Podcast Archives

26 – How To Run A Successful Martial Arts Open Day

February 16, 2017 by George Fourie

A profitable martial arts open day can position you for a successful year. Darryl Thornton from Shukokai Karate shares how.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

Why you can and should run your open day for one hour
The secret to presenting an offer (a common discussion on the Martial Arts Media Business Podcast)
Getting your existing martial arts students involved as a unit
Can you handle 20, 30, 50 or 70+ new students right now? Here's how to prepare
This simple technique can attract those extra members that didn't get to join on the day
The importance of studying martial arts with other cultures
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

I think it's important, one of the people, so the only reason he came back was because of the email.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to the Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 26. I am finally back with a few interviews and I've got four awesome interviews lined up for you. I just did a trip to Melbourne and met up with a few great school owners. Learned a lot, got a lot of advice from different perspectives, different ways of doing things and I'm going to bring it all to you. So lots of gold and information just shared, I will probably do a recap of all this after all of the interviews, so look out for that. But for now, I just want to bring you the interviews, just as they are.

For a change, it wasn't a Skype or a phone call type interview, it was face to face, so it was great to have the different live dynamics of these interviews and you're going to get a lot of value from this. We've got a lot of great information to share and today I have on the show with me Darryl Thornton from Shukokai Karate in Cranbourne in Melbourne area. And Darryl has great success with his open days and I guess you can rather call it an open hour, rather than an open day, because they only run it from 12 to 1 and all the energy is focused on that one hour, instead of multiple hours or five hours, where everybody's energy is scattered and high and low and everybody's walking in at a different time, so much easier to manage one hour.

It is the pride and joy of all his students, they all want to be a part of it and everybody's energy is high for that one hour. And of course, he presents an exclusive offer and the process which he's going to outline for you has generated 70 students for them on the day and an additional 19 afterward. So Darryl is going to give you all the insights and everything of that. So, I'm going to jump into this episode.

Now, the transcripts and show notes and everything else that you need are available as always on martialartsmedia.com/26, and that's it from me – hope you enjoy this interview, it was awesome, I'm sure you're going to get great value from this. Pease welcome to the show Darryl Thornton from Shukokai Karate.

GEORGE: Good day all. Today I'm with Darryl Thornton. Now, I'm sitting and for a change, it’s not a Skype interview, I'm sitting in front of him at Shukokai Karate in Cranbourne Melbourne. And Darryl is the state coach for Karate Victoria, state coaching director for Karate Victoria and Darryl has had very good success with his open days. So today I'm going to be asking questions about his process, his recent success with it and we're going to have a bit of a chat, so welcome to the show.

DARRYL: Thank you, thank you.GEORGE: Cool. So first and foremost, before we get into everything – who is Darryl Thornton?

DARRYL: Well, that's a big open question. Well, I'm a dad, so I've got two children, 16-year-old twins. I’m a karate coach, first and foremost I think, it’s my main job. I've been teaching karate for quite a few years now, have my club in Cranbourne as George said. We've been growing quite steadily over the last few years and we've now got to a point where we've got our own building and were going ahead really well, so we are very happy with where we are at the moment, but there's always room for more growth. Hopefully, George is helping me out with that!

GEORGE: Yeah, for sure. All right, cool, so let’s just go back to now, depending on when you're listening to this, at the moment, beginning of the year, which is always a booming time for all martial arts schools, and Darryl just had a very successful open day – can you give us a few details on that?

DARRYL: So we run an open day on the first weekend after school goes back. It’s a really important time for parents, when they're looking to put their children in the activities for the year, so we capitalize on that. I'm promoting our open day on the first Saturday after school goes back. And we have ours on a Saturday around midday, so just around lunch time.

We find that people often have things to do in the afternoon and mornings, and midday is the ultimate time, also because of the weather. Every year for the last three, it’s been around 40 degrees, so we have it at 12 being much lighter in the day, then it would be too hot, because you have people sitting around in your Dojo for over an hour, you don't want them sitting there and baking for too long.

GEORGE: So an hour?

DARRYL: An hour. Just over an hour. The actual open day itself goes for an hour, but then, with people signing up and for the volume of people that are in the place, it takes probably another 20-30 minutes to get them out the door. We try to capitalize on a smaller timeframe, because it’s short and sharp and people go, it’s just an hour a day, it’s not a big part of their day. And also they know that they have to be there by a particular time. If you have an open day and it runs over the whole day, people don't know what time they should be there, what time the demonstrations are on and you can't maximize the impact. If you have it spread over such a big period of time.

GEORGE: That's awesome, I like that, because I see a lot of people doing the open day and it's sort of a half day or something, but just the whole psychology of having an event – and it’s really just focused on that one specific time, and obviously, it gives you guys the opportunity to really put all your energy into that one hour, because that's all you've got.

DARRYL: Yeah, it's much easier to get your members there for that one hour too, versus, trying to get them there for the whole day, or half the day. We had a pretty good turnout, probably with our membership, we would've had 30 of our teen adults group probably, maybe the same in our juniors, which is our 7-12-year-old group. Our little ninjas, which is our youngest group, 3-6 year olds, they're probably the hardest ones to get here, but the ones that were here, they were really good, they were really well received by the people.

We had a three-year-old in the group, white belt, brand new and the people loved it, they thought she was fantastic. And it’s a good opportunity for your members to also build their confidence and show their self-esteem. We had white belts in there, which I think for me is fantastic, because I open it to any member. Anyone is allowed to come along and be a part of the demonstration. I don't pick and choose who does it, I don't mind if they make mistakes during the demonstration, I think that's important, and if they do, that's part of learning.

GEORGE: All right, cool. So walk us through the dynamics, because you had a lot of success, you mentioned 70 members?

DARRYL: On the day, yeah, and 20 two days after. 90 people joined from the open day.

GEORGE: That's awesome.

DARRYL: Yeah, it’s a big number. It’s a lot to manage obviously afterward. It's a lot of data entry and then it’s a lot of new people on your mat and what we do is, we sell the membership on the day, all the trail as such. Then the first time they come, they get their uniform, so you have to be well organized as well. You need to, if you work, you probably need to have Monday off, because you have to go and pick up the uniforms, you have to get them to your Dojo, you have to sort them, write the new members names on them, so when they come in, it's easy to find, especially if you've got a big number, you don't want to be trying to find the right size and things like that.

So part of the open day when they join is we measure them for their uniform, write it on their form what size of uniform they're getting and then it’s easy to manage it when they come in. Of course, you're going to get the odd one or two that doesn't fit, so you have to have a bit of extra stock to make sure that you've got enough to cater for that, but we're pretty accurate on our measurements. We've got a measuring stick, like most Dojos probably do, use a bo staff with the sizes sort of marked on it, stand it next to the person and mark on what size of uniform they need.GEORGE: All right, so let’s look at the dynamics – what actually happens: people arrive at 12?

DARRYL: Mostly, they come in around about 12, we have probably 2 or 3 of our senior members, the ones who know more about the club than a white belt at the front door. So they might be in uniform, or in the club polo, whatever they choose to be. They'll welcome them, bring them into the club and ask them to come and sit around the perimeter of the training area, so they'll sit around the edge of the perimeter on the floor, and then what we do, because it's 37 degrees, I’ll get a couple of our younger members, most of our leadership group to go around and give them water, because it's hot and it’s a good way to welcome them as well, and make sure we're looking after them.

So once we get everybody in, we had a 130 people in the Dojo on Saturday, which is quite a few people to manage. We probably had 80-90 of our own people at the same time, so a couple of hundred people inside the Dojo is always good for the atmosphere. I start off by introducing myself and the club and explain a bit about what we are and where we are from and what we do and the benefits of what we do. And then we start off with some demonstrations and I make sure that our demonstrations are just our regular members, I think it’s very important. I remember going to a demonstration when I first started karate and I thought, geez, I'm never going to be able to do that, that looks way too hard, I can't do that.

So I will always be mindful of making sure that people understand that everyone can and we have children with special needs and all sorts of things, and they're also a part of the demonstration. Not that I particularly ask them to come long, but we particularly are an open club. We believe that everybody can do karate, so we've had a really good success with some children that have special needs and we've got one boy that has a functioning autism, but he's been with us for 5 years, and he's a part of the demonstration. I think that by having him, he encourages others that might think that it’s not right for them. We have members making mistakes during demonstrations and I think that's OK too, because you don't want everyone to be exactly perfect, because we're not, no one is always perfect, are they?

So we let everybody be involved, we don't mind mistakes. We don't coach before, so we don't pre-determine what they're going to do, it’s all on the five. I talk during the demonstration and one of my other senior instructors will take the demonstration. We do different groups, so we'll do our 3-6 year olds and they demonstrate, we get our juniors and then we do our adult teams. In between the groups coming on the mat, I talk about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, what's important about the skills they're learning. I think we did four demonstrations per group, so each group did four different things.

They might have done some basics: some impact, some self-defense, and the little ones play the game, cause the little ones in our organization is a game sense program, so they played a game, which I think is good to show people that's it’s about fun as well, because I think that without the fun, kids are not going to come, they'll get bored really fast. And then, we interlace the regular members with our elite members.

We've got a few high level competitors and they did some demonstrations in between to show people that you can get from point A to point B through hard work and training and I think that shows people the true value of what the training is. And then at the end of it, I have an offer. So this year, our offer was four weeks of training and a uniform for $49, which is less than a half price of what it normally would be. And if they want to join, they just have to come out to the reception area and fill in one form, and that's it, they're done. And the first class they start, the uniform is ready for them to start training.

GEORGE: Excellent. So you make this offer to everybody at the same time, everybody that's in the room?

DARRYL: Everybody that's in the room. In front of everyone, I often would hold up a uniform and say, you get a uniform and four weeks of unlimited classes, so you can come as much as you'd like during the four weeks, for today only – this is the deal. You really need to put a timeframe – we talked about this with online things, but the timeframe is important. Making sure that people have got a trigger to buy. If you just say, this is the offer, people walk away and they'll think about it, but we want them to buy it on the day.

We also have some giveaways on the day, when we advertise, we often advertise a free sausage sizzle, giveaways, demonstrations – that's part of the whole process. We give away things like an impact shield, focus mitts, maybe a T-shirt or something like that and when they come in, we collect their name and their email address.

So what I do with that is, I send them a thank you email: thank you for coming to our open day, or thank you for joining, depending on whether they joined or not, and we actually had really good success from that this year, because we had 72 join on the day, and then, I sent the email out on Sunday to the people who didn't join to say, thanks for coming along, we appreciate your time, hope you enjoyed the demonstrations: if you didn't get an opportunity to join on Saturday, and you'd still like to join, we'll extend the offer for two days, just for you. However, if you've got any family members or friends that might like to join, please extend the offer to them. And from that, we had 19 turn up on Monday and Tuesday.

GEORGE: Awesome.

DARRYL: Yeah, which I was really pleased with, obviously.

GEORGE: Yes.DARRYL: I think it’s important, one of the people that came in on Monday, Tuesday said the only reason he came back was because of the email. He felt that it was a real personal sort of touch, that he got an email that said, thank you for coming.

GEORGE: Yes, and I'm so glad you're saying that, because I know I've said this stuff many times, and sometimes I feel like I repeat it too much, but those are just such core elements, the deadline. If you could have the worst offer and just put a deadline on it, and it would be a better offer. It might not be a great offer, but people are going to respond to a deadline, otherwise there's no urgency to act now, it’s just a psychological trigger. And then personal emails: just sending out an email. And we do email marketing, we're always talking about the personal email that goes out from an individual to an individual, not, this and this karate…

DARRYL: No, no, I start it with…

GEORGE: …with a big colourful newsletter, because that screams company.

DARRYL: No, I just wrote my name, obviously, I had on the bottom of it Shukokai Karate Cranbourne, but it was from Darryl Thornton – it was not from Shukokai Karate Cranbourne, it was from me. And it was me personally, I would personally like to thank you for coming on the day, I hope you enjoyed what we did. I think it’s important.

GEORGE: Yes.

DARRYL: And even with the welcome letter, the welcome email, that is an automated email that we have set up through our student database, but it’s still personal, because it says their name, and it’s from me.

GEORGE: There you go, and they can reply to that?

DARRYL: Yes, they can reply.

GEORGE: And that is, I guess, something to take note of: it doesn't have to be a one on one email, because you can set up an automated email, as long as you or someone is monitoring it and they will actually reply.

DARRYL: I did get some replies from both the joining ones and the thank you ones for just coming on the day. So I actually got a couple of people respond, especially with the offer to extend it – is that just for children, or is it for adults too? It was just a question, so that in my mind I thought – well, maybe I'm not quite clear on the day that the offer was for everybody, we have adult members training, maybe we need to be clearer on that. So you learn all the time when you do them, it’s an evolving thing, marketing, as you well know. It changes daily, I think. You've got to be very mindful of it. I think even with the images you promote; you should probably make sure that you promote every group that you want.

GEORGE: Exactly.

DARRYL: If you're running multiple ads, maybe making sure that you've got different photos in each one and things like that, that would be important. Our flyer that we put out for our open day, that only has children on it, but that's our target audience really, and most of our adults, a good proportion of our adult membership is parents of children that train.

GEORGE: So, I guess we need to backtrack a bit, because, you got a 130 people in and 70 – well, 90 of them joined.

DARRYL: That's right.

GEORGE: That's 80% closing ratio.

DARRYL: Yes, I've done all the math.

GEORGE: So that's excellent in itself and again, the things that I see that are really working here is the deadline, focused energy – you've got one hour, and there's no scattered audience, there's no scattered message. It's, this is it, all these people are in this one presentation. But the key question I didn't ask is: how did you get the 130 people in?

DARRYL: Yes, that's important, isn't it? We did flyer marketing and online marketing, so we did both. I think it’s important to have both. I have a flyer that is a just an A5 size, so, glossy, shiny, with some photos of kids on it. We put out 30,000 flyers and they're delivered via pamphlet distribution, our catalogue distribution. And then we did four Facebook ads, so we did an event, and we promoted the event and that was OK, as far as the response we got from it, but by far the biggest response was my proof of my flyer as a photograph, just boosted, as an ad.

That was probably the best response we had on Facebook – the most comments, shares, likes, was of just that one photo. So I had that photo running three ads itself, the same photo, which you might tell me is the wrong thing to do, but I just wanted it to be in everybody's face all the time, so they had no doubt that our open day was on Saturday. And I think it proved itself that it worked, with the response we got.

GEORGE: I think it’s great. The boosted post definitely works, there's a place for everything, I guess when it’s done for the same thing all the time, for the same person, you can burn someone out.

DARRYL: Yeah, I agree.

GEORGE: But when you're doing an event…

DARRYL: It’s an event, it's a bit different. The advertising is always something that is a bit tricky, you never know – open days are funny, for me, I get really anxious and nervous about them in the day leading up to it, because it’s like putting out birthday invitations and not knowing if anybody’s going to turn out. But you've just got to trust yourself, because we have done them for a few years now, and they've always been successful. I've built my club around them really. There's always the other marketing that gets the regular numbers coming through the door, but the open day is a big event.

The members love it, they love coming to it, people that joined up said to me, I want to be part of it next year. And you go, wow, that's pretty cool, the people are already going, I want to be part of it, I want to be up there. I want to be that person. That's good, you know. The other thing I think I didn't mention is that, with the advertising, the timeframe is important too. The flyers need to be around ten days prior to event, they have to be delivered ten days before.

The Facebook advertising, I start a little bit earlier, maybe about a week earlier for the event, so it’s around about two weeks, or just outside two weeks that I start the event advertising and then I periodically added in photographs and things like that for the open day to keep promoting it, reminding people that it's coming up, it's only 24 hours away, 48 hours away, those type of thing as well.

GEORGE: All right, great. Now, a key question would be: firstly, there's one event a year.

DARRYL: Yeah, I don't have another one.

GEORGE: OK. And then, what is the retention? This is something someone always wants to know: you bring all these people in, how many of them stick?

DARRYL: You lose a few early, and there are no two ways about it. It’s like any paid trial. Karate or martial arts as a rule, is not for everybody and some of the kids come in, they see it, they go, I want to do that. And then when they try it, they don't really like it. But it’s not too many that do that, it’s a small percentage of that. We had really good success with last year’s open day with retention: I would say 50% would be retention, which I think for that type of event is a good number, because those people, that 50% become die-hard fans.

They're the ones that really support your club. They bring in the 50% you lose again, and then some. They bring in more again, and I think that it’s an interesting study of why they become real fans of your club. I guess because they see where you can end up. For me, the open day is a real big confidence thing for the members. It shows them, they see how much self-esteem they have and how much belief they have in what we do. It’s a real proud moment for an instructor when you've got your average members, just the ones that come and train twice a week, standing up there and showing their skills, I think it’s really, really important.

GEORGE: For sure, and it puts it into perspective.

DARRYL: Yeah, I think it does.

GEORGE: All right, awesome. Darryl, that's been great. Thanks for sharing.

DARRYL: You're welcome.

GEORGE: Thanks for sharing all the details, anything else you'd like to share, especially I know with your coaching side and the karate side?

DARRYL: No, not really. I guess we, if anyone's interested in what we do, we're at cranbournekarate.com.au, on Facebook we've got pretty good following on Facebook, which is Shukokai Karate Cranbourne. We're a pretty busy club, we've quite a few members, we've got sort of the A level players in the WKF group as well, so I think it’s great when you have a club that has multiple things going on at the same time. We’ll have members training in our Dojo on a Saturday, we’ll also have members training over in Footscray Victoria University, the part of the state team.

We might even on the same weekend have members training in Sydney in a national training camp. We can have people overseas competing, one time, we can have people competing locally at the same time – we have members traveling to Japan later in the year. Our junior group is traveling to Japan, which I think is going to be amazing, the kids are going to love getting the opportunity to train in Japan with our senseis.

And then at the end, they've got a tournament where they will be competing with the Japanese kids. And the cultural part I think is very important, that the kids get to meet people from other countries and they form lifelong bonds with other people, see other cultures, and it’s really, really important. Karate is important, but there's the other part that you can get a lot more from the martial art than just punching and kicking.

GEORGE: Definitely, understanding the culture and interacting with different cultures.

DARRYL: I know kids that are in their 20s now and they've got friends they've been seeing in Japan since they've been 12, so they're really close friends every time they catch up, they go and stay at their house. They do home stays, they come over here and do the same, so I think it’s really, really important. It’s good to be able to defend yourself and all that type of thing, and be able to punch and kick. But I think there's much more to what we do than just punching and kicking.

GEORGE: Cultural lifestyle.

DARRYL: I think that the punching and kicking are the side benefit of what we do, not the main benefit.

GEORGE: Awesome. Darryl – thanks a lot for your time, and I will chat to you soon.

DARRYL: Thank you.

GEORGE: Cheers!

And there you have it, event based marketing. There's going to be a theme that's going to jump out through these few episodes – pay attention to that. I think it's gold; I'm learning lots from it. There all these little things that just drive conversion, it helps, event-based marketing, it’s the easiest way to get people to action, because that is the only time they can take the action. I hope you got great value out of that.

As I mentioned, transcripts are available on martialartsmedia.com/26 and if you're getting great value from these shows, please go leave us some feedback on iTunes. I know it’s a bit clunky, but martialartsmedia.com/itunes and just follow the little button that shows up in iTunes and you can leave a review in there. A five-star review will be great to help us get some good publicity for the show.

So that's it, back again next week with another awesome interview and I will speak to you soon. Have a good week to you then – cheers!

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

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25 – Your Martial Arts Audience Ignoring You? This Might Help

February 2, 2017 by George Fourie

If you're not getting interaction from your martial arts audience, chances are your message isn't relevant right now. Learn more.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The importance of targeting the right audience at the right time
Why you should take a unique approach to reaching each audience
Running multiple Facebook pages for different age groups? Try this instead
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

If your marketing messages are being ignored and you’re not getting responses or any activity, this might be the answer – this might help.

Hi, this is George Fourie and today, we're going to be talking about relevance – relevance in your marketing: is it spot on, is it targeted at the right person and being received at the right time? And this conversation came up while I was chatting to Professor Brannon Beliso from One Martial Arts in San Francisco. And we did an email campaign for them and we were looking at different emails going out and we spotted an email that was being sent that was not targeted at the right audience and it wasn't framed right for the right segment in that list. And we had a bit of a chat about relevance and so forth, and I'm going to give you a few insights on what we’ve gathered from that conversation.

Firstly, when you look at your own marketing as such: it’s so easy to look at your Facebook page as one Facebook page, or if you have an email list and you’re doing that type of marketing, you just look at the one email list, our list as a single – plural as such. But when you look at your Facebook page, it consists of individual people. Individual people, different ages, different lifestyles, different interests, different everything – there's different people all over this page, same as your email list. Look at your membership base – these are all individual people. Yes, they have one common interest of martial arts, but they have different interests in life and they come from different backgrounds and different cultures and all these types of things.

So you've got to be very conscious of how you send your message, is it relevant to this person, and is it also relevant at the right time, because there's a message of, “Hey, do you want to join our club,” which is not really a conversation opener, it’s not the first thing you'd say to someone. It would be, “Hey, how are you, how are you doing, how can we help you, what are you looking for” – it would be a different type of conversation, so you've got to think of, where is your message? Is it relevant to the person, first and foremost, and then is it relevant at the right time?

This is obviously easy to do in a face to face conversation: when you're talking to someone, you can do all these things. You can assess who is this person, you can ask a few questions and you can gather enough information that you can shape your conversation further. But when doing marketing, you've got to be conscious of these things, of how you put the message out and of how it’s going to be relevant to a person.

So, always bear in mind, first and foremost, one key fact that is: one person is always looking at your marketing message. I see sometimes people write an email message and it's, “Hey you guys,” “You guys,” “Team,” or something, but there's no team watching that, and there's no “you guys” listening: there's one person listening. It’s a conversation between you and someone else, or your brand and someone else. So bear that in mind: there's always one person listening and absorbing your information. So speak to that one person directly.

All right, and then the other factor, of course, is timing. So your timing of that message is it coming at the right time. Now, this can be easier said than done, because if you've got a Facebook page, there's a lot of audiences, there's a lot of different people, so you want to word things sometimes when you're talking to everybody, you're trying to get a certain person's attention. You might want to phrase it in a way: “If this is who you are,” or “If this is what you're interested in, and then listen, this might apply” type of thing.

Now, some people take a different approach to this and they say, all right: if I've got all these different people in my club, I'm going to create a separate Facebook page for every single audience. Now, honestly, to me, unless you've got a whole string of staff doing this stuff and loves technology – which the majority of people just don't, the majority of school owners don't and you don't have lots of time, the majority of school owners don't, I think this is a terrible idea. A terrible idea is to be building the front end of your brand and then segmenting it into all these little audiences. It sounds like a lot of hard work to me, I'm finding it hard enough to manage one page, I can't imagine having to manage five different pages for five different audiences.

So, does this mean you shouldn't be segmenting? No, of course, and this is what this relevance topic is all about, but are you segmenting at the right place? Social media is a way for you to get traffic to your offer and to your website. Yes, it’s about creating a conversation and having engagement and providing value to your audience, but at the end of the day, they don't join on Facebook: they join when they go to your website and send an online inquiry, or buy a paid trial offer. Yes, they might send a message through Messenger, but the conversation always goes off, either onto a website where they join something or on a one-to-one basis, before that happens.

So yes, use social media, use all these social platforms to gather an audience, to create that one-on-one conversation, or get traffic to your website. Once they are at your website and once they are in your database, meaning in your internal system, your CRM type software system or you have an email database, then make sure that they are segmented properly and that you know: this person is interested in kid's martial arts, this one is in fitness kickboxing, this one in jiu-jitsu and you can segment people accordingly and that way you can have those relevant conversations with people at the right time.

I hope that helps – keep things relevant, make sure and just be aware of when you are talking to people, is it at what time and what stage of the relationship and is it relevant to this person, their culture, their beliefs, their viewpoint on life and all the rest.

If you need any help with any of this type of stuff, get in touch with us on martialartsmedia.com – I will see you in the next episode. Thank you!

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

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24 – Martial Arts Website Templates, Replicated Websites & Page Builder Tools – The Pro’s & Con’s

January 26, 2017 by George Fourie

Martial arts website templates, funnel tools and replicated websites is a quick fix to advertise, but there are pros & cons to be aware of.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The pros and cons of using a replicated martial arts website template
The importance of placing your website on a host that you own
Why you should own your digital assets i.e. website, content, articles, videos, etc.
Where your primary marketing education will come
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Should you be setting up a templated website for your martial arts school? Do you need a landing page type tool, do you need a fancy funnel creator – that's what we’re going to be talking about on today's show.

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com. Today, we’re going to be talking about websites and using website template builders, template type websites that you can purchase from a company or these landing page builders, if you should be using them, what's the pros and cons of that – all these fancy funnel tools that you might have heard of, you heard a buzzword of funnel this and funnel that, so I'm going to be exploring the pros and cons of both. And look, there are pros and there are cons.

This is from my perspective, my experience with online space and building up websites and selling websites and really owning your own online property. And I guess that's what it comes down to owning your own property. But first up, I want to say this: in doing this type of thing, this is a roadblock in your business. To getting started, to getting leads, to getting out there and getting marketing done, I say just do whatever. Just get in there, as long as you're not forking out thousands and thousands of dollars, just get in there and start doing something.

Get the engine rolling and start generating leads. Because sometimes when you start getting into the marketing practice, that's when the real learning comes and the real understanding comes and that's where sometimes expensive mistakes can be the biggest lesson because that's going to tell you what you should be doing. So here's me, the king of all mistakes, and I'm going to be sharing the ins and outs with you. You can learn from them and choose your course from them and choose your course from that.

So should you be using a templated website? Look, it depends. It depends on, as I just mentioned if it’s a roadblock, but I want you to look at the longevity of your business. Now, your domain name, your www address – that's something that you own on the internet and you've got to own your digital assets. So what do I mean by that, by digital assets? Digital assets are your website, content that you put out, articles, videos, and these things.

And other than just scattering them around social media sites, you need to bring these assets back to your website. So your website, your domain name: this is the place that you own. This is the website; this is a place that you control on the internet. Transactions don't really happen on Facebook and so forth. Yes, you need all these sites to bring traffic back to a place, but you need to take people off that social environment to where transactions take place and this is where your website comes into play. So you need a website that converts.

Now, there's a lot of great templated sites out there and the core elements that really make them work is the conversion elements: a visible phone number at the top, a great online inquiry form, but one thing that would concern me, and I always look at it; OK I'm doing this for my business. What concerns me about it is not having the control of the backend of the website. Yes, you would own the domain name and the pages and so forth, but it’s on somebody else's host and somebody else's code generally speaking. So if I don't own the code and I don't own all that, if you ever want to move, you’ve kind of got your hands tied with this system because you can't really move your website: they own the website, so you actually just leased the website from them. There's no transferring anything.

Yes, you could maybe extract your content, but your hands are tied, you are stuck. So you better hope that this company is going to provide a decent service for you for the longevity of your business, OK? Because yes, you own the domain name, but you don't own the actual software that the website was written on, so you can't extract that, you can't take that way.

So that's a big thing to consider. What we like to do, we like to put our website on a host that we own, with codes that we own. That's only a WordPress website, designed with a custom made theme, but the importance of that is that it’s on a host that you paid for and you control and you've got access to the code and you can access and if you're not happy with one provider, you can make sure that anybody else can take care of your website for you, because you own it upright.

So it’s not like you're renting an apartment and you have a month to month lease and somebody can just kick you out if they want: you own it, it’s yours and you've got it for the longevity. So that's one thing to consider. Should you have things like fake testimonials on your website? Hey, when last did you like making a purchasing decision based on a fake testimonial with a fake stock image? Have you ever liked that? Would you like to base your trust and the purchasing decision doing that? I don't think so.

So hey, if that's what's being done with your website, just get their pictures. I’m sure you can have a student within your school that can run around and take good pictures. If not, spend a hundred bucks or whatever, it’s so worth it. It’s a representation of your brand. Ask your students: what have you gotten out of this class, put an original testimonial on your site. People are not thick, they’re not stupid, they can see a stock image a mile away, they can see something when it’s fake – it doesn't do your reputation any good.

All right, so that's on the website. Best bet – look, at the end of the day is to own your own asset. If in the meantime, you can handle working on a templated type of site – great, that's awesome. But hey, have your best interest at heart as long as your business is in existence and can you actually extract anything from that. Those are questions to ask before you invest all this into a company where you can potentially lose all your physical content, assets. And that means you've got to start from scratch. Again, get all your rankings from scratch in Google and it's a painful process to go through.

Now let’s move onto landing page builders. Now, a big buzz word is funnels. Everybody says, create a funnel, you need a funnel this, you need a funnel that, and that can be true and not true, because for you as a martial arts school owner, what is your main obligation? Your main obligation is, you want a lead. You want to get a lead or you want to get a phone call. That's pretty much what you are looking to achieve.

So funnel builders are for a product type system, where somebody is buying a product, let’s say we just call it trip wire in the industry, maybe a paid trial would be the same. Somebody would buy a book or something, and they would pay for it and then on the next page, they'll see an upsell and it will say, hey, you can only do this one time offer now, and then you might say no, and then they'll take you to another upsell offer.

So basically, a strategic sales funnel is really structured for a different type of product line then a martial arts school owner. Now look, this could differ depending on how you do your marketing, but generally speaking, you're not going to need this fancy tool to create all these funnels in different pages.

So that's that – now if you are going to use these tools, because hey if you're doing things yourself, using these tools are going to help you a lot. There's a lot of knowledge that these guys have, that do a lot of tests. There are a lot of top marketers that use these tools and they're going to know all these tricks and conversions tools. They're going to know what converts on a page and what's going to bring you the best leads and all the rest.

So yes, there's definitely a lot of merit in using these tools, but do you need the whole fancy setup? Maybe not. Maybe you just need to actually buy a course to do this, or unless you're using a company like ourselves that do these things for you then maybe you should just invest into the education and do something on a self-hosted website.

But hey, I'm just giving you different options and different scenarios there. If you are going to use one of these tools, then make sure that you're actually using it on your own domain name. So your website address/the page, because I see what people do is, they create a page on a system and then they take that ugly URL and they go put it on the Facebook ad and it’s a representation of the actual company that is providing the page and not for your school.

And what you've also got to bear in mind is that is what they're going to look at. They're going to look at this page and what are they going to do afterward? Look, if you are lucky and you actually got their contact details at that moment – awesome. But 90% of people that see a page or your website for the first time are going to leave and they're going to come back later. So that's the saying, it takes 6-8 interactions before any conversion will happen on your website or click through or whatever.

So, if somebody saw our fancy funnel page ad and then clicked on that and if you're not tracking that, but they remember the name of your business, now they’re going to Google and they search for your business and your website comes up and it looks dog ugly. There's no congruence with what they just experienced and what they're seeing now with your brand. So you've got to think of congruency and you've got to think, OK, if I am going to use a fancy tool like this, make sure that it's put on my domain name, that it's a place where I own and make sure that your other pages are also like that and that they look professional and represent your business.

That's it – that was a bit of a mouthful, but I hope that comes across clear. There is no right or wrong, it depends on you, and obviously your financial circumstances as well and where you want to take your business. At the end of the day, if it was me – hey, I want to own my assets and online there’s only one place that I own and that's my domain name and all the primary content that goes out there, I want those to point to my site and not someone else's.

Thanks a lot – if you need any help with any of this, get in touch with us at martialartsmedia.com. I’ll see you in the next show. Thanks, cheers.

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

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23 – The Most Important Number To Pay Attention To For Your Martial Arts School Success

January 18, 2017 by George Fourie

Focusing on the right numbers in your martial arts business? There’s one number that could be killing your profits. Master Fari Salievski shares his views.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

The one statistic that almost all martial arts school owners ignore
Having yearly goals vs. weekly goals
Would you spend $1,500 per phone call to retain a student? Maybe you already are!
Justifying the cost and value of your martial arts classes
As the martial arts business owner, this needs to be under your control
Bigger profits equals better facilities, better equipment and a better service
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

And I don't want my students to feel just as another number: I want them to know that I care enough.

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com and welcome to the Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 23. Today, I have a repeat guest, Master Fari Salievski and this is an episode you want to listen to. And it might hit home for you, it might not – it might ruffle a bit of fathers, it might make you feel a bit uncomfortable if you're in that boat, but I can tell you what: if there are some complications in your business and there are some things that you're struggling with, this episode can be a great breakthrough for you. And especially also on paying attention to numbers, statistics, a lot of things that a lot of martial arts business owners are not paying attention to. So this is going to be a great episode for you.

So for me, back in the swing of things after a short little getaway, a nice little vacation break. If you listened to or watched episode number 22, go check it out on the website at martialartsmedia.com. We stayed at this nice little remote spot, which was very relaxing, nice beach views – a few storms, which was OK, but a good time to relax, which is a good thing, because the New Year has kicked off on a very high note for us: a lot of martial arts school owners coming on board and we're really looking forward to helping a lot of school owners with their lead generation and creating a few success stories, which is really exciting, so go and check that out.

And I guess on that note, I want to bring attention to something that we've just completed for our today's guest, Master Fari Salievski: if you go to his website martialartsforlife.com.au, go and check it out and let us know what you think. We spent a lot of time on revising the message that he was trying to get across, pretty much trying to compact all that experience, 34 years of experience into his website, to deliver that message as the front of the KMA champion martial arts brand.

And look, a website's got a few core functions: it needs to differentiate yourself from the pack, obviously it’s there to generate leads, to collect phone numbers and phone calls and online inquiries. It’s about you getting your message across to your students and to your prospects. I’m sure the reason why you ventured on your own and didn't stay with your martial arts school and decided to do things your way, was because you wanted to get a certain message across and you wanted to do certain things your way and I guess represent your values, of how you want to dedicate yourself to your martial arts journey and passing that on to other people.

And that's an important key to a professional website and look, it’s not the text stuff. And this is where, I think people get a bit confused about the professional website: yes, one kid can do it for $500 and somebody's going to charge $5000 or more. And what is the big differentiating factor, because the tech is all the same? Well, the differentiating factor is, does a $500 website get your message across to your target audience? Does it sell them on the benefits, on the reasons of why they should take the step and join your program and start training with you? And that is where the big art comes through, with professional websites.

But just to give you a tip: if there's one thing that you want to change in your marketing, go and look at your website, because at the end of the day, your website is where people end up. Yes, people talk about using fancy tools for landing pages and so forth, but if your landing page is not converting on the first interaction with your brand, then what are the people going to do next? If you made an impression, they might log back onto go look you up and what are they going to do?

They're going to go to Google, they're going to type in your martial arts school name, and where are they going to end up? On your website. So yes, it’s good to have landing pages and all these flashy things that you can use within your different ad campaigns, but at the end of the day, your website needs to represent your brand, be professional and be able to convert, be able to take orders, and more. Take orders, take phone calls and take online inquiries with ease, especially on a mobile device.

So yes, go have a look, we're pretty much polishing up the final touches on Fari's website – martialartsforlife.com.au and have a look and see what tips you can get from that, especially with the wording and the copy. And look, this is not something you can really duplicate, because Fari's message will be different to your message, so if there's one thing where we spend a lot of time on is getting that type of message across to people, extracting the message from the martial arts school owner and putting that onto paper that it can be communicated 24/7 to your prospect.

And I'm going to leave that there, I want to get into this episode with Master Fari Salievski, this is an excellent episode: it’s going to challenge maybe a lot of your belief systems and look: if you do the same thing that you've always done, you're going to get the same results. So you've got to make a few adjustments and changes. If something makes you feel uncomfortable, that's what you've got to be paying attention to – there's a reason it’s making you feel uncomfortable. And look, that's where growth comes, experiencing a bit of discomfort. But hey, as I said: I'm going to leave it there. So welcome once again to the show – Master Fari Salievski.

GEORGE: Good day everyone. Today I have with me for round 2, Fari Salievski. How are you doing today Fari?

FARI: Always good, every day above ground is a good day, so good to be here.

GEORGE: Awesome. We’re going to dig deeper into a few things that we maybe sort of touched on. The last episode we touched on different things about recurring billing and ownership, owning your school, versus renting your school and a bunch of other topics. So in this episode, we’re going to dig more into numbers.

FARI: Absolutely.

GEORGE: All right. So, I guess just to start, a big thing that we look at when we set up websites and we look at the online marketing stuff, we always want to determine what is the lifetime value of a customer. In martial arts schools case, it would be the actual student, how long are they going to be a student for, which kind of determines what the financial value is of them. And then, we can sort of determine, OK, if that's the value that the student brings in, monetary value, then this is sort of a percentage that we can use for marketing cost.

FARI: Exactly. And look, bottom line is that it’s all part of keeping stats and being aware of your numbers. And today's talk is going to be really how far are you taking those stats and the most important statistic of all: are you avoiding that?

GEORGE: OK, cool. So I guess there's a lot of numbers to pay attention to in your business – where do you really start?

FARI: Look, for me, the main number really is the number of active students, number 1. How many new students did I get this week, how many did I lose this week? I do that weekly and then that gives me my overall numbers at the end of the month. During that week also, I have a look at what I'm spending. I want to know, not only those numbers that I just mentioned but also what am I spending, what am I left with each day and I'm going to have every two weeks, I want to know what I've spent, how I've spent it and how much profit is left at the end of the day.

GEORGE: OK. Digging deeper into active students and losing students: what sort of actions do you take? You assess it and then what do you do from that point?

FARI: The reason you want to know that is because I like to have a weekly goal, right? People might have a yearly goal, but I like to have a weekly goal. I don't mind even if I'm staging it right now, that's the honest truth. But what I don't want to do is go backward, right? I need to be aware of the numbers and what I'm spending, what it’s costing and so they're my essentials. But today I want to go into the most essential statistic that I pretty much guarantee no one ever keeps and I guarantee there are people out there that are spending thousands, if not tens of thousands on a particular result and then looking at it as an expense of business, but they're not monitoring the performance of that money that they're spending, which I find crazy.

GEORGE: All right. So, let’s open the can of worms here and let’s dig deep into that.

FARI: All right. Well, let me give you an example: one of my clients, this is not that long ago, and we’ll just round off the figures for argument’s sake. There's a little bit more, but I’ll keep it simple. He's spending $6000 based on the percentage of the billing amount, OK? And $6000 he's paying for the service, which is great, right? You're happy to pay for a service. And my question to him was, why are you paying that amount of money for that service? And really the main reason is that people don't pay, I want somebody else to chase it up.

And I said, beautiful, good. And I said, OK, let’s use last month as an example: how many people did not pay? So he actually had to look that up and that particular month, there were four people where their payment kicked out, which is pretty good, four people. So in effect, to have those four people chased up, and he said, it’s done by the phone – awesome. And I said, OK, so that's $1500 a phone call.

