Hakan Manav reveals how they solved 4 growth obstacles martial arts school owners face and built a thriving, full‑time operation with 4 locations, a 30 staff, and 1,800 students.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- Explore the hidden product tweak that keeps students smiling and sparks unstoppable growth
- Uncover a fresh staff-training approach that secretly sculpts high-performing instructors
- Follow a surprising systems shortcut that quietly streamlines every corner of the academy
- Experience the leadership shift that frees you from day-to-day tasks and ignites team synergy
- A glimpse into the Manav’s families path to a 1,800-student academy by overcoming 4 key obstacles
- And more
*FREE: Swipe the exact plan I use to fill martial arts schools with 200+ students within 7 months (And make sure your students are an incredible fit > Learn More
TRANSCRIPTION
GEORGE: Hey there, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast episode. Today I've got a guest with me and I was just looking through, I actually googled it, when the last time he was on the podcast and it goes back to episode 14, November the 1st, 2016.Nine years ago. Cool, welcome back Hakan.
HAKAN: Thank you George, happy to be here.
GEORGE: Awesome. So I'm trying to think when we had that podcast, I was probably, I saw you do a demonstration at Weimar and that's probably a couple of years before that. And you already had your DVDs. I think we still got your DVD box of your program.
HAKAN: We're telling our age, aren't we?
GEORGE: And I guess it's funny how like our journey together, work together. I also looked into Stripe and you've also the longest standing client that I've worked with in regards to marketing and Facebook ads.
And just the other day we got talking about helping more school owners and we decided to do a joint venture together in what we call Partners Mentor. And we'll probably talk a little bit about that, but there's a few things that we want to discuss in the industry, particularly where people are getting stuck, things that we are seeing.
There's a lot of our conversations on messenger back and forth and planning and doing some marketing and me getting feedback from what you're seeing on the mats, hands-on, me looking at what am I seeing around the industry, what's coming from different school owners around the globe, what people are facing.
And I think a good thing for us to be in this episode, one of a few, would be to, yeah, just have a bird's eye overview of looking where things are at in the industry, what are you seeing, where people are getting stuck, what's coming up and so forth. But before we get into that for those listening and they haven't met you, just give us a bit of a roundup.
HAKAN: Sure. Yeah. So my name is Hakan. I'm a lifelong martial artist in the true sense of the term. I was born into the sport with my father being an instructor and a school owner himself.
So I've had the unique perspective of being a student and then growing up in the academy and doing everything around that in terms of training and competing and doing demonstrations and basically doing everything that was required. However, it also came with the business side of the industry.
So what that meant was after the classes were done, whether it was conversations at home with the family or in the car with my dad, we always spoke about the challenges around running an academy and instructors and leads and everything along with that.
My father, when he first established the academy, like most in the industry, it was a hobby for him. It was a passion that he did on the side and his instructor gave him the pathway and the opportunity to start teaching, which he did.
And that naturally flowed on into some schools, some locations, and it was a passion project until it wasn't. And so you fast forward about 15, 20 years into my father's journey, where he starts to see that organically, the academy has got some culture around it. It's thriving.
There's great positivity around it. This is all led by him, right? Very small staff, if any. It was a one-man show for a very long time.
And then through his connections in the industry, through his friends and through other instructors, the industry started to transform. And we're talking late 90s, early 2000s here. And what I'm saying that it's trying to transform is I'm a 13, 14 year old boy at this time.
There's a lot of information being shared amongst the industry. There's a lot of industry events that have started to slowly be on offer. And why was this a pivotal moment?
Because up until those times, there was a tendency to keep your systems and your techniques, keep your cards close to your chest, right? As in do not expose your teachings that are passed down to you.
So that was a pivotal moment. And through my father being open-minded and willing to change and willing to learn from the industry, he started attending those events.
And all of those industry events and those monthly CDs, DVDs that were being sent, those cassette tapes. He was able to adopt those learnings into the academy and start to make those necessary changes for our academy to become a passion project and transform into a full-time academy, which we have now.
I've been fortunate enough to witness those changes happen and then it became not only my father's full-time gig, mine, and in our academy, we have close to 30 staff.
So it's become an opportunity for a lot of our team to make a living through the martial arts and professionalize the service of martial arts, which has been truly wonderful.
