Kyl Reber shares his secrets to 27 years of successful growth in his martial arts business, driven by the power of organic marketing through word-of-mouth referrals.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Kyl grew his martial arts business through organic marketing, primarily via word-of-mouth referrals
• The link between Imposter Syndrome and martial arts studio’s pricing strategies
• Why martial arts school owners often undersell themselves and encounter growth challenges
• Key areas to prioritize in your martial arts school beyond the curriculum
• The history behind their martial arts school's empowering slogan, ‘Back Yourself’
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today I am interviewing one of our great clients, one of our members of our Partners community, Kyl Reber. Kyl is from Brisbane. Chikara Martial Arts. You can look them up. 

And this interview is a bit of an extension from the Partners Intensive, which is an event that we hosted here on the Sunshine at the beginning of June. And Kyl was one of the featured speakers talking about the things that they are doing in the community. 

And what is mind-blowing for many other school owners is Kyl and his team, they're just pushing past the 370-member mark. And at this point, they've only focused on organic marketing strategies. 

It's all about community. It's all about giving back. It's all about the things that they do in their school and the impact that they make within their community. 

And so I wanted to get Kyl on and dig a bit deeper, talk a bit more about the strategies, what they do. 

And the great thing is I've been working with Kyl for a little more than six months, and I haven't really tapped into that backstory about how he got started on this journey when they opened their school, what got him into martial arts and so this was a great opportunity for that. 

So jump into the episode. All the show notes and resources are on our website, martialrtsmedia.com/145. 

That's the numbers one, four, five. Head over there and download the transcript and resources. That's it. Let's get started. Jump in. 

GEORGE: Mr. Kyl Reber, welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business podcast.

KYL: Thanks, George. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here.

GEORGE: Awesome. Long time coming.

KYL: Long time coming. Third time lucky.

GEORGE: Third time lucky. Hey, so thanks for jumping on. I'm really excited about this conversation and what I'm excited about is I've known you for a little while, we've been working together for a little while and I haven't really tapped into the back story of you and how everything came about.

So I'm really excited to chat about that and just witness a lot of the things that you're doing in your school and how you approach things differently. But first up, I always like to kick off this being … We always talk about marketing and attract, increase, and retain strategies.

If you have to share, what is the one thing, your go-to strategy that's helped you grow the school the most, generated the most students, strategy that you always lean on, that you always go back to and repeat over time?

KYL: I guess our biggest strategy or our biggest way of generating business is it always has been referral. But I guess if you were to put that into a strategy, a strategy is our image and our standing in the community.

Because if we have a good image standing in the community and members come to join, they're very quick to refer to other people that they know about what we do. You and I have had conversations in the past about Facebook marketing and all that sort of stuff.

Without sounding arrogant, that's still quite foreign to us. And I guess we've been very lucky that we're able to build the club to where it has gotten purely by just referral, word of mouth. We'll have whole families train. We have people very willingly wanting to involve themselves more in what we do externally.

So I think, referral has been always something that's been very good for us to lean on, and it's something that's very important to us. Our culture and community are the real backbone of what we do.

Damien Brown, a UFC fighter-turned-gym owner, shares his journey of transitioning from the octagon to entrepreneurship. He reveals his secrets to success in both the fighting world and the martial arts business realm.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Damien Brown's journey from a UFC fighter and military man to a martial arts business owner
• Base Training Centre’s most successful marketing strategy for generating students consistently
• How short-term commitments, like training camps, work well for marketing jiu-jitsu
• How to ensure children between the ages of 4 to 13 love jiu-jitsu until they turn 16
• Opening new locations by gut instinct and finding the right partners and locations
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

My job is to make sure that any child between the age of four and 13 loves jiu-jitsu until they turn 16. If I'm too hard on them and they hate it and they don't like it, they leave. My job is to make sure that I teach them jiu-jitsu but I make sure they have enough fun that they want to stay in jiu-jitsu until they're 16.

When they're 16 they get graded as an adult, they start learning as an adult. It's a little bit different. They get to make their own choices. But if I can make them enjoy it that much that they stay from the age of four until 16, then I've now got a long-term member, I've got a kid that's done jiu-jitsu for 12 years that's now going to get a blue belt and go on to be a great adult addition to my gym.

GEORGE: Good day. George Fourie here. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today I'm joined by a professional MMA fighter, UFC Fighter, and owner of Base Training Centre in Brisbane, Damien Brown. Welcome to the show.

DAMIEN: Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

GEORGE: Good stuff. You've had a complete career between martial arts and your business. But before we get into the good stuff, a question I always like to ask upfront is, what's been your go-to marketing strategy, the thing that you guys do that generates the most students for you on a consistent basis? Consistently or that one thing that's the hook.

DAMIEN: Typically, the greatest marketing strategy we had was Facebook Ads. Social media is so big now. If you're not using it then you, you're either behind the times or you're just too stubborn to do it. Potentially, you don't know what you're doing so you outsource it. I'm a massive believer in outsourcing anything that's not your line of expertise. I just think that everyone should be advertising on social media.

Zulfi Ahmed covers conversion-boosting strategies for your martial arts business and shares the content to be delivered at The Partners Intensive. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Creating a 100-day onboarding funnel to boost martial arts student retention
• Master Zufli’s advice to martial arts school owners with over 100 students and pushing to 200
• A powerful concept that can help increase martial arts lead conversions rate by 70% to 90%
• Masterminding with your staff to create an amazing system for martial arts school success
• How to set up an encouraging martial arts career path for your students
• And more

Zulfi Ahmed is coming to Australia to share his breakthrough mindset formula that’s responsible for his martial arts business empire.

IN THIS EPISODE: When is the perfect time to scale your martial arts school?

• How is Purpose defined for martial arts school owners in Partners?
• Questions We Ask In Partners when screening martial arts school owners
• The teachings to anticipate from Master Zulfi Ahmed during the Partners Intensive in June 2023
• Zulfi recounts his martial arts journey from childhood to a master instructor and successful school owner
• Finding the right balance between your martial arts passion and business purpose
• A breakthrough formula that will take your martial arts school to the next level
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

It's not just the idea. It's not just the clarity. It's the process, procedures, and steps that people need to take to get through to the next level. We might know that I want to get 400 students, but I want to get 600 students. Well, I need to advertise more. No, there's more than that, but I will give you that process.

GEORGE: Master Zulfi Ahmed, welcome back to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast.

ZULFI: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Happy to be back.

GEORGE: Awesome, so I think it's good for us to just go back down in the history of the journey on the podcast and then we'll jump into the big reason we're chatting today. So, we spoke back, I was looking earlier, in February 2018. We spoke about The Real Secret To Success With Your Martial Arts Business. I believe this was just before Fred DePalma‘s event in San Diego where we met for the first time.

Then in episode 110, we spoke about How To Become A Master Martial Arts Instructor. Actually, just when your book came out, we had a chat about that. And today, we're back. We're back for episode 142 because you're coming to Australia. How good is that?

ZULFI: Yes, I'm excited. Thank you very much for the kind invitation and I'm super excited. I can't wait to get on the plane and go and meet you again and all the friends in Australia. I have some very good friends, and fellow martial artists in Australia. I would love to see them and make new friends. And I am excited, super excited.

GEORGE: I think it'd be good, even though this is the third time around on the podcast, it'd be good to go back to your story. But a story I want to share quickly, which was really, I think a pivotal point where we really connected is at Fred DePalma's event. You spoke at the event and I really loved your chat and your knowledge. 

And I remember you making a lot of Jay Abraham references, which I thought, “Oh, that's really good.” For those of you that don't know Jay Abraham, look him up. And in the morning when we were flying back, we were all waiting down in the lobby at breakfast. We were all waiting for our trip back. 

And we just got into a conversation. And it was one of the most valuable conversations I've had in martial arts and martial arts business, and you just openly shared things that I can do in my business, how I should approach it, and how I should approach the American market differently. Yeah, so I want to thank you for that because I took a lot away from that.

ZULFI: My pleasure.

GEORGE: And so, we've always kept in touch. And so, the conversation came up and I know we mentioned it, somewhere along the line we mentioned, maybe sometime you'll come to Australia. And so, we host this event for our members once a year. We call it The Partners Intensive. We did one in Brisbane last year. 

I just moved to the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Australia and I thought, “If I'm ever going to do a great event in Australia, it's got to be here because it's beautiful.” And we're planning one for the US later in the year. And lucky enough, our dates have aligned well, and I'm really excited that you're going to be joining us for the event.

ZULFI: Me too. It's a pleasure. I can't wait to do this. I've been wanting to go to Australia for many, many years. Actually, in 1979, I'm originally from Pakistan, so we had a Pakistani Burmese kickboxing team. We were going to go to Australia for a tournament in 1979. 

 

Other than running epic martial arts classes, which goes without saying, these 3 strategies when done well will simplify your martial arts business growth.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Is it necessary to build a fancy website to promote your martial arts school?
• The number one mistake martial arts school owners make when creating their trial offer
• The important factors that make an irresistible martial arts offer
• How to use the AIDA formula or ‘The Ultimate Facebook Martial Arts Formula’ to make your martial arts ads work
• How to use The Messenger Student Signup Method to follow up on martial arts prospects
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Apply Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ business podcast. Today I'm going to talk about three things that'll get you to 300 students plus, and if you're ready at 300 students, it'll get you to 300 students and beyond. 

And if you're ready there without these three things, it's a great opportunity for you to go back and dial them in and get better results for yourself. How do I know this? Well, dozens of our clients have dialed in these three things and it's skyrocketed their results.

Some are 300 students plus, and they are still just dialed into these three things and instead of adding all the bells and whistles and fancy things and all the noise that you see on the internet, they're just going layers deep on these three things and getting great results.

So I'm going to share with you what these three things are and stick around to the end because I'll share with you a resource and a formula that you can use real quick, will help you implement and optimize your first strategy, which I'll share in a minute, and help you skyrocket your results way quicker. All right, let's jump into the details.

So three things that you need to get to 300 students and beyond. So am I oversimplifying this? You might be thinking, George, you're just oversimplifying this. Well, I probably am, right? Because it's a given. You can't do any of these things if you don't run epic classes. I think we've covered that.

If this is your first time listening to me on this podcast, yep, obviously you need some epic classes because otherwise, no marketing in the world is going to fix that, right?

But let's say you got that, and I assume you do, right? Because all great martial artists have run epic classes. Then there are three things that you can focus on to skyrocket your results. Now, before I go too deep into that, I want to tell you a little story… 

Turn your dead leads into profitable new martial arts students. Here’s a proven strategy to revive, reconnect and reengage potential students that you haven’t reached out to in a while.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How can dead leads be a potential source of profitable new martial arts students
• How a database of leads collected via Facebook Messenger, email, and walk-ins can be a valuable resource to reach out to dead leads
• How to restart a conversation with a dead lead using the Conversation Carrots
• The pitfall to avoid when reconnecting with dead leads and what to do instead
• Using the 9-word email hack or Bullet Boomerang to get more leads and sales
• And more

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome back to another Martial Arts Media™ Business podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about signing up students with dead leads or leads that you have just forgotten about.

Leads that have inquired, they never signed up, or you were having a conversation with them and they ghosted you or just disappeared. Or perhaps you have those old students that left unless they left on bad terms and you don't want them back.

But otherwise, just students that left and something life got in the way and you didn't hear from them again and they left. So we're going to talk about a few simple strategies to restart the conversations with those dead leads, all students that have left, super simple but super profitable.

Hang around to the end. I've got a great resource for you, a PDF that we call Conversation Carrots. It's one of the most popular resources we have in our Partners Program, a really simple way to engage and start conversations. I'll give you the details at the end of the podcast, and how to access that. All right, let's jump in.

All right, before we get into the good stuff, a quick life update for any of you that have followed the podcast for a while and know that I haven't posted much on social in a while and done a podcast, this will take 30 seconds approximately.

So I'm recording this in 2023, February, in October last year, we decided to move the family from Perth to the Sunshine Coast. If you're not from Australia, that's equivalent to moving from San Diego to New York, it's that far, and that's what we did.

What decided us to move? Well in the mid-last year, we came here on holiday. I was hosting our first Partners Intensive, which is an event that we run for our Partners group. And we came on holiday the week before.

Absolutely loved it here, loved the beaches, and just loved the vibe of it. And we decided we wanted to do something new, that I'm closer to hosting events on this side of the country but also close to the states for travel and events that we want to host over there. And so we made the big move. That's it.

 

Now, we're back and on track. The other thing that's been keeping us busy the last couple of months is onboarding new clients and working on a few cool things that I'm going to announce in the next month, a couple of weeks or so. Update done, right?

Let's jump into the good stuff. So how does one sign up students from dead leads?

All right, so let's look at a few scenarios. You have leads piled up in your Messenger. If you collect leads via Facebook Messenger, perhaps you have inquiries via Messenger or you have them from your website. So you have email leads, and you have them in your database, preferred.

We'll talk about that maybe a little bit. Maybe people walked in and you took down their details, whatever the scenario, you had people that were inquired but never joined.

 

Now, if you had to track back the last few months, the last few years, how many of these people do you have in your database? If you still have them, we've got a few cool things that we can do with them and I'll chat about that in just a bit.

 

All right, so these perfect prospects inquired, but they never joined. Now, I guess a dangerous thing for us to do is to make some assumptions about them, that they inquired, but now they're just not interested. Well, it could be, but it could also be just something else that happened that we can't control.

 

Life got in the way. Maybe they were tied up in some other engagement and they just haven't had Covid, or maybe it's something deeper, right? There's a fear of what this whole martial life thing is about and they're just not comfortable stepping up and taking action on starting their training yet.

The last time we spoke to Lindsay Guy, we discussed how he tripled his karate school in record time. Today we chat about refining retention to maintain this massive growth.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How retention impacts martial arts business growth 
• Keeping martial arts classes fun to stimulate young students
• Reaching out to parents on how to keep kids from quitting martial arts
• Setting up your martial arts pro shop for profit
• Keys to leaving a lasting martial arts legacy
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

GEORGE:  It's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today I have a repeat guest with me, Lindsay Guy from Guy's Karate School. Now if you recall episode 117, I had Lindsay Guy on and we spoke about how he had 3x’d his martial arts business moving past the Big C, we'll call it the Big C.

The YouTube and social media channels don't like us talking about what it is, although we probably mentioned it in the episode. Anyway, I wanted to catch up with Lindsay just to see how things are going right now. We spoke about how he 3x’d his business.

I wanted to see where he is now, how things are going, and how he handled the growth. We talked a bit about retention, and a little bit about marketing and it was just a great martial arts conversation. Now, I must warn you, Lindsay is super authentic and as he says, he's got no switch and he speaks very straightforwardly.

And we have this sense of humor where we look for little gaps and opportunities to have a go and have a bit of fun and fun with each other. So that might come out in some of the comments from him and me. Don't take it to heart. 

It's probably easier if you watch the episode because Lindsay's face explains his sense of humor. But yeah, one of my favorite humans to speak to when it comes to a sense of humor and having fun. 

So a lot of fun in this episode and a lot of value. So jump in episode 139. So head over to the website, martialartsmedia.com/139. You can download the transcript and all the resources mentioned in this episode. 

And do me a favor, if you get some good value out of this episode, please share it with someone you love, someone you care about, a martial arts instructor, or martial arts school owner. So they'll get as much value from it as you will.

All right, let's jump in. Lindsay Guy, welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Actually, welcome back to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast.

LINDSAY:  Thanks, George. Thanks for having me on again.

Michael Scott shares the 3 core areas he focuses on for a fulfilled life, and building a martial arts business that fuels generational wealth.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Are Google Ads getting better results than Facebook Ads?
• Having an exit strategy when retiring from your martial arts business
• Your martial arts business as a vehicle to build generational wealth
• Having an accountability partner you can trust and who supports your goal
• Why have membership contracts
• And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

GEORGE:  Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Another great interview for you today. Michael Scott from CMA Campbelltown Martial Arts in New South Wales. 

So I've known Michael for a little while. We've been working together in our Partners Group. When you meet someone and they're not the front of the conversation, but when they speak, you want to listen because it's always packed with wisdom. 

In fact, at the end of last year, we did something fun in our Partners Group and we gave out awards within the group, and Michael was named the Wisdom Whisperer, and just for that reason, sits back, observes the conversation, but when he speaks, it's packed with wisdom.

Now, Michael talks about the three areas that he focuses on his life way beyond martial arts and actually how he has used his martial arts business as a vehicle to grow wealth and build generational wealth, and talks about investment strategies and things that he does after that. So, you're going to love it.

In this martial arts business case study, Amanda Saliba and Wayne Ardley share how they increased their revenue by $200,000 in 12 months. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

• A martial arts hobby turned into a successful martial arts business
• When to get help from a marketing expert?
• How the ‘Partners OnRamp’ helps boost martial arts schools 
• Quitting your day job to become a full-time martial arts instructor
• Tapping into a pool of knowledge through Martial Arts Media™ Partners
• And more

TRANSCRIPTION

GEORGE:  Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast. Today, I'm doing one of my favorite episodes to create, which is a case study. A case study documenting a client's journey from when they started working with us to where they are now. 

Today I'm speaking to Amanda Saliba and Wayne Ardley, all the way from Melbourne. And I love this episode simply because Amanda is so committed, has big goals, and same as Wayne, still in the workforce, positioning out of that going full time into the business. And in the time that we've spent working together, they've increased their income with an additional $200,000 over the last 12 months.

What I love about this is that we zoomed out on this journey. You know, we love to talk about marketing on the show, attracting the right students, increasing sign-ups and retaining more members. And sometimes the emphasis is on getting more students, getting more students, but we all know there's more to that, right? 

There's the retaining, keeping the students, which is the biggest part, really. And well, you can't have one without the other. So this case study really documents the journey of staying with the course, you know, not looking for the quick fix, doing the work.

You know, we are on coaching calls every week. Amanda's always on the coaching calls. There are lots available, Amanda's always on all of them, and does the work, implements, makes the refinements, and really commits to the journey. And that's really what it takes.

So I love doing this interview. You definitely gonna get a lot of value from this head over to martialartsmedia.com/137 if you'd like to download the podcast transcript and the resources mentioned in this episode. And that's it. Let's jump in. Amanda and Wayne, welcome to the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast.

WAYNE:  Hello.

AMANDA:  Thanks for having us, George.

GEORGE:  Cool. So I wanted to bring you guys on the show, and this is one of my favorite interviews to do because we get to talk a bit about a customer journey working together and the awesome results that you guys have managed to do over the last 12 months, which is really, really exciting and look forward to diving a bit more into the details on that. 

But just before we kick things off, if you don't mind sharing just a bit of an intro, who is Amanda? Who is Wayne, and what do you do in the martial arts space?

Over and above professional wrestling, martial arts, and the Master Motivation podcast, Jason shares how giving back to the community powers his martial arts school and 2 other businesses. 

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How community networking and fundraisers help promote martial arts schools
• A traditional marketing strategy that works
• Why promotions should focus on the benefits of martial arts training
• What helps improve student retention during the summer
• Why giving back to the community matters to martial arts schools
• And more

 

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPT

GEORGE: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast. Today, we're back with another epic interview with a phenomenal martial arts school owner, Jason Flame from Moorpark Karate and Krav Maga.

So, this episode, the value per minute was super high. We spoke about community engagement, how to infiltrate your community organically and be involved, and we also spoke about him running three separate businesses. He likes to call it the trifecta and how the 3 businesses actually operate and help boost his martial arts school.

Jason is also a professional wrestler, so he spoke about wrestling, and what I really got a lot of value from is his student retention strategies that's really, really helpful, especially through your long summer months or when students want to take a break and how they boost their attendance through that.

So, all the show notes and the transcript of the show, you can download at martialartsmedia.com/136. The number is 136. You're probably going to want to do that for this episode because as I said, the value per minute is really high. So do that, and by all means, if you love this episode and get some good value from it, please share this with another martial arts instructor or another martial arts school owner, and help us grow the show and get it out to more people.

All right. Hope you enjoy the show. Let's jump in! Jason Flame, welcome to the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast.