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124 – Free Trials Vs Paid Trials For Martial Arts: Which Works Better Between Facebook & Google?

January 7, 2022 by George Fourie Leave a Comment

Even if you’re biased like I am between free or paid martial arts trials, this might make you reconsider where one might be more useful than the other.

IN THIS EPISODE:

What’s the purpose of a trial class anyways?
Why what happens before the actual enquiry matters
When to use a free trial and a paid trial offer?
Intent-based vs Interruption-based marketing
What differences to consider when marketing on Facebook and Google
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, George Fourie here. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ business podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about a martial arts marketing age-old dilemma: free trials versus paid trials, which one should you be using in your social media, in your Facebook ads, your Google ads, your promotions, and so forth.

So, I'm going to break it down, and the answer is actually not as straightforward as you might think, especially if you're getting good results with free trials or paid trials, and you are kind of biased towards the other. So, there's actually a place for both. So, I'm going to break down where you could potentially use the paid trial, the free trials, and a bit of the science and the logic behind why you should be using it, at which area in your marketing.

Stick around to the end, I'll share with you how to, where you can download our free resource, ‘The Ultimate Facebook™ guide for Martial Arts Schools', that will help you create your next winning ad. Alright, let's jump in.

So, before we dive into details of free versus paid trials, I think it's important to just discuss why a trial in the first place? I mean, we're not in the business of free and paid trials, right? We're in the business of signing up students; and if a student stays with us for one year to two years to three years, I mean, that's really where things are at, right?

So, why not just go for the marriage proposal straight-up, instead of the drink at the bar? Well, it's really just that, right? We kind of need to start with the drink at the bar. So, what is the drink at the bar? Well, we can use a different analogy for that. But you get what I'm saying, right? So, free trial, paid trial, which is going to work best? Well, it's going to depend on what happens before the trial.

So, how are they actually entering into your world? And where are the inquiries coming from? So, let's take the first example. Let's say somebody walks into your school, they walk into your school, and the conversation goes, “Hey, I'm, you know, been walking past the school and had a look at your website and had a look at- I've seen your posts on social media, and I wouldn't mind giving it a try and seeing if it will work for me.”

So, what do you do in that situation? Well, you could present your paid trial, if that's something that you do. But what if a person like that is not keen to pay something just yet? And they just want to try it out? And maybe it's not the money at all, it's just, they just want to give it a go.

They're just not sure, right? What would you do in that scenario? Is it- should you be enforcing a paid trial? You could… or why not just give away a free trial and let them try it out, right?

Because whether they, I mean, the hard work is done – they've actually walked through the door. From there, you know, how they get to being a member, is really up to you and your sales process, and we'll talk a bit more about that as well. In a sense of that, that's where a free trial could work great, right? Somebody walked in, and they just wanted to give it a try.

Let's look at another angle where free trials can work great, and to do that, let's do a quick comparison on two core platforms, two core advertising or promotional channels, one being social media, and one being Google. So, let's take Facebook versus Google, for example. Alright, so starting with Google, when people go to Google, Google is intent-based marketing. Facebook is interruption-based.

So, let's talk about the big G first. So, Google: intent-based, so, somebody goes to Google, they are actively searching for a solution or trying to solve a problem. And so, depending on where they are in the buying cycle, is going to depend where they're at, with what their search terms are going to be. So, if they've gone through all the cycles, they might be typing in something like, “martial arts school near me”.

But if they're not there yet, then they might be typing in something like, “is martial arts the right thing for my child?” or if they know a little bit about different martial arts schools and martial arts styles, they might be typing in, like, “taekwondo versus Jiu jitsu”, or, “Jiu jitsu versus karate”, etc. So, depending on where they're at in the buying cycle, would really depend on where they're at and what type of search term they are typing in. But nevertheless, this person has got intent.

And by the way, if you want to know more about how these different cycles work, these different stages, I recorded a podcast quite a while ago, called ‘The Five Stages of the Martial Arts Students Signup Cycle'. It's podcast episode #41 – if you go to martialartsmedia.com/41, I'll dive into the details of that, Alright, back to free trials. So, free trials, and searching Google. So, your prospect is searching Google and they find your website.

Now, they've got some intent, right? Because they've been searching, educating themselves about martial arts and they're kind of ready to potentially take the first step – or not. So, they get your website and they're presented with two options. Now, if they know you, like you, and trust you at this point, or your website does a good job of doing that, they might be ready to take on the paid trial. But maybe they're not, right?

So, this is where a website could really, it's good to have a few options. And having an option to have a free trial or inquiry, and the paid trial are all good, right? So, this is where a free trial could also be good, because your prospect is just not ready to take out their credit card just yet, although they are very interested. So, that takes care of Google.

Now, let's move over to Facebook. If we look at mass growth, and student signups, what we've experienced mostly with most of our clients, is it's still the premium channel to attract new students. So, let's look at Facebook. The difference between Facebook and Google, is Facebook is more interruption-based.

So, you can target really well and define exactly who you want to, which demographic you want your ads to be shown to. But you still have to interrupt someone out of their mindless scrolling, right?

So, they're scrolling or they’re just checking the phone for a couple of minutes, your ads have got to grab attention – got to grab attention. And if you want to know how exactly to do that ad structure, I'll share with you the download resource that you can grab on the podcast page, that will go through that resource.

But firstly, you have to grab attention, and attention, interest, and desire, right? So, to create desire, you need to create an irresistible offer – an irresistible offer that's got to communicate value. Now, here's where you can struggle with a free trial. If you've just interrupted someone, and they look at your ad, and they look at the option of a free martial arts class, it doesn't really, it's hard to paint the value around it, right? Again, could be case by case, could be different, right? But we're just talking in general.

In general, how this platform works, it's going to be hard to establish value with a free class. And because you interrupted someone, you could be getting inquiries from people that maybe aren't that interested. And so, you're also going to potentially attract the wrong crowd by having the free trial on Facebook. So, in our experience, and I say in our experience, because we work with a lot of school owners, and we've helped martial arts school owners generate more than 7000 paid trials through this formula.

It's important to have a well-structured, well-worded paid trial with a Facebook ad, and we find that works way better on Facebook. Now, how do we structure the paid trial? Well, that's important as well. It's not just paying for a few classes, but it's packaged with a combination of classes. Classes plus a physical item, and then demonstrating what the value is. And that last point is really key.

So, what do I mean by that? Well, it's not just, you know, buy five classes for 50 bucks, or, you know, whatever the number is, and I'm just making that number up. I've actually never used that offer, so don't… well, try it – if it works, let me know. But it's important to package it with something physical. Why the physical really helps, because if I'm paying, let's say, 39.95 for two weeks, and I get a free training t-shirt or free uniform, that's something physical that I can picture in my mind.

And so, if I'm looking at an offer, and I can see that I'm going to pay 39.95 for a two-week trial, I'm going to get this free uniform that's valued at 75, 85, 95 dollars, or I'm saving this much. Now, if you look at this as a package, and it's like, “Ah, cool,” that makes sense – that demonstrates value. I can understand that, because I can understand a physical item better than I can imagining what a martial arts class would be like.

The silly thing is, in your mind, you might be, you know, a prospect might be rationalizing, “Well, you know, if I can try this, and at least I can keep the free item, if I don't like it.” Not sure what you're going to do with a Gi if, or a uniform, if you're not going to train, but hey, nevertheless, that's cool.

So, just to wrap it up, where do you use a free trial? Where do you use a paid trial? Depends on the platform, where you're going to use it. Make sure that you've got both on your website, so that if somebody finds you, that they can access both – whichever one suits them at the time in their buying cycle. And if you're going to use Facebook ads, then the best bet is to use the paid trial and potentially get the most results from that.

And if you want to know how to do that, then on this page, depending on where you are watching or listening to this episode, martialartsmedia.com/124. So, the number 124, martialartsmedia.com/124. Scroll down to the big red button that says, ‘Download the Ultimate Facebook™ Ad Formula for Martial Arts Schools.' That will help you, take you through the exact process that we use with all our clients to create winning Facebook ad campaigns that help you attract new students all year long

Thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for listening. Wherever you are accessing this episode, please make sure you subscribe, that you get notified when our next episode comes out. And please do me a favor, if you got great value from this episode, please share this with a martial arts school owner or instructor friend that you know would get some great value from listening to or watching this.

Thanks again. See you in the next episode, speak soon.

Here are 3 ways we can help scale your school right now.

1. Download the Martial Arts Media™ Mobile App.

It's our new private community app exclusive for martial arts school owners, with top courses, online events, and free resources to help grow your business. Click here to download for iPhone or Android (any other device).

2. Join the Martial Arts Media™ Academy Membership and become a Case Study.

I'm working closely with a group of martial arts school owners this month to get to 100+ students. If you'd like to work with me to help you grow your martial arts school, get started with our 7-day risk-free trial – Click Here

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, fill out the form and apply HERE … tell me a little about your business and what you would like to work on together and I'll get you all the details – Click Here

Enjoyed the show? Get more martial arts business tips when you subscribe on iTunes for iPhone or Stitcher Radio for Android devices.

***NEW*** Now available on Spotify!

123 – 3 Key Steps To Master For Your Next Martial Arts Facebook Ad Campaign

December 10, 2021 by George Fourie Leave a Comment

If you believe that things like the iOS updates have impacted your martial arts ads, chances are you’re going about this the wrong way. Here’s a foolproof strategy to adapt for your next successful campaign.

IN THIS EPISODE:

What is The Ultimate Facebook Ad Formula For Martial Arts Schools?
Spending too much money on ads? This number might tell a different story
Creating an irresistible martial arts offer
How to use the AIDA formula for martial arts Facebook ads
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

If you don't get the leads, you don't get the trials, you don't get the signups. So if we get this right with Facebook, first up, we can get the ads to flow easily. So it becomes a bit of a timing thing. The right offer at the right time in front of the right people.

Hey, this is George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ business podcast. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about three key steps that you need to master your next Facebook ad campaign. And I'm going to kick off with a bold statement. And the bold statement is, most martial arts school owners are going about this dead wrong. Why do I know this?

Well, first up, we look and we speak to a lot of school owners and look at a lot of ad accounts, but I can tell you that we don't even have to look at the ad accounts when we hear things like, the iOS, the latest iOS update has completely crushed our results. Or, our website is not bringing in leads anymore. Or, we used to have this strategy of running this ad and this retargeting ad, and this doesn't work anymore. Or, everything used to work, and now our ad costs have gone through the roof, and it's not working anymore.

All those things are really a key sign that it's not about Facebook itself, but it's actually about the strategy. So in this episode, I'm going to break down the entire strategy, how to go about it, what to avoid, what to optimize, what to look for and outline a winning ad strategy that you can use. Winning to the point that we've refined it over the last four, five, six years. And we've seen more than 7,000 paid trials go through the system.

So I'm going to share this with you today. Make sure that you hit subscribe wherever you are watching this video, or if you're listening to it, head over to your favorite podcast listening tool thingy, and make sure you subscribe. And also if you hang around to the end, I will share with you where you can get our latest e-book, which is a breakdown of much of what we're discussing here today, which is called The Ultimate Facebook Ad Formula for Martial Arts Schools.

All right, let's jump in.

Let's jump into three key steps to master your next Facebook ad campaign. So just for a little bit of context, this presentation and these slides that I'm going through right now comes from our Partners group. Our Partners program is our flagship program where we help school owners attract the right students, increase signups, and retain more members.

And if you look at it from a model standpoint, this is pretty much what we work on on a month to month basis. And what we're talking about right now, Facebook, Facebook advertising, falls in the top group there, which is called activate ads. All right. Activate ads under Attract. All right. So let's jump in.

So first up, what's the big problem that we're trying to solve here with Facebook ads? And the big problems that we run into? Well, first up, I'm sure you know advertising is hard. No matter who says what, it's hard. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, right? It can be very inconsistent.

And so sometimes it's hard and sometimes you think, well, hang on, I'm actually, I'm on top of this. And then somebody pulls the rug underneath your feet and it just stops working and it could be hard to diagnose and figure out, all right, well, what's actually going on here?

Why is this working and why not? Which can cause a lot of frustration, but more… The biggest impact of course that you get is you struggle to get the leads, and if you don't get the leads, you don't get the trials, you don't get the signups.

So if we get this right with Facebook, first up, we can get the ads to flow easily. So it becomes a bit of a timing thing, right? The right offer at the right time in front of the right people.

And if we know how to adapt our four-step formula that works in between those timeframes, in between those segments, then we're off to a good start. If we could do that, ads will keep on working. Most importantly, we know what to measure and improve. You want to be building up a big library of winning ad campaigns. And this is how it really becomes easier.

Some of our best clients that always used to ask all the questions in the group about Facebook ads now almost ask nothing because, hey, they've just got it mastered. And they've built up this library of winning ad campaigns. And best of all, you get it right, obviously you get the leads and you get the signups. So I'm going to jump into three key concepts, three key concepts to win at your next ad campaign.

So first up, know your numbers. Now I'm sure you've heard this thrown around a lot, right? Yeah, you got to know your numbers, and yeah, we all know we got to know our numbers, but what numbers are we really looking for? So first up we want to know what is a student actually worth?

Because here's the metric that everyone focuses on that's the wrong metric. And that metric is cost per lead. Cost per lead. How much did it cost? What is the cost per click?

Now, yep, it's important to try and reduce that, but it's not really the number that matters, right? Because if you were in real estate, for example, and you were paying per lead, that most martial arts schools are paying, you would be winning. So, yep, we want to try and reduce that cost. But what really matters is, what is the return on investment?

And I'll give a real simple example. I mean, if you had to walk into the casino, and you found a slot machine, and every time you put $1 into that slot machine, it gave $2 back. How many dollars are you going to put into that slot machine? All of them, right? So that's the winning formula.

Now, I mean, if you had to put $5 in and you got $10 out, well, how many dollars are you going to put in? All the $5 that you can get together. So you're not going to go back and say, oh, well, hang on.

I really preferred to put a dollar into the slot machine. No, you don't care because you're getting $10 back. So what I'm really trying to reference to is what is that number? What is the lifetime student value, or at least, what is a student worth for you over the next year?

Because if you know that every student that signs up is worth $1,500, $2,000, $2,500, then the cost per click starts getting a little more irrelevant. Now, obviously you need to be concerned about that because I mean, if we're spending $1,000 to get a new student and a student's only worth $1,500, well, we're going to burn through cash flow quite fast, right?

And something I learned from Mike Rhodes way long ago was to look at what is a student worth? What is a customer worth over the first three months? And then, grabbing a name, another tip from another gentleman I've learned a lot from, Dean Jackson, stating how much would you spend with a smile on your face to acquire a customer?

So if you look at, let's say, all right, well, what is the student worth over the next three months? And then, how much of that am I going to spend with a smile on my face to acquire a new customer, a new student in our case, then what is that number? So if you're comfortable with that number, now we know, all right, well, I'm comfortable spending $50, $100, $150 to acquire a new student, and I will do that all day long. And that's the metric that you've got to dial in. All right, let's move on.

Number two, your irresistible offer. What is an irresistible offer? Well, I've got a picture here of a fidget spinner. It's probably not an ideal irresistible offer. Well, it was for a while, right? Because everybody wanted a fidget spinner.

But what is an irresistible offer? Well, you want to think of your offer, in the case with martial arts, is how do students get started with you? And what is a way that they can get started with you that's completely risk free for them, and it's enticing enough for them to take the first step.

So here's what the offer is not. The offer is not trying to sell the membership, especially not on Facebook, right? Not with this type of marketing. And I can dive deeper into how Facebook works as an interruption, but for now, we've just got to focus on the fact that we want to put an enticing offer in front of people that gets them to take the first step.

Now, the first step is not signing up for a 12-month membership, right? The first step is them seeing an offer, seeing something that's irresistible enough for them to go ahead and take the first step and put their hand up and say, all right, I'm keen to do this. Okay. I'm keen to do this and let's go ahead and try this out, right?

And I say try this out, I mean, we want people to start, but we want people to feel comfortable about taking that first step without the risk being on them. And risk might be, well, sign up for a 12-month membership to get started. I know nobody does that, but hey, you want to make it easy for them.

So let's talk about offers. So what is better? Should we run a free trial or a paid trial? Now in our experience there's room for both, but when it comes to Facebook, paid trial typically works better. And I'll explain why.

If we had to compare Facebook and Google, when somebody comes through Google, there's some intent. Meaning they go to Google, they look for it, they search, and they've got some intent to actually… They're interested, right? They already have the interest.

On Facebook, we can target really well, but we have to interrupt. So we got to interrupt people from scrolling. People are sitting on their phones and they're looking through, and we got to put something in front of people that appears of great value. So, yep, we can grab their attention and get them interested, but we've got to build desire with a specific ad offer. And that's where a good irresistible offer comes into play.

So you need a good, irresistible offer, and you need to establish some value. Now it's very hard to establish value with something that's free. Because what is a free trial?

What does that mean? What's the catch? Why is it free?

But if you package something with a uniform or a physical item, like gloves, t-shirt, belt, et cetera, and they're paying X instead of XX, now they can see the value and it's much easier to make a decision. All right. So work on your offer and work on your paid trials.

Now, these are examples. You might already be using a paid trial, but what could… And if your paid trial is not working, then you got to dig a bit deeper, and it could be actually in the way that it's worded.

So there's certain things that you've got to avoid and certain things you can say or not, and there's certain numbers that will work better than the others. But too much detail to get into right now, but pay attention to the way you deliver your paid trial. All right, let's move on.

And number three is, follow the formula. Follow the formula. So what is the ad formula to work with when creating ads? For us, we keep it super simple. We use the age-old AIDA formula. A I D A. If you've heard of it, great. Maybe you'll get some context if you haven't heard of it. A is for attention. I is for interest. D is for desire. A is for action. So I'm going to break down exactly how we go about this, right?

So A for attention is grabbing attention. So you want to call the people out that you are trying to have a conversation with, and that could be simply calling them out. San Diego moms, men of Sydney.

So it's just telling the people who we are talking to, that we are trying to talk to them. The next thing that will also, and this probably counts for more than anything, is the type of media that you use. So the type of image. Now, should you use images? Should you use videos?

Well, in our case, I'd rather use an image. It's just much easier and you've got to be really good at video to really make video work. And side note, all respect to all videographers, but most people that think they're really good at video are not because they create a good video, but they don't have the sales knowledge and marketing knowledge to package it in the right way, to grab the attention and build up the desire. That's attention.

Interest is creating a cool headline. How do you grab interest? Well, in our case, what we do is we create a benefit driven headline.

So how do we craft a benefit? Something that, what is the thing that they're going to get? Now, what you want to avoid here is not talk about what it is, but you want to talk about what they get.

Two different things, right? What it is, is they get martial arts classes. What they get is the result that they get from martial arts classes.

So this is where we want to talk about more of the end result, the benefit, the desire that they're going to get from this. Let's talk about desire. How do we go about desire? Because we've managed to craft the offers in such an irresistible way, we tend to find that in the desire section, we just insert our irresistible offer right there.

And if we've grabbed their attention and built up their interest with a powerful, benefit driven headline, then that's normally enough for them to say, all right, I want to try this out. And this is where we insert our irresistible offer. And then last but not least is the call to action.

So what do they need to do to get this? And this is where most school owners fall flat. Reason why: they will send the person to a website.

The worst thing you can possibly do is just send them to your homepage website. Because imagine you've just spoken about this awesome offer and everything, and now they click on a link and when they click on it, it's nothing relevant to what was just spoken about.

So they're lost, and immediately they leave, right? And they bounce and away they go. The other is to send them to a landing page.

Now this is where everybody feels and thinks that they have to have the best landing page. Well, got news for you. If you're struggling with Facebook right now, Facebook doesn't want you to leave Facebook.

So actually sending people to a landing page could be really, really hard to do. So unless you're super experienced and you're testing it and your landing page was specifically created for that specific offer, I would not recommend going about this.

I would do one of two things. One would be to create a lead ad, which is internal with Facebook. Or number two is send people directly to Messenger. And by doing this people stay on Facebook, they stay in the framework, and now you can follow up in that way.

And if you do something like in our Partners group, we have The Messenger Signup Method. It takes your prospects from being curious to serious, and then we sign them up. Then that's something that can really work for you. And it's really scalable, as well.

All right. And that's it. Those are the three key steps.

So quickly as a recap, number one, know your numbers. What are the key numbers you got to pay attention to? Well, first up, what is your student worth over the next 12 months or for the lifetime?

Your lifetime student value, and how much are you comfortable spending that? What are you comfortable spending with a smile on your face to acquire your student? So paying attention to that rather than what are you paying per click.

Number two is your irresistible martial arts offer. So what type of offer are you using? If you are generating your ads from Facebook, highly recommend you look at a paid trial offer and then make sure that your paid trial offer is worded the right way, worded using the right numbers and making sure that when somebody looks at the offer, that it automatically screams of value.

And what I mean by that is, they look at it, and it's a no brainer for them to not go ahead with it. And then number three, follow the formula. So the formula being AIDA, which is the formula we follow. A for attention, I for interest, D for desire, and A for action. All right. And that's it.

Now, if you do want a copy of our latest e-book, The Ultimate Facebook Ad Formula for Martial Arts Schools, then head over to the podcast episode on martialartsmedia.com, and you'll find it at martialartsmedia.com/123.

We're just lucky that this episode is number 123, right? So martialartsmedia.com/ the numbers 123, not the words written out, just the numbers, 123. And there'll be a button there, all the show notes will be there, plus a transcript. And you'll be able to download The Ultimate Facebook Ad Formula for Martial Arts Schools.

And if you need some help with your Facebook ads and you want to learn more, how we can help you, or maybe you need someone, you just need a second set of eyes to have a look at your ad account and your ads, then reach out to us. Best way to do that is go to martialartsmedia.com/scale. So S-C-A-L-E. martialartsmedia.com/scale.

There's a little questionnaire, a couple of steps with a few questions for us to better understand where you're at with your business, what you need help with. And then that will go through to another screen where we can book any time to chat and go from there.

All right, thanks so much. I hope this episode was helpful. And if you're struggling with ads, I just want to confirm this, do take this formula seriously because we work with this formula. Obviously, there's layers and details on it, but this formula, it's not our formula.

It's a proven formula. We've just refined it for martial arts schools. And like I've said, we've seen more than 7,000 paid trials go through the system for schools of all sizes. Schools that are just starting out, pushing a hundred students, schools that have got multiple thousands of students, and the formula just works.

If you need any help, let us know. And otherwise, thanks a lot for listening, thanks a lot for watching, and I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers.

Here are 3 ways we can help scale your school right now.

1. Download the Martial Arts Media™ Mobile App.

2. Join the Martial Arts Media™ Academy Membership and become a Case Study.

3. Work With Me and My Team Privately.

Enjoyed the show? Get more martial arts business tips when you subscribe on iTunes for iPhone or Stitcher Radio for Android devices.

Now also available on Spotify!

67 – And Still… The No.1 Martial Arts Marketing Mistake

October 19, 2018 by George Fourie

How to avoid the biggest marketing mistake that martial arts school owners make when advertising online.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

Matching your message for the right platform.
If this one thing doesn’t work, your ads won’t work.
The ‘kitchen sink’.
The real reason why you need to simplify your sales funnel.
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

The first thing that you really, really need to get down to is, how do you structure the offer, how do you get an offer to convert? Because if the offer converts, everything else is going to work.

Hey, this is George. And I quickly want to talk about how to avoid the one biggest marketing mistake that comes up quite often when I speak to martial arts school owners.

So just a bit of context: I'm in New Zealand right now, just on a bit of a family vacation. And we've got this awesome view and the weather’s been up and down, but today it's just such a perfect day on the lake here in Hamilton, so I just wanted to get that on video.

So here's what happens, right? So we've got a program in the Martial Arts Media Academy, where we help school owners with all areas of marketing. When it comes to emailing, Facebook, Google, etc. And where the problem came, was trying to mix too many of the same strategies.

So, here's what happened: one of our members had been trying to get their Facebook ad to really work. And we've got an email structure that sends out… basically, we structure emails that go out to your prospects. They're structured over about two weeks and it basically helps build a relationship with your prospects while you're not there.

And so when doing email, you follow certain…there's certain things you can do, right? There's a certain way you can speak, there's a certain way that you can format your message. And the first message that goes out, we call it “the kitchen sink,” because it's everything in the kitchen sink, right? It's telling the prospect everything they need to know about you.

And so where the confusion came in, was trying to actually use this strategy, because our member got such good results with this one email, he decided it would be a good idea to put that on a Facebook ad. But the problem was that the email, it sends people to… it's in a whole different position, right?

The person is already a lead, they're already a prospect, the relationship has already started, and now they get this email that sends them to YouTube, that sends them to everything that they can learn and know about them and then martial arts school, right?

So when you use this on a Facebook ad, of course, that's kind of suicidal, because you're sending people to all these different locations. And by sending them to all these different locations, you’ve got no way to ever know if it works, or not. And my exact answer was, let’s say this ad works – awesome. You get a good result. That would be great, but let’s say you run it again and it doesn't work?

Then there's no way for you to know why, because there were just too many variables, right? People went to YouTube, people went here, people went here, people went here… so that creates a lot of confusion and…not a confusion so much, but there's no way for you to actually scale and improve that type of ad.

So here's what the biggest mistake is: the biggest mistake is trying to do too many things too soon and sending people to too many directions too soon. So when you create an ad and- it's a very common thing, but just have people do the one, simplest thing that's going to start the conversation with them. How can you make it easy for them to raise their hand and do something?

And sometimes that's just a comment, sometimes that's sending a message. Because here's the thing, right: if you’ve never run a Facebook ad and you’ve never gotten anybody to respond, so you never got a conversion on your Facebook ad, then nothing else is going to work, right?

So the first thing that you really, really need to get down to is, how do you structure the offer, how do you get an offer to convert? Because if the offer converts, everything else is going to work. So if the person is going to respond to your offer, then you can start looking at, OK: how do I make this landing page better? How do I make this message better? But on the frontend, you’ve got to get the offer to convert.

I hope that helps. If it helps in some way, then leave me a comment below, or yeah – I’ll see you in the next video. Cheers!

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

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66 – The Hard Way Vs The Easy(re) Way

October 12, 2018 by George Fourie

Every martial arts business has its challenges. If there was one ‘shortcut' to success, this would be it.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The real ‘shortcut’ to martial arts business success
The easy and hard ways of marketing your martial arts school
Why you should invest in these marketing strategies
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

If you're struggling with something and need help, then why don't you just get help from someone who has done it before, made all the mistakes and shortcut all that learning? All the mistakes that they made, you can bypass that and get the result faster.

Hey, George here. Just walking back from a trip, we were just at Mount Ruapehu, if I've said that right. You can probably see it, it's sort of in the background there. Yeah, the snowy mountains, pretty awesome scenery here in New Zealand. Pretty cold, when you're used to the hot weather in Perth.

I was reminded today, there's the easy way to do things and a hard way. So today was the first day I took up snowboarding and because I’ve surfed before, I always thought, oh, this is going to be so easy. So I thought, you know what, why not give it a shot? Why not I go and try snowboarding, without lessons and just go do it, right? And the outcome was pretty… interesting.

So, yeah, I ate a lot of snow, falling down and, yeah, it was an interesting affair. And it reminded me that there's always the easy way to do things or the hard way. Just like before I started helping martial arts school owners with digital marketing stuff. I took the hard way, I tried to learn everything myself, without any help.

So just going by mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, spending a lot of money, wasting a lot of money and it's just a long process, which can be really frustrating, right?

If you're trying to learn something and you don’t have any help, then you try everything, you do everything. It doesn't make sense and you think you’re going to save money by not spending money on a course or trying to get advice or coaching. So you go the long road, the long route.

And you try and fumble through things by yourself. And it can be really frustrating and it can take a long time and I guess that’s why a lot of people also stop doing what it is they were trying to achieve because it's just too hard.

So, yeah, when you go that route, it's always, it just takes a lot longer and it's a lot more frustrating. And I guess that’s just with everything, right? Like, with your marketing, marketing your business with your martial arts, you can try to fumble through things, try and take shortcuts, or just get help.

Get help from someone who’s done it before, who’s tried things, who has invested in some knowledge and gotten good results, obviously. You can’t just follow someone that invested in good marketing, or good coaching or something, because if they didn't get results yet themselves, then how can they teach you to get a result?

So I guess I just thought I’d shoot this video, the real message I want to get across is: if you're struggling with something and need help, then why don't you just get help from someone who has done it before, made all the mistakes and shortcut all that learning. All the mistakes that they made, you can bypass that and get the result faster.

Hope that helps in some way. I’m going to go into that spot over there, which is nice and warm and get myself a nice drink. Cheers!

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

Enjoyed the show? Get more martial arts business tips when you subscribe on iTunes for iPhone or Stitcher Radio for Android devices.

64 – Google Search Vs. Social Media For Martial Arts Schools (And Goldfish Have Surpassed Us!)

July 31, 2018 by George Fourie

The subtle difference you need to know when creating content for Google search vs social media for martial arts schools.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The difference between search engine marketing and social media marketing for martial arts schools
How goldfish have surpassed us
Leveraging your content creation
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, this is George. Just here in Perth City and I was at an event from Google, Google Garage. And pretty basic information but some interesting stats, which was a good refresher on just how things work in the digital world, so I thought I’d share with you something that you could use when you create content for your martial arts school.

Before I get to that, one of the most interesting stats that I thought was interesting was that goldfish have officially surpassed us, meaning attention span. So where goldfish used to have a shorter attention span than human beings, according to their stats, Google stats, we are now… human beings attention span is 8 seconds and goldfish have 9 seconds. So they have the one up.

So here's something that I found interesting, was the difference between your strategy with Google search and social media. So it's one of those things that… When you kind of know it and we’ve been really trying to be deliberate about it, but when you really realize the big difference, it's kind of an aha moment about how you go about it.

So, when you look at social media, social media… a big thing about social media, which is a pet peeve is, the longevity of your content, right?

Because you can create social media posts today and you’ve got about 24-48 hours before they have completely lost their reach, ok? So unless you're doing something else with it, like using it for an ad or something like that, that's going to be the lifespan of the content for you.

So when you look at Google, so again, social media – very positive and generally positive, right? I mean, obviously, when you create content, you want to create positive content. Some people just create complaining posts, right? I mean if that's your thing – awesome, but I wouldn’t recommend it for your martial arts school, right? So that's the one side. You’ve got the social media content that you create.

Now, Google on the flipside, is not so much of a… dare I say it, like a fake facade, right? It's not all “Everybody’s happy” moments; it's people going to Google and really typing in real life problems, ok? Real things that are going on in their life, that they're trying to solve in a martial art school’s case, self-defense, or its activities for the kids and that can also just be the super, the first level of the problem, right? Because it could be a few layers deep.

So that is the real difference, the difference being, one is being created for more of a positive and friendly and happy vibe and at Google, people are typing in real-world problems. And then obviously, finding results for that and that's how you find articles, videos and so forth. So I guess the key thing is always, how do you bridge the gap, right? How can you create content that leverages both platforms?

Because if you're only investing in social media, then it's ongoing and you’ve always got to do it. But if you create the content with the purpose of how can it be leveraged and how can people find it later on your website, then you're playing a whole new different game.

A little tool we use in the Martial Arts Media Academy, which I’m revamping now for our new modules, is a content multiplier. Content duplicator like a cloning type tool. So you create one piece of content and then you model it and clone it for different platforms.

So that's one side of it, but then the really cool thing about it is, how to take one piece of content and then making sure that it's relevant on all platforms. So I won’t go into all the details and that but I want you to really think about it; when you're creating content, how can you create your content so that it could be used, obviously on social media, how can it be used so that it can be found afterwards, so if people are doing a Google search and they can find it on your website. And then even better, how can you use it on social media for an ad and how can you use that to really broaden your audience.

And if you want a few more details on that, I’m happy to shoot another video, perhaps even share the tool that we use for this, but I'll leave that for now.

Speak soon – until the next video. Cheers!

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

Enjoyed the show? Get more martial arts business tips when you subscribe on iTunes for iPhone or Stitcher Radio for Android devices.

53 – [Case Study] Mike Fooks – Doubling Your Part-Time BJJ School With One Successful Campaign

February 2, 2018 by George Fourie

Martial Arts Media Academy member Mike Fooks from Auckland is on a marketing roll! And if his new student signups stay, he's doubled his BJJ school.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

How Mike Fooks has managed to balance his martial arts and corporate life
The benefits of online advertising services such as Facebook Ads and Google AdWords
How a single Facebook campaign doubled Mike’s student number
How the Martial Arts Media Academy program has helped Mike implement his campaign correctly
The one thing that Mike could have done differently before he launched his Facebook campaign
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

So already from one two-week campaign. I'm going to, if not hit my goal, I'm going to be at least halfway towards it. In effect, the only reason I've pulled back on the campaign a little bit now is because we ran out of the free uniforms, or close to it. So I've got more on order. When they head, we'll be back into it. Their goal, which I thought was, these people are audacious to try and double. I have a suspicion we're going to hit that fairly quickly.

GEORGE: Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast! Today I'm with Mike Fooks and we're going to do a bit of a combination here. I got to know Mike through one of the online communities that I'm part of and we've built a new website for him; which you can check out at groundcontrol.net.nz.

Mike's based in Auckland and we got started with helping him with the Martial Arts Media Academy Program where we help martial arts school owners with lead generation and so forth. Besides that, Mike's got a very interesting story with things that he does in the corporate world and how that overlaps with the martial arts school. This is going to be a fun conversation! So welcome to the podcast, Mike!

MIKE: Thanks, George! Thanks for having me on!

GEORGE: Awesome! So, based in Auckland. Probably going to come and visit you September this year. So, I guess just to start things off. Who is Mike Fooks?

MIKE: Okay, so I spend my time doing a number of different things. Obviously, I'm a martial arts school owner. We run an academy called “GroundControl” where we focus on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mixed martial arts. That's been going for about 11 years now under that name. Been training for a little bit longer than that before we named the school, but that's not my full-time gig. During the day I spend most of my time doing corporate training.

So, working with sales teams and leaders and various people. Primarily on face-to-face persuasive communication whether it's sales or influence in negotiation or even internal communication and conflict management. Those sorts of things and also a lot on mindset and resilience. I'm trained at university in Psychology and then went on and got qualified in neurolinguistics or NLP over a number of years. Then, based on that, my partner and I have a private practice where we do individual work with people one-on-one sort of coaching, counselling, therapeutic type stuff.

Obviously whether it is therapy or coaching just depends on how messed up they are when they walk in the door but hopefully, it's all the same by the time they walk out. And so that's another thing I spend my time doing.

Sometimes people say to me, wow, Mike, well that's a lot you've got going on but to me, it's actually really simple. When people ask me, “What do you do?” I'm a coach. You know? My job is to bring out the potential in others. And I just do that in various formats. Sometimes I do that in the boardroom, in the training room. Sometimes I do that in my coaching room. And of course, sometimes I do that on the martial arts mat.

GEORGE: That's an interesting philosophy. Yeah. It sounds like many things happening but as you mentioned, you're kind of trying to achieve the same result with the people that you work with, just through a different medium.

MIKE: Yeah, that's right. There's often a little bit of leakage between the two things. I get frustrated when I'm teaching corporates, for example, because I'm going, “Look, there are so many great examples of what I'm talking about if you just knew jiu-jitsu.” And certainly, on the jiu-jitsu mat, you know, there are concepts that I will teach corporates about communication or how to problem solve, which make it into our coaching sessions at GroundControl. There's a little bit of leakage involved.

GEORGE: So have you ever then cross-promoted if you feel. Do you cross promote between the corporate training that you do and jiu-jitsu?

MIKE: I have to be a little careful on that because the sponsors that get me involved too, you know, I’m with the sales team would probably take a dim view if they thought I was using that as a platform to cross-promote jiu-jitsu. Having said that, inevitably I tell a couple of jiu-jitsu stories or metaphors and it's not unusual for somebody to tap me on the shoulder afterwards and say, “Hey, have you got more information on that? I'd be keen to have a look.” So that certainly happens.

GEORGE: Alright, alright. Interesting. Now, how did you get started in jiu-jitsu, first and foremost?

MIKE: If we go all the way back, as a kid I did the standard dabbling in martial arts, I think a couple of lessons in judo when I was about six. And two lessons of karate when I was 13. But I got started, seriously in my martial arts career in another style, Aikido. Which I started in 1993. Had always been interested in martial arts, watched all the movies. But got intrigued by this idea of Aikido, based on a conversation I had with a friend of my brothers who was into judo and karate. And showed me a basic kind of immobilization arm lock. And then talked about how Aikido guys, that's what you do in anything like that, just immobilize, wow that sounds cool.

So I did some research and got involved in Aikido. Now, of course, 1993 was an interesting year to start in the martial arts because it was the same year of the first UFC. So I started in April and towards the end of that year, the first UFC came out and, of course, that just rocked the entire martial arts community as most of your listeners will be aware.

At the time, I was at university. And I was working in a video games parlor to earn some cash, part-time. So I would sit on the desk and just load myself up with five martial arts magazines every shift and just devour as much information as I could. And so I was kind of got a front-row seat. We didn't have access to any of the footage or anything like that in New Zealand but I started to read all of the stuff coming out about the UFC and what does it mean that it seems like the stand-up fighters aren't doing so well. Got curious about that.

And then I got onto Usenet. Onto the old newsgroups. You know, before we had online forums or anything like that let alone Facebook. And there were all of these debates that sprung up about my style is better than yours. And I started out 100 percent in the traditional martial artist camp. You know, “Well, a true Aikido master would never debase themselves by entering such a competition.” You know, that kind of thing.

Over time I noticed something really interesting. When people were having these debates about what works, what doesn't what I consistently noticed was the BJJ guys that were saying, well, where are you? Let's get together, let's find out.

And not necessarily in an overly aggressive way although there's always a little bit of that sometimes but for a lot of them it was just a “we can show you.” I'm completely confident that I know how this will go. And over time as I sat there, by now about I think a second degree black belt in Aikido I was thinking I'm not sure I've got that same level of, “I definitely know how this is going to go confidence that these people seem to have.” So I got really curious about that.

And then in 2001, after the first time, New Zealand showed MMA on TV. Sky TV over here ran a weekend where they played back-to-back Pride and King of the Cage events. Old ones. I was on a honeymoon that weekend. Overseas. So I had my new brother-in-law set up in my living room with a VCR player swapping tapes over. And so when I got back I just devoured it and found a BJJ school within a month or two after that. Which, at the time, was not easy in New Zealand. Because there really wasn't a lot going on. Certainly no black belts around. It was early days for sure.

GEORGE: What an awesome and interesting journey. So now you've got the school, and I guess, let's backtrack a bit. Before I met you and sort of what is the school up to at this point in time?

MIKE: Yeah. So we gave ourselves a name in 2006. Up until then, it had been, you know, the standard thing. A bunch of people train in my garage. Most of those, my Aikido students who I'd said, hey have a look at this. And then, hey, let's do more of this and come to the garage. Because I was training them consecutively at the time. That was something that we knew as my club. What we called it because we weren't supposed to talk about it outside of my club. And then over time that grew and grew and grew. We started to get more and more professional. My coach, John Will runs a competition every September called, “The Gathering.”

The first time I went to that, one of the things he had done for the school owners got a bunch of Australian school owners together, I think it was about five of them, to give us some tips. I remember, you know, Fari Salievski was there. And a few other people. Frank was there. And so I come over with like, 48 action items about how do we make this thing more professional. And then over time, we got more and more so by the time we hit kind of the end of 2017, I'm running a school which is muddling along alright. You know? It's a part-time school. I'd got to the point where I had realized that look, I'm only part-time in this, it is never going to be a huge money spinner for me. If I can, you know, break even and get a little bit of pocket money but keep the thing going, that's pretty cool.

So 30 students on contract, and then with the various people coming through, beginners trials and various sorts that we had. I was probably content to leave it sitting there. Except for a conversation that I had with a guy, Trent Rice. Who some people know as Bear in the jiu-jitsu community. He was over from Australia to do some work for his day job. And he said, yeah, I want to come train, can I come along? I said, sure.

So we met each other on the ferry from town back to where I live. And we had a chat and he was just in the process of looking at going full time into martial arts and he mentioned, you know, one of the online communities that he was involved with which is, you know, where we hooked up. And it started to occur to me that, hey look, I don't have a full-time brain to put on this.

But if I can start to connect with people that are thinking about this full time and have figured out what works and what doesn't, and just do what they say, maybe I can actually start to make some gains I'd kind of put away on the shelf. In terms of ambition, for a little while. So I started to get quite excited at that idea and over the last, even just last month or so since we've really started firing, it's really starting to get quite exciting.

GEORGE: Fantastic. And full credit to the community that's Paul Veldman's Martial Arts Business Community.

MIKE: Yeah, absolutely, yeah I've seen various things like that throughout my Facebook feed from time to time and I was always a bit suspicious about, you know, there's a lot of people out there making money off telling people how to make money. But don't usually make money any other way.

So the fact that Trent knew Paul personally and he logged in and he showed me some of the stuff that was going on gave me a lot of comfort that, hey this is going to be worthwhile. And, you know, the investments I've made around things like that community, the website, the Martial Arts Media Academy are paying themselves back very, very quickly and very, very easily.

GEORGE: Cool. So let's have a look. We made some changes with, first and foremost, got you set up with a new website. I mean, I'm a fan, obviously, of all the websites that we create but I'm really a fan of the GroundControl website, just how it came out in the end. I mean, it took a while for us to really fine tune and get through the obstacles, but it really, for a jiu-jitsu website it really, it brings out a lot of color and I'm using it as an example within the BJJ community, for websites that we are developing.

So we got you set up with the right tools. And then you got started in the Martial Arts Media Academy. Before you got started, what type of lead generation were you doing on the internet?

MIKE: Yeah, not a lot to be honest. Most of our stuff came through word of mouth or, you know, maybe they'll find us in a Google search. I had dabbled in Facebook so I had done the odd promotion here and there. Start of the year, come at half price or come in and your friend trains for free or something like that. And they would bring in maybe four or five people two of which might hang around and we thought that was a pretty good job.

When I did those sort of promotions I wasn't throwing too much spend at it. Very conservative. Because I wasn't quite sure how much they'd pay off. So I dabbled but it hadn't really amounted to too much.

GEORGE: Alright. So you got started in the training. So what part has helped the most? And then we'll talk about what you're doing right now that's really working as well.

MIKE: I think, in terms of what part has helped the most, I mean it's all helping but I think just starting to feel like I can never get in my way through things. So when I had dabble before, you know you go into the ad manager on Facebook and there are all these different options, you know, what's the objective of your campaign, this that or the other, and so I was kind of like, click, click, click, click. That'll do.

So to be able to kind of sit down and have you kind of work me through some stuff live and go, oh, okay, so I want interaction and I know the reasons why I want interaction now. And actually being able to figure out how those consoles work and why I would make certain decisions when we have those sorts of choices that was a huge help. Because the ability to be walked through your first time is where you get your understanding from. People can throw theory at you all day, but when you actually start you know, I literally had you on one screen while I had the thing on the other screen going, “and now what? I'll click on that? Okay, now I'll click on that.”

And so and with the content creation as well in terms of, here's how you design your ad and this is what your copy should look like, all of that stuff made me much more focused, I think, in what I was doing.

GEORGE: I guess this is the biggest pain point for me or frustration. It makes me want to rant, and I don't really rant. But it makes me want to rant, is a theory without substance.

MIKE: Yup.

GEORGE: There's a lot of, this is, you should do this, but there's not “here's how to do it.” And a lot of the times, the people who are talking the ‘what’ are not actually doing the how. So you can buy into a concept of coaching where you kind of can be shown how to do it, you should get another guy to do it. Us.

MIKE: That's right. You know, when I think about it, as you talked just now, that's exactly how we teach martial arts. I don't show a bunch of beginners a move and then say, good luck, go and try it out, right? I show them the move and then I talk them through each individual step to make sure they're on the same path. So it kind of felt like that. That I was being given, hey here's what you should do and why, but now here's the bit where I'm going to talk you through each step and then I can play along. And before I know it I've got an ad campaign running.

GEORGE: Of course, it's one thing to be walked through, but then that's where, and the same as in martial arts, now you know how to do it, but now you apply it, and it doesn't work the way you were … actually experienced it. And then, that's I guess where the key part comes in. You know, what we really try and focus on in the academy is, alright, you've implemented, now let's correct. Let's see if we can fine-tune, let's see if we can fix things and get them working in the end.

MIKE: Yeah, that's right and that's where I think the value of those. We've got a lot of content about here's how to set up Facebook and here's how to develop content and AdWords and all these sorts of things but the coaching calls are really, really valuable as well. Because you know, you come along and go, well this is what I'm doing right now, that's what's relevant for me, and ask you questions and there's always really good content generated either it's from my own questions or other people's. So I think that's why coaching calls are really valuable. And really valuable to get on live. Rather than just watching the recording sometimes as because you come up with questions that you wouldn't have asked, you know, other people don't necessarily ask so that's really cool.

GEORGE: Awesome. You were having some good results with your campaigns in the beginning of the year, where are you at with your campaign?

MIKE: When I first signed up to Paul Veldman's group, you know, the first thing I saw him say is, you set some goals. I thought, well, yeah, I know about setting goals. I teach people about that so I better do one and so it's been, what on paper sounds fairly ambitious, even though we're starting from a small base is to double membership and it's been done relatively quickly.

So I have 30 people on contract, this takes that to 60. That would be good. So once the website was up and I started the Facebook campaign, I ran that campaign for about two weeks. No more than that. And at last count, I think we've got close to 35 paid trials. So over the next two to three weeks, we'll start to see how many of those paid trials tip over into full membership. But certainly the feedback I'm getting from the people on the trial is that they're loving it. So we should convert a reasonable amount of those.

Already from one, two-week campaign, I'm going to if not hit my goal, I'm going to be, you know, at least halfway towards it. And, in fact, the only reason I've pulled back on the campaign a little bit now is that we ran out of the free uniforms or got close to it so I've got more on order when they head we'll be back into it. That goal which I thought was, you know, these people are audacious to try and double, I have a suspicion we're going to hit that pretty quickly.

GEORGE: That's awesome. So you've gone from, so you started up with 30 students although you've got them in the trial so you've kind of doubled but not, obviously, proved down the line where things are at. Yeah.

MIKE: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm fairly confident because our retention rate from trial into full membership tends to be pretty good. Having said that, I have redesigned how that whole thing works based on the advice I've got from you and Paul and various people like this is the first we've used paid trials. Which I think there's a lot of hesitation about for people that are used to going, hey, a free week. To go to paid trial, certainly in New Zealand, I don't see a lot of that going on. But it's worked really, really well for us.

So the fact that they've got that skin in the game and I know we can give them a really good experience over four weeks. It's going to be really interesting to kind of look back in four weeks’ time or so and go, okay, what was our conversion rate? But I'm expecting it to be pretty solid.

GEORGE: That's awesome. That's really good going. Well done. That's awesome. So, and I'm thinking, though, that the fact that you've run out of uniforms, I'm like, alright, those create perfect conversations for your marketing campaigns as well. You know.

MIKE: Yeah.

GEORGE: You've sold out, here's a waiting list. We'll let you know when the next batch comes in. And then that creates a whole new urgency campaign for your next follow-up because, yeah. People missed out, now they've got to jump on board and they've only got, you know. They missed out the last time. They better jump on.

MIKE: That's a really good point. Literally, just before we came on this call, I got a message pop-up from, because we had, like, over 200 people message us with an expression of interest so I've got all those leads that I started to go back to and say, hey, are you still interested?

But one of them popped up and said, hey, is this thing still on? So I was about to go back and say yes and just, I really hope you're not a size 5. But yeah, that's a really good point. We can go, “Well, actually we've sold out but you know, over the next two weeks we might launch it again so just look out.”

GEORGE: Yeah. Waitlist. Awesome. I like that.

MIKE: Nice.

GEORGE: Good stuff. Okay. Just a couple of things. And just for, you know, as part of the case study of course, of the Martial Arts Media Academy program, who would you recommend it to? And why?

MIKE: Pretty broad. Martial arts school owners that want to grow. Because I think there's a lot of people. So my school, for example, we've tried this on adults, I notice a lot of the schools around have got real kids focus. But that hasn't made any difference to me in terms of the quality of the content, it's all completely applicable.

By the standards of some schools, we are relatively small so I know a lot of people look at the initial outlay and go, oh, that must for really big professional schools. But that's not us. In some ways, I think it's even more useful for people our size because, you know, I don't have time to really think about this stuff and figure it out so I was kind of groping in the dark a little bit. And in terms of, you know, what it costs to get on the program, you know, you make that back with a couple students pretty quickly.

So I'm really interested, as I look around the New Zealand scene, there's not a lot of people taking a sophisticated approach to this. When I look at the results that I've had, part of that may be that my competitors just aren't doing it this way. So I think anyone that really wants to grow and stay up with the game or enter the game, it's really worthwhile. You do have to put some time commitment into it. You know, the financial investment is probably the easier thing. The time investment is the really important thing. There's so much great content in there that you're going to have to go through it a few times you know, I've got notes scrawled everywhere and then go back to the recording as I'm doing a particular campaign.

So as long as people are free to put the time investment in, I struggle to think of a school that wouldn't benefit from it unless the person themselves is already pretty sophisticated in not just marketing, but specifically online marketing. But I don't see a lot of that it martial arts.

GEORGE: Yeah, thanks, Mike. And you bring up a good point on time because there's time spent and then there's time well spent. I mean, either way, you're going to have to spend the time. You're going to have to spend the time to do the marketing and I mean, you can take an hour to do an okay or really mediocre job at your marketing, get frustrated, not a way to ask for help. The biggest danger of that is reaching a level of frustration where you just, this online stuff is crap or, you know, just, I don't have time to deal with this. I'm not going to do it. And you abandon the whole thing. And your business suffers.

Or, what's worse is, you know, people get a call from a company that says, hey, we can get you on the first page of Google and they have no sense of an actual overall strategy that you need for your school and again, it could be the easy way out, because you can just pay money, but if they don't know their overall strategy, they're just catering for one touch point. Which is search? The search engines. When you've got to cover for all six to eight interactions that are going to happen before conversion.

So you've got to be covering all the steps. If you get educated, get a bit of a strategy, it's easy to spend money on getting the hands to get people to do stuff, as long as you actually know what to do and what to look out for at the end of the day.

MIKE: I think that's really right. I think, if I had decided, look, I really want to put some focus into growing the school, I'm going really spend some time over generally to do that but I want to do it myself. What probably would have happened if I would have sat down with my partner Carleen and we would have spent, maybe even as much time, maybe even more time. But we would have spent it on completely the wrong stuff.

You know, there's design, there are ads, and you have to get really finicky over how the image looks and really kind of tweak that to the nth degree. Within actual fact it was much better just to go, let's just blast out five images, three for BJJ, two for MMA, split test them, see what works. And after a couple of days, we know what the winner is. And as you had indicated, it's always the one that surprises you. You know? It's not the one I would have picked. So a lot of those sorts of things but sort of sacked a lot of our time trying to finesse stuff that could have been done a lot more simply and then that time spent put back to more things.

What I like about the academy is, as you just kind of alluded to, is the comprehensiveness of it. What I'm excited about is, we've got these results already just from one Facebook campaign. Now, we've got some professional videos that have been done which are going to land sometime this week so I'm already excited about how we're going to introduce them, let alone through email campaigns and content strategy and AdWords working properly. We've got this much growth but we've really just scratched the tip of the iceberg.

GEORGE: That's exciting. Yeah, I look forward to seeing the videos and really looking at a few things that we're trialling right now with all the new changes within Facebook and how to really get that message out. Hey, Mike, it's been great having you on, is there anything I should have asked you? That I haven't covered?

MIKE: Is there anything that you shouldn't have asked me?

GEORGE: I know, it's sort of that question that people ask when they think they haven't asked enough questions.

MIKE: The only thing I guess I would add, thinking about the most recent campaign that we've done, it comes back a little bit to the commitment thing, is it's one thing to throw up an ad, and I kind of came into both Paul's group and your group hoping for, look, you can tell me how to automate everything so I can just press go and walk away and the club will just go boom. And of course it doesn't work that way so you know, we aim for interaction which means that I was, every day, once or twice a day, sometimes three times a day, having to log in and go, oh look, there are another 30 responses here, I've got to go back and respond to each one.

Now the response was pretty easy, ones I cut and paste into a PM but just be really disciplined about that. Because it's one thing to put up a shop front and say, this is a really great shop, come and look in the window but if you're not providing something quality in terms of experience when they get there, then it's all for nought.

So, the Machado brothers had an expression in jiu-jitsu, “Swim, swim, swim, die on the beach.” You know, you don't want to have to do all that work and then just follow over the last hurdle through, not doing you're follow through and your responsiveness and those sorts of things really well.

Probably the one thing that I would have done differently if I went back, and even though I had heard warnings about this from yourself and Paul, I don't think I had got my admin geared up well enough to handle the sudden influx of people. So we've given them a pretty good experience signing in but there are just a couple little things I've seen fall through the cracks. Only one's got their membership card or they haven't all been given the beginner's manual for some reason. So, looking forward, next time my site's running campaigns I'm really going to make sure that all that stuff's locked in and ready to go. Because it kind of caught me by surprise how many people signed up so quickly.

GEORGE: Very good point on a few things. The messaging, I see a lot of people want to automate too quickly and I hear, I see in communities, people get frustrated about the mundane responses that they've got to give but there's a big lesson in those mundane responses and yeah, look, sometimes people are just ignorant but you always got to look at your marketing and your message and say, alright, why's this coming up all the time? If everybody is asking what your location is, hey then just put at the end, “Conveniently located in the suburb.” That might just cover it.

o you've got to pay attention to what people are asking and those are the objections that you can turn into better marketing next time. It's all about learning and I see people too quick to want to automate it. And I always say, you can't automate something that's not working manually. If you can't sell your membership face to face or in a text message then no chatbot or anything is going to do that magically for you.

Your conversion is going to go down. So master that first, and then you can go and add all the automation but you've got to get the conversion right first. And I mean, if the … when the offer converts, everything else works. You know? You can go and you can go tweak everything else, but getting that offer to convert first, that's the real art. And that's the real work. And if you can focus just on that, then you can get fancy. And then you can start taking your campaigns to a higher level if that's really what you want to do. And really scale it up. For the next school, opening multiple schools and so forth.

MIKE: Absolutely.

GEORGE: Awesome. Hey, Mike, it's been great chatting with you. So people can find out more about you at groundcontrol.net.nz and anywhere else people can find more info about you?

MIKE: There's a little bit about my corporate stuff on my other website which is kineticpotential.co.nz. So the stuff about the individual coaching and the corporate work I do there is on there. So, yeah, those are the two places to find me.

GEORGE: Awesome. I think we could probably do a round two and go really, really deep into some psychology stuff and things that you do in your day job and how that connects with your martial arts. And if you are interested in the Martial Arts Media Academy where you watch this you can just send us a message or you can go to martialartsmedia.academy and find out more about that. Mike, great speaking to you face to face for the first time. And I will see you in Auckland this year.

MIKE: Looking forward to it. Thanks, George.

GEORGE: Awesome. Thanks, Mike.

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

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51 – How To Run Your First Facebook Ad For Martial Arts

December 15, 2017 by George Fourie

The one thing to master with your first Facebook ad for your martial arts school.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The biggest mistake martial arts school owners make with Facebook advertising.
How to avoid marketing frustration and simplify.
The one thing you need to get right before getting fancy.
How conversation leads to conversion.
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com and in this video training, I want to share with you a few tips to really consider if you're starting to run paid advertising, especially if you haven't run any paid ads before, particularly I want to base the concept here on Facebook ads.

Now, when it comes to optimizing for things like Google, it can definitely, the logic still applies, but the framework here – I just want to apply this on Facebook ads and the reason this came up is, you know, Martial Arts Media Academy program, we're running a bonus for our members over Christmas and New Years, where we are helping our members structure a campaign, structuring a Facebook ad campaign and structuring campaigns for the New Year. So we're working with our members to really get stuck in and venture into this world of paid advertising.

So, a few things have come up where I see a lot of people are getting stuck, so I wanted to share this training not just with our members, but with everyone because I felt that it’s an obstacle that a lot of people run into and I think if you focus down and you really simplify, then your chances of succeeding is a lot better and the minute you're going to get some results, it’s going to give you some confidence to run more ads and it will keep you going. Because I know when you start running paid advertising, it can be very demotivating, right?

Maybe you're not really tech orientated and you struggle with the technology part and then you don't really know what you're doing, so you're trying to piece all these things together. And it can be really hard, really frustrating and this is why a lot of people just give up and stop trying.

So I want to give you a few simple things to look out for, what you should be doing first, what you should be doing last. Not so much what you should be doing last, but what you should really do first. And then you can go on and get all fancy with everything else, OK? But most people don't get to the fancy part because they're trying to get all fancy in the beginning and then they lose money, their campaigns don't work, they get frustrated and move out.

All right. So we want to turn that around here. I want to show you how you can get your campaigns up and running, get a result fast and then move on and really start scaling your campaign. All right, so let’s see how this works on the iPad, I'm going to draw this out.

So let's typically look at the whole process here, so if we're going to break it down into the simplicity of all this. So we're obviously looking for, we've got a prospect, we'll give him an average male face and ideally obviously, we're working towards a student, let's throw in a little kick there. All right, and a smiley face. Ok, cool.

So the first thing we've really got to get right is, we've got to start with who's the target, so who we are actually looking at, who’s the demographic, who’s going to see this ad. And it’s important to have this linked up because you want to show the right ad to the right person at the right time, obviously as well. Right time for them, that the ad is actually applicable to them. So who's the target?

And then we've got to look at what's going to be the offer, all right? So let's just do that for the offer, OK? So what's going to be the offer? You've got your target, so you've got the right target and then we want to show them an offer that's going to be a message to market match for them, all right? And then what we've got to put in front of them obviously is an ad, OK? So we've got to have some ad copy, OK? Very neglected art skill to learn, writing copy can be a hard thing and the easiest thing to get it going is just using a simple language, don't get fancy, just think of simplicity.

And then, with Facebook obviously, you're also going to have to have a bit of a picture, all right? Maybe we've got our happy students in there doing this thing. I know that's not going to be the best-looking thing but the picture and then we've got a call to action. All right, what do we need these people to do? And the call to action can be many things, right? It can be, they've just got to leave a comment, or try and make somebody that's that's a guy speaking, hurray! Or we've got a message, we can send them a message. And then, obviously you can have your website link, you can maybe use the phone, etc. OK, so you can use whatever to compensate for your call to action. OK?

But here's when I see people really get stuck. They try and get fancy in all these little steps in the funnel, OK? Which means every little step here, every little column has a different obstacle that needs to be optimized that it can work. So what's going to be happening is, you've got a lot of work to do. And your chances of success are going to be so slim because it’s your first time that you're running an ad, then you've got to get your targeting right, you've got to get your offer right, you've got to get the ad copyright, the right image.

And then which call to action? Which call to action are you going to use? Are you going to send them directly to your website? If it’s not congruent with this offer here, then I definitely wouldn't do that. Are you going to send them to a landing page? Awesome. Was your landing page professionally designed, with professional copy, with the right call to action and conversion elements and all that in place? Awesome.

Then you stand a chance, but at the end of the day, you've got to look at what's the lowest form of, what is the easiest thing for people to do and how can you get your result the quickest? And the quickest way you're going to really get the result would be this part over here. Hang on, let me just draw this properly here. It's this section over here, OK? Because if you can get the offer right, then all the hard work is done. Yes, it’s got to go to the right target audience, OK?

Yes, you're going to have to have the right copy. But if you have awesome ad copy and the wrong offer, it’s not going to work. Or you can have the perfect call to action, but the offer is wrong – and it’s not going to work. So yes, your targeting has got to be spot on, but you've got to have an offer that converts. If the offer converts, everything else is going to work, OK?

So what if you break it down and you just think of removing everything else, what can you do to get the student to sign up and put the right offer in front of them and remove everything else? What are all the obstacles that are going to be in place? Because if you don't have an offer that converts, then you can have the best ad copy in the world, you can have the best landing page in the world, you can have all the tools, the call to action, the bots that reply and do all the things for you. But you've never made a sale, but you're trying to implement a bot. So, getting the offer, getting a sale online and making sure that your offer converts and people actually buy it – that's going to be the core part.

So, break it down further, then what can you do to actually facilitate that, right? Well, you've got an offer that converts, now what do they need to do to get it? Well, they need to engage in a conversation. Your easiest way to get there is to start a conversation. Conversation is going to lead to the conversion. So how can you get the conversation started? Because if you can get the conversation started, then you can lead to the conversion.

That means you've got to pick up the phone and talk to them and really get to understand their objections, their needs, their wants and what it is that you were missing in your ad, then do that five or ten times, because I can guarantee, the next time you create an ad, you are actually going to earn, you're going to get results.

All right, I hope that helps. If you need help with your Facebook ad campaigns, or your Google ads, especially if you're running, at the time of recording this, running into sort of the Christmas season, running into January which is the peak time here in Australia and New Zealand and most parts of the world, then leave me a message where you watched this video and we’re happy to help.

All right, thanks a lot, speak soon – cheers!

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47 – [Case Study] How Dave Richardson from Kung Fu Southside Grew His School by 33%

October 9, 2017 by George Fourie

Martial Arts Media Academy founding member shares his successful growth while getting ready for the next benchmark.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The greatest impact the Martial Arts Media Academy has contributed to Dave Richardson’s martial arts school growth
Why you should invest in hiring a marketing expert
The benefits of email marketing and why you should not neglect it
What is ‘superhero syndrome’ and why you should avoid it
How you can get marketing help through the Martial Arts Media Academy
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Yeah, the other thing that was really helpful was the coaching calls, and going through the websites and what not, and how to tweak this and change that, and work together in the Academy to make the pieces fit.

George: Hey this is George Fourie from Martial Arts Media, and I'm joined today with Dave Richardson. Now Dave is based in Brisbane from Kung Fu Southside, and Dave is also one of our first members of the Martial Arts Media Academy. So we're going to have just a bit of a chat about his experience and his journey. So welcome to the call, Dave.

Dave: Good day George, thank you mate for having me on your podcast.

George: Awesome, so let's just go back to the beginning, before you got started with the Martial Arts Media Academy, so what is it that made you join? Was it a problem that you were trying to solve or something? Or what sort of vision did you have in mind in the beginning?

Dave: Funnily enough, in the beginning, it just started off over a cup of coffee with a mate of mine, Jack Leung from Practical Wing Chun, he pointed out your Martial Arts Media Facebook page I think it was. I looked into it and then yeah you had the academy there and it sort of went from there, because I was really wanting to make my school go full time. At that stage it wasn't, so I was just hungry for information and help to get into an industry that I'd been a part of but only on the outskirts.

George: Okay, so give us a bit of a background, so 'cause you currently got the school, you're transitioning into full time, and you're still working a business during the day, right?

Dave: Yes, correct, correct. The school started in a shed in my backyard and we outgrew that and we ended up moving into a commercial premises, it was just traveling under its own steam. Then I realized that this is my calling, and I'd rather be teaching people Kung Fu than killing bugs in my pest control business. So the transition is still being made, but definitely now Kung Fu is taking up more and more time and generating more income.

George: Cool, so how are you juggling the two at this point in time? You've got the pest control business, right?

Dave: Yes.

George: Cool, so how's the juggle going between the transitioning between that and the Kung Fu school?

Dave: You've hit the nail on the head, juggle is the right word. Time management was one of the skills that I've really had to learn. So trying to portion time where I can focus on the school, not just the teaching side of it, but the actual building of the business side of it as well. So that's what I've done, I've set aside two days a week where my focus is on building the business side of the school.

George: Awesome, if we look at when you entered the academy and working with me, what are the sort of top two or three things that's made the biggest impact for you?

Dave: Oh George, one of the biggest things was the website because I built my own website, I'm one of these guys that'll have a crack at anything. Doesn't mean I'm good at it but I'll have a go at it, and yeah so the website that you did for me actually help with conversions. It was a lot better, rather than just a name, rank and serial number type website, to actually have a website that funneled for want of a better word, funneled people to an offer page and the offer that you presented with me as part of the academy really has made a difference as well. So that was one of them, the email sequence follow up, you have to follow up, if you don't follow through you don't get anywhere. Then also the Facebook, using Facebook and the marketing strategies there is really generating more website traffic as well as its own Facebook traffic as well.

George: Awesome and you hit the nail on the head there with, I think if you find it especially in the martial arts industry that people are go-getters so you want to do everything yourself. There's a top marketer, he calls it the superhero syndrome, you just want to take it all on and do it yourself. With a website, if you've got a little tech knowledge, it's actually an easy thing to put the tech together, you know you can hire most people to put that part together for you.

But when it comes to the actual strategy from front to back, that's where the real thinking part comes in, to really have it structured in a way that's going to convert and obviously deliver your message. Your strengths and what it is that makes your school unique, that be congruent, that when they actually walk in that there's a connection. Not they saw a stock image in a fancy place and now they walk in a place that's completely different as such.

Dave: Yes and that's true. Like you said, anybody can put a website together, hey I did it. If I can do it, then anybody can do it, but yeah the way it was structured, yeah that's an experience that I didn't have and that certainly made a difference as well.

George: Cool, and then, of course, the email now, email some people refer to as the old school way of marketing, but it's still the one item that everybody has, is an email address. I think a lot of people miss it, you know when people say emails not working, I say, “You're not doing it right.” Because that's generally the experience, it's easy to blame the platform, people say that all day about Facebook, about Google, the platform doesn't work. But it's really, again it comes down to the strategy of it.

The reason why we put a lot of focus on email is most martial arts school owners are of course time poor. So I guess that's a general thing in any business owner. So if you look at the things that you can automate in a structure, that's the one method where people are going to have some text exchange if it's not over the phone, then we want to look at leveraging your time.

Leveraging your time means, of course, putting the automation systems in place that can do a lot of the legwork for you. So when you are doing the follow up that there are some ways that you can contact everybody on mass, that still feels personal, and still building the relationship. That helps set you apart and get your time back at the end of the day.

Dave: Yeah, for sure, and you hit the nail on the head when you said strategy because you can send an email to anyone then it can be exactly the same as that website that I had, that was name, rank and serial number. I'm Joe Blogs from x, y, z martial arts school, and we cost this much, you can ring me on this number. You've just given all the people the information and there's no relationship built, so that was a big thing, was that the strategy in building the relationship through email. That strategy can carry across to your Facebook messages, anything like that, yeah so it's not about just giving information, it's about building a relationship.

George: Definitely so, it comes down to the understanding of the way of communication and that sort of trickles through. How about Facebook? Because you said it's sort of all, the different components as in a strategy is working together for you.

Dave: Yeah, like, pardon me. Running a few different strategies that are say informational, then there's competitions, then there's the offer. So just basically getting the brand out there, just standing up and say, “Hey, here we are.” You might not get an initial response from whatever you put out there, but you're getting put in front of people. That's the main thing because people might not be ready to start now.

Classic example is my mistiming of my last Facebook strategy with the daytime classes. School holidays were on, I didn't even take that into account, and all of the mums that wanted to start during the day because they have free time couldn't because they were looking after the kids. So hopefully next week, we'll have a big influx of mothers coming in for the daytime classes. Like they've all responded to us, but I was standing there by myself there the first day.

George: That's all good, I'm going to be creating a separate video about this, but I was attending a training with Dean Jackson and he was talking about identifying the five-star prospects and making peace with the fact that 85 percent of your prospects are not ready to join now. They're ready to join perhaps because they've expressed interest, but somewhere, and the time frame they apply this in the property market especially, but their strategy is that 100 percent of their prospects are going to join within the next two years.

So it takes the pressure off of sifting the 15 percent that's ready to join now, and then the 85 percent that's going to join later. The whole concept behind this is, how do you go about your marketing? Are you serving that 85 percent? Because if you're serving the 85 percent, the 15 percent will just jump on board anyway, 'cause they're ready. But if you focus all your efforts on too much strategy of I've got to get them on board now, you risk of actually turning the 85 percent off, because your marketing is so hard and in your face type of thing.

Dave: Yeah, that makes perfect sense, I'd never thought of it that way, that's for sure. Instant gratification is always good like if you put something out there and then next thing it's going off, that's great. Look I've had that happen with a couple of Facebook promotions that I've done, and it's really been great because it's helped boost numbers quickly, which is what everybody wants. They want to boost numbers but like, we have a saying in Wing Chun that you start with the first form, which is the base form, and you build your foundation there.

If you haven't got the good foundation then the rest of it isn't going to work. It might work to a degree, but it has a high chance of falling over so yeah you've got to have that foundation there first. So the way I look at it is the websites got to be good, you've got to have a good web presence and then you can start adding the quick responses. So putting out the Facebook promos and stuff like that, that's going to generate the interest, but like you say that 85 percent have to have something there for them as well.

George: Yeah, definitely, so Dave what's the biggest impact this whole journey working with me has had on the business and personally? Especially now that you're taking this role of creating more content and taking on a different position and stance within the business.

Dave: Yeah George, I'm sort of the type of person that is always keen to learn. I've got a hunger for knowledge, so it's been a great journey with you doing all of the different aspects of what we've covered in the academy. Say from how your website should be structured, the email sequences, and then how to work Facebook, I mean how many modules was that. That did my head in, it's still doing my head in. But that was only part of it, it was about knowing your target market, who am I actually trying to get through the door?

Yeah, the other thing that was really helpful were the coaching calls and going through the websites and what not, and how to tweak this, and change that. Work together in the academy to make it all fit, make the pieces fit. Because it's one thing to have all the pieces of the puzzle, but if they're scattered all over the board it doesn't make much sense. So that was a key thing to making it work, was the coaching calls and putting the puzzle together.

George: Yes, thanks, Dave, and I'm glad you mentioned that because it's especially in this internet digital age, it's really easy to get information. You can get it in groups, you can take a piece here, and you can take a piece here. You can take someone’s strategy, but if you don't have the whole strategy and you don't have someone to really help you put it together, that's where people get stuck. Because you are time poor and now you buy this course and you're reading through it, taking the information in is easy, that's the easy part, it's actually having to put it into practice. That's where the obstacles come in, and if you don't have someone that can say, “Alright but hey maybe you should just adjust this, and adjust this.” That's what's going to really make the difference.

Dave: It certainly did make a difference because I had all the modules there. Like you said, information's easily accessible and making it all fit and work, well, as a martial artist that's what your instructors there for. Then there was other things like when we met in person at the Martial Arts First, and one of the persons that we met there, Henry Calantog, just from his way of teaching made me look differently at the way I was learning. Like with yourself, and so on, and so you're picking up bits and pieces from everywhere. And the podcasts, like the podcasts that you've been doing, I've learnt so much from those guys as well. Everything, everything's been a positive experience there's no doubt about it because I was green when I started and I'm still a darker shade of green now I suppose.

George: That's all good but I mean you're moving forward, your business is growing. What are things look like for you in the next six months with your martial arts school?

Dave: Well mate before we started, what was it, I think it was around July or August when we started, I think I had between 50 and 60 students. Just last week we cracked the 90 mark, which was huge. Yeah, it's been really good so I'm hoping after next week with the daytime classes kicking off full swing that we'll be over the 100 mark and then it's onwards and upwards.

George: Awesome, so I guess we should set a goal live on the podcast then, right?

Dave: You want accountability, well that's one way to do it I suppose.

George: Let's just tell the world that we're going to have Dave Richardson back on the podcast for when he strikes 100 and how many students?

Dave: Let's make it 150, a nice realistic easy one, we'll do that easy.

George: Alright, there we go, so everybody knows 150 students, Dave Richardson will be back on the Martial Arts Media Business podcast. There we go.

Dave: Now you've put me on the spot.

George: It can't be any better than that, just putting it out there could probably get it a lot sooner than what you'd expect. Anybody that's listening to this if you know Dave, hit him up and say, “Alright we're rooting for you, we're waiting for the 150 students.” Now the pressure’s on buddy.

Dave: Thanks, George.

George: Alright awesome, just to wrap it up, who would you recommend join the Martial Arts Academy and why do you feel so?

Dave: Mate, look anybody who has a martial arts school, you can't go wrong. Anybody who has a young martial arts school, if you've got no tech savvy at all definitely get on board, you'll learn a lot. I had a very minimal technological advantage, disadvantage and I was able to now be able to implement all of the automation for the email, using Facebook, the website. So anybody who has a school, starting a school, or wants to grow their business, get proactive. Invest in yourself, invest the time in yourself, and the dividends will pay for themselves, yup.

George: Awesome and for anybody interested in checking it out, martialartsmedia.academy is where you can get more information. So just go check that out, and yeah, join us in the academy.

Dave: Yeah, look forward to it.

George: Awesome, great to have you on Dave, and I'm probably going to be speaking to you again, when is it?

Dave: In about 60 students’ time.

George: No, I just wanted a time frame. Okay, I think we've put you under enough pressure, so yeah, in about 60 students’ time. Let's keep it at that.

Dave: No game on, challenge accepted.

George: Awesome, good stuff Dave, thanks for being on the show and we'll speak to you again in 60 students.

Dave: Good on you George, thank you mate, cheers.

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