GEORGE: So 30 staff and that's around how many locations and how many students approximately?
HAKAN: Approximately 1800 students. And so we've got four locations and with those locations, we have two distinct models. We have the part-time model, which some people can resonate with in the sense that we operate out of a hall twice a week, but it's highly efficient. That location offers two days a week.
It seats around 220 students. And so we've got that model down to a point where we can make sure that we're highly efficient with our timetabling, with our staff, with our curriculums, and therefore getting maximum use of the space and time that we have. On the flip side, we have our full-time location in Marrickville here in Sydney.
And that's the location that's been around for 43 years now and organically become what it has. And that location offers various programs with a seven day a week timetable. And that's sitting at about 1200 students at the moment.
And then we have a five day a week location and a three days a week location. And all of these are part of the organization in the sense that we maintain full control of every single student and instructor in our network.
GEORGE: So it's interesting that you stick to those two models. So just to get around how you approach the market and how you think about it, is there any reason why you don't take the part-time locations and turn them into full-time locations seeing as there's 20 students?
HAKAN: Yeah. So there's a method to the madness in the sense that we have these markers in place where we feel like we are in a position to expand days, right? And when we reach those markers, whether it's instructors that are readily available or whether we have the required student amount, we then pull the trigger into opening.
So firstly, we look at a day and we look at how we maximize the running of the day through our efficient timetabling model.
And if you are running a model at the moment and you're an instructor, you should always look at how to maximize the space that you have to keep those costs at a minimum. So when we do that, we then feel like we can add classes. And when we add the maximum amount of classes, we feel like we can on a day.
We look at our indicators, which enable us to then determine whether we're ready to open another day. Once we have a certain number of days running at the level we want it to run, we then look at either acquiring or renting a space nearby that facility to then transform that into a full-time center.
So the goal is to do it in a sustainable manner where you're minimizing risks where possible, but also taking the necessary steps and maintaining full quality control in that scenario.
We never want to go into a full-time facility with zero students because we know that's the hardest to build. But if we have some level of student base that can help grow and also cover the cost of that full-time facility, we feel like that's the sweet spot to then go further.
GEORGE: Very cool. Now, when it comes to, you mentioned you own all the locations outright, what's your take on licensing, franchising, and is there a reason that you never went into that direction?
HAKAN: Look, there's absolutely a place for a lot of those models and there are successful examples in franchising and licensing and partnership. And in our 43 years of history, we have tapped into various models of that at some capacity. But in our personal case, we feel like the model that we use helps us maintain the quality control that we want to maintain.
It helps us grow in a sustainable manner and it helps us keep everything kind of under control. For us, we're always open to different methods, but this is the one that we feel like is appropriate for our kind of management systems. But like I said, there are many examples of those models working both here in Australia and in the States that I've seen personally work.
But all of those models have their advantages and disadvantages as well. They're also worth considering and working along with your risk appetite.
GEORGE: Gotcha. Okay. So let's just change gears a little bit here. You guys have been in the game for a very long time, 43 years. You've achieved milestones that most people dream about and some don't even dream about, they just think that it's just an impossible place to get to.
If you look from the point where you're at and what you've achieved, just looking back and I guess looking around, you attend industry events and you hear conversations, you hear what people say, their struggles, their mindset around it.
What are the big things that really stand out for you where you see people are getting stuck? I guess we could start at a certain point.
Let's just start a broad overview of the common things that you see and then we can get down to it a bit deeper, maybe at certain levels.
HAKAN: Absolutely. So the first place I would start is the actual product itself. What's actually happening on the mats, right? So if you're creating a great vibe on the mats and you're running killer classes, given that we're in the service industry and referrals and word of mouth are a big part of what we do, you should organically be experiencing some level of growth that's going to help you pay your bills, pay your instructors.
If you are finding that you're losing far too many students or you're not able to get that referral or word of mouth naturally within your school, I would start there and have a look at what it is you're teaching and this is irrespective of the style that you're teaching, but more concerned with how you're actually delivering what you're delivering so that the people in front of you, whether that's 10 in your class, 20 or you have a school of 200, have a look at what you can do to get these people your raving fans and that all starts with what's happening on the floor.
