What about sales?

The auto talks continue as GM and Chrysler try to restructure themselves to become viable companies once again. They are still talking about loans and concessions, but no one is talking about sales!

Borrowing money to pay bills just doesn't work, we all know that. It only delays the problem. But how many new car commercials are we seeing on TV? It is like these companies have rolled over and died already.

Do you remember Chrysler back in the late 70's early 80s? They spent a ton of money reselling the market on their company. How many of you remember this commercial?




This and other strategies is why Chrysler recovered. Hopefully the current directors of both GM and Chrysler will refocus and get sales moving!

Who is your best customer?

How many times have you asked yourself that question? The answer is much more obvious that your might first think.

Entrepreneurs spend a ton of money acquiring new customers. We advertise on TV, radio, Newspapers, Magazines and fliers. The problem is while we are working hard for all these new customers, we are missing the boat on our greatest resource, our CURRENT customers.

That is right, are you still marketing to you present customers? In a martial arts school this can be selling equipment, or adding another family member as a student. Are you tracking previous customers? Martial Art school owner should have a re-activation list of old students that they would love to have comeback.

Remember your greatest resource is your current customer lists. Yes, marketing for new members is VERY important, but tend to you flock first. Your results will amaze you!

Becoming Better than your Competition

To become incredibly successful in any business you need to increase your potential clients perceived value of your product or service. If they see your service as valuable, then the price objection will disappear. In a martial art school what is the best way to do this?

Well, first what is going on in your classroom better be amazing! If you are doing appointments and intros, it is not the time to be training new instructors. The floor must run seamlessly. It needs to be high energy and well controlled. The students need to look like they are loving what they are doing. If they have been looking at other schools, you want them to see how great yours is compared to the others.

Now here is the clincher! Give them a FREE uniform when they register for their 2 FREE Intro's. Yes you are going to lose some uniforms from people who decide not to enroll. But the odds are you are currently throwing money away in Penny Saver ads and things like that. This will increase your intro to enrollment ratio quite dramatically.

Give it a try, you will be thrilled with the results.

Saving Our Economy - Back to Reality

If you listen to the news, read the papers, all you ever hear about is how back our economies are. This is true. For many, many thousands of people things are very bad. Locally we have a radio station with a talk show. It has been dominated since the fal with talk about economic conditions, job losses and especially GM. Ford and Chrysler. The main topic? If we lose these companies, where will people find jobs?

Let take a look for a moment at one real problem with this way of thinking. Who will employ me? I have a degree, but no job. What feild should I be retrained in to get a job?

Our continent was founder by immagrants for all over the globe who came here for one reason. To make a better life for themselves. Non of these people came here looking for jobs! Some found work, but many, many of them created BUSINESSES.

We need to put the idea back into people's head that they need to resolve their problems by creating businesses. These businesses will hopefully grow and eventually employ other people. All the huge corporations that we know today started as small businesses and grew into what we now have. I believe the day of Mom and Pop operations will return and the days of WALMart will end.

If you are a martial arts school owner on a part time basis, start thinking about doing it full time. If you are a martial arts school owner without employment, now is the time to change your focus.

Our website and coaching program can help you with this transistion. However I do recommend to check out Dan Kennedy's information as well as reading anything and everything you can about starting a business and being successful.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me off an email at artm...@karate-marketing.com

Now on Facebook

I just setup a support group on Facebook since just about everyone has an account there. Check us out at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67509033257

We are just getting started here, but it will be a great place to discuss ideas for growing your school or business.

See you there!

The Secret to Business Growth

Everyone who runs a business is looking for a home run idea that will increase sales and customer / client base. Often while looking for these ideas that will turn everything around we miss the small "base hits" that can really make a difference in your business.

Social networks are great, but they are only a small piece of the puzzle. What is this 'base hit' idea? Get out and meet new people each and every day! For the martial art school owner this is a MUST.

People buy from people they know. By meeting people in person you can become a local celebrity in your town. So how do you meet people? Here are some great examples.

• Join your local Chamber of Commerce
• If you are a church goer, there is a great resource
• Visit the business in your area and say hello
• Be friendly to people that cross your path
• Attend local charity functions

Remember to create yourself a great elevator speech too! This is a 30 second speech to tell someone what it is you do for a living. Keep a notebook (small) with you to keep track of the people you meet. Get as much information as you can. Soon you will be build a large database of people you know. Over time you will see a big change in your business.

What is The Path?

So what is The Path?

The Path was introduced to me by my martial arts business mentor Keith Hafner. The Path put very simple is what happens to a new student from first contact all the way to Black Belt. When I first joined Professor Hafner's Gold Mastermind Coaching Team over 1 year ago our school had it's own method of enrolling students. The statistics proved that the method we were using wasn't working!

Here is what The Path looks like.

Info Call - Appointment - 1st Intro Lesson - 2nd Intro Lesson - Enrollment - Renewal - Black Belt

In subsequent articles I am going to break this PATH down bit by bit and piece by piece. If you follow this model to the letter, you will be very successful in enrolling new students! Our number went from a bleak 30% to 80% very quickly by following what will be posted to the letter!

I would also suggest going to his website and getting a copy of his Small Business Mastery Course. This was one of the best investment we have ever made! Take a look at the link and get yourself a copy. There is nothing more important for your business than your education!

40 Characteristics of a Leader

Leadership in the martial arts business is critical to success. Here are 40 characteristics of a great leader.

1. Leaders isolate themselves to recharge and reflect
2. They are experts at learning and knowing peoples names.
3. They are skilled at relationship building
   
4. They keep a journal and capture lessons
5. Learn from their own mistakes and the mistakes of others
6. Unafraid of criticism
7. Value quality vs. quantity
   
8. They are proactive
9. Understand that evil exists and fight it.
10. Understand the times (seasons) in which they live
    
11. They are numerically literate (interested in the numbers)
12. Have a library
13. They are skilled at speaking well of others
14. They are students of excellence in every area
    
15. Leaders rejoice in the success of others
16. They can see how others see them, they can put themselves in other people shoes.
17. They are good finishers, but just good starters.
18. They expect more of themselves than others do.
19. They give without remembering, and recieve without forgetting.
20. They are always Optimistic.They know you get what you expect.
21. Leaders are great asker's of questions.
22. Leaders move outside their comfort zone. The run to opportunity.
23. Habit of prayer or reflection.
24. Willing to do things that others aren't willing to do.
25. They focus on older wisdom - time edits the bad.
26. They are masters of personal appetites
27. They are merchants of hope. Quieter's of fear.
28. They are loyal to those who have been loyal to them
29. Maintain regular habits and schedules
30. Do small things extraordinarily well.
31. They create systems, they make things work.
32. Leaders can take charge in a crisis
33. Leaders are good listeners. Seek first to understand, then be understood.
34. They know everything counts. Pay attention to the details.
35. They create time, reverse procrastination.
36. Leaders anticipate. They look down the road. They have VISION.
37. They are confrontational. (attack problems head on)
    
38. Leaders apply what they have learned. They are doers
39. Leaders invest time and money in personal education.
40. They are 'good' finders in all situations and great 'Sayers' of these finding.

Offline Strategies

Can you really drive traffic to your website by the bucketful with offline advertising?

Yes! If you've been running your online business without offline advertising support, you've been doing it all wrong! (And missing out on extra profits.)

The best entrepreneurs have been advertising in proven "real-world" mediums for years with amazing success. Profiting like mad with...

• