If a picture says 1,000 words, what are yours saying about your martial arts school? Martial Arts photographer, Francine Schaepper, shares 3 pitfalls to avoid that could tarnish your brand and reputation.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

The costly mistake that school owners make with random photos
Why use a vision board to strategize your martial arts photos
How to create attention grabbing martial arts photos for Facebook ads
Forget ‘message to market match’ – think ‘photo to market match’
The Power of Pictures: How to use them to communicate your message
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download The Photo To Message Matchmaker Worksheet
And The PDF Transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

There's a lot of mistakes you can make, and we're not talking about technical mistakes here. You know, the how to, that's a whole different story. But the main mistake that I see is that a lot of martial arts schools who are owners don't have a plan when it comes to photography, they have no plan. There's very little purpose behind when they take photos or how to take photos. And then also because of the first two, then there's no message, or there's a wrong message which can really greatly damage your school and your image really. 

GEORGE: Hey, it's George here from martialartsmedia.com and welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ business podcast. So, I got a repeat guest with me today. Good day Francine. 

FRANCINE: Hello. 

GEORGE: Hello Francine. Francine Schaepper from Martial Arts Photography International. We've got a great episode lined up for you today, and we're going to talk about the three martial arts photo mistakes that's hurting your brand. So photos that you might take in the school, training, photos that you're using for ads and promotions and three mistakes that you should avoid and how it could be tarnishing your reputation and your brand. 

We've also got a great download with this episode with a short little instructional video. So I'll give you all the details on how you can get that. But first up, if you haven't listened to podcast one or two, you can go listen to that and get the full story about Francine. I think we spoke a lot about that and a bunch of other things, but for now, Francine, if you could give us just a two minute background, who you are and we'll go from there. 

FRANCINE: Okay. I'm Francine. I am a martial artist of 20 years myself. So I've been training in different styles, it's kind of my passion. Well, it's not kind of my passion, it is my passion and I am a professional photographer as well. So at some point it merged. I created my niche and I've been taking photos for martial arts schools for, I don't know, maybe six, seven years. Yeah. I've got thousands and thousands of photos of martial arts and martial artists in my database. Yeah, I love doing it. So it's an awesome industry to be working in. 

GEORGE: Okay. So let's talk about photos. Now, depending on the state of the union, the state of your country within martial arts where you're at, what I'm referring to is whether you've got restrictions or lockdown or so forth, chances are you might not have a professional photographer on hand that could take photos and a lot of people are just doing it themselves. I mean, smartphones are so good. Actually Francine and I created a course, the Smartphone Photography Masterclass, which is all about taking photos with a phone. 

So phones are really … it's kind of all you need, but it's not just about point and click, right? There's a lot of things that … it's the little things that can make the difference. And I think what we want to really talk about today is those things that you've got to look out for and avoid. So three mistakes, what are the three top mistakes that you see martial arts school owners make when taking photos that's tarnishing the brand and reputation? 

FRANCINE: There's a lot of mistakes you can make,

Brett Fenton recently got married, went on 2 honeymoon vacations, and returned to his martial arts school with more students signed up. We discussed the ‘Instructor Team Blueprint’ that made this possible.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

Creating a value-based culture in your martial arts school
How to build an instructor team that runs like clockwork without you
The method to spot and develop high-potential instructors
Why investing in instructor training helps ensure your school's success
Do this when instructors clash with your culture 
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download The Character Trait Clarifier Worksheet And
Free Video Tutorial (And The PDF Transcription)
TRANSCRIPTION

To create a team that can also be exciting and informative and follow your values and your culture onto that mat space is so important, because then you can be your best as well, not just on the floor but off the floor, where you can problem-solve for parents and students off the mat, because that's just as important as what they're learning on the mat. The moment I switched over to that way of thinking, it all started to change.

GEORGE: Good day. George here. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast. Today I've got a repeat guest with me. Really happy to have Brett Fenton back. Good day, Brett.

BRETT: Hey, George. Good to be back on the podcast again.

GEORGE: The last time we spoke, things were different, right? We were just lockdowns moving in and out, and we were talking about virtual gradings, a few epic things of what you're doing. If anybody wants to backtrack on that, Episode 98, but today I want to talk about something else. 

I chat to Brett every week in our Partners group, in our coaching calls, and Brett's always got a ton of value to share. One thing that's come up is Brett runs about 70 classes per week at Red Dragon Martial Arts, and is only teaching six.

I want to get down to the number one question school owners always ask me is, “How do we get more instructors? How do we go about that process?” I want to, on your behalf, pick Brett's brain today and just get all the insights on how that's going about. 

Brett, just a quick intro for those that haven't listened to the previous podcasts. Just give a quick roundup on your background, where you're based, what you guys do and so forth.

BRETT: Absolutely, George. I've been doing martial arts pretty much all my life, but I got really serious in my late teens. Got started doing Wing Chun Kung Fu, Jow Ga Kung Fu and some Tai Chi, and started teaching classes. As I think most of us do, it's just you're the standout student in the class and so you get thrown up at the front to run warm-ups, and then all of a sudden you're good at that, so then you start teaching classes.

I was doing that in the early '90s, had my first school in '94, and then I started Red Dragon Martial Arts in '97. We're about to hit 24 years of running classes. That's changed, obviously, from the small community hall where we had 20 students to now we're over 400 students. We only had two classes a week. Now we have 70 classes a week, and we have two training rooms, a gym, a full-time professional facility, and an instructor team of over 20.

Yeah, as you said, I only run six of those classes at best on any given week. I love running classes. I love teaching classes. I teach probably more private lessons than I teach classes. I'll probably do between 10 and 20 private lessons a week. That's where I try to add more value to our teaching staff, I suppose, in that element. I'm teaching the instructors or our elite athletes.

Yeah, it's about I was that instructor that basically taught classes for free, was pulled off the bench for no reason other than I was good, and I wanted to come up with a better way of doing it. I've been lucky enough over the last few years to hang out and pick the brains of some of the best peop…

After 8 months of development, our beta launch for The Martial Arts Media™ mobile app has begun. Here’s a brief intro why we created this for the martial arts business community.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

Why we created the Martial Arts Media™ mobile app
The reason why we’re moving our communities from Facebook
What’s included in the Martial Arts Media™ mobile app
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

Ten years from now, I don't want my community to be on – I don't want my business to be so dependent on Facebook, because they can change direction at any given point in time, like they have so many times, and then I'm at the mercy of that. So, I really wanted to build a platform that I own, I can control. 

Hey, George here, hope you're well. So, I wanted to give you a quick update on a couple of really cool things we've created. Life update and a cool business update. 

So, first up, I've just got to keep a listen out for – I don't know if you saw my previous, one of our previous podcasts about the blinds and the solar guy? Well, there's a guy coming to measure some blinds – a different company. 

Anyway, go listen to the podcast, and you'll get the context. But a couple of things that's been going on: I've been fiercely working one-handed for the most part on a mobile app, and I'm really, really excited about you checking it out and the impact that it's going to make. 

So, first up, I say one-handed, I've just come out of surgery. If you're watching this, you can see I had my tendon come off my bone, a nice little injury. So, I'm not allowed to really, I don't have much range, right, that's what I can do with it right now. 

Fortunately, it's out of the sling and I can type again. So, getting a bit of functionality back, but it's been a lot of hard work with my right hand, and I'm left handed! 

So yeah, it's been interesting and I've been talking a lot to text, which is, I think the one big thing that's come out of it, not to go too deep into this topic on the podcast, but not being able to type and talking to text with everything that I've been doing, it's been super productive, actually. 

So, let's talk – the app. I think I hinted on this a while back. You know, COVID has done a few different things for a lot of us, right? You know, made us reshuffle, rethink, you know, think of what-ifs? How do we go about business when things are not the way it should be? 

And so, you know, I also have a lot of those moments, and one moment that I really did have is, I've been putting off doing the thing that I've always wanted to do. The vision that I've always wanted to, you know, the thing I wanted to really build for the industry, and the reason I stopped pursuing that dream is just the technicalities of doing it. 

Having a background in developing websites – and that's how I got into helping martial arts school owners – was working a lot on the technical side of things. And I think personally, for me, swapping between being a technical guy, being a marketing guy, being a coach, it's a lot of hats to juggle, really. 

Even though I just work with martial arts school owners, people say, “Hey, I just work with martial arts school owners,” but there's a lot of, you know, facets that come with that. So, I've been really trying to align just all the things I do. 

But really, that's probably why I just put it off, you know, because I knew the technical mountain that I'd have to dive into to get it done. Anyway, I stopped putting it off, and I did it! 

I started building the mobile app and started late 2020. And we just, after a lot of back and forth with Apple, it's just released into the App Store. Now, depending on when you're listening to this, if it's right now, go check it out, go download it, there's a free trial. Right now, it's really just set up for members of our programs. 

Lindsay Guy is impacting many families while growing his karate business. The most important family being his own.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

Why risk takers are the actual winners
Why asking for help is good for you and your martial arts business
The power of surrounding yourself with like-minded people
Why repetition (of what works) in marketing is a good thing
The elements of an effective Facebook ad campaign
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

It's important that you surround yourself with positive people, people who are all wanting to head in the same direction that you're heading. Regardless of what level of school you've got, you've got guys that come on now who have got quite large schools, that are up to capacity, that are not really interested in expanding their school, but just maintaining it. Keeping up to the levels they've got and of course, they're sharing their knowledge with some of the guys who have got smaller schools. 

GEORGE: Hey everyone, George here, and welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast. I'm speaking to a guest where, I am speaking to actually for the second time today, because we were just on one of our Partners coaching calls. Lindsay was on that and we’re just jumping over to find out more about Lindsay Guy. How are you doing today, Lindsay? 

LINDSAY: Top of the world today, George. I feel great actually! 

GEORGE: Top of the world, thanks to our conversations, right? 

LINDSAY: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You wouldn't believe how I felt prior to coming on with you. Thanks, George. 

GEORGE: Exactly. This is the type of banter, this might set the tone for the conversation, a little bit of tongue-in-cheek, a little bit of self-praise where it's not relevant, but anyway. From my side! 

Anyway, so chatting today to Lindsay Guy, and wanted to bring him on to just chat about his journey in martial arts and a whole bunch of other things that we'll reveal during the interview, but I'll give a quick roundup and then I'll hand it over to you to see if you can give us, you can fill the gaps, and tell us more about you and your background in martial arts. 

But Lindsay Guy, 6th Dan, founder of Guy's Karate School, 6th Dan Sho Da Kan karate, 2nd Dan Taekwondo, Level 5 ISKA referee and international referee, and a whole bunch of other things. So, officially, welcome to the call, Lindsay. 

So, give us a bit of a roundup – just how you got started in the business, the martial arts and how things have evolved up to now. 

LINDSAY: Well, I guess like a lot of people, I was a bullied child. I didn't enjoy my younger years, my school days, I was a bit of a, what you call a nerd. Back in the days when guys had long hair, I was a kid with short hair and glasses and big ears sticking out. So, wasn't really what you'd call a trendsetter at the time. Or maybe I was a trendsetter at the time, I just didn't know about it. 

But I remember I was sitting in my house, I was about 20 years old, sitting in my house and I came across an article in a newspaper about some guys who are going to a tournament with one of the local karate schools, and I thought I wouldn't mind trying that. So, at the end of the ad, of course, it had the details on how to contact the instructor if you're interested in studying karate. 

So, I gave this guy a call and went down to start to train with him. I remember on the first night he said, “Look, these guys are going to a tournament. So, we actually might use you as a bit of a partner, so put these gloves on. You can be a bit of a training partner for these guys.” Now, I've never punched anybody in my life. And yet, here's this guy, got those gloves on. And I continued to go back until about, I guess it was about two months later, when he came to me and he said, “Look”, he was a Swiss German, so he had this very strong accent and everything that …

Sometimes, life and business lessons come from strange scenarios. Here's one between a solar guy and a blinds man that's oddly related to martial arts marketing and business.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

Why building rapport with your customers is crucial
Don't sabotage your sales with wrong assumptions turn into a blind bullet
How to deal with price queries and objections
Why you should educate customers and promote the value proposition
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

Sales situations and so forth – it could be weird sometimes. Let's take it where it could be, maybe the guy just had two bad appointments, and everybody gave him a lowball and said, “Hey, I can't afford this thing.” Well, maybe that happens to you in your school, right? You maybe get, do a tour with one prospect, two prospects, and maybe they're just not the right fit, or you get the same objection.

Hey, George here, I hope you're well. So, I just had this really interesting episode happen at my house, and I knew there was a story in the lesson, or lesson in the story there somewhere. Just been mulling it over in my head, because it was a bit weird. It was a bit strange, and so I thought I would share the story and the lesson I got from it. So, it involves a solar guy (guy that sells solar systems), a blinds man (guy that sells blinds) and a martial artist (me). 

So anyway, we just moved into this new house, and we had two appointments on Saturday. One involved the solar guy to tell us about putting in the solar system and the other was a guy that's going to put up blinds at our alfresco area. Anyway, we had the meeting scheduled 90 minutes apart. And the solar guy comes in, and I don't know about you, but I'm always skeptical of any sales situation. I always like trying to spot the intent. You know, where's this guy at? Is he just trying to make a sale? Or is he actually going to actively give me sincere information? Right? 

So, I'm always trying to spot the intent, anyway. So, this guy comes in and he sits down and goes through the solar stuff. I asked all the questions, and you know, I'm just trying to get a clear understanding of what it involves. I don't have much knowledge on solar stuff. And anyway, so, got a lot of info from him, and I was happy with what he shared. 

But 20 minutes in, the door knocks and it's the blinds man, the guy that sells the blinds that walks in. And he's scheduled for an hour later, right? So, he's like 70 minutes early. Anyway, so I stay with the solar guy, and my wife starts speaking to the blinds man. And here's where the lesson comes in, right? So, he builds no rapport, he doesn't connect, he walks out to the alfresco area, and he asks, “What is your budget?” Kind of like you maybe in your school, right? How many people just ask you, “How much is it?” You know, they don't want to know anything. Anyway, well, this is a sales guy asking that. 

So, it's kind of like an interrogation, like, “What is your budget?” And well, my wife, she doesn't know what blinds cost, neither do I. And, and so she just, you know, pulled a figure out of thin air, just said, “I don't know. $1,000?” I mean, what do you want to say to the sales guy? “Hey, I'm prepared to spend 10, 20 grand on blinds,” or are you going to go in on the lower margin, right? So anyway, she says $1,000 and he just bases everything on that $1,000 and changes his whole positioning and just anything my wife asks, he just says, “No, that's too expensive. No, that's too expensive.” 

And so, first up, the appointment was scheduled so that we could learn and understand what these blinds are about and he gives us nothing. He just keeps, you know, saying that's too expensive, that. But here's what he does. He starts giving us his opinion on solar. And so he starts telling us how solar is awful and it doesn't work.

In this exclusive live recording from a recent Partner’s Intensive, Kevin Blundell from Kumiai Ryu Martial Arts System, shared some of the deeper details responsible for his martial arts business success.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

Scaling your martial arts schools from 1 – 23 locations
Becoming the ‘go to’ martial arts school in a small community
What can martial arts schools model from country clubs?
Strategies to replicate your skills amongst your staff
The science of an effective staff training program
Investing in your instructors with a salary scale
Attracting students into your leadership program
How to keep the quality across multiple martial arts locations
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

The way we structure everything is customer service and what the customer wants. So, first of all, we're providing a martial arts experience, and each person's experience will be different. So, you need to tailor each program you have around that. So, if it’s your kids program, you need to have the parents on board. If you have someone who wants to be a competitor or become a combat sports athlete, we need to have that program detail. If you're someone who just wants to come in and do some training. So, we're offering a martial arts experience, but the key point is clear and concise customer service.

GEORGE: Hey, there! George Fourie here. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media business podcast. We are on Episode 115. And, a bit of a different structure of a podcast for you, but great guests and some great content. So, why the different structure? Over the weekend, we ran our Partners Intensive event – it was a school owner’s event for martial arts school owners all around the world, who are clients of ours. 

So, it wasn't an open event, although we did hand out a few invitations to a few lucky school owners who joined us and got some great value out of the weekend as well. So, ran the event online, which, look, this is the cool part about online, is we have school owners from the United States, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, right? Five different countries all around the globe, and this made for really great mastermind sessions, great conversations between school owners, and it was an epic event. So, really thankful for the weekend, and everybody that attended.  

So, one of my guests, Kevin Blundell, was on previous podcast episode 20, you can have a listen to that, and so I invited Kevin along for round two. And the event was coming up and I said, “Look, why don't we actually just have you at the event, and we can run the podcast as a podcast interview, but more importantly, we can have our guests ask you questions?” And that really changed the flavor of the podcast, great questions about scaling with multiple schools, how to structure the business, how to pay staff, how to do your staff training, etc. So, real good value. 

Kevin Blundell is from Kumiai Ryu Martial Arts Systems, and I might just mix up the numbers, but it's 23 locations, I believe? About half of them are full time and they're approaching just about 2000 students. So, a really successful school owner and just a wealth of knowledge and just a really wonderful human being. Really generous in everything that he shared, so, you're going to get a lot of value out of this. 

Now, there's one snag out of this interview. As luck would have it, I've just moved offices. So, if you look at this, and it looks a bit crazy, it's like day one in my new office, so please don't judge from stuff all around the background—the office. It was my last weekend in my office in the city, and as luck would have it, the day that I ran the online event, the entire building's power went out. Luckily, I had a lot of backups, phone, internet, mobile, etc. 

So, we managed to pull through and five minutes before Kevin logged on,

Australia’s first ever BJJ black belt, John Will, shares a lifetime’s experience of being an outstanding coach, adapting to adversity, and mastering life through a ‘black belt mindset’.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

What is the ‘black belt mindset'?
How to learn new skills effectively and enjoy the process
How to create a positive martial arts club culture
The consequences of chasing martial arts marketing tricks
The smartest financial thing you can do for your martial arts business
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

Most people aren't up for that. They want the quick magical, they want the quick answer. We want the quick everything, right? Instant gratification, the marshmallow theory – you need one marshmallow now, rather than two marshmallows two weeks later, people want that. So, they want quick answers. And I think that's silly, because I don't think it's about the outcome. I think it is about the journey and about enjoying the whole process.

GEORGE: Hey everyone, welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast. This is George Fourie, and I've got an exceptional guest with me today, John Will. And so, I'm going to give just a short little intro. So John, if you're not familiar who John is, John is famous as one of the Dirty Dozen, meaning he is one of the first twelve non-Brazilian to reach a black belt in jiu jitsu, one of the early adopters and also the first Australian to receive a jiu jitsu black belt. Welcome to the call, John. 

JOHN: Yeah. Thanks, George. Thanks for having me. 

GEORGE: Cool. So, look, if we had to go through all the credentials and background, we'll probably take up all the time of the podcast. So, and when somebody has their own Wikipedia page, I think that's where you should start and just go read that. So, I want to skip that. I think I want to just start with a bit of context how I initially came across you, John. 

So, back in, I think it was 2015, I was probably training jiu jitsu for about one year, and the club where I was training at was sort of a side gig, you know, they were a very successful karate school, but jiu jitsu wasn't really the thing. And, jiu jitsu sort of crawled into my life, and I felt like, alright, this is the thing that I'm going to do. And you know, I'm going to only start with the training. So, I was looking around Perth, and I wasn't really, you know, well versed in the know-how of which clubs do what and which, you know, which different organizations and so forth. And I came across a podcast, BjjBrick Podcast. 

JOHN: Oh, yeah. 

GEORGE: And I was listening to you talk, and I can't remember all the details, but I remember the one thing that stuck by me, which was the way you articulated stories and combined it with metaphors and your way of teaching. That struck me as, alright, you're someone that doesn't just know martial arts, but know that delivery aspect of how to teach it and how to articulate. So, I thought we could just start straight there. How did that develop, that side, obviously have lots of years and years of martial arts experience in jiu jitsu and many other styles, but where did this concept of teaching develop, on how you articulate with stories, metaphors, and so forth? 

JOHN: Well, I think that the way that I started, first of all, even though I started in a traditional martial arts background, you know, meaning Taekwondo, karate, I did some freestyle wrestling, and all that, that was just like my first toe in the water. My real experience was gained in Southeast Asia, where I did a lot of traveling back and forth and training over there in the formative years of my life, you know, between like the age of 17, 18 through to my mid-20s. 

And so, the way that I was learning was by looking and analyzing, because I couldn't speak the languages, George. Right? I mean, when they first went over there,

Turning the tables. Florence Sophia interviews me, George Fourie, about Martial Arts Business, training brazilian jiu jitsu, marketing, success and life.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

The three key strategies to pivot and grow your martial art business 
AIDA Model: What is it and how to use it in your marketing
The most important element that many school owners forget to add on their ad campaigns 
Why some martial arts businesses fail
How to stand out from the crowd with your martial arts business
How to create a sustainable game plan for your martial arts business
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

So, I'd like to talk about marketing, because how marketing applies to that. Because without the marketing, you really don't have the business and you're not able to teach, create the impact that you want to create through martial arts and live that lifestyle. So, it always comes down to the marketing side of it. Though you can be a great teacher, if nobody knows who you are, it's always going to be a struggle. And I mean, 99% of the school owners I speak to, it's always, “How do we get more students?” 

Hey, it's George, I hope you're well. So, a bit of a different podcast interview for you today. I just got off a podcast interview where I was the one being interviewed. So, it was a little different – me sitting on the other side of the fence, getting asked all the questions – it was a lot of fun. And so I decided to actually share the podcast interview with you here. Yeah, thought it was a good idea – we discussed a couple of cool things. 

First 20 minutes – more or less sort of life background stuff – but I think about 18 minutes in, we really got into some real good actionable marketing steps, things about business, life, and general. So, I had so much fun, it was great, and I thought it would be good to share the podcast with you today, simply because I'm always the guy asking all the questions. 

So, perhaps you'll learn a bit about me, if you're curious about that. If not, you've heard all that stuff, skip the first 18 minutes and get into the nuts and bolts because we really discussed a couple of real good concepts, actionable stuff for your martial arts business. So anyway, the podcast was with Florence Sophia from Toronto. You can check out her website at bjjyoga.com, and also her Instagram handle is @jiujitsuyoga, right, @jiujitsuyoga, and website bjjyoga.com. Anyway, here we go. Hope you enjoy the episode.

FLORENCE: We are alive. Hi, George. How are you doing?

GEORGE: Good! How are you, Florence? 

FLORENCE: Very well! It is 8pm in Toronto, Canada, and 8am in Australia. 

GEORGE: That's right. 

FLORENCE: In Perth. I can't believe we are speaking from such a distance away from each other. 

GEORGE: It's all good, the future looks good for you guys. 

FLORENCE: Right? The world seems smaller than what it is actually with technology. Amazing. So, let me start by introducing our guest. I am Florence Sophia, I am your host today. And we have an amazing podcast – ‘Wired to Win' is the title – Game Plan and Strategies for Martial Arts Business. I am so much looking forward to this conversation with you, and thank you for making the time to be with us today, George. So, George is the founder of Martial Arts Media. And from a former computer programmer he turned into a successful online marketer. He found his passion for martial arts by following his son's journey, and fast forward eight years later, you're now a purple belt. Congrats on that, that's an amazing achievement. 

GEORGE: Took a while! 

FLORENCE: People don't get there. Yeah, yeah, a lot of tears and sweat, I bet. So, George works with a new group of school owners and community called Partners, and we'll get into it shortly, where the focus is generating more income, more impact, and leading the lifestyle that martial arts prov…

If your martial arts marketing budget is stalling your growth, it might be time to reevaluate your strategy.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

How much should you really spend on marketing your martial arts business
Trading $1,000 for $48,000
When should you turn off your Facebook ads
And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
Download the PDF transcription
TRANSCRIPTION

Should you have a marketing budget for your school? When should you stop running ads? When should you continue? When should you stop marketing or give it a little break? 

Should you have a marketing budget for your school? When should you stop running ads? When should you continue? When should you stop marketing or give a little break? Important topics. So, let's jump in. 

Hey, George here, hope you're doing fantastic. So, I just got off a coaching call with our group, our Partners Power Hour session that we run a couple of times every week, and we had discussed two very separate scenarios. 

One, when you should stop running your ads, and when you should continue? And when you should have a marketing budget, when should you stick to it and when not?

Alright, so this is super important. And I really want to bring this up because I see this come up so often. And so, let's talk about the first scenario. So, one of our members, doing really, really well with their ads, with their campaign and leads are coming in. And it's really working well, right? 

So, the ads are working well, the campaigns are coming in. And we fine-tuned the conversion process of making sure that the leads that are coming in are being signed up and followed up properly, and all being signed up through our Messenger Signup Method, through messenger, through chat. And so, all that is working well. 

And so we got on the call, and our member mentioned that, you know, they brought down the budget. So, we started looking at the numbers and said, ‘Well, you know, leads aren't really coming in as they should.' So, digging into the numbers, it kind of all revealed itself, right? 

So, what it comes down to, and this is for most, is when you are attaching a budget to your marketing, then you are trading pennies for dollars, right? You're trying to save pennies and sacrificing big dollars. 

In this case, we were calculating that, you know, the next 90 days that we want to grow by at least 30 to 40 students. And so, those 30 to 40 students would calculate $48,000 worth of revenue over the year. So, that's a substantial amount and the ad spend to get there based on the conversions were well in the range of just about $1,000. 

So, the question came up – how often would you trade $1,000 for $48,000? All day long, right? You could trade $1,000 for $48,000. You'll do it all day long. But, when you don't have that big picture in front of you, and the plan is clear, it's easy to try and think that, ‘Hang on, I just need to save the dollars on my marketing.' 

But here's the thing with marketing, it's never going to run as smooth as you think. And you know, at the time of us recording this right now, you know, ads are running great. But you know, if you've done marketing for a while, you know, that's not always the case. Things happen in marketing, and sometimes marketing is not as great. 

So, when your ads are converting and you've run the numbers, and you know they're doing well, then, in my opinion, you got to milk it for what it's worth. 

As in, you know, generate the leads and signing students up until things start to break and what I mean by break, is break through to the next level, because with any growth and going from one level, you know, going from 50 students to a 100, to 200, as you know, every phase of growth, something else is going to break. 

So, and that causes some discomfort in itself. So, run the ad until something breaks, and then you know, then you can maybe look at slowing down or, you know,

Let’s put the negatives to rest and discuss what you’re doing better now in your martial arts business moving past COVID.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

How most martial arts schools are booming
What can you take away to improve your martial arts business?
What we’ve been up to behind the scenes
And more

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

I thought I'd check in with you. What have you done in this time? What have you created? And how have you changed the business that's really going to benefit you down the line? 

Hey, George here, hope you're well. So, what good has come from COVID for you, and what have you created, that's going to benefit your business down the line in more ways than you thought? So, I want to be conscious of – you might be in a part of the world where things are still tough and you're struggling, but I'm happy to say that most school owners that I'm getting in touch with are actually doing great. They are doing well, things are on the up. 

Now, I don't know if that is ‘on the up' in comparison to what they were, you know, the last, you know, during this whole pandemic thing, or if they are doing better. And I mean, I speak to a lot of school owners that are doing way better now than what they did prior to COVID. 

So, I thought I'd check in with you. What have you done in this time? What have you created? And how have you changed the business that's really going to benefit you down the line? I know for me, I took it as a bit of a time to reflect a bit and think a bit deeper into like, why do I really do this business? Now, I mean for you, you make an impact through your martial arts, through teaching martial arts, and helping the students. 

For us, we help you as a martial art school owner do that. And do that at scale and make more impact with your students. So, for me it was really reflecting on, ‘Well, why do I really do this?' Well, I know I do it because I love martial arts, and I kind of fell into it, because I was helping the school, you know, I was training and it just consumed my life. It wasn't the buy-a-course, buy-a-course to become a coach, and pick the niche, and then work in the industry. So, it happened on purpose, and it sort of consumed my life. 

But I just wanted to refine things to what is the bigger purpose of actually doing this. So, I spent a lot of time on that. And it's, it's forced me to, well, wouldn't say force, but it's lit a fire under me to create something for the industry. It's been a big vision for a long time. But the workload was probably holding me back, you know, before COVID, things were ticking along fine and I was happy doing things the way we were doing it, how we were helping our clients grow. But somewhere along the line there, you know, with COVID, I really reflected and thought, ‘Well, you know, what is the big picture here? And what do I really want to build?' 

So, the last few months, I've been knee deep into website development and app development. A big reason being that I'm doing it is there's a certain way that I want it done, and having experience with that, I'm very hands-on in the process. Now, there's a lot I haven't done with the website design and so forth. But the way things should play together has been a lot ‘me', and working with an app to work with that's going to be epic for martial arts school owners – that's been a big focus. 

So, it's taken a lot of time, and I'm happy I've gone down that route. But it's been also interesting having to, like, you've also had to shift focus, you know, one side on doing the product creation and development work, and then the other side is helping my clients and creating content for our Partners coaching group. So, that's been me, but I'd love to hear from you, wherever you're watching this video. If it's on YouTube, Facebook, if you listen to it on Apple Podcast,