And this is directly tied with the instructor itself, which in our case, in our industry, most of the time is the school owner. So dissect the delivery of the product and how it's done. So the curriculum, the content, the class length, how you deliver those classes, how you set up those classes.
Do you have help? Do you have instructor assisting capabilities? All of those are a key factor because oftentimes we, from my experience, I find that people overlook this the most.
It's the area they feel like they've got under control, which is partly due to the fact that's what they've been trained in for so long. So if there's one thing that I've learned, oftentimes the way we've learned a technique isn't necessarily the best way to now deliver that technique on the mats.
And we can all attest to how technology has changed and how the current generation of kids are now absorbing that information.
So we have to be able to adapt and to tap into that. So the first area would be to really dissect what's happening on the mats. And you may need to pull things apart to be able to put them back together again, to be able to ensure that ultimately you're delivering fun classes that kids want to come back to.
So we would start there. Assuming you've got that under control, another common thing is staff development. And that first element of making sure your curriculum is under control is a lot of work.
But then trying to develop staff and instructors to be able to deliver on those acceptable standards is also a different level of work because it's a numbers game. The more instructors you're able to keep for the longer term in order to enable your growth.
So the instructor development space is another area that I feel like a lot of school owners get held back with and not spending enough time to train your bench to be able to deliver on the classes that you run.
Another area that I really find is the lack of systems within the martial arts industry. The lack of having a central point within the organization that has all your systems and manuals in place to be able to make your staff development smoother and easier. And not just your development of your staff, but the running of your school.
Creating an operations manual so that everything is written out for you. And if you can have this in a place where you've got the systems in place, you then have the instructors and the team to be able to take action upon those systems, which then hopefully can remove you to then focus on higher level tasks, which could be growth or it could be opening up other locations.
The other element here, the final one, is the ability to let go, which ties in heavily with your people's management.
We have to understand that in order to grow, we need a great team. In order to have a great team, it requires you to be able to manage that team in an effective way. And as your team grows, your level of management and systems around this also has to be met with that.
So whether you have a team of five, a team of 10, a team of 15 and beyond, all of these staff have to be operating in a happy way to be able to deliver on your systems and the culture that you have within your school.
GEORGE: All right, love that. So let's talk about some fixes and things that you then do differently, right? So if we talk about products, now I can see where this could probably be a block, right? Especially if you've got someone who's a competent martial artist, 25 years experience, you feel you're super competent in obviously what you do, but then does the delivery of that really hit home?
So what do you feel are the things that you and your team do differently that works for that and that gives you that success with the actual product and programs?
HAKAN: Yeah, it's one of those things that's difficult to quantify, right? Because how do you measure the happiness of a student? You can measure it in the sense of the tenure of a student, which is something that everybody should be tracking in their lifetime. The average lifetime length that a student trains with you is something that we should all measure, because if they're happy, then they're going to train with us.
And if you're dealing with a lot of kids, one thing we know for sure is that if a kid is getting bored in classes or they're not really enjoying what they're doing, as much as the parents love all the values that martial arts training provides.
That's always going to be a losing battle for the parent in terms of dragging their kids to martial arts training. So what we do really is we have key indicators. So we want to make sure of all the keys, and this is nothing new, this is from all the learnings from the seminars from 20 years ago, the kids are smiling, the kids are sweating and the kids are having fun.
And I'd like to add one more to this. If you could engage the parents from the sideline, and how do you know if the parents are engaged? They're not looking on their phones, they're actually looking at the classes and they're smiling and they're getting involved. If you could tick all of those boxes as frequently as possible, you know you're onto something.
And so if the parents are contributing and they're clapping on the sidelines and you're getting them involved to some capacity, get the parents to be judges and run certain challenges and certain groups, that's a great way to ensure that everyone is engaged.
So engaged parents, engaged kids means they're buying into what you deliver and what you offer, which means they'll stay longer. So what we do really is we constantly review our curriculums after every class, after every week, and we go, what worked well, what didn't work, what can we do to make it better? So never assuming that what we're teaching is under control.
It's all about making sure the kids are smiling? Do we have that connection with the students and the instructors? Is there an appropriate touch happening? Things like high fives and are they having a great time? Are they sweating?
It's those simple things that we look at and place high importance on to ensure that we're delivering on that aspect of our classes. All of the drills, all of the exercises based around determining those levels of outcomes in our classes.
GEORGE: So next up, team building. Where do you see the most roadblocks and how have you worked around it and what do you guys do on a day-to-day basis to build a strong team?
HAKAN: Yeah, so the team building starts with your ability to let go. So the 10,000 foot overview answer on team building is having a clear system in place to take someone from a volunteer leader all the way through to be able to run a location.
So you'd have all the required steps in between to be able to have someone and provide them that pathway to be able to become a successful instructor.
Now there are many models out there that provide this opportunity, but what we've found within our organization is having a look at what's out there but also tailoring it to what works for us. We tie that into those deliverables that we value.
So we have the content itself, the assessable content that's going to help the students get towards their high belt and beyond, but then we also look at the teaching systems around how to structure the classes, where to position the kids, how long each activity should go for, as well as making sure those kids are having fun, getting to know one another and tapping into those values.
So having a clear system in place to do that. At a microscopic level, the first step that an instructor has to do to be able to build the team is to be able to let go of an element on the mats.
And so if you're looking at your class structure, what are some areas you can look at within a class where you feel like someone can deliver that close enough to what you can, and whether that's maybe taking an element of a warmer, whether that's taking a stretching component of the class, maybe that's showcasing one or two techniques in the main chunk of the class.
So giving people the opportunity and empowering them to be able to be a leader in the class is where all of this begins. So giving people an opportunity to be a leader and then empowering them and telling them, hey, you have it within you to be a fantastic instructor one day.
I believe in you, can you please do this next week, I'll get you to take this component of the class. It starts with having those one-on-one conversations at the very beginning. It then leads into consistent staff training, consistent levels for staff.
A simple way to think about this is if you think about your belt systems and they progress and they have their requirements that they have to meet in order to get through, say, to their black belt, it's the same thing in the instructor development space. So they have their requirements that they need to do and it starts really simple.
Like for some of our junior leaders, it's as simple as holding pads, maybe high-fiving kids, greeting kids as they walk in, showing people where to put their shoes, tying belts, simple as that. Demonstrating techniques, we then assess them and give them the next level of tools and strategies they can do to become a better instructor. And over time, they then transform into your instructor team.
So the roadblock that we find there with instructors is not taking that first step and giving away that level of leadership from yourself to your team.
GEORGE: Now with that, I guess the fear is what happens if they screw up or they just don't deliver the class that you want? And I'm sure that's happened in that process, right?
Because you've got to let go and so you've got to let that happen. How do you go about correcting something when it hasn't gone right without breaking their confidence for the next class?
HAKAN: Absolutely. And this is where it comes down to having those individual conversations and knowing what works with the certain type of individual you're talking with, right?
Certain individuals are going to need a much softer approach, whereas other individuals completely understand the context of it. And sometimes just giving it to them and there and giving that feedback then and there is going to get them to understand where they've gone wrong and then help them progress going forward.
Of course, things are going to go wrong, right? The moment we kind of delegate responsibility, there's going to be elements where we're going to be let down either through the delivery itself or maybe instructors are showing up late or reliability issues and so on.
But absolutely, it is still the right move to make for the long term of the school. So we always have to think about where we want to be in five to 10 years time and overcoming these small obstacles and challenges with staffing is a necessary step. And so addressing those issues then and there and just being completely honest.
And the best way I've found to give feedback here is not giving the feedback about the person, but the area that they've done.
You tell them that you absolutely love them and that you care about them as an individual, but it's more about the job or the area or the minuscule thing they've done wrong about their teaching. And then you bring it back to their growth and how they can be better because of it.
GEORGE: So let's move on. You mentioned systems and documenting the system and having that operational manual. Where do you see the roadblocks there? What have you guys put in place to systemize?
HAKAN: Yeah. So you would see a common theme here, George, in the sense that oftentimes when people look at us as Martial Arts instructors, they feel like we have such few working hours, right?
You come on, you teach from four, you finish teaching at 7.30 or 8.30 and then you go home and you have all this time. But as you can see, setting up all these things, whether it's instructor development, whether it's running ad campaigns and leads, these are additional projects that constantly have to be happening to be able to lay the foundations for growth, right?
To be able to create the assets within your school, outside of the mats itself, so that the school can then be thriving as an autonomous organization, ultimately without you.
And that then segues into our systems, right? And so creating those systems, which is essentially having processes in place to be able to run the day-to-day of your school.
And the best way to look at this is if someone was to walk into your organization, do you have a central point that they can look at to be able to then teach a class if needed, or run the administration side if needed, or maybe do some sales calls if needed.
So in terms of creating systems, anything that has to be done more than twice, two or three times, should have a written process for it. And then there are many tools around this, whether it's screen grabs and doing videos around how all of this should be done, but it's just taking the time for it to be done.
And then following those systems and making sure there's some accountability around those systems is what also has to be done going forward. So it's critical. And this is like creating the recipes.
If you had a restaurant-type business, what's the recipe for success in terms of the food that you create? It's the same thing in our martial arts business, if not more so, because we don't have that actual physical product.
So we have the intangible service that we provide. How can we systemize that, bottle it, and then recreate that magic across multiple days and locations? And it all boils down to the systems that you've created within your school.
GEORGE: What are your favorite tools for storing stuff online?
HAKAN: What we've found over time, and not just with systems, but with everything that we've done within our organization, especially as our organization has grown and we've got people that are amongst different generations in our organization, simplicity is key. So never look at something that's going to require too many steps to wrap your head around. So we keep it simple.
We have a lot of WhatsApp groups because we feel like a lot of our team are on their phones and it's easily accessible. So in terms of communication, we kind of stick with that. But then all of our stuff is literally through Google Docs and Google Drives.
And those kids who are coming through school nowadays or in university are all familiar with the way these systems work because their teachers and their school teachers are also using those systems.
So I know there are many tools out there that you can use, but what works for us is simplicity and something that we can all just pick up our phones, tap in, have a look in a folder, have a look in the app. And that works for someone like my father, who's in his early sixties all the way through to our teenagers that are 16, 17, 18 years old.
So keep it simple.
GEORGE: Yeah, I love that. If I think of the years that I've worked online and the amount of tools that I've gone through, it always goes back to the Google Doc, just keeping it simple.
And it's a bit of double work, but that's always been the storage mechanism.
HAKAN: It's great because you've got your Excel capabilities for your calculations and your graphing and your modeling in terms of student numbers or whatever it is you're trying to track. You've got your Google Docs, you've got your checklist that you could tick through automatically.
GEORGE: It's all there. Okay. So last one, and then we can just change gears here, if you mentioned staffing and management of staff.
HAKAN: Absolutely. So a good manager is one that could tap into every individual of their team, figure out their strengths, figure out their weaknesses, what excites them, what their fears are. So it boils down to an individual approach with this.
And this is critical because as your team grows, you never want your team to feel like they're forgotten or they're not valued.
Individual management of your team boils down to taking the effort required to figure out a little bit more beyond the martial arts. And we feel like, yeah, we love martial arts, they love martial arts, and that's all they have going on in their life.
One thing I've come to realize, I'm talking about generational differences here, is that the generations that are coming through at the moment, yes, they place importance on their work, but they also want their interests beyond martial arts known.
And if you can recognize that, you're creating a relationship beyond the mats, beyond the martial arts, which will then deepen your connection with them and hopefully strengthen that bond in keeping your instructors for longer.
So the managerial approach boils down to your ability to get to know your team beyond the martial arts, and then taking the time to reward them maybe around that, which is something that we look at doing in our organization.
We give away free tickets to games, to certain people, we give away zoo passes to certain individuals. It's amazing to see what your team is interested in beyond the academy, and how much of an impact that has on their commitment to what you do.
GEORGE: I love this, Hakan. Thanks for breaking it down from front to back. Now, I guess we should highlight, where are you seeing them, at what level in business is this happening? And if your first focus is getting the product right, without that, you've got nothing. But where are you seeing these different obstacles come up?
HAKAN: It all depends on the stage of the business I find.
So if you're relatively early in your organization, I guess it's all about survival. All right. So making enough to pay the bills and ensuring that you've got enough of a student base in front of you, you've got some leads coming in.
So your challenge is there, literally keeping the doors open. Once you've got your head above water, then it's about developing systems, developing curriculum, and starting to develop a team.
And so oftentimes I find that the biggest roadblock I see in instructors is not taking the necessary time to be able to do the work in those spaces.
Because they always feel like instructors feel like I can do it. I'm capable. I know what it takes to build skills.
I've acquired this level of mastery in my martial art, which means that will get me through in my academy. So having that mindset and having that mindset shift around developing a team is what I feel like holds a lot of instructors back. Once they get to say, at a full-time school, you're hovering between say 250 to 300.
Hopefully by that point, you're starting to really figure out ways to train staff and bring on staff.
And I know we've touched on staff before, but one other really critical element of staff is the administration or the sales side of the business, which can be often overlooked because we focus and concentrate a lot on what's happening on the mats. As your student numbers get to about 50 to 300, there are issues that tend to happen.
And these could be payment issues. These could be conflicting issues with kids on the floor. These could be issues amongst parents and you as the instructor may not necessarily be the right person.
In fact, you should not be the person putting out these types of fires. And so having the ability to bring on staff in front of the house, front of desk is an area that also must be taken into consideration. Oftentimes, I also find that instructors know what they have to do.
They know where they're sitting, but don't necessarily want to take the next steps in terms of growing the school. And this could be to another mindset that's common in the industry in that there is that fear of selling out, right?
There's still that notion that being a successful martial artist and making money from your business is inherently a bad thing because maybe your instructor was just getting by or maybe your instructor was really struggling financially.
But why can't we do both? So really breaking that mindset around growing your school is one area that I find as well.
And this can happen when instructors are doing enough to get by or even doing enough to make as much as they were making in their previous job. So they feel if I can cover my salary in what I did earlier, I've made it and I'm content.
So it's just recognizing what has to be done and either trying away from the work, not taking the necessary action, because all of this requires some level of discomfort.
Growing a team, it requires a level of, there are tough conversations that have to be made around growing a team, right? Like you said earlier, if a person delivers in a class that isn't necessarily up to standard, you have to have that tough conversation there on a day-to-day basis.
And so all of these areas do require a level of discomfort. And sometimes I feel like that can hold people back in terms of growth.
I also understand instructors because there is a plethora of work that has to be done as a school owner. It's just, as we all know, with any business, there are constantly things that have to be done. And knowing where to start is also a big challenge that I feel with instructors.
So they can often revert to doing what they've always been doing. And then before we know it, the years go by and we're stuck where we were before. So maybe a suggestion that I would have is to have an honest look or have an unbiased look, or maybe have someone else have an unbiased look at the way your businesses are done.
Take an approach and feedback around what the strengths are and the areas that could be improved. And then set a quarterly challenge on working towards that area.
So a quarterly challenge could be pulling apart your curriculum and rejigging it and then bringing it back in and then giving it enough time to give it some feedback and seeing what works.
Or this quarter, focusing on getting some level of instructor development system in place. This is what we've done over the 43 years, along with the running of the classes, we've always got projects going on in the background that's going to help create assets to be able to develop the business.
So to answer your question, what are the kinds of areas that instructors are not doing to improve their school and are not going deep enough on certain areas to create the foundations to build off for growth.
And as I mentioned earlier, they're the main ones, the mindset around letting go, the curriculum, the systems, as well as the instructor development. So the biggest tip I would then give to instructors is pick one and focus on that one behind the scenes for a quarter and see how you go and then maybe touch back on that or focus on another project.
And initially, this is going to be yourself if you have a small team, but then as you grow your team, you can start delegating these projects to different staff members, which then accelerates all of this.
GEORGE: I love that. I think mindset doesn't get spoken about enough because, and I think it was Alex Charfen who said, you'll never grow into pain. If there's something that you feel pain or you can't identify yourself as that successful person, because you see that successful person as one that all your peers despise, then you step into that, it's very hard to do.
So just changing the mindset around money, success. And I find it strange that there's always this, you either have the money or you have great martial arts, but all the successful schools that I know of, they have great martial arts because they have the resources to invest and to train more and they train their staff better.
HAKAN: Absolutely. And then you can hire staff at a higher cost to be able to deliver on those key areas if it's critical to you. And here's the other thing, George, in martial arts, it provides so much for a school owner.