GEORGE: Nice!

FARI: I mean, I’ll do that phone call for you for half the cost if you want me to, but we’re paying $1500 a call! But wait: my next question was, because I don't really mind spending money: it’s about maximizing the use of that money, so my next question was, OK: you spend $1500 a call for four calls: out of those four calls, how many of them succeeded in fixing the problem? In other words, that person might have closed their account, they might have moved on, they might have had financial difficulties that month – it happens. But how many of those four were actually sold? Because you're paying $1500 a call to that purpose, you agree?

GEORGE: Yeah.

FARI: Well, the client that I mentor had no idea of one, what it was costing per call, two, how many clients were chased up, but the craziest thing was – no one ever monitored the success rate of that call. Which to me is crazy. I mean, if you had a staff member that you're paying $1500 a week, because, for arguments sake, if you're being billed monthly – this was actually $6000 bi-weekly, in other words, you're paying a staff member $3000 – for that $3000, would you monitor that performance?

Would you check some balances, and the answer would be yes! But these people are paying someone else outside of their business to do a straightforward task, but there's no monitoring. Or if there was, he wasn't monitoring, he wasn't keeping a track of it. He just let that be a part of the cost of the business.

GEORGE: So what's the alternative, how do you go about fixing that? I mean obviously, the short answer is, you can employ someone to do all that following up for you, but how do you eliminate that cost?

FARI: Well, number one is, it’s not necessarily eliminating: it’s a matter of maximizing the benefit of that money. So for me: look, in this case, it averaged out at $3000 a week. For $3000 a week, if that was me who was getting a $3000 expense a week, I would be paying that person for 8 hours a day, for argument's sake, 5 days a week to do not only that phone call but to do a whole lot of other stuff. And for $3000 I could buy myself a lot of marketing, I can buy myself a lot of student service; I can buy myself a whole lot of things that will actually help the business.

GEORGE: OK. Where's the real root of this problem? Is this a way of billing, is this where money is coming through the business?

FARI: Yeah, look, ultimately, it’s a billing issue: how are you doing your billing? If you're paying a percentage of the collection and the people that pay that percentage – which is generally a much higher amount, it’s a percentage of your gross. If you're paying that sort of percentage, the reason they're doing that is because they believe there is a hell of a lot more service, and I'm not questioning that service: I am simply advising, are you keeping stats on the cost of that service?

Do you have checks and balances to make sure? In this case, four calls? I want to know how successful those four calls were. And I want to actually, physically – they may get reports, they may get feedback, whatever. The fact is, it’s not something people are very diligent with and keep abreast of. And I don't care if you're doing a $100,000 every two weeks, or if you're doing a $1000 every two weeks – it’s irrelevant. I’m paying this amount of money – am I maximizing the benefits of that cost? And what is the real cost? You understand my point?

GEORGE: Yes, yes for sure. So is there any more on that side of numbers that we can elaborate on, or are there any other numbers that you also pay attention to?

FARI: Look, that's the biggest number, because whatever you're paying and it averages out weekly, the fact is that I can have a staff member look at a whole lot of numbers for me, and that can be their job, to simply look at the number. And sure, a high level of student service. I mean, really: if I'm paying that amount of money, I would rather pay someone in a full-time job to do that and then some, which will make my life a hell of a lot easier.

GEORGE: For sure. So how do you have that setup to avoid that?

FARI: Look, I have a very simple solution: will there be one person, or will there be four people in a month, or will there be ten: bottom line is, I'm in a relationship business. For me, I don't expect anyone else to do that. If somebody has an issue, they might have financial difficulties – I care about my students. I want to help them over that little financial hurdle, whatever that may be. If I cannot fix it, no one can, that's the bottom line. And I don't want my students to feel just as another number: I want them to know that I care enough that I want to fix this issue here and now.

Let’s fix it: it could be an oversight, it could be just a little bit of cash flow issue, it could be much more. But it also could be that the student just wants to quit. I've been there, 34 years of my life in what I do. I don't think it’s too hard for me to ensure good relationships and ensure that I'm on top of it and I don't think it’s too hard for me to make four calls every two weeks, or five calls a month, whatever. I don't think it’s beyond my list of duties that I should not do as the owner. If anything, I think as the owner that's what you should do, because, again: you're the one with the relationship, I'm the Master instructor.

I believe that I'm in the best position to fix that then and there. Let’s not let things get out of hand. Some of those people leave just because of a misunderstanding and they're embarrassed about money or they just don't want to pay you for whatever reason. It could be very simple, but as the owner, I'm going to know here and now. And you cannot beat the value of a good relationship. I care about my students and I want my students to know that I care.

GEORGE: Excellent. We’re talking a lot about numbers and I guess it’s good to just mention the point, something that you mentioned in the first episode and today and it’s still a relationship business. It’s martial arts first.

FARI: Absolutely.

GEORGE: And it’s a relationship business. I was speaking to Kevin Blundell yesterday and the thing that he mentioned was, if you're earning a $1, then you are in business and there's no way around it. If there's money coming in, you're still running a business at the end of the day.

FARI: Oh, a 100%! I get people who have ten students, “I don't care about money.” What are you charging? I charge $3 a class. All right, well if you don't care about the money, and then charge them $3 a class. But I've got to pay for the hall higher. Ok, well – it’s a business then, whether you're charging a $1, whether you're charging a $100, whatever it is. The moment you charge, it’s a business. It’s not a charity and the moment someone pays me anything, I have an obligation to look after that person.

GEORGE: You can't do much for $3 a class, though.

FARI: Look, there are people out there, the fact is that they justify if you wish, their little philosophy of “it’s not about the money for me” by charging such small amounts. It’s not demeaning their level of service, it not demeaning their level of martial arts – they could be amazing martial artists, but for me, you need to be paying for your premises. And in my case, I wanted to one day own my premises, which I managed. I mean, there's people out there that are paying up to $70,000 – $80,000, $100,000 a year in premises, in rent – where does that come from?

That's one part of it, but also two, if you think about it, in the time when most people are having dinner with their families and their children, people are teaching martial arts. And if you've got a wife and children, you've got to ask yourself, is it fair that you're sacrificing the time away from your children, away from your family at dinner time for example, and you're teaching people that are strangers, you don’t know them. You're sacrificing that time, is it worth sacrificing that time for a $1? For $2? I don't think that's right.

If you're going to sacrifice that time, you'd like to say, “Look, it’s because I'm providing for my family, because I want to provide a higher level of service, a better level of service through facilities” and whatever, resources – mats cost money, things cost money, conditioning costs money. But also, to put a value on your time. It’s not just your time, it’s your family’s time. If you're not there, it’s your family’s time. What's that worth? I don't believe it’s worth $2, but I just think there are people in the industry, the fact is they'll simply say, “I'm not about money,” but I can tell you: if they could make a $100,000 in a month, they would do it tomorrow. I just think they don't have the know-how and the ability, that's a fact. And sometimes people just make a simple excuse to justify, but I would question that.

GEORGE: Do you think that's almost ironic? I say that because martial arts takes dedication, it’s not something that just gets given to you to earn your way to the top, whether it’s a black belt or whatever that is in whatever style you do. It takes a lot of persistence and determination to get to that point. Do you see it as almost ironic that a lot of martial arts business owners don't apply that same philosophy to business?

FARI: Oh, a 100%! A 100%! But again, you only do what you don't know and you only do what you know, both things. But unfortunately, what you don't know probably hurts you the most. Unfortunately, your circle of friends will influence you. It’s just like the bi-weekly, the fortnightly billing system: once upon a time, we were like in America where everyone charged monthly. You know why did they do that? Because that's what everyone else did and that's the standard.

Well, OK, it’s a standard, but who said that you've got to do it that way? So the people that are charging the $2 and that's all they know – that's their circle of influence. That's the circle of friends that they have and that's all they know. But I cannot tell you how many people that I've met that I've changed from that to going from your little scout hall to full-time premises, to even owning their own buildings. And if people think that cannot be done – I've built someone in their sixties that actually retired, that went from a little community hall to a full-time school, to actually owning his premises in his sixties, and he's a very happily retired man, teaching, enjoying life and being a property owner, so go figure.

GEORGE: Awesome. A few more things, just on figures: do you pay attention to different statistics, like conversion rates, how many students come through the door, how many people actually join?

FARI: Look, of course, yeah, and you need to be aware of them. As part of new students, if I break that up to the next stage is, those new students, if I take it one step back, it’s how many people actually have tried a class. If I go back further, it’s how many people called, have they called by phone or email? So in those stats, the reason I need to keep them is one, I want to make sure that people are contacting us. Because if I'm not getting any phone calls, if I'm not getting any emails for membership inquiries, then my business is going to die. So I need to have that sort of activity, I need to keep those stats.

For argument's sake, if ten people contacted me, be it by phone or email, out of those ten, how many people actually turned up to a trial lesson, or intro class, whatever you want to call it, I don't mind, but how many of them turned up? And from there, how many of them joined? So I need to be aware of that, because, number one is, if I'm not getting contacted, well then, you've got an issue right there.

My next point is that, from that point, once they go into the trial class, if they're not turning up, well OK – you're obviously not handling that email or phone call very well and then, when it comes to their intro or trial class, if they're not joining up as members, then you want to find out are you doing the right thing. But even with that, I just find it amazing that people want to do three trial lessons. And sometimes people say, you know, I’ll give you two weeks, absolutely – I know if I want to join something, if I like something, I want to know here and now.

I just believe there are better ways of doing things. It’s not a hard sell, but again, people are doing things because somebody else has done something, or somebody's told them but is it the absolute best way? And the only way to find out is to keep those stats! Even on people quitting, yeah, people are going to move on, people are going to move to different areas – it happens.

But at what belt level do they quit, for example? And why is that important? There could be a belt level that you've made way too difficult or you're putting way too much pressure on them, for whatever reasons. You might have the instructor that's teaching the yellow belts for example, and he's just not on the ball. And you're not going to know if you don't look at it, because all of a sudden, all of your yellow belts are leaving. And all that instructor needed was just some underarm deodorant and a little bit of discipline – as an example.

GEORGE: Yeah, deodorant!

FARI: But you know, the point is that I need to be aware of it and they're the basic stats, they're the essential stats. But again, I see so many people in the industry that become obsessed with stats, I think overly sometimes. Keep the essentials, keep it simple, because somebody's got to enter these stats, but more importantly, somebody needs to digest them and see where it’s at.

And for me, I'm the guy with the numbers; I'm the guy that looks at it. Why? Because this is my business, I want longevity in this business and it’s not being money hungry, it’s just to be on top of it. And there are some things that are way more important to me than a staff member. For example, at KMA, you ring at any time of the day, evening – guess what? Guess who gets the call? Even if I'm not there, guess who gets the call?

GEORGE: You do.

FARI: Me! All calls will be diverted to me. And people say, oh, you should have people for that. Are you too poor to pay anyone? I just find that extremely offensive, I love what I do. No one knows my business better than me. In one minute of talking to you, I will know exactly what you want and I will be able to tell you exactly what you need. If you come into the school and I chat with you, the fact is that I have people that want them to try three classes. Three classes? I can spend three minutes with you and show you why you need this, why your child needs this – three minutes. And I call that the perfect intro.

And if you don't have the perfect intro, what is that one technique for example that really demonstrates the beauty of your arts? Whether it be Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whether it be Taekwondo and you're kicking, or kickboxing: what makes me see in a very short time that I need this, why this is so great? And also, two, why is it much greater than the next school? Because there's a lot of karate schools, there's a lot of Taekwondo schools, there's a lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu schools – why should I join yours?

GEORGE: What's that unique selling proposition. What makes you stand out?

FARI: Yeah, your USP. But that USP needs to come out in your perfect intro and the perfect intro is not just talking yourself stupid till the sun goes down, but for me, it’s about getting as many senses involved for example. They need to feel it, they need to see it, not just hear it. Too many people talk, we’re in the hands-on business, people want to experience it. When you go and buy a car, the guy just doesn't talk to you all day – he gets you in the car. He gets you behind the steering wheel and you know what? People buy a Mercedes – why do they buy a Mercedes for? Because of the experience.

GEORGE: For sure. And if this helps the scenario, because the one thing that I've really picked up in this conversation, and I speak to a lot of business owners and there are so many approaches and I guess at the end of the day for you, the biggest lesson is to really track what's working for you.

FARI: A 100%!

GEORGE: Because where your strength lies, you have that strength and that experience, and somebody else might not have that. So I guess it comes to that of managing your strengths and really testing what works. We have a simple rule that we try to do with websites: we try to get a hundred people to a website and then we see what people did and then we take the same traffic source and we send a hundred people to a different version and we weigh the two up. In Google AdWords, it’s called beat the control: you're trying to put two things next to each other and see what works best and then you're trying to best the next better version. So your strategy is always to improve on your previous result, basically.

FARI: A 100%! And the best person to do that is the owner. My pet hate is, I see, and I hear the line, and it sounds really good: you should work more on the business than in the business. And it sounds like a really good line, it’s like you could disappear forever. And you should be able to disappear and have holidays and so forth, but don't make yourself dispensable because you cannot teach – I cannot teach anyone my 34 years’ experience.

I’m getting to a comfortable level when I can take time off, but at the end of the day, I'm the best man for a whole lot of jobs. And to work on the business, I need to be aware of those stats and I need to make the most of those stats and make the most of the money I spend and ensure that I'm getting value for the money I'm spending at the end of the line.

GEORGE: Awesome. Fari, great chatting to you again, I guess just to wrap it up: the big thing here is to just really pay attention. Pay attention to where your money is going and really maximizing your strengths, as we just discussed.

FARI: Absolutely!

GEORGE: Test, I guess don't give up the checkbook is a big thing a lot of business owners also say, be in control of the money, the finances. Track the stats, see where things are going and then see what can be improved upon – does that kind of sum it up?

FARI: Well and truly, and I can tell you a very big school owner, a friend of mine, one of my best friends, and the fact is, very successful school and he was not aware of his very own business of what he was actually spending. And also, he was not aware of what was left at the end of each day. In other words, in business, we need to turn a profit. Don't be scared of the word profit, you need to turn a profit, because, with that profit, you might have to buy new mats down the track. You might have to replace things, do things, and improve facilities -whatever. You need money leftover in a business.

A business is not designed to just simply survive. It needs to help you grow. And to do that, you need to produce a profit. If you're not producing a profit, you're in trouble and the fact is, since all this consulting, like I said, he was very successful, having a good life, but was not simply aware, he now gets $50,000 a month. And I cannot be more proud, of netting $50,000 a month, and that was a person that had no idea of really – yes, they were doing OK, they were doing good, but he had no idea what the proper margins were and it shocked him when he found out that as successful as he appeared, with the numbers and the school and the lifestyle, everything: at the end of the day, he was in shock of the very little profit that it was producing.

So just by tweaking a few things, making a few little profit centres within the school and making people aware, guess what: $50,000 a month. And that school is not in Sydney by the way, just in case. Everyone always seems to be talking about one particular instructor who is amazingly successful – this is outside of Sydney and $50,000 a month. Does he deserve it? Absolutely. Does he do wonderful things with it? Absolutely, his students are amazing, talented. They look great, perform great and producing a profit. And you know what? If he needs to do something, buy the building next door, buy the building of the opposition – he’ll have the money to do it, well and truly.

GEORGE: Excellent. Fari, great chatting to you and if people want to reach out to you, once again, where can they do that?

FARI: Look, you can inbox me on my Facebook, you can call me via my Facebook, all my numbers and emails are there, but ultimately martial arts professionals, you mentioned a very good friend of mine earlier in the conversation, he's an active member. The fact is, the biggest schools in the country are all active members, and it’s not just coincidence or luck, they are the biggest for a reason and that's why we’re all together.

GEORGE: Excellent. Thanks again, have a good day and I'll chat to you soon Fari.

FARI: Have a great day!

GEORGE: Cheers!

FARI: Bye.

GEORGE: There you have it – thank you Master Fari Salievski, and what did you think of the episode? What resonated with you, what didn't resonate with you? As I mentioned, just before we got into this, sometimes there are things that don't sit right with you, there's a reason for that because it’s challenging a way of your belief system, and that could be good or bad. It doesn't mean that it’s right, but if something makes me feel uncomfortable I want to pay attention to that and ask why. Is there a reason that I'm thinking in a certain way and could I make a few adjustments that are going to improve my business and improve me as a person at the end of the day.

So thanks again for listening: transcripts are available on martialartsmedia.com/23 and if you want to have a bit of a debate on any of these topics, you write below the episode. There's a place where you can leave a comment. Ask a question, have your say, whether that's on palm with what we discussed or not. Hey, a bit of controversy is always good, so I’d love to hear your feedback and if you're getting good value from this show, please head over to martialartsmedia.com/itunes. Open up the iTunes application and leave us a review – we’d much appreciate that. A five-star review will help us boost the rankings, but an honest review would be much appreciated.

And that's it – thanks for listening, we’ll be back again next week with another awesome guest and an awesome episode. You'll have to wait and see. All right, I’ll speak to you soon. Thanks again – cheers!

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22 – How To Have Simplicity And Clarity In Martial Arts Marketing

January 11, 2017 by George Fourie

Keep your martial arts marketing activities simple, clear and specific with these key tips from the tropics.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

The art of simplicity and clarity within marketing your martial arts school
Why you should never rely on assumptions
The power of using deadlines within your offers
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

You've got to be so clear and so simple with your marketing. You know as a business owner, you tend to assume that people understand what you're trying to say and who it's for.

This is George Fourie from Martial Arts Media. And here's a bit of a different podcast for you. So I'm standing too… And if you're listening to this I suggest you head over to martialartsmedia.com and watch the video. But I'm standing on a very remote island in Indonesia.

It's the island of Nias, we came here for a couple of days to really relax. And believe me, there's not much you can do other than relax if you're looking for all your first world fixes of technology in busy shops. You're not going to find that here. There is literally nothing. And you know before we booked this place, the resort owner told us, “look, nobody really comes here this time of year.” So you've got to have it all to yourself. You are going to have the whole beach to yourself. And I thought Yeah OK. But. Probably not true.

But we came here and we literally have this resort to ourselves and it's not very big but it… You could see in the background here. There are a few; there are three chalets there between all the coconut trees situated within nature. So that's the spot. And I'm just quickly going to do a swing around. We literally do have this entire beach all to ourselves. And yes it's a bit cloudy and rainy today. But nevertheless we got here in the first few days and there was the sunshine and there was nobody here. There's absolutely nobody here and it's just delightful.

So to get the message of this podcast is. We arrived at this place. And as I said we came here to relax and we've really done that and it's made me reflect just on different things that we've done over the last year and going into the new year depending on when you're watching or listening to this. Just reflecting on different things that we will be doing and how we will be helping with martial arts school owners build and grow through the means of the Internet.

And coming to this village is one message that really resonated with me is just the message of simplicity and clarity. You know my beautiful girlfriend and I took a walk down to the village. A village you can't even explain it as a village here because you walk down a road with a lot of potholes. There are only a few bikes I haven't seen a car in about five days. I haven't heard it in five days. This is pretty much what we've heard all the time and I hope you can hear my voice but just the sound of the ocean.

Walking down the street there are just remote little huts. Just little huts where people live and I'll include a few of the videos and clips on this on this page and you can have a look but it just fascinated me how happy everybody is and everybody's waving.

And because we are the only tourists, we are literally only tourists on this island; people are just amazed and fascinated by us. They’re waving and they getting all ecstatic and it's kind of weird.

But it's really kind of cool in a way as well. And just see how these people live a simplistic life. The kids are running around, they're playing in the dirt. They're having fun. Nobody's worried about charging an iPod or an iPhone or sitting on Instagram or Facebook. It just doesn't exist in this place and people didn't care for that. Their main concern is just living and being happy and having a simplistic life and living on this beautiful island where they can eat coconuts every day and just live a healthy life and have fun.

And just looking at this and see how simplified life is here, it just resonated with me how we complicate life to have fun. The way we try and have fun, the way we do all these first world type of activities. You know, we need money to go to entertainment centres or things like that. That's just not something here. People just have fun with what they have with who they are. Appreciate the people around them.

So I want to tie this back into marketing, of course, which is the message of simplicity and keeping things simple. We had some huge success at the end of last year with one of our clients and it's something that we do with paid trials. And creating a clear message for the right target market and the right audience. And something I learned and gathered from that is you've got to be so clear and so simple with your marketing.

You've got to be so clear and so simple with your marketing. You know as a business owner you tend to assume that people understand what you are trying to say and who it's for. But if people don't read it, even it's the simplest thing and doesn't absorb what that message is, then they don't get the message. And it's as simple as saying who it's for. I'm not saying look this program is for kids or it's for adults. But saying this is for kids who like to do this or these adults who want a break from work or want to do something like this or want to be in a different environment after work and relieve stress.

Be specific. Specific to who it's is for and who it's not for. Then if you are creating a paid trial, make sure you put a deadline on it. Make sure that people have an urgency to take up this offer. Doing that, you are able to create that urgency and people will take up the offer where they… if there is no reason for them to do it right now, they will procrastinate and do what they do all the time. That's just what people do. We tend to procrastinate. So that's it. If we are creating the paid trial type of offer, something that we've created very successfully for our clients, let's do something with a great deadline. Be very clear on who it's for who it's not for. And get your message out there.

If you need any help with that, get in touch with us on martialartsmedia.com. I'm happy to help. I'm going to enjoy the rest of the, well I wanted to say the sunshine but, if you look at the back there these storms have been really unpredictable and they, they creep in when we least expect it. Behind me you can see there's sort of a point there which is awesome surf break. And we took a walk out there earlier but a bit too messy to surf today, but we were halfway through and the storm just hit us, which was rather fun because it's warm weather and it's just kind of soaking it up.

But there you go. That's the message. We'll be back with a normal podcast by the end of next week. Have a good week. Happy New Year. Cheers.

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

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21 – Double Your Martial Arts Paid Trial Conversions With Festive Season and Back To School Promotions

December 22, 2016 by George Fourie

If you're doing paid trials for your martial arts business, this simple tweak will double your signup rate.

.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The system that lead to 86 paid trial signups in 2 weeks
How to match your marketing message to festive season celebrations
What a paid trial is and how it works
The missing factor in most paid trial promotions that robs your success
Why Facebook Marketing is not enough
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com. Today, I'm going to be talking about paid trials, how they can help boost your sign up rates for your martial arts school or your martial arts gym, how you and use this festive season and back to school and all these events to really amplify your results, and I'm going to be talking about the one key factor that everybody is not doing with paid trials that is literally robbing you of your success.

In the last few weeks, we've been helping one of our clients with their paid trial offer. We've been helping them optimizing and tweaking it and really adding a few elements to skyrocket their results, and that's really what happened. We managed to help them generate 86 paid signups within two weeks – that's 86, 86 paid signups within two weeks. And just last week, I was interviewing somebody else on the Martial Arts Media business podcast, who's really taken this paid trial concept and they've restructured their whole process of enrolling people that actually eliminated everything free and everything goes through the paid trial feature, which in a way helps them not to focus on selling, because that's just what it is. If you want to start training, here it is, you join, pay the trial and you train with us and you assess it from there and you walk away with value either way.

Having this in place eliminates a lot of the time wasters and there are so many benefits to it, and I want to get into that because there are a few things that I'm going to be talking about here, that you can do right now to your offers to optimize your results and this can be done during the right season. At the time of recording this, there'll be the whole back to school trend coming up – there's always going to be a reason to market, so you can adjust your offers to match what is happening in the environment. Right now, it will be Christmas, that's almost over, but there's always things like back to school and New Year's and New Year's resolutions and so many things happening.

So, first and foremost, 86 paid trial sign-ups in two weeks. Now, taking a step back: if you're not familiar with the paid trial, to explain the basics of it, it is basically having a front end offer, something that's very cheap, whether it's 30, 50, a 100, but something that is affordable for anyone to take and then providing a free training trial, which can be two weeks, three weeks, four weeks or a few classes, or whatever suits your establishment and it's something that you've got to test.

Ideally, try to give away something physical as well, maybe a set of gloves for kickboxing or a uniform. Putting that in place is a lot easier for people to decide, because even if they might get a free trial they think, “Well, free: I'm going to come in and they're going to try and sell me something,” whereas, when you're just paying a once off amount, a small amount, you can justify it and you're getting something that you can keep, physical, gloves or a uniform or something and you're getting some training. In a way and strangely enough, you put an offer like that in the front and now you are eliminating a lot of your sales headaches because that's just what it is: you buy it for $50 and this is what you get or whatever the offer is.

So, how did we take this type of concept and how did we get to 86 sign ups within two weeks? There were a few components that were in play. Now, I can't stand here and tell you “Do this and you're going to get 86 sign ups,” because there are a lot of components in play. And a lot of this also depends on what type of marketing you have been doing, how familiar people are with your brand, what time of the year it is and how the offer applies to that as well.

So always be thinking touch points: if you aren't out there marketing, how many times have people interacted with your brand? What have they seen, what have they seen on social media, have you provided value to them and content or something, or do they just keep seeing the same offer? Because if they keep seeing the same offer, there is no urgency to take up that offer. They know that they can contact you at any given time and take up that offer. So when you want to create a rush of people, then it's key to do a few things.

One, you want to set a deadline that you can only get it within this time frame, and that means obviously that if you are running a paid trial offer, that you've got to change it up, you've got to provide something different from value. There are a few ways that you can go about this. You can for one, just have that one offer, but create maybe something different, like a waiting list, and only open up at certain times.

I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but you can do that because you create a rush of buyers, because there is a deadline on when people can get in and they know that there is a chance that they are going to miss out. Or just go ahead and if you want to go on a craze or something like what's happening now at Christmas time, or it's Easter, or whether it's back to school, tie your marketing to that message and put a strict deadline to it. So a deadline that people can only take at this point in time and that's it.

Now, the marketing components we used for that was Facebook, they were doing a lot of Facebook marketing. Basically, targeting different audiences and their fan page. Now again: if you've got a good following, this is going to help, because you're going to have all these people that are familiar with your brand that are going to take you up on your offer, if the offer is a good match for them. Then we also did strategic email campaigns and we really drove to the deadline of when the cut off is and when they have to take up the offer and when it was five o'clock the cutoff, we took the page down, so people could literally not by at that time anymore.

So you also can't be fake and false scarcity, people see through that and your local business and you don't want to go down that track of creating false scarcity and people can just get it at any time, because you lose credibility instantly and it just takes those few people to know and spread bad rumours about you, so you don't want to do that. You want to be genuine and authentic in how you do it. So, email marketing, Facebook marketing, direct marketing and putting a direct deadline on that.

Now, one thing that we also did that was the icing on the cake is, we managed to put a system in place where people could double up on their order at the end and this was quite an advanced sort of process that we took with the shopping cart that really, really elevated the results. But those are the basics, if there is one thing that you can take away is put that deadline in place and create something that gives a bit of a wow factor that people can really, really benefit from.

If you want to do something similar and you want to take up a campaign like that, you can get in touch with us, this is the kind of stuff that we do on a day-to-day basis, is put these types of systems in place. We handle all the tech side, we create sales copy for your offer that really supports it and goes with the trend and put strategic things in place that drives people to that deadline.

So if you want to take advantage of something like that, you can just get a hold of us on martialartsmedia.com. Get in touch with us and ask us how we can create a strategic offer for you that drives people to a strict deadline and hopefully, you can skyrocket your results. And hey, if it's not 86 paid member sign ups, I know a lot of school owners that would be happy with 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever the number is. So results will obviously vary, but it's something that can be put in place for your marketing and it's something that we can reuse all the time for different offers and I can explain that more to you.

So if that's of interest to you, get a hold of us on martialartsmedia.com – thanks for watching, I hope you got great value from this and I'll speak to you soon. Cheers!

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

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20 – Kevin Blundell: 100 New Martial Arts Students in 5 Weeks Without Sleazy Selling

December 15, 2016 by George Fourie

In just 5 weeks, Kevin Blundell from Kumiai Ryu Martial Arts System grew their new martial arts school to 100 students without focusing on selling. Discover how he did it.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

The marketing strategies Kevin implemented to grow KRMAS into 26 locations in Australia
How to overcome tall poppy syndrome backlash
The importance of underselling instead of overselling
Removing all things free to boost sales and reduce frustration
How being accredited positions you as a market leader
Why your ‘sphere of influence’ is your ultimate martial arts marketing tool
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

If you're in business, if you charge a dollar for a lesson, you’re in business. And irrespective of people say they do it for nothing, there are still fees involved.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast, episode number 20. I have another awesome guest with me today, Mr. Kevin Blundell from Kumiai Ryu Martial Arts System and Kevin has grown his organization to 26 locations. We touch on the most recent one, because the most recent one was opened just over 5 weeks and as of today, they have 109 fully enrolled students into the system. So we touch on his success and how they’ve really engineered the process to happen in 5 short weeks.

And this could be a key turning factor for you in your business, this could be just that one thing that gives you that edge, without having to be all creative with teaching your staff to be super salesy and pushy and having all these fancy sales systems in place, but just simplifying your process at having a core offer in front that invites people and eliminates a lot of time waste for you and allows you to really run the organization a lot smoother and really talking about your front end marketing process, of getting people through the door. And I hope it’s not me that picked up on these subtleties because I listen to these interviews and there are things that just come through where I am like, wow, that's awesome!

But more than just picking them up, I hope you take these to heart and apply them to your business, because if there's no transformation, then it doesn't help. And I know that in these last 20 episodes, there have been really, really great interviews, there's been some core, fundamental information that could be the key factor that makes your business successful. Or, and if you're really successful, take it to that next level, just applying these few, simple steps and really optimizing your business.

Now, we are moving into the new year: depending on when you are listening to this episode, there are lots of things happening and people are sort of wrapping up for the end of year and people are getting ready for the new year. Depending of course on when you are listening to this episode, but no matter where you are, if you need help with this marketing stuff, we do this on a day-to-day basis and we help martial arts businesses grow and go to the next level through marketing automation and marketing systems.

And when I say marketing automation, I don't mean fancy things where you've got to press the button and you get all this automation stuff coming out – no, it’s really a case of automating your outreach so that you make more conversations and speak to more people. Because at the end of the day, you're going to have to speak to people before they join, you know? Some people are going to take up an offer online and so forth, but for the most part, there's going to be some communication involved.

So we put systems in place that help facilitate that process and it helps you get in contact with more people. If that's for you, head over to our website, martialartsmedia.com and get in touch with us.

Set up an appointment with me and we can chat about how we can possibly help your business grow through the new year. And working with so many school owners, it’s always interesting to see different approaches people take at this time of the year being the end of the year, that a lot of people are saying, well, things are dying down and nobody's ready to join in the martial arts school.

And then, we are doing campaigns for some of our clients that are, at this point in time as of recording this, that have 28 new page sign-ups in the 7-8 days, and we've still got a couple of days to go, which is weird that the campaign starts to ramp up in the last couple of days. And this takes me back to episode number 7 with Paul Veldman, which you can access at martialartsmedia.com/7 and he mentioned market for a season or a reason.

And when you take that concept in mind and you follow the sense that it is the end of the year and people are buying and they are in a buying mood – give them something to buy, because that's what people are doing. Whether they start training now at the end of the year or in the beginning of the year, it doesn't matter, but people are in a buying mode, and why not give them something to buy and something to join, because that's what they're doing anyway. They're buying Christmas gifts and they're doing all these things, so put something, put a great offer in place. And I guess that's what all this comes down to, is when you have the right offer at the right time, people are going to take it up, that's just the way it goes.

All right, enough from me: this is an awesome episode, I'm really looking forward to sharing with you. We had a few echoes and so forth, as you do, but I'm sure you'll get the whole jest of the conversation. And if not, of course, download the transcript and you can delve into it deeper. But without further ado, that's it from me – please welcome to the show, Mr. Kevin Blundell.

GEORGE: Good day everyone, today I have with me, Mr. Kevin Blundell. Now, Kevin has a total of 26 locations with his martial arts school, KRMAS and recently he opened the 26th one, which generated a total of 100 students within 5 weeks. I already chatted to Kevin, just on that one topic, although we've got several things to talk about, but just his recent success of how he approached that with paid trials and a bunch of other things. So welcome to the call Kevin.

KEVIN: Thanks, George.

GEORGE: All right. First things first, let’s start from the beginning – who is Kevin Blundell?

KEVIN: I’m a guy that's been hanging out in the martial arts for 47 years. I started as a boy in judo boxing, then went into karate and kung fu and Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu, sort of just training and enjoying my training and in 1989 we formulated my own organization, Kumiai Ryu Martial Arts System, which is KRMAS. And we have a couple of locations in the Central West of New South Wales. It was more just a hobby and something to spend time with likeminded people. It’s subsequently grown over the years and it’s become my full-time occupation 5 years ago.

GEORGE: All right, fantastic. So, full-time occupation, you said 5 years ago?

KEVIN: Correct, yeah. Prior to that I was a building contractor by trade and then I went into state government into the building services corporation and worked my way up to an executive level and one day I realized I couldn't do 80 hours a week anymore doing both things, so after a bit of discussing with some of the key people in the industry, such as our friend Fari, Fari Salievski, and back in 2009, we had a conversation and he said, why aren't you doing this full-time?

And I said, well, I can't. And we weren't even doing direct debit then, we were just doing pay as you go and it was all hobbies and we had one little permanent setup at one location in a guy’s backyard and subsequently, here we are, 5-6 years later, where we have fourteen full-time centres and the rest being part-time centers, whether they’re in a school or a community centre where the guys train 4 days a week, so we’ve grown from back then just under 600 members and now we’re just shy of 1800 current active financial members across those locations and 6 of those centres are full time occupations for the guys running them.

GEORGE: Ok, it sounds like there was a big switch where things really just came together for you. What was the first thing, when you decided to turn it into a full-time business, what were the first steps that you took?

KEVIN: The first thing we did, we went from pay as you go, pay per term to pay per fortnight, direct debit system. I had a lot of pushback from the guys at the time, I had guys who were virtually in tears, saying that we're going to lose all our students and it’s the worst thing you can possibly do. But I had a look around the industry, I had faith in the people who were successfully doing it at the time. And I believed in myself and we just formulated a slow integration period and we finally got all the locations online by mid 20-10 and we had been using a direct debit system.

And about that time, we were introduced to the educational funding company and we used them as our billing company, who at the time were quite good at initial marketing and setting up plus all the information Fari was sharing with us through his MA Professionals. And we started to formulate our own approach and I then went on a bit of a tour to visit with guys that were doing it full time and I thought, our end game product and our martial arts were equally on par and was quite up to the standards and that, so it was just a little bit more self-belief.

I think that a lot of us in the industry and the guys that are still on full-time or holding back are excellent martial artists, I know some guys who are fantastic martial artists but they “Well, that won’t work.” Well, yeah it won’t work unless you do something about it! Self-prophecy, 100%, people don't believe in stuff that might work. So it was just a bit of self-belief and I left my job. It was a pretty high, six figure job and I just said, I made a decision. I didn't have a plan B, I did have a parachute on my back without a reserve ‘chute, I just went for broke and the results were outstanding, it turned into a multi-million dollar business.

GEORGE: Well, that's excellent, well done on your success, Kevin. Why do you think there's a big block with direct billing? I just look at general purchases that you make during the day: your phone is on direct billing, your gas and electricity and all these types of things: what is the stick point with martial artists?

KEVIN: My observations, and I think it happens in the US and the UK and other countries as well and I think the biggest sticking point is, people are brought up with the belief it’s just a bit of fun that you do a couple days per week, a little hobby and they don’t see us for what we really are. And that is high end educators us who facilitate positive change in individuals lives. Take people who have no confidence who become business leaders, experts in their fields and give kids confidence to excel at school. Once I had come to the realization I had many, many success stories, I started to see, for me personally the light if you'd like, that if I did this full-time, I could provide a better service with the help of direct debit it enabled me to have the resources and then provide the facilities to provide a much better environment for the students to learn and have better quality in the student, if you'd like. We call it a ‘black belt end' product if you like after a four year period on average, some people a little bit quicker, most around four years to five years.

Much better, higher quality than I've produced before, not because of the syllabus or desire, but because we were able to put more resources in for people to take care of jobs, like doing administration and stuff, so you didn't have to do as many on a higher level, so you can train and get the message across. So, I think it comes back to, people just need to take that quantum leap, they need to believe in themselves, believe in their product. Undoubtedly there are brilliant martial artists out there serving the industry, but they go “Ah yeah but…”.

So one of the key things I did personally George, I just decided to surround myself with positive, like-minded people, and the naysayers and rejecters and the it-might-work and sadly, all of these were just being jealous because you're moving forward. And in Australia, the tall poppy syndrome is a real thing, it’s a sad thing. In the US, if you're successful, people applaud – in Australia, they wonder what underhand things you are doing and that's the sad thing.

GEORGE: Yes, and I guess, just clarify that for the American guests, the tall poppy syndrome?

KEVIN: The tall poppy syndrome basically is, if you rise above the pack, everyone can see you, you're noticed. Therefor you’re a tall poppy in a field and you become more opened to be targeted if you like and they try to cut you back down to size, so you're in the group again if you'd like. Now, that doesn't mean you have to leave everyone behind, in fact, I bring a lot of people with me. There's a saying that says, a rising tide lifts all boats and that is a true saying and very much relevant. Once I started to associate with the guys that were successful, they're just the same as everybody else, they're just out there doing the best they can, but their full-time occupation is a professional martial arts instructor, whether which way of martial arts that is.

I've always been a firm believer in education and enhancement of martial arts instructors. I’m the senior vice president of the martial arts industry association, which provides an accreditation program. I’m also the New South Wales president of Kung Fu Wushu and I recently re-joined the Australian Karate Federation accreditation program. All the accreditation programs are linked back to the Australian Sports Commission, and parents and people who are not familiar with martial arts often think someone has a black belt or a black singlet in Muay Thai, whatever the case might be and they're an expert. With all due respect, that's not necessarily the case.

If you can well hang on I’m accredited, you can contact people in the martial arts industry association, or the Australian Sports Commission and they can verify that you are accredited. It does give you an advantage, especially when it comes to going to a new location. The understanding of people with accreditation, they have done first aid, fitness, coaching etc. – I've done all that as well, but having accreditation lifts the industry overall. That's just my viewpoint, but I can see the benefits because it aided greatly in our growth.

GEORGE: For sure, and success breeds success. I really like that philosophy of a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, it beats the whole tall poppy syndrome. You can also see it as the whole crab and the bucket: when the crab tries to get out of the bucket, all the other crabs just pull each other down, instead of everybody sort of making a plan to get out. But the whole success breeds success, it’s something that really will make you deliver a better class as well, because if you are successful and your instructors are successful, that's going to transfer over to the student base and just deliver a better class, a better experience and a better student at the end of the day.

KEVIN: I often ask people, I say, what do you provide? I mean, if you charge a dollar for a lesson, if you're in business. And irrespective you can say you do it for nothing there are still fees involved you have to pay this and that, you're in business. So if you’re going to charge a dollar, charge enough. I mean, the difference between a professional and an amateur is a professional earns bacon. That's the difference. So fundamentally, people need to get out of the past. I mean, we didn’t ride into the office today on a horse and dust yourself off. Everyone moves at the time. You can talk about, oh, it’s not traditional, it’s just rubbish – it can be more traditional by having more access.

Then you can source the best martial artists in the world and go to their base and train with them, or you can bring them to your base or your school, wherever – discipline will follow. It’s probably more traditional than people that see themselves as being traditional. At the end, I respect all that, I think it’s wonderful and if people want to do it as a community service, that's fantastic and I respect that. Some people generally do it for nothing they put all the funds in and that's great, but I've made a choice. Look Kumiai Ryu, my organization, we employ 120 people, full or part time and we’re giving back to the community.

Every one of our locations raises funds for various causes, Cancer Council or Starlight Foundation, we give back to the community. Not because it’s a marketing ploy, and I get very offended when people make that innuendo – it's genuine, heartfelt, giving back to the community. We sponsor children, we have a sponsorship program where kids that come from underprivileged or less fortunate social economic environment, they're sponsored at each of our locations, so we’re always giving back. In fact, we’re probably giving back more than the people who are standing there throwing rocks and saying were bad guys for charging money. Basically, all I say to them, have a look in the mirror, you'll find an answer to your problem.

GEORGE: Good call. All right, Kevin, let’s jump to a few things. Now, recently, I want to get down to your most recent success: 100 students in 5 weeks. Some people have been in business for 20 years and they haven't reached that 100 student mark. You did this in 5 weeks, now, obviously, you have 25 other locations that have given you the groundwork to really do that, so I doubt we’re going to be able to summarize it as quickly as we want, but what are the key steps you took to be able to have that level of success?

KEVIN: As I mentioned earlier George, I was a building contractor and I never built a thing unless I had a plan. If you haven't got a plan, you might have a concept or an idea, but a plan is in detail. And that's what I did, I sat down with the project, the location is Taree New South Wales, it’s an agri business center. It has some social implications but it draws on a large population, around 25,000 from the town itself but within a 40-minute radius around, about 65,000 people.

So what I did, I sat down and looked at The Australian Bureau of Statistics. I looked at all the demographics, I looked at all the income, I looked at employment levels, I looked at all that. And I went there and had a chat with people. It’s 55 minutes from where I'm located, so you have to take that into account and we didn't have one person in the area who was involved. So we started from scratch. So what we did, we formulated our plan, and just to give you an overview, we decided to go for broke and set up a part time instead of a permanent location, we signed a lease for two years with a possibility of a purchase.

I firmly believe in buying locations, because of long term, it gives you a return and you're not paying somebody else's mortgage off, but that's another subject for another day. But back to this project: what we did, the key points were, we did our research. We then worked on setting up a marketing plan, and a way we could communicate. So obviously, Facebook was good and joining groups such as Buy, Swap and Sell plus local community groups on Facebook. Plus, we just went down there to give some flyers out, put up some posters up, visit the schools and we just talked to people.

And we started a campaign of whispers and rumors of, hey, something really cool is coming to town. And we started that about 4.5 months out from our launch date. And then, we devised an offer. And Rod Darling gave me an idea when I was in Sydney and we had a good old chat about that. Rod was originally in Perth, now he's in Newcastle. And I took his concept and quickly put together an offer of $49.95 for two weeks training and you've got a karate uniform for a karate program or a set of boxing gloves for the Muay Thai program. We also made a firm decision – no more free stuff. Free is for five dollar Fred down the road. We’re a professional organization and we want that mindset that you pay for the service and that the only way you could come watch a class is if you were a parent or a child or a guardian of the child.

So instantly, it eliminated all the tyre kickers, which wasted all our time. Because basically, people would come in from another school, just wasting your time. We wanted genuine people. Before we had our first class, we had 60 people that paid for the trial and over the next 5-week period, we had 118 paid for the trial and a 100 of those have joined by the 5th week. And as we speak now, I think we’re in week 7 or 8, we’re just coming up to 109 members. So now it’s slowing down as we are leading into Christmas, but we've got 19 people booked to come back when we come back in January.

GEORGE: That's excellent. So can you clarify the whispers and rumors campaign?

KEVIN: Sure, what we did was, we just let people know we were there, we got our guys walking around in their staff shirts with our logos on them and get a coffee, get a haircut, just be part of the community. So we sent someone down every couple of days and their job was just to walk around, buy something from a shop and people would just start a conversation and tell them what's going on. And from there, a conversation started and generated an awful lot of interest and we said, if you're interested, just pop online, go here and book here. And we got results every day that we did that, the next day people actually got booked in and they paid for the trial, or what we call the introductory program.

GEORGE: So, people purchased the trial: how do you go about delivering that? What's the sales process for getting the trial started? Is it all online based, or do you have a bit of a leading to that?

KEVIN: They can either come in and come to the facility and pay for your introductory program, or they can do it online. But we train all that stuff, we don't have any selling. Selling is not in our vocabulary. We’re a martial arts organization it’s about storytelling. So we tell people what they can expect to learn what will happen over a period of time and we just show them. We don't want to sell anyone; we don't want anyone in the organization that's been sold. We want them there because they feel like they want to be here for the program for the duration and to obtain the benefits of martial arts training, which we all know are many. And that's the way we approach it, we don't try to sell anything.

So people come in, we give them a pre-free trial, we introduce them to the mat and to the instructor team that's on that night and then they just do their classes over in the next two weeks and then we welcome them to the opportunity to join up and every single one of them, by the end of the first week they were joining. You can have the best marketing program in the world, you can spend a million a month on marketing, but if it’s no good on the floor they march out the door. So you've got to make sure your mats are spot on, they can deliver the message in a fun, but martial arts like way. We’re not entertainers and we’re not here to entertain people, but they must feel like they're really being looked after. And that's what we do, we look after them.

GEORGE: You mentioned people can't get on the mats without buying the offer.

KEVIN: Right, that is correct.

GEORGE: Do you feel that you turn people away because of that?

KEVIN: If I do, that's OK, because, short term pain, long term gain. What I mean by that, people that sit around and whinge about this and whinge about that's too expensive and I can't do this and all that sort of stuff – I just want positive people in there. And by the way, we have a high percentage of people who are on low income, unemployed, they're on benefits or between jobs and they can still afford our program. So we’re not priced out of the market, but at the same time, we charge what we think is fair and we provide a full package service. I would rather have people in there that are genuine from the first day and the way it goes through the process, if they have to leave, it’s usually a very genuine reason, like they've relocated, some medical circumstances or some dramatic changes and anything other than that, you've failed, you haven't done your job properly and there's been a hole somewhere along the way.

That's why it’s so important that you don't sell them anything and you make sure they fully understand the program. We talk a lot about things like there is going to be a time when you don’t feel like coming or your child won’t want to come so we have strategies to help them move past those phases. So it’s very important that people when they come to your organization, are very clear what they're getting. And don't oversell, OK? Here's a saying that's underselling, overdeliver and that's a really important thing.

Because it’s a very personable thing we're doing, it’s a great thing we're doing and that's coming back to talking about people that want to do it professionally or full-time or they shouldn’t be doing that kind of stuff – we’re not selling kids doughnuts. We’re not making people fat or making them unwell. We’re really changing their lives and I think that's really important. That people grab hold of that, to be passionate about what you do. You can't just feel it as a business, there's a business part to it, but you've still got to be passionate about your martial arts and what it means to you.

GEORGE: I really love that approach, because it’s the perfect qualifier: if someone's not going to be prepared to spend $49 with you, chances of them committing with their martial arts program are minimal. If they're not prepared to commit that, then the next level of commitment is really probably non-existent.

KEVIN: We had an awesome marketing campaign, we got 300 leads. And it was spin the wheel and it was free. But out of that, people were just pouring through the door for free lessons or two lessons a week or whatever. And out of that, we've got a lot of people, a year later, nearly all of these caused grief and they were disrespectful, abuse staff on the way out the door and all sorts of rubbish. And I said never again, no more free stuff. Sure, the flow of the people coming in is a little bit less, but the quality and the longevity and participation rates are exactly what I want. It’s the positive environment, it’s a great place to be even though we still use a lot of those marketing strategies, but instead of the free stuff, we give them opportunities other than free stuff. That is the introductory offer I was mentioning.

GEORGE: I love it. Kevin, that's awesome. I have one more question for you and it’s something that we just touched on that you mentioned in a conversation a few days ago, and that's your sphere of influence. There's a lot of talk always about the lifetime student value, what are students actually worth for you in a monetary value of how long they stay on your organization and train. But you take that a level up with this sphere of influence. Can you elaborate on that?

KEVIN: Sure. What I mean by that is, each individual person that joins a new school, they represent a possible candidate or future student. So, one person has a sphere of influence, well, you've got a mum, a dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, next door neighbor, buddies from school, buddies from work, work colleagues, something like that. I've broken it down to this formula and I've come up with this: in general terms, most people have about 8 people in their sphere of influence.

So what I do is, someone joins, we put their photo up on Facebook with their permission, “Welcome George to Kumiai Ryu Port Macquarie, we’re excited about your journey,” and then you go to work you say if someone contacts you, within your sphere of influence and asks what that’s about. You become like a marketing messenger. You tell them about it, they may or may not come straight away, but they're inside your sphere of influence and therefore, as you move forwards through the system and it’s highlighted and you progress, quite often they end up bringing a book.

Everyone listening, I'm sure you’ve had someone join, say a 9-year-old boy, and then in 2 years’ time, you might have a whole family join. I’ve got cases here where we’ve got the whole family, mum, dad and the two kids, and then they've got their next door and their whole families join. And that's happened dozens of times. So it’s about having that person understand from the day one it’s ok to tell everyone about martial arts and the benefits you're getting. So that's built into our program, it’s great to be proud of your achievements, your next belt level, the training that you attended, the seminar that was had and take lots of photos, tell people.

We encourage that, we have a system where the kids have their photos put up on the board and all that stuff. The whole time, it’s about them sharing their experience and then other people subsequently wanting to join that experience. So that's what I mean by a sphere of influence. The power of one person is 8 people waiting out the door to come in. It’s really important not to push them, not to offer trinkets and rewards and all that sort of stuff. We don't offer anyone anything: if they bring a friend, that's just great, it helps the dojo grow and then we've got more positive people in there.

GEORGE: That's awesome. Kevin, it’s been great chatting with you. There's so much gold in this episode and I hope everybody listens to this again, just because there were so many small things that came through there that I think are life changing. It’s life changing advice for any martial arts school owner that really just want to ramp things up and get moving to that next level. Kevin, where can people find out more about you?

KEVIN: Our website, krmas.com.au and they can reach out to us through there if they like. Just click on locations Port Macquarie or home office, it’s easy to access through there. Just go to our website and reach out, I'm happy to share and have a chat and nothing too sell here.

GEORGE: Excellent.

KEVIN: Alright then, thank you very much for having me, George.

GEORGE: Thank you very much, Kevin, that was excellent, chat to you soon.

KEVIN: Ok, bye.

GEORGE: And there you have it – thank you, Kevin. I hope you got a lot of value from that episode, I certainly did. One key thing that stands out for me: I speak to a lot of martial arts school owners. Depending on the level that you're at, or where they're at, there are different problems in your business. If you're just starting out you've got different problems versus someone like Kevin that has a 120 staff in 26 locations. So there's going to be different levels and different problems, obstacles you've got to overcome in your business.

But the key one that always comes out is the sales process. Even for some business owners it's hard, but it’s probably easier for you as a business owner because you know all the aspects of your business. But to formulate that into a process, it can be a difficult task, and to actually teach your instructors who are more than likely not sales people can be a hard slog to get done. And I know for most people, most people don't really want to learn sales.

For me, it was a default profession and I'm not going to go into details, but when I lived in South Africa, there was a time in my life where I had to get into sales or not eat. That was the scenario, and I learned something and it taught me so much about life and it’s something I value. And for me, it’s not a sleazy or slimy thing, it’s just taking people from one situation to a better alternative, if that's a match for them, without pushing people into any scenario that they don't want to be in, or any situation.

But to convey that type of skills and to teach that kind of skills, it’s a hard thing to do. And if that's such a big obstacle in your business, the sales process, why not simplify that? And that's really what Kevin has done here: he's put an offer in front that people can take and it eliminates the time wasters and it just makes a life a lot easier for everybody and the more people can tell stories about how people are having success in their business, that's really what people want to hear and they can evaluate for themselves if your organization, your martial arts school or MMA gym is a match for them.

So there you have it. As always, the show notes can be found at martialartsmedia.com/20, so that's the number 20. And if you got great value out of this show and all the others and you would like to leave us feedback, this really, really helps us get our rankings up. If you've got an iPhone and you're listening to us through the iTunes app, click on reviews and you can submit a review from there. If you're on a laptop, you would need to go to martialartsmedia.com/itunes. There's a blue button that says “view in iTunes”- that will open up iTunes and you can leave a review from there. And then, depending if you're listening on another phone, like stitcher radio or somewhere else, then you can leave a review within that platform as well.

Last but not least: if you would like to leave some feedback, or have any questions about anything within this show, and if you've maybe asked a question below this episode, we could get Kevin to answer them for you. So you can go to martialartsmedia.com/20, scroll right to the bottom, just add your name and email there and you can add a comment, leave your feedback, what you liked, what you didn't like and we can have a bit of a discussion on the episode.

That's it from me – I hope you have a fantastic week and if you are traveling this time of year, be safe, I’ll chat to you next week – cheers!

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19 – Fari Salievski: Having Your Martial Arts School As An Avenue For Investments

December 7, 2016 by George Fourie

Should you rent your martial arts school premises or own it? Fari Salievski believes in the latter and funds his investments.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

What to do when nature takes it course and destroys your business
How the concept of recurring billing started within Australia
When you should consider owning your martial arts school premises
Why hype is not always the best way to go
When it's ok to drive your Ferrari
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Are you owning your own building? That nice car that you drive, do you actually own it? If your school is so successful, your school should become really an avenue to invest.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another episode of Martial Arts Media Business Podcast, episode number 19. I have with me today Master Fari Salievski from KMA, a champion martial artist in Sydney, although they have several locations around Australia. An interesting martial arts business conversation, about ownership, owning your actual school and not renting, using your martial arts school as a vehicle to fund investments. We talk about 34 years in the business and how things have changed and brought things like recurring bullying and things that have obviously taken for granted today but getting that process started way back in the day.

Now, discussing the topic of ownership, I’d like your feedback. We talk about ownership, obviously the physical school, and that got me started on something that I haven't really spoken about, which is owning your digital assets, which is a very very important component when you build out your website and your Internet properties, but it’s one that is completely missed in most modern day training, so people don't really focus on it. But at the end of the day, if you’re building a business for longevity, you want to own digital assets, as you might want to own a building – or is it something that you do not agree with?

I know there could be a lot of contradicting opinions on that, whether you should own something or rent something. At the end of the day, is ownership really better? Yes, mostly, but some people say it’s not. So what's your take on that? Blow the show, and you can do that with every show basically and this one at martialartsmedia.com/19 – right below the transcript, you can leave your name and email address and fill in a comment and start a debate. If you have any questions, or something that you don't agree with or agree with, then raise that and let’s discuss and evaluate a few options.

I know for me in my marketing business, I don't own a physical location because I don't need to – I can work from home, which is awesome and that's the way I wanted to have it set up in the beginning, that I can work with remote staff and work with people from all over the world, which is what I do. I have only one person in Perth that I work with, everybody else is located in different parts of the country or different parts of the world. So that's from me, but when I talk about ownership, am I into digital ownership? Oh yes, I want to own every single property and put my primary content on a website that I own, and this is a topic that I’ll dig a bit deeper into and elaborate more on.

This episode, we’re getting right there, stuck into the business. You're going to get a lot of value from this, or it’s going to create contradicting opinions, who knows? If it does, whether it does or not, leave a comment below the show notes, martialartsmedia.com/19. That's it from me, please welcome to the show – Master Fari Salievski.

GEORGE: Good day everyone. Today I have with me Master Fari Salievski. Now, Master Fari Salievski has been in the industry a good 34 years, started the whole craze of fortnightly billing in Australia and a whole bunch of other things that we're probably going to touch on in this interview, so welcome to the call Fari.

FARI: Thank you, nice chatting with you.

GEORGE: Awesome. So I guess let's start right at the beginning – who is Fari Salievski?

FARI: Yeah, sometimes I ask myself that question as well. I'm still evolving, but I like to consider myself a martial artist, first and foremost. There are some people in the industry that know me as the guy that probably was the first to start marketing Hapkido and doing a whole lot of seminars in the early nineties. From 2000, people probably knew me as the guy that set up a whole lot of martial arts business seminars, but for me, it’s about being a martial artist first and foremost.

GEORGE: So let's go back to give everything some context. How did your martial arts career evolve, where did you start teaching?

FARI: I started teaching in 82. I started teaching for a man called Chang Wu Lee and that was in a city Redfern, and actually, I opened up my very own school in 1986, in New Town, a suburb of the city of Sydney.

GEORGE: And that was your first location?

FARI: Correct, yes. And eventually, that became a full-time school in 98 – if some Sydneysiders remember, there was a very big house storm that was the size of baseballs. The building that I was in was closed and I went from a full-time school to a part-time school. In fact, that school has now moved to Erskineville, the next suburb down. Still a part-time school and at the time, I started to look for other locations. I had a part time Bankstown and a part time Liverpool school. in January 2000 I opened what still is and became my KMA headquarters.

GEORGE: Ok, great. Now, that's a long time ago. Working your way through and you've been doing this for 34 years, which is a lifetime for most people, how have things evolved? What were the first problems you encountered at that time and moving forward to now?

FARI: I have to say that in 2000 when I purchased, not leased, but purchased my premises, I made the big decision to change everything that I did. And I have to say that the building was a key part of that. In 98, with the hail storm, I learned in a very hard way, I learned to rely on loyalty, the martial arts teacher, relying on that just wasn't enough. The fact is, within a matter of two weeks of moving virtually across the road to a school gymnasium, I ended up with only 30% of my students. And in 2000, I decided to virtually go across America , I did a martial arts tour, looking at the very biggest schools. And I came back and I started billing. In other words, having students on direct debit.

GEORGE: Ok. Let's just go back quick – the hail storm, just to give it a bit more context for people who are not familiar with that. What was that about, what was the impact?

FARI: Well, if you look at the size of baseballs, basically destroyed the building. I was in the police citizen’s youth club – people will know that building for great famous boxers like Jeff Fenech, Kostya Tszyu, especially Jeff Fenech, who I still admire quite a bit, an Australian icon. They had the boxing room, I had the martial arts room. I was the guy that brought all the kids in especially, the PCYC movement is predominantly about kids. I had all the kids in that area and the fact is, at the time, the inner city was evolving and the PCYC headquarters in there wisdom believed there weren't many kids or weren't enough kids in there in the city.

I don't want to offend anyone, but they actually said the words to the effect of, gays do not have kids. And the money and real estate were pretty expensive even back then, the money that would generate by selling the building would open up a lot more centers in the areas where they believed there was a lot more kids. I was not the landlord and I found myself out on the street. I ended up across the road in the gymnasium, and that was a very tough lesson for me. Even though I was into property investing, I didn't own the commercial premises. And that was the big wake-up call for me. In hindsight, as typical as it was, that spurred me on to purchase and for me to become the landlord of commercial premises and guarantee my longevity in the martial arts.

GEORGE: Ok, and what did you base that decision on, because it sounds like you did that quite early, you decided you're going to purchase your actual premises.

FARI: We were out on the street about roughly August of 98. So I did not purchase until December of 99, it took me that long. I was operating out of part-time centers, we were ready to open in January of 2000 in premises I owned and I still own. There are quite a few different opinions on whether people should lease or people should buy, but I can tell you, that's why I'm a very good example of why people should buy – you're the landlord. Nobody can kick me out, and you know what? I've had two martial arts schools in that street competing against me, and the fact is, both of them are gone and I would doubt very much that anyone would be able to come in and establish themselves in the heart of Liverpool city. If they do, it’s going to be a very expensive bill for them to rent and compete with someone that's not paying rent.

GEORGE: Right. Would you see that as the biggest advantage, it’s a financial competitive edge? Because obviously, the purchase can be quite expensive initially.

FARI: The purchase, regardless of the price – the fact is that the first school that was across the road from me, what they were paying in a week was less than I was paying on my monthly repayments as a loan, that's the fact. And I remember the words to the effect of, my opposition school – you're an idiot. Well, you know, I would argue that I think you're the idiot for paying a hell of a lot of money when you could have bought it and you didn't realize there was an absolute bargain across the road. I bought it not to compete with anyone: I bought it because it was great real estate deal. And in the end, the person that said I was an idiot, ended up moving out in less than two years.

GEORGE: If you could give anybody advice on purchasing their premises, or premises where they would like to move in, is there any sort of pointers, some key point that you would look at before you take that move?

FARI: Obviously, you need to start at a part-time location. You need to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run – that's the goal. Back then, I didn't know really anyone that actually owned. Now I know lots of people that actually own their premises, and I sort of compare that very much to the four minute mile: nobody believes you can break the four-minute barrier and the fact is that once one guy did it, within a few months, there were a half a dozen guys that did it. But before that, nobody could do it. It's very much the same in owning your premises and that's why I find it quite fascinating, I’ll always get guys, especially some of the business advisors, business gurus, martial arts business gurus in America, they're quite openly bagging owning your building, and I don't understand why they would actually do that.

There are benefits in owning, there are benefits in leasing, they're not going to understand leasing and I can’t understand it's much easier, you can pick your location, but you know what? I picked my location and I bought. If you can buy and become the landlord, always buy. At the end of the day, if you look at what I bought it at and what it’s worth now, even if it was not a bargain then, even if I got ripped off back then, it’s still a bargain compared to today’s prices, that's a fact and that's real estate, especially in Sydney. You're always going to move forward, you're sitting on a financial nest egg and you happen to spend a bit more money on it. I've got air condition, to put value above the $35,000, I'm happy to spend it because I own the premises. And that's just one example.

GEORGE: Definitely. I look at it from the marketing side of course, but when you look at digital assets, which is something that's very neglected in the internet space, people might rent their website on a different platform, or invest all their assets in social networks that they don't own as such and I see it as a big problem in the longevity of your business. There were things like MySpace back in the day, where everybody ditched their websites and moved all their digital assets to MySpace and we all know what happened to that. And when you don't own your actual assets, whether digital or physical, you're always going to be at that risk where you don't have the control, you're playing on someone else’s field basically.

FARI: Well, that's why I find it amazing that there are people recommending from the outset, this is the only way, this is what you do. And the fact is, the reason they recommend leasing is because they're leasing. And I sort of question, is that the advice you're giving because it’s the actual best advice, or is that the advice you give to justify why you're leasing your premises?

GEORGE: Interesting. So let's jump pack to the billing side. It's something that's kind of taken for granted today because I guess it is the norm, but you did touch on earlier that you toured America and you had a look at bigger schools and then you took away that concept – can you elaborate a bit more on that?

FARI: Look, the focus that having a good mix and a focus that allows you to concentrate on teaching, even to this day, I say to potential new members, why we do billing or we do pay it in full. The reason we do that is because I do not want to spend time collecting fees – I want to do it right now and then I want to focus on you as a student. And it’s simple, and we ask them: would you like me to spend more time collecting fees, or would you like me to spend more time on teaching you, or teaching your child? And obviously, the answer is, I want you to focus on teaching. And for that reason alone, they're the only options we offer. We do some casual classes, if it's a workout class, for example, that's only on the workout classes that we have a casual option, and even then people are purchasing in groups of ten.

It's always what is best for the school, best for the business unashamedly, and in the end, it's best for the students, because let's face it: in our example, we own the premises. That's a huge commitment, we invested heavily in not only the premises but in the equipment. But by investing, we made a commitment. It’s not wrong to ask from members to make a commitment in order to start. We're in the martial arts business, were not playing ping pong, it’s not a seasonal sport. So for me to change habits, for me to make someone better than what they were before they came in, I need a commitment, and billing, or pay it in full, and I say both those things – pay it in full, it’s not wrong for me to ask people, OK, I don't want to do direct debit. What other option do I have? More than happy for you to pay in full. Why? Both of those things will give me my goal of a commitment. I have a minimum 12 months – if you want to train at our school, it’s 12 months commitment minimum.

GEORGE: So what's your take on the whole billing industry as such within the martial arts areas? What are the options and so forth?

FARI: I think there are advantages and disadvantages to everything out there. Ultimately, it’s what's best for you. I don't believe that you should be getting your business advice from your billing company for example, and that's just my opinion. If for example, a billing company would not want you to do a pay it in full, why is that? What would you think they would not want you to do a pay it in full?

GEORGE: They don't get the billing fees.

FARI: Correct, there’s no commission. There’s a whole lot of things that they want you to incorporate in the billing. To me, that's biased advice. And obviously, it's not in their interest. For me, each to their own, I just don't believe in giving a percentage of the business. There’s a lot of ways of collecting fees and paying a percentage, it's very much like a franchise and again, I think it’s good if you're smaller and you're not turning that much over but if you start turning over a decent amount of money, and that percentage can add up. And you might say, that percentage is tax deductible – fantastic! So is my new car that I can by every year. So are those trips, so is my next property. So where do you want to spend your money? Well, I have a very different view on where I want to spend my money.

GEORGE: For someone that wants to take on a billing company, is there anything else they should be assessing to evaluate their decision of who to go with?

FARI: For me, it's what's best for you. I prefer a transaction fee myself, a flat transaction fee. My student pays that, be it ¢0.50, be it a dollar, be it a $1.95 – on top of your fee, it's very transparent. If your fee is 60 a fortnight, for example, you get 60 dollars a fortnight on your account – simple. Anything above that is the fee – very simple to understand. A hundred students at 60, you just got 6000 – simple. The moment I start doing percentages, I really can’t justify paying a flat percentage unless it’s a franchise.

GEORGE: So Fari, how do you feel the industry has evolved – good or bad, from when you started?

FARI: Look, I think having opened the door for the business of martial arts, now I think people have gone a little bit too over the top. And it’s quite ironic because one of the pet hates of school owners is splintering. And what I mean by splintering is you build a student up and you take all that time to develop that student, he becomes a great black belt, he works for you, and then that loyal martial arts black belt that you built up to be a great instructor to help him build up great relationships in the school, then decides to become your competitor, not far away and take your student base.

And probably that's the pet hate of every school owner, is splintering. But you know what? I've done the same thing in the business of martial arts. So many want to be this representative, that representative, I'm going to bring this guy and that guy. There is already a wonderful base of people and organizations – why reinvent the wheel? At the end of the day, the people that have started to have actually done quite well. So what's happening is that the next generation of people, how they can make some noise, is a whole lot more hype. And unfortunately, there are some that are getting caught up with the hype.

Aussies, I think, in my view, we don't like the hype. I don't need to oversell to get more members. I don't need the hype. I just need a good product, all the essentials and we need to keep it simple, but they want to hype things up so much. I don't believe you should get a potential new student and lock yourself in the backroom not to be disturbed to sign them up. Really? What are we buying? Are we buying a house, are we buying a car, are we doing a deal that we don't want to be interrupted on? I’ll do it on the front counter. I want them to see where they're going to join. See that big crowd down on the floor? You're going to be a part of that big crowd. And you're not going to see that big crowd in the room out the back floor. All this hype, all this big sell, constantly looking to upsell in order to increase your sales for that month and turn your turnover.

Aussie schools and the fact is this: we now have a very good friend of mine, you've met him, and I won’t mention the name now because there’s obviously figures involved but we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in turnover and that's not just turnover, but that's in straight out membership fees that they collect. And I would challenge any school in America that can do that amount of turnover, strictly on student fees. I mean, that is phenomenal. There are people that will get maybe half that in a month, but that will include upgrades and testings and products and things like that. But you know what? We don't need to sell anything else, we've created a base of success on straight out membership fees. Of course, you can do all those other things, but our focus and emphasis are not in sales, it's being on membership. Because you're guaranteed that you're getting paid every two weeks, or every four weeks, whatever it may be, you're getting paid on student fees – guaranteed. And you know what, to me, that's real success. I don't get too excited and try and turn my staff into sales people if you can understand that.

GEORGE: Do you feel this hype comes exactly from this, because the majority of the leadership I guess, comes from America with different systems. And I know there’s a vast difference, I moved to the States for sales years ago and I couldn't sell for the life of me in America. And then I learned the American way and then I moved back to Australia and people frowned at me in Australia and I had to adapt again. And that to me was such a key thing, there’s such a different way of communication. And when people are creating websites and things like this, that same principle applies, because that's our virtual communication.

FARI: A 100%. Look, your website’s going to reflect your personality and what you do. We don't need to be blowing trumpets and whistles – Australians, they want to buy. People came to the school to buy, they called you because they want to buy – you don't have to oversell. We’re really in the information business, there are the right things to say, the right things to keep it simple, but I don't need the hype because again – you come back from that Anthony Robbins seminar and you're all hyped up, right? Someone does a big sell and you're all hyped up. But how long does that hype last? When someone joins, I want that hype to last for the next 20 years. I want martial arts for life, ideally. If I'm all based on hype, you're not going to have the student for life. And people might say, the average student only stays four or five years anyway – well, that's fine. Regardless, they're not going to be there for hype, they'll be there even less for hype.

GEORGE: Excellent.

FARI: Anyway, that's just my view. It’s not there to downgrade anyone, but this philosophy based on not to over-hype, and again, I would challenge anyone that is against that or doesn't agree with it, because the fact is, the biggest schools in the world are here in Australia. The most profitable schools are here in Australia. Pure success and I'm not talking, I have 1000 students, or 2000 students came through my premises this week – great. What did those 2000 students that came through this week, what did that cost you? Are you owning your own building? That nice car that you drive, do you actually own it? If your school is so successful, your school should become really an avenue to invest. What have you invested?

And they'll always be trying to do something to generate more funds, but I can tell you: if your school becomes an investment or buying properties, you know what?

That's investment because you'll be making money in your sleep. And I would ask, and my question in finding whether be a mentor or whatever, I don't care what your business is worth, I don't care what you're worth – what do you actually own? If you stop working tomorrow, how long will you survive? And that's a big question. And the biggest schools in this country, the most successful, and I can tell you, it’s not the current generations, it’s the generations before. They're very old school, I can tell you, if they stop working tomorrow, they stop teaching or whatever, I can tell you, they will do just fine.

GEORGE: Let’s talk about success and let’s talk about your success – you have 16 locations yourself: what do you acquaint to your success?

FARI: Keeping it simple, don't hype. Try and minimize your debt, minimize unnecessary expenses. The fact is, when I was driving around in my Ferrari, and I actually think that that was the worst thing that I could share in the martial arts industry, because there's a generation of people now thinking if they open up a martial arts school, they can own a Ferrari, that's the goal. For me, it’s not about owning a Ferrari, or owning a Lamborghini: it’s putting yourself in the position to have the choice. Because there will be some people to say, I would never waste that sort of money – it’s fine, it’s good that you say that, and it’s probably a good advice, but the person that said you should never waste that money – are you, or will you ever be in the position to buy that Lamborghini or Ferrari? Are you saying that because you're a smart, intelligent person, or are you just saying that because you'll never be able to afford one regardless?

And I'm not being cheeky, but that's just a fact – put yourself in the position where you can have that choice. And if you do buy it, don't go borrowing money. A car costs you money, it’s an expense. It’s extra money that you want to burn, be it for tax purposes or whatever. It plays money, but get yourself in the position where you have that play money, but only after you own some property, you've got some real assets, you've got a foundation for real success. The fact is, the rich person will buy and invest for example in a property, and a poor person will buy a car or home. Owning your own home is great, fantastic, but your own home is an expense. It's an asset – yes, you can use that to help you buy the things, but it's not producing an income. So my view of success is not what you see on face value. And I see people walking around, that have businesses valued at millions this and millions that – it might be values, it doesn't actually mean that you actually turn it over each and every day. I've now bought a Rolls Royce. Fantastic! Did you buy it in cash? Who knows, but the point is that Australians especially are a little bit more conservative.

The goal is always to own your own home and have the stable income. But again, I think people are getting caught up too much with the hype and success has become different things. Ultimately, to me, it’s to be able to live a lifestyle teaching what you enjoy and not have the pressure, financial pressure to do that – to me, that's success, because you can’t beat peace of mind. I don't want to be looking at my next student as, how much money will I make. I need to get the extra student to pay my bills, or buy my next car. You know what? I want that person to join because I actually believe this will be the best thing for them. Absolutely, no doubt in the world. And if they join, I have the platform and experience of teaching that in all our centers that we share in the success. And to me, that is success. But you know, to have the pressure, the hype – I honestly find that quite, quite sickening.

GEORGE: Excellent. So, before we wrap it up, I’d like to ask you, what's your goal for the next five years? You've expanded to 16 locations; you've been in the industry for a long time – what's the next step for you?

FARI: We have several locations under review currently. There is a process of becoming a KMA school, so we are not obsessively looking to expand. My goal, if you wish, there’s a natural growth of becoming a KMA school. It’s not something that we necessarily plan, but I think it's important for school owners in particular to give their black belts that want to grow themselves, that want to follow in your path, you need to give them an opportunity to be able to grow just as you have done. That's an important note because it's not to help you grow: it's to help them grow. Having a model where it's very much a win and making people feel like an employee, that's essential. And my goal is to very much for them to be in a position like I am and not feel like they're my employees. They're not my employees: I want them to succeed and achieve more than I have ever done, and I mean that sincerely.

GEORGE: Awesome. Fari, thank you very much for your time. If people want to learn more about you and get a hold of you, where can they do that?

FARI: Ok, we've got martialartsprofessionals.com, martial arts professionals for MARA, martial arts professionals represents the martial arts industry association in America. We also have a good local relationship with the MAIA here, but being the business arm, I try and link with, and again, not reinventing the wheel, but they're obviously in the US, but we bring some things in here, we help digest and localize it and provide a world of resources with local support. And the biggest schools in Australia have been and you know what, still are members. And to me, that's a wonderful network. And the best guys, the most successful guys do not swap and change guys. They've built on it and in building on that foundation, regardless of how much they turnover and have become not just the biggest in Australia, but have become the biggest in the world, which I'm very proud of.

GEORGE: Thank you very much for your time Fari, I hope to connect with you soon.

FARI: Have a great day.

GEORGE: Thanks, cheers.

And there you have it – thank you for listening, thank you Master Fari Salievski for sharing knowledge. We are going to come back for a second show and elaborate on a few topics and ramp it up a little. What I’d like to know from you: what did you like, what didn't you like. What do you agree on, what did you not agree on? Do you agree with the ownership; do you prefer the renting strategy? How do you feel about the show? If you go to martialartsmedia.com/19, the number 19, right at the bottom you can leave a comment. Share your perspective, share your opinion, we’d love to hear from you, start a debate – obviously keep it friendly and let’s have a chat about the episodes and how you feel about the matters and what else we should be covering.

If you got good value out of this show and any other show for that matter, do help us out: head over to martialartsmedia.com/iTunes, and you'll see there a sort of a weird looking picture of me. Right below it is a blue button, “view on iTunes.” If you click on that, it takes you through to iTunes and you can leave us a review. Five-star reviews will help us ramp up the show and get more listeners and bring more great guests to the show, but an honest review would be much appreciated from you.

That's it – we’ll be back again next week with another great episode. I look forward to chatting with you then. If you have any business queries and you need any help with your business marketing, especially leaning into the new year, then get in touch with us. You can go to martialartsmedia.com and contact us there, or even better here, down on martial arts business plan for online media. That will help you get a bit of a perspective on the holistic view of marketing your business online and bringing in new members and reach out to us. Just reply to the emails that you receive, get in touch with us, we’re happy to have a chat and see how we can help you grow your martial arts business. Thanks and I’ll chat with you next week – cheers!

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18 – The Art Of Martial Arts Coaching With Paul Schreiner From Marcelo Garcia Academy

November 29, 2016 by George Fourie

Paul Schreiner is not your average martial arts coach. Discover how he articulates the art of jiu-jitsu and shares working with Marcelo Garcia.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

The deeper meaning of martial arts and jiu jitsu in particular
Having the discipline to drill, revise and optimise techniques
Why letting go of your ego is not as modest as it's made out to be
The core habit that Paul has adopted from working with Marcelo Garcia
B.J. Penn's powerful ‘marriage of jiu-jitsu' statement
What you can expect when training at Marcelo Garcia Academy
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

Developing expert knowledge or expert ability is your own process of discovery and taking ownership for your learning.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another episode of the Martial Arts Media Business podcast, episode number 18. I have with me today Paul Schreiner. Now, Paul Schreiner is a coach at Marcelo Garcia's Academy in New York, and if you recall episode 13 with Jess Fraser from the Australian Girls in GI, Jess was talking about Paul within all her traveling around the globe of training at different clubs and learning jiu-jitsu.

Paul Schreiner was the person that left the biggest impact, that stood out for her with his unique coaching abilities and being able to articulate his learning and making an impact on someone, getting his message across of, not just teaching different techniques, but also being able to explain the art and the transitioning of the different moves and so forth. So this is a very in-depth conversation, I enjoyed this. This is not so much about the business side of martial arts, although as a martial arts business owner, you will get a lot of value from this, just learning from about how they go about things and working with Marcelo Garcia and just the pure passion for martial arts. There's a lot of gold in this episode.

Now, of course, for more of the business stuff, you can head over to martialartsmedia.com/plan to be exact. We give away a free martial arts business plan for online media, which kind of defines how you can market your business, what you should focus on. It gives you a bit of a holistic view of how you can approach online marketing and covers a lot of the pitfalls that people are facing right now with marketing, doing one marketing strategy and it's not working, or it stops working and this gives you a bit of a holistic view and approach of how you can approach marketing your business and get your leads.

Now, as always, the show notes, transcriptions and all links mentioned in this episode can be found at martialartsmedia.com/18, that's the number 18. And I want to keep this short and jump straight into the interview, so please welcome to the show Paul Schreiner.

GEORGE: Good day everyone, today I have with me is Paul Schreiner. Now, if you recall on episode 13, I interviewed Jess Fraser and Jess was discussing, within her travels, training at Marcelo Garcia Academy and the one person that stood out for her as a coach was Paul Schreiner. So I wanted to get Paul for an interview and just have a chat about his involvement in jiu-jitsu, his coaching methods and so forth. So welcome to the call Paul.

PAUL: Thanks for having me.

GEORGE: Awesome. So I guess just to go right from the beginning – who is Paul Schreiner?

PAUL: Let's see… I'm basically just a guy that does jiu-jitsu full-time. I'm 38, I started jiu-jitsu when I was 17, I think. I'm from California, so I grew up surfing about. I grew up in a pretty crazy family, progressive family. My dad was kind of a social activist and we lived out of a VW van a lot and drove to Central America every summer, so I got a lot of world exposure that way I guess. I grew up surfing and I wrestled my senior year in high school, actually my junior year in high school, and then I was looking to continue with a sport. I saw that there was jiu-jitsu in town. This was back in 96-97, and I started training jiu-jitsu and other than some injuries, I haven't really looked back. So teaching was just a logical progression for how to stay involved with the sport for me.

GEORGE: So from your training, did you evolve into tournaments and so forth?

PAUL: Yeah, in the beginning, I was just still mostly focused on surfing and traveling. Jiu-jitsu was a hobby for the first couple of years, and I injured my knee on a surf trip and I had to take a couple of years off of everything, I had to take about a year and a half- two years off. I got an infection in my knee, it required a bunch of surgeries to try to get it more or less functional again. And at the point, when I went back to jiu-jitsu, I actually just recently told this story, I haven't thought about it for a while, but I remember I was driving past the academy and it wasn't there and then I was driving closer to my house and then I saw it just had reopened, the school I started at had reopened at my neighbourhood, and my old coach, Garth Taylor's truck was out front, so I just pulled into the parking lot and walked in and Garth was training with B.J. Penn, and J.D. And they were getting ready for the world championship when they were both brown belts, and B.J. was just getting his black belt the following week to compete as a black belt in the world championship. So I walked in, I saw those guys training and I've been out of it for about a year or two, so I just hadn't been exposed to that babble of jiu-jitsu and I walked in, and I was like, this is what I want to do. So basically, ever since that day, I've been training full-time with the intention.

Back then, my intention was to compete in tournaments and I competed a lot for a bunch of years and pretty early on in my competition, I realized that it was valuable to compete, not just for me, but as a part of the school, and that it would be an invaluable experience to have if I wanted to coach and teach jiu-jitsu someday. So I always looked at competition through the lens of the personal challenge to win and as a way to experience jiu-jitsu on a deeper level and something that I'd be able to share with other people someday.

GEORGE: So what does that mean for you? The deeper side of jiu-jitsu?

PAUL: I guess it's just the idea of taking anything and getting better at it every day. The idea that you're working towards this perfection, this excellence – perfection that isn't attainable, but the excellence, the near perfection is something that we can experience and just try to sharpen ourselves. I feel like also I was a little directionless as a teenager and as a young adult and jiu-jitsu just gave me something that I can always, no matter what else I was doing in my life, I could always train and I felt like a better version of myself for it. And then, just the other lesson that jiu-jitsu teaches us is how to confront our ego, or how to get our ass kicked and get smashed and get held down and not be able to get out, but not give up either and learn how to find space and breathe and survive in any situation.

Those are some of the deeper things, nothing too esoteric or spiritual, just the idea that it's something that we can make incremental progress at; we apply ourselves, we show up every day and we show up with respect and the requisite concentration and give it our best. I was in college, I took a lot of art classes and one of my painting and drawing teachers, Howard Ikemoto was, to this day, was probably the most influential teacher I've had in my life, just in terms of how he approached the process really.

For me, it was never so much about the result, it was always about the process and it still is. To this day, I make time a few hours a week to drill and work on new positions and go back to stuff I haven't done that I used to do ten years ago, I don't do anymore, and see if I can reconnect with those techniques and if it fits in with what I'm doing now, so I'm still trying to engage myself better as a martial artist. And then I try to pass along and communicate that passion for falling in love with the process and being respectful of the process and that's really what I'm trying to pass on to the students, rather than any particular idea of jiu-jitsu.

GEORGE: So you highlight the process of applying and you said that this teacher was your most influential teacher because of that – can you elaborate a bit more on the process and how you apply it?

PAUL: Yeah, not to be disappointing or not to disappoint, but I don't have a particular methodology really. That teacher, and also, I started to get involved with Zen Buddhism when I was in my early twenties and meditation, so the process for me it was just trying, or giving my best or going and fighting. And then, afterward, the breaking down, the natural analytics of what you do after a match, breaking that down with my coach, my coaches, with myself, sometimes writing things down, just trying to search for, watching videos, studying afterward. And then the next day, trying to literally forget everything that I had studied and then go in as a blank slate again and practice whatever my coach said to practice that day, without asking questions and train and then have the questions come and then have the process to break it down again and restart the next day.

And just looking for sparks from inside for me, for whatever reason that's the way I respond as a learner of anything, I try to find a little insight to a particular situation and then try to see if I can expand that across the board in whatever I'm studying. I mentioned this recently in another interview, but for me now, my process that I'm understanding, my own learning process in jiu-jitsu, I've been trying to apply it to fly fishing, which is something I've taken up more seriously in the past three or four years. I did it as a kid and then I got out of it and I'm getting back into it and trying to understand and figure out how to get better at that too and enjoy the ride.

GEORGE: Awesome, it's not disappointing at all. It sounds like you're aware of what you do and then just being open minded about what you did, analyzing and breaking it down and just really improving it.

PAUL: And another thing I would say, it's a part of understanding yourself, especially for someone who's competitive – reasonably competitive, I'm not extremely competitive anymore I think, but it is how you relate to your ego and I think there's a little bit off, people bullshit around the idea of, that we were completely letting go of our ego and we step in the door and for me at least, it was more trying to understand how to harness my ego and my desire to beat whatever training partner that was beating me.

Figure out and study what techniques and what timing I needed to equalize and maybe even pass them in trying and then, again, forget about that and then be able to be just present and aware and in the moment. You get smashed and you get held down by the same person every day and it starts to drive you crazy and without making a personal grudge you couldn't channel that ego into figuring out what you need to do to make yourself better and more complete in jiu-jitsu. I was always, and I still continue to be driven, not just by competition jiu-jitsu, but I'm still trying to understand what jiu-jitsu is. It's a big thing, it comes to self-defense and self-control and competition and Vale Tudo and everything else. I'`m still, as you can see, sorting it out.

GEORGE: You're miles ahead.

PAUL: Thank you.

GEORGE: So, how did working at the Marcelo Garcia Academy come about?

PAUL: Even before Marcelo came onto the scene in 2003, when most of us become aware of Marcelo and his break up from Abu Dhabi, a lot of people obviously knew who he was already: he won the world's at every belt level, from blue juvenile to purple adult, and brown adult. So it wasn't so much of a surprise that he was something special, I wasn't super aware of him. Except in Brazil, I heard people talking about this kid from Fabio's school that was amazing and then after 2003, I became a big fan of his. In 2004, I attended a seminar that he taught and we got to know each other.

Then, at the time, from about 2000 to 2007, 2008, I was spending about four to six months a year in Brazil, training and competing, so I would run into Marcelo in tournaments. We'd always talk, just say hi. I interviewed him one time for “On the Mat,” the website. And we just kind of stayed in touch and then I was with Dave Camarillo, who was one of my main training partners for a long time. At the Pan Ams in 2006 I think, or maybe 2007 Pan Ams, and I just competed and Marcelo was there and I introduced Dave to Marcelo. Then Marcelo invited us out to New York to help him train for Abu Dhabi. Dave Camarillo bought me a ticket and we came to New York for two weeks and trained with Marcelo, so that was how I got to know him better.

And then after that, every time, if he had a big event coming up or if I had something I was competing in, I would try to make the trip from California to New York and then later to Florida and then back to New York to help him train, or helping get myself ready. So that was kind of the genesis of me getting to know Marcelo and we always got along really good with him, he's kind of, what you see is what you get. I feel like a lot of us, I'm sure you feel like you know him already, he's the guy who always has a big smile and he never has to act or pretend like he's a tough guy and he's just an absolute beast when he steps on the mat.

We always got along, he has a great sense of humor. We became friends and at some point, I told him I'd be interested in moving out there just to train with him and I guess one thing led to another and he opened a school in New York and invited me to come be the instructor, the other instructor with him. So I moved here to New York in 2009 and I have been here ever since, teaching and training full-time. Now we have a number of other teachers at the school, we have Bernardo Faria, we have Marcos Tinoco, Mansher Khera, Matheus Diniz, Jonathan Satava, Joe Borges. We have some up and coming people, who are going to be great teachers, like Scott Caplan and Phil, so yeah, we're in good company here.

GEORGE: That's excellent. Something that you mentioned, you had a lot of depth within your club that there's just so many good trainers, but I do want to ask you, and I guess there's many, but what are sort of the core one or two things that you've learned from Marcelo?

PAUL: One is showing up – not that I was unaware of the importance of that before, but Marcelo doesn't, as a coach, he never asks you to do anything that he doesn't do himself, so there's nothing artificial about training, there's a culture of hard work that you guys are all in there together, making yourselves better, and it really helps you believe in yourself, or it helps you believe in the technique. I was told one time, a lot earlier in my jiu-jitsu journey, that the most import thing, above all else, is that you believe in the technique and that will substitute even for belief in yourself when things get really rough.

If you believe in the technique and commit to it, there are some situations where things are so bad in a fight that if you're just thinking how could I do it, you could potentially give up, but if you have that faith in the technique, it's going to work. Marcelo has that absolute belief in the technique. If the technique is going to work, it's going to work against anyone. It's not like it's going to fall apart if this guy's bigger and stronger than you. So I think that the value of hard work and showing up every day and being there twice a day and cutting out the distractions from your life, the pressure, just staying ahead of your opponent and being aggressive, looking for the finish – that's what I respect about Marcelo's jiu-jitsu.

It's not overly strategic, it's about two people fighting until one person quits basically, which I think is the big idea behind jiu-jitsu, that's what made me fall in love with it in the first place. It wasn't because I can sweep and win a match by two points, which I'm happy to do. I'd rather win by two points or by an advantage than lose, but the idea is to step out there and fight until you make your opponent tap. And Marcelo really epitomizes that spirit, he would almost rather lose the match than hold anything back and not go for the kill.

GEORGE: That's powerful, right there. I want to step back to just your coaching methods – and I know you mentioned that you're not so focused on a particular process and so forth. But it's something that, when Jess Fraser spoke about this, she was really inspired by the way that you teach and explain jiu-jitsu as such. Can you elaborate a bit more on that, on your teaching method and how you handle different people and different learning abilities and different styles and so forth?

PAUL: Yeah, sure. As a governing principle, I'm always trying to strip down, rather than elaborate whatever I'm doing. A lot of times in the past I was given credit I didn't deserve as a good coach when looking back I don't think I was because I was a good explainer of moves. And I think that's almost one of the least important things about coaching now, being the teacher, being the explainer of moves. It's more about getting your student to be able to do it and understanding how the moves connect and the art of redirecting your opponent's attack against them.

Your attacks and your jiu-jitsu are connecting together within your body and then relating in a binary way with what's coming at you. It's not a mess, it's not just you throwing techniques against the wall. Our jiu-jitsu is connected to what our opponent is doing. And then understanding the physics of it and the mechanics of jiu-jitsu in a very simple way that we can communicate, but also understanding the art, what's going on between the moves to our opponent, or to our students rather. I heard B.J. said this one time: jiu-jitsu is the marriage or the union of basically two things: the technique and the will to win.

And you can't just train one and not train the other. You can be the most technical guy but have no desire to win, no will that pulls you through the fight to survive and find the way to turn the fight and go for the kill. We can't only have that belief in ourselves or that desire to kill and not have the technique to back it up, it's really both. And again, it relates to, our belief in the technique helps to build our will, and it helps to build our will in the general sense and it helps to build our will within the fight. So it's getting our students to understand how they can access their own power. And I'm a blue belt at that, I'm a purple belt at that, you look at someone like Fabio Gurgel or Marcelo, a lot of the greats – they're black belts with that.

And another thing that I think, you definitely see them in the art world, in the creative world that I've always been adherent of is that you take what works. If I see Marcelo teach a great class, I steal it, you know? And I figure out how to make it maybe mine in a way that I can communicate it with my words. I see the way he puts things together so that it teaches to the level of where the students at, of what they're going to get out of it in the simplest way possible, so that you don't have to go off and elaborate on principles: the principles are included in the lesson in the simplest way, so that your student discovers it, rather than you delivering it and hand feeding it.

And so much of developing expert knowledge or expert ability is your own process of discovery and taking ownership for your learning. To the best of my ability, I try to see the way my student learns and I try to tailor in some sense what I'm teaching to that and teach just above that level so that they have to extend themselves and really dig to get that. And then there's just the physicality of it too, you kind of have to go through the fire a little bit, it can't be too easy. I'm always trying to balance accessibility and experience.

GEORGE: That's a good answer. I did want to ask you, what can people expect when training at Marcelo Garcia Academy? Guess you've kind of answered that – is there anything else that there is to add to that?

PAUL: I like to think that the single most important thing is that we're welcoming, we're nice to people. Regardless of jiu-jitsu, if you treat other people well and with respect, it seems to come back around. That said, we have a culture of hard work, so you can expect to train hard, but if you don't want to, if it's not in your future to ever compete and you have no interest in it, you're not going to be forced into competition, or competition training. You can just come in and train, but the idea is, we built a culture and we built a room where people can train hard, train safe and shake hands and be friends before and after.

That's I think how we framed training and the culture and the environment of Marcelo's is the thing I'm most proud of and the biggest thing that hopefully you can count on when you come. That really comes from the top, that comes from Marcelo, that's the way he is and that's the culture he's created and that's the product of the people he's surrounded himself with at the gym. People who, if their ego is too big, it's too much about them, they usually don't end up fitting in in the long term. That's the thing I'm most proud of from the gym and I think that's hopefully what you can expect when you come to train at Marcelo's. Technical jiu-jitsu, hard training and a good vibe at the academy.

GEORGE: Paul, it's been great chatting with you. I've got two more questions for you: one would be, do you still get to surf in New York?

PAUL: Yeah, I do, I surf when I can. My timing is atrocious now, but there's the good surf, there are good waves here, there are really good waves. It's a little bit more fickle than what I'm used to in California, it's not like good point brakes, at least that I'm aware of. For the most part, it's a lot of beach breaks, and the sand moves around, you kind of have to be on it with the swell direction in the wind. I usually just call my friends that are better at that stuff than I am and they tell me where it's going to be good and I try to get out there. Yeah, I try to fish a lot too, which is my other option for getting out of the city, so I try to go upstate and fish the Delaware River and the Farmington River. I fly fish when I can as well.

GEORGE: Sounds good. Paul, it's been great chatting to you – if anybody wants to learn more about you and find out more about you, where can they reach out to you?

PAUL: You can always walk into the academy at Marcelo's. I'm there 6 days a week typically, for some Part of the day. I teach Monday through Friday and then I teach a class on Saturday every other week. I have a website, it’s www.paulschreinerjj.com, so you can get in touch with me through that, I'm also on Instagram. I have Facebook, but I'm not super on it about checking it. That's it – again, the easiest way is to just come by Marcelo's. I know it's a bit far for you guys, but you'd be surprised at how many Australians we have at the academy, any given day there's a number of Australian visitors there.

And I have to say, from what I see here in New York, the level of jiu-jitsu is getting really high around the world and Australia really seems to be closing the gap with a lot of really technical competitors. I think being so far away from the center and being so much in a periphery, people really have to take ownership of their training. Like what Jess does, you have to travel and we end up with people that are a lot more passionate about it and that's what it takes to be good. It's that passion.

GEORGE: That's it, awesome. Paul – thanks again for making the time and I hope to connect with you again soon.

PAUL: Anytime, thank you, George.

GEORGE: Thank you, cheers.

PAUL: Cheers.

GEORGE: And there you have it – thanks for listening, hope you enjoyed that interview. I learnt a lot, especially as a jiu-jitsu student as well, it made a big impact on me, just how they break things down, especially the key thing that stood out for me – well, one of many, but the one thing that really stood out was mentioning how it's not just about the technique, but having the will and faith in the technique and trusting the technique that it's going to work and you can't have one without other, you can't just have the will and no technique, and you can't just have technique without the will. That really really stood out for me, amongst other things.

Thanks a lot for listening, I hope you enjoyed this how. Again, the show notes are at martialartsmedia.com/18, and if you enjoyed the show and you enjoyed all these shows, please head out to martialartsmedia.com/iTunes and there's a little picture there below, you'll see a link, or a blue button that says “View on iTunes,” and please head over there, just leave us a good review – a 5-star review helps us get our rankings up within the show. So if you are enjoying it, that is the one thing that we can ask in return, which would really really mean a lot to us.

That's it, thank you very much for tuning in. I'll be back again next week with another episode. Have a great week, I'll chat with you soon – cheers.

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

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17 – Growing Your Martial Arts School With External And Celebrity Instructors

November 23, 2016 by George Fourie

No time to groom martial arts instructors to grow your martial arts school? Con Lazos hire's externally if they're a match. Martial Arts celebrity Richard Norton most definitely makes that list.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

How martial arts ‘fills the gap' with education
The school teachers advantage to martial arts instructing
Having access to the knowledge of world-renowned Richard Norton
Trusting your gut feel when hiring instructors from outside
When you take your foot off the pedal and have to start from scratch
Grooming students to be the best version of themselves
And more

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

TRANSCRIPTION

The main thing here is that we teach from a total love perspective. What I mean by that is, we have to love everything about what we're doing.

Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to martial arts media podcast, episode number 17. I have with me today Con Lazos, from Fusion MA. And we talk about a few interesting topics, that being going back to the whole teaching aspect again as an ex teacher, using those principles in teaching martial arts, but also something a bit counterintuitive to what most people recommend, and that is, instead of just grooming instructors from the ground up, but actually employing people from external clubs and external expertise to come and coach at Fusion MA.

And that's the blend that is really working well for him and he's got various experts on board, other than himself. One famous and well respected martial artist from Australia, Richard Norton, who, if you're not familiar with, was the fight coordinator and stunt coordinator for “Suicide squad“ and a whole bunch of other movies, so you can check that out on Google, you'll find a whole lot of information about him. And we discussed a bit working with Richard, but more so, talk about Con's vision and how he likes to impact youth and students through training martial arts.

Now, if you've listened to a few episodes, you know that I've always been asking, please leave us a positive review on iTunes and I've been sending you to the link martialartsmedia.com/itunes. But I have to apologize, because somebody brought it to my attention that it’s only halfway to leave a review when you go to that link and iTunes does not make this easy, they make it pretty confusing.

So the link is correct, but it’s not the last step to leave a review. So when you go to martialartsmedia.com/itunes, you've actually got to click on another link and you'll see there's a sort of a red, fiery, I don't know what you call that, picture of me, with a logo of martial arts media. And just below that, there's a blue button that says, “View on iTunes.“ Now, you actually have to click that button “View on iTunes“ to open up iTunes and then you're able to leave a review. So, apologies for not giving the whole swell of how to get there, but that's basically it. martialartsmedia.com/itunes, click on the “View on iTunes“ button and you can leave the review. And why do I ask for this? Because, if you're getting value out of this show, that's all that we could really ask for in return. Leave us a good review that makes the episode stand out within the iTunes directory, so it gets noticed more and it helps us get the word out about the martial arts media business podcast. So if you want to help us in that way – much appreciated.

As always, transcriptions and links mentioned in the show can be found on our website, martialartsmedia.com/17, that's the number 17 and that will take you to the page where this podcast episode is hosted. Alright, let's jump into this interview, and please welcome to the show – Con Lazos.

GEORGE: Good day everyone, today I have with me Con Lazos from Fusion MA. And a couple of things we want to talk about today, something that's really been brought to my attention that really stands out on what Con is doing, is employing talent from outside and not promoting people from within, but actually creating a martial arts school that serves a vast variety of styles, because of the way he is running his staff. And of course, I want to thank Michelle Hext for putting me in touch with Con, who I interviewed a couple of weeks back. So welcome to the show Con.

CON: Thanks a lot for the intro George and very excited to be on this call with you.

GEORGE: Cool, awesome. So I guess, starting right at the beginning: who is Con Lazos?

CON: Right. So, I'm 43 years old and I've been running Fusion martial arts fitness for a lot of years: in the Yarraville location since 2001, in the Port Melbourne location since 2008 and I've been teaching martial arts since 1991 in various different places. An ex school teacher who saw a need for proper martial arts teaching to fill in the gap about what they don't do at schools and my whole life has been basically health and wellness through the martial arts.

GEORGE: Where did you actually get going with martial arts yourself, before all the teaching and everything came about?

CON: When I was a young kid, a primary school kid, I actually use to live in Greece and I got into martial arts through watching martial art films in outdoor cinemas in my home town of Chalkida in Greece. Every summer, I think this was a plot by the martial arts club that was opposite the cinema, that just used to run those old school martial art films that are so eclectic, those kung fu films with Bruce Lee and snake kung fu and this and that. And I used to go and watch them all the time and I used to bug my parents to go and take me to the martial arts center. And my dad was an ex army boy and he was like, there's no way you're training at any of these martial arts centers, they're just not the standard to what you think it’s going to be, so you're not doing martial arts.

So I had to befriend a couple of kids that were martial artists and their dads used to run the school, so I used to go around to the house a lot and basically try and learn anything I could in my primary school years. So I got a little bit of a wing chun at the start, but didn't officially start until we moved to Australia and my first official martial arts instructor was a really good man called Ragnar Purje, through Goju. He took me in for a few years and then I just kept going on forwards from there.

GEORGE: So you went from martial arts, you decided to go into teaching – how did that transition to your martial arts instructing?

CON: Alright, when I finished year 12 at high school, just before that, I was basically state level swimmer and I was making my way up through martial arts, through Taekwondo specifically. My parents were like, you're not doing sport as a job, because you know what? You should just keep it as a bit of fun.

So I went and started applied science for a couple of years, and then I realized nah – actually, this is what I'd like to do. And then I started physical education and mathematics at the University of Ballarat, so I could become a better martial arts instructor, because I was already pitching martial arts since I was 18. So I went into this University at 21 and yeah, I did my bachelor of education, just so I could become a better instructor with what I do. Obviously, then I went and became a school teacher for a few years, but the martial arts was a real calling, and I eventually had to stop school teaching, because the martial arts then took over all my time, and the training.

GEORGE: Now, this seems to be a common theme, because I spoke to Sean Allen and Sean Allen, he was also an ex teacher, and he was being very vocal about using the whole teaching concept through martial arts and then, a few weeks back, I spoke to Jess Fraser, and her go-to coach that she was speaking about, Paul Schreiner, which also focuses a lot on the coaching element and does a lot of studying with coaching: how do you feel this gives you that edge? Having that teacher background and applying that in your martial arts instructing?

CON: I think it’s a massive advantage for myself, because you've seen the other side of the coin about what they're trying to do at schools and what they're trying to achieve and how they basically are trying to make the kids to move along at a particular kind of pace. I wasn't happy with the pace that I saw here and I just thought, you know what? We can do a lot better with the kids, even twice a week coming in, to do a lot more character development for the people, through high training.

I know some people that do character development with the clubs basically, they focus a lot more on that and they don't focus as much on the training. We really focus on the training, but we're trying to bring up the best kids that are going to be really well integrated in the community. And we find that a lot of the kids thought the systems that we're doing here, that when they go to school, they might have come from nothing, but they end up being school captains, because they know how to be good leaders.

They take home all these trophies from school. I've got this young instructor here, Fred Made is winning all these major awards, for the type of kid that he is. So the school teaching element let's me marry what they do in schools now with what we're doing and we're just filling the gap. Not everyone can do everything, and we certainly don't say that we'll do everything, but we're certainly filling that gap for pushing kids to go further in life and to learn how to be successful.

GEORGE: Do you structure this with a set curriculum, or are you very more sort of in tune with the individual needs of each student?

CON: We've got a curriculum that we have. It used to be so much more filled up to what it is now, but kids have changed and adults have changed and the time they commit, and come to the classes has changed. So our curriculum is 100% reduced to what we used to teach, in regards to all the wrist locks and arm bars, because my system that we have here at Fusion martial arts in the Taekwondo system has a lot of self defense, you know?

So we've narrowed it down so it’s certainly easier to learn, but certainly the conversations that we're having with the kids about what we're expecting them to get to, to get their black belt, that's really honed in basically every single class. So it’s a looser class structure, it’s not like we don't set out ten weeks they want and tenth minute is what you do, but we do have the rough thing that we do and we're just making sure we're covering it over the ten weeks.

GEORGE: So you've got a few instructors that were with you?

CON: Mhm.

GEORGE: Just give me a bit of an overview of the setup, because I know we're going to lead into, there's a lot of external players that also help with instructing: just give me a bit of background on how that's set up.

CON: Ok, so: four or five years ago, we used to bring up everyone from internally and they trained with me, because I used to teach all the classes. It was really good before, because I actually could bring everyone out. And then eventually, some of those people, they wanted to become my instructors, so they used to take an assistant role and take more responsibility and then obviously, sometimes the people meant to move on and do something different with their lives, because they get families and so on. I've got one instructor now, his name is Jake Vella. He's been fantastic with us and I brought him right through since he was seven old, he's now 23. He runs my Port Melbourne location, he knows the way I like doing things, but now what we're doing is, we're bringing people from the outside, but we still keep building our assistant instructors and everything from the inside.

So if they now want to do their own career, they can actually go and have their own place outside of Fusion and be able to run their own centers. That's still a few years to go, but we've got a really good teenage team at the moment, that in the next 6 or 7 years time, they'll easily be able to run their own places, if that's what they want to do. I've got some really good people that have come in from externally.

I guess the most famous one that everyone around the world would know is the gentleman called Richard Norton, who is one of the first 12 non-Brazilians to get a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Basically, right up there with Chuck Norris and done all those movies, so every time professor Richard Norton is in Melbourne, Fusion MA is his home base. He comes and helps teach some of the classes out of here. Obviously, the guys really love it, but his main focus is to go around and run seminars, all around Australia, with all the different things that he does, on top of even just the Brazilian jiu jitsu. So he's a really good name. And then I've got another couple instructors here from Iran, one is Arash Mojdeh and his brother Eisa.

They're fantastic, they bring in that hardness from Iran that sometimes I think we've lost in Australia. I feel like all that old school training and that's what we're trying to lead with from here. So it was really good to bring Arash in from the outside, because he was an international competitor at the time and I needed someone to look after our competition team, so his main focus is to look after our competition team. And we've got national team members back on board now because of this.

GEORGE: And is that also for Taekwondo?

CON: He is a Taekwondo guy, yeah, Arash is only a Taekwondo guy. Obviously, with my guys, they want to learn all around. In time, they've learned Brazilian jiu jitsu, they've learned boxing, they've learned everything, but his forte is Taekwondo, yes. An then we've got another instructor that teaches basically Jeet Kune do, we call it modern day kung fu, Jeet Kune do. His name is Christopher Christoph, he's from Bulgaria. He runs a big security from here in Melbourne and he just loves his Jeet Kune do, so we've just introduced him into the club. Anyone that wants to do Jeet Kune do, there's that. So we've got a really good variance of people in here.

GEORGE: Having someone like Richard Norton – I know obviously he's a busy guy and he's got all these great movies going on – what was the latest one I saw…

CON: “Suicide Squad.“

GEORGE: There, that's it, “Suicide Squad.“

CON: He's involved with everyone, he's so popular with helping people, Scarlett Johansson, all that kind of stuff. He's right up there, he's at the top of the tree. And for him to come in and pitch at the club here, we're very thankful, I'm very thankful. I've made great friends with him, because we've got the same kind of philosophy on what martial arts should be all about. So yeah, it’s really really good.

GEORGE: Is that a big draw card? Do you find that, most people that start martial arts, they're just not familiar with who people are, but does that celebrity status help you at all to draw students?

CON: I've personally got a big issue with really promoting. I've got a bit of a backwards kind of a thing: I've worked with a lot of top end people as well, as does Richard.

If you actually come into Fusion MA, it’s very Spartan about what you see around, unless you ask, you won’t know who's who. Obviously, with Richard, he’s got the name out there, and he’s very well respected. I think it’s a very good thing for people outside of Fusion to know that he’s here. The people inside Fusion, I think guys like this, when you're used to having someone around, obviously you totally appreciate it, but you really don’t know what the gem is you have until you don't have him anymore.

He’s just gone missing for a couple of years now because of all the movies. He’s just returned to come back on the mats with us for a couple of months and the guys are absolutely appreciating it, because they missed out on him for a couple of years. So now when he’s come back on the floor, the talent just shows. It’s just a totally different kettle of fish. I guess I could exploit it and say, this is who we've trained and this is who we've got and all that kind of stuff and I think that we would get a lot of blow ins.

But for me, I'm not really interested in blow ins, I just like to have our students and what we’re doing with our students and really developing the people that we actually have. I like people to stay with us for a long time and keep on building them up. So if someone wants to come across because our professor Norton is here, or any of the instructors are here, that’s great. But we don't want you to just come here for like a month or two and then, see you later. We want to work with you and make something of you.

GEORGE: For sure. So going on those principles, let’s just start internally, and then all these external influences that have come in. So, when you sort of groom people internally to become instructors, how do you get all these philosophies across? Because, you've got experience with teaching and all this: how do you communicate this message that it can't be one step, two step, three, which I guess can be a lot harder for younger people to grasp, how to communicate effectively and spot the needs in people and so forth. How do you go about handling that?

CON: These instructors that are coming up to be internal instructors, they started with us since they were really young. So when they come up and become teenagers, they've already got the feeling of what the club is like and how the instructors are really talking to their students and so on. My main thing here is that we teach from a total love perspective. What I mean by that is, we have to love everything about what we're doing. We have to love everything about the people that we have and we want to work towards bettering the other person.

So if you're in that environment all the time, where you're coming from a place of love, even when you have to discipline someone: if you're doing it from a place of love and care, that goes into that person over time, and then, when they start teaching, we can start reminding them: remember when we did this with you? This is what it is. Remember when we did that with that kid? That's what it is. If we see that they're not doing it the way that we like, we take them aside and we do the job ourselves to show how we do the discussion, or how we go forward with that and obviously, they'll learn through us, through example.

I'm very much in the club as much as I possibly can. I've got five young kids myself, I'm still here at least four days a week, just to make sure that everything is running really well. Obviously, before I had kids, I was basically living in Fusion, so those people are really well groomed. So yes, if we always show them that we've got a sense of love and care, that gets past down very naturally to everybody. And obviously, if someone is stepping out of line, it’s myself that will step in and I will deal with that myself and I will explain to them how we go about doing that. Because sometimes – you know what martial arts is like: sometimes, people get a bit of an ego, and they want to be the hero and they want to teach a little bit harder, they want to show someone discipline, or whatever it is. I've got to always remind them that it’s not about us: it’s about our clients and about how we deal with our clients.

GEORGE: How do you deal with bringing in people externally? I've seen this conversation around in a few Facebook groups, that people are very anti bringing people in from the outside. It’s always, groom people in from the bottom-up, groom people to become instructors. So it seems like it’s a big thing that business owners fear is to bring people in externally. Now, you've got all of these strong values, and love and care and value service with your students, instructors as such: how do you convey that message to anybody like Richard Norton, or anybody that comes in externally, to be an instructor at Fusion MA?

CON: I guess the first thing, I've never put an ad out for an instructor. It’s always been through introduction, or it’s always been through someone. Let’s just say, I’ll give an example, which is Arash. Arash had come from overseas, he was living in Footscray up the road, he'd gone around to a lot of Taekwondo clubs and he just happened to drive past Fusion in Yarraville. And walked in and – I don't know what it is, but I've got a sixth sense about someone when someone walks in. I can tell whether they're going to be a good person or not.

I introduce myself to them, I'll have a bit of a chat. Then he opened up and said that he was a Taekwondo person. I said, how do you feel about coming in and just having a bit of a kick around. You know, I've got friends in Iran, and obviously, we hit it off from then. Because I've got a lot of friends form overseas, form international competition myself and been having my ear on the ground and so on. You sense something about someone. And then obviously, he's coming in, training. One day he goes, I really loved your club because you guys are really training well.

You're training hard, you love that kind of thing. If there's any chance that I could work here with you guys, I would love to have a chance. So then obviously, we test it out a little bit by little bit. I teamed him up with Jake Vella, who is, as I said, my student that's been with me for a long time. He went out to the Port Melbourne location, which was South Melbourne at the time. He worked alongside of my right hand man, which is Jake, for a year, until there was a position available in Yarraville for him to be able to do it. And then I just gave him what he's really good at, which is the competition team.

And we started backwards from that: OK, you're going to start the competition team. We're going to build that from nothing to something, and then I'll integrate you in my normal classes. And now, he's basically running the show here in Yarraville for the Taekwondo. And obviously, there's always conversations to be had, because it’s not only someone from outside, it’s actually someone from another country altogether, and they have different systems and so on. And we just keep on talking it through. It’s the easiest thing to do, get upset, that someone's not doing something right: the hardest thing to do is to be able to discuss it and realize that we're doing it for our students and not for ourselves.

And then, it just sort of pans out. It doesn't always pan out 100%, we've had people come in externally and they've taken it to a different level to what they thought that we're going to go for and it just didn't fit into our culture and I've lost a whole bunch of students because of this before, so I just try and get it out a little bit earlier. I think that's why the instructors are scared to lose students. I'm not scared to lose students, I'm only scared to lose students that have been treated wrong and if I'm not on the floor watching what's going on, that's my fault. And I've done that and basically, my club went down from whatever numbers I've had to a third before, because I stepped back as I had another child and I thought, you know what, I think I've got everything down packed. I think everything's going to run really well – I basically stepped off the club for six months, I'd come in 2-3 times a week. And in that time, I lost most of my students, so

I had to restart from scratch. And actually, that's when Arash came into the club, at that time. So yeah, if you don't have your finger on the pulse, you're going to lose it for sure, 100%. Because this is a personality based business. People that walk in, they've got an expectation of what they want. We obviously try to match what we are with the way that they are, and if it matches, they stick with us for a long, long time. If they come in with one set of perspectives and then they see something different, either then they join or we've done something wrong with one of our instructors. So there's lots of conversations that need to be had all the time, that's the key.

GEORGE: That's awesome. Keeping that ear close to the ground and just really paying attention. That really sticks out for me, just being on top of it before things escalate in a direction that you can't control.

CON: Yeah, that's right. And you know what, a lot of people are interested in opening up a lot of clubs and good luck to them and everything. I've seen some really successful people open up multiple clubs and I think the only way it works is when the other instructor has got a major share in that club, because they feel like they're doing something good for themselves or their families and so on. However, if the culture's different between the clubs, the person that loses is the person that created the name. Obviously, this club is not called conlazos.com.au – it’s called Fusion MA, because I like to bring in the best of everybody, but the culture has to be the same.

GEORGE: Con, awesome. It’s been really great chatting to you. Where do you see this going? What's sort of your plan? Where do you want to take your journey with martial arts and your instructing and your school?

CON: This is actually something I've been working on really hard on myself over the last year. I think martial arts is a very, very difficult gig and I'll be honest with everybody: I think it's about as hard as it gets, and I'll tell you the main reason for this: we've got basically four, maximum five hours a day to make a business work from a business perspective. So you've got a building that sits there all day, where other businesses, they can make it work 24 hours a day if they really want to. Martial arts is a very hard business, but you don't have to get rich. I think you can do it, there's ways to do it. If you want to leave a bit of a legacy behind, I'm finding that this is better.

So I'm not interested in opening up more Fusion MA's around. One of my students wants to go and open up their own, it will be their club and they can have my love and support behind them, and so on. I just want these two to run really well. Jake, I totally trust in Port Melbourne, that's his people out there. If Jake left, those people would not stick around, I guess the only person that could step in would be myself, because I obviously used to go in and out a fair bit, but really, that's his club.

Yarraville, it’s always going to be here and it’s going to be bringing up instructors and so on. This is a career for a kid that wants to go to university and you know you want to see yourself through while you go and make something different of yourself. If someone wants to become an international competitor out of here – by all means, go for it. We've got all the facilities, the gym equipment, we've got the talent, we've got the knowledge, we've got the location- we've got everything like that.

That's where I see Fusion going, just making better people out of Fusion, looking out for this local community. There's a lot of great instructors, I'm not interested in going and competing with them, or try and take over territory and all that kind of stuff. I just love everyone to know who the best is in their area. We definitely want to look after all this area that's around Yarraville for what we do. And the same thing for Port Melbourne: if someone wants to go in competition with us, we just keep on doing what we do really well and our clients will be our clients for life. If they left, they weren't our clients to start with. I think that's the long game, just keep on looking after your clients.

GEORGE: Awesome. Con, it was really great chatting to you. Where can people find out more about you?

CON: They can go to fusionma.com.au. For myself personally, most people find me through Facebook. I'm always trying to calm my Facebook group, to try to keep it under 5000 people, because obviously, you need new people coming through. So that's Con Lazos, and you'll find Fusion MA attached to it. Yeah, that's the best way to go about doing it. Bit of a Google search and you'll find us straight away, we can't hide very much these days.

GEORGE: Yeah, true. All right, Con: thanks a lot for chatting to me, I hope to chat to you soon.

CON: Thank you so much George, thanks for your time.

GEORGE: Cheers, bye.

There you go thank you very much for listening, thanks for spending your time with us here today.I hope you got something of value out of that. Thanks of course to Con Lazos from Fusion MA for sharing his journey and his perspectives and values that he brings to the martial arts industry. And for me, when I do listen to any podcast or any training, it’s nice to listen to the story and get the context out of it, but at the end of the day, I'm also looking for that transformational info that I can apply to my business. And a simple goal that I set for myself when I listen to stuff is just one thing: can I grab one item, one thing out of this conversation or training that is actionable, that I can apply to my business? And I hope you can do the same for your business, I hope there's things coming out of these podcasts that you can relate to and just make that one little shift and tweak that is profitable and builds a better business and helps you influence more people through your martial arts training.

Thanks again for listening – show notes are at martialartsmedia.com/17. If you can, please leave us that review that I've been asking for. I would much appreciate it. And martialartsmedia.com/iTunes, but click on the blue icon button that says “View on iTunes.” It takes you to iTunes and you'll be able to leave a review there, we much appreciate it.

Anyway, back next week with another awesome interview. Looking forward to that and I will chat to you then – cheers.

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