The Quickest Way to Kill a Martial Arts School

My past columns have often focused on marketing and sales as they relate to your martial arts school. And, frankly this one will also – but, from a 180 degree angle.

What's the quickest way to kill a school?

Get really good at Sales and Marketing – without mastering service and education.

Let me say that again, in a different way.

If you are not an excellent teacher and motivator – then the absolute worst thing that you can do is expose your school to a huge number of prospective students and let your entire area learn about how bad your school really is in the critical service delivery.

Let me give you this example from a couple of other industry perspectives:

One of the many “marketing gurus” that I've studied is Dan Kennedy (see www.kennedymagnetic.com.) He shares a story about opening a new restaurant. After exploring all of the many advertising options – you know Val Pak, Money Mailer, Flyers, Direct Mail, etc., etc. - available they decide to instead print up certificates good for a free meal (absolutely free – not 2 for 1, no cost for drinks, etc.) and deliver to every home and office in their immediate vicinity by hand with a personal invitation to try the restaurant.

What happened is they were swamped with traffic during their first month – with, very little revenue because they were giving away the lion's share of the meals. What do you expect would happen next?

Well if this is all I knew then I would say probably one of two things would happen:

First possibility: There is no business to speak of the second month or thereafter and they quickly go out of business.

Second possibility: The second month they are just as busy with happily paying customers and their business quickly grows from there.

What's the difference?

By now it should be obvious: Good food and fast – friendly service.

If they had good food and fast-friendly service then their expensive marketing effort was well worthwhile. If not, they just proved to everyone in their neighborhood that they were bad at what they do and not worth revisiting – for free or otherwise.

How about another example:

One of my executive staff members – Dave MacDonald – worked with Grease Monkey for many years. For Grease Monkey the absolute best strategy to grow a new location was the same one discussed above.

They would distribute widely certificates good for a free oil change – no strings attached.

Once many of their neighbors visited the location and were treated professionally and courteously with quality service then they are very likely to return again and again for service – this time paying the standard rate. Again, this strategy would back-fire quickly for a poorly run location.

What if the location was poorly maintained, with grumpy staff who performed the service poorly and looked up the customer's skirt while changing the oil?

Well the word would spread quickly – but, not positively. They would be insured a tough launch and have difficulty overcoming their reputation.

Our industry has experience this situation often enough that many excellent martial artists who are also excellent teachers and mentors to their students are afraid of developing their own marketing talent or sales skills for fear of becoming like those other “shady operators.”

In contrast I would say that the two biggest sins in our industry are:

First: quality teachers who are afraid of or unwilling to learn to promote their school and grow their student base

Second: lousy martial artists and teachers who master the art of marketing and sales and therefore poison the experience of martial arts for their students.

No business ever thrived without mastering three key functions:

Marketing, Sales, and Service Delivery.

Miss any one of these key areas and you are doomed to financial failure.

I highly recommend that you start with a top to bottom overview of your school. Forget for the moment of your own mastery of your chosen art – it's really not very relevant to your student's experience. Focus instead on every aspect of your service delivery starting with the most important and then reviewing all of the supporting areas. Start with your rapport with students and their parents then look at your communications skills. Next, evaluate your ability to properly chunk your curriculum for student mastery. Next how's the classroom pacing and structure? How about your facilities, training support equipment, and curriculum support materials? How's your appearance and the appearance of your key staff?

After you've reviewed all of these areas, now it's time to really master the marketing and sales functions – then grow your student base dramatically.