So determining what success means to you as an instructor is the starting point for yourself.
What area of the martial arts is successful for you? Is it creating champions or is it providing pathways to the UFC? Determining what success is for you, the starting point, and then working back from there is what has to be done.
Another area I feel like that doesn't get spoken enough from my experience in growing up in the industry is the impact being an instructor has on the family. And so placing high importance around the value of family because the martial arts world and being a school owner is one that can just suck your time away on so many fronts.
And it's easy to go down so many different rabbit holes, but then having the ability to stop and be able to determine where your time ends, whether it's for a task or for your family is another area that I feel like it doesn't get spoken enough because as a negative byproduct of being a school owner, it's difficult to then spend that time with your family because our evenings and weekends are consumed either teaching or training or going to competitions.
And so that's another area that I feel like has to be managed well because it can have an impact on those that you love. And so tying that back to having success in your business will help enable you to buy back your time to be able to spend more time with your family.
So that's a huge benefit that I often see that could be the aha moment for instructors to then go down the path of focusing on creating those assets within their organization.
GEORGE: Yeah, I love that. Take me back to the school scale plan, the model we put together in Partners that build a business that fulfills your purpose, which has three components of income, impact and lifestyle.
HAKAN: Absolutely.
GEORGE: You need the income. Yep. You want to make an impact for your students, but you've got to have the balance of lifestyle and family in between that as well.
HAKAN: And one thing I will say this as well is that growing up with my father being a school owner and seeing other kids in my situation and bringing back the family, I find that sometimes there is that level of resentment kids have towards their parents.
I know there's a lot of fathers and mothers who run schools . There is a lot of resentment that kids can have towards their parents because the business is the thing that has taken them away from spending time with the kids. So managing that effectively is something that's critical for us as instructors. And it can go both ways.
People who love what the martial arts offers and take the business and the academy further, or you see them go completely the opposite way and want nothing to do with the martial arts space because of all, I don't want to say trauma, but I guess because of all the background work that families and kids have to endure with parents being involved as instructors.
GEORGE: 100%. I think that's almost a whole other podcast right there. Cool. I guess I want to, there's a few things I just want to highlight, and I think we should definitely have a round two and a round three, and we can elaborate on a lot of these topics.
If you're listening and you are watching this and you enjoyed this episode and you'd like us to dive deeper into one of the topics that we discussed, please do that.
I do want to make an invitation because if you hear what Hakan was saying and these obstacles that they faced and have overcome, and it's taken them to a place, multiple locations, 1,800 students, the only fast track we get in life is just getting the answer of someone that's been in that situation that you are facing. You face a situation and someone, oh, hang on, I've done that. Try this or try that.
And so we've put together a program, it's called Partners Mentor. It's not a program where you've got a ton of stuff to watch and do, although there is that if you need, but the core of the program is access to get answers of what you're facing, what are the things that you need to do to go to the next step in your business.
Private group, very small group, but the overarching goal is if your goal is something bigger, seven figure school, or you're already there and you're stretching beyond that and you find value in any of these things, then reach out.
The easiest place is probably, you could look up, just message me on Facebook, or if you go martialartsmedia.com forward slash 155, that'll take you to the recording of this episode. And you can just shoot us a message from there as well. Yeah.
Sorry. Anything to add on that, Hakan?
HAKAN: No, I think we've touched on quite a bit there. We can always dive deeper into many aspects of that.
I guess one thing that we've done over those 43 years is we've made a lot of mistakes and those mistakes have cost us time and they've cost us money. And so if there's anything we can do to alleviate that in one's martial arts journey, we're always happy to help.
And we're always happy to make sure that people don't make those mistakes because one thing we can't buy back is time.
So if there's anything we can do to be able to give you that quick answer that you can take action on, we're here for your support to make that happen.
GEORGE: Yeah, I love that. Awesome.
Perfect Hakan. Thanks for jumping on and I'll see you in the next one.
HAKAN: Thank you.
INVITATION: If you’d like more info about working with me in and Hakan in Partners Mentor, Just message me ‘Mentor’ on Facebook and I’ll send the details over in a doc (no sales call required) Send Message On Personal Profile >
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