're looking at, you know, martial arts is a very unique business, but business in general, there's always these limiting things that come up with the entrepreneur and obstacles and bottlenecks, which, you know, fall into a set amount of categories of lead generation, marketing, scaling, teambuilding, leadership, etc.
Anyway, so, how would I've done it? You know, if I knew what I knew now, back then, and thought I wanted to start Google Ads, you know, I would have instead of just read Mike Rhodes, and actually it was Perry Marshall's book back then.
I would have probably scraped together all the money I had and knocked on, virtually knocked on, Perry Marshall's door and asked him, “Hey, can you coach me? Can you show me how to do this?” And, it would have saved me a couple of years, a lot of struggles, a lot of frustrations, and got the job done instantly.
And, that's a big thing that I think a lot of people don't look at, is, look at coaching and see, well hang on, “that's really expensive, it's too much money”. But, what is time worth? What is time worth, because you might spend the next year figuring out how to do something that is a year of your time, a time that you could spend with your family, or doing something else in your business. And, over and above the time, you've got the opportunity cost as well, the opportunity cost of time just going by.
So, if you want help with something, whatever that is, marketing, you know, whether that's us or someone else, just get help, ask for help. You might feel a bit vulnerable in the moment, but kind of just get over it and just ask for help.
Get someone to help you, show you the shortcuts. It's a lot less painful than just struggling and plowing through, and not getting where you want to go. Anyway, I hope that's helpful.
If you do need help with marketing, and lead generation, and scaling your school and that way, then reach out, shoot me a message wherever you see this video, or reach us at martialartsmedia.com. Anyway, hope you're well, speak soon. Cheers.
Here are 3 ways we can help scale your school right now.
1. Join the Martial Arts Media™ community.
It's our new Facebook community where martial arts school owners get to ask questions about online marketing and get access to training videos that we don't share elsewhere – Click Here.
2. Join the Martial Arts Media™ Academy and become a Case Study.
I'm working closely with a group of martial arts school owners this month. If you'd like to work with me to help you grow your martial arts school, message me with the word ‘Case Study'.
3. Work with me and my team privately.
If you would like to work with me and my team to scale your school to the next level, then message me with the word ‘private'… tell me a little about your business and what you would like to work on together and I'll get you all the details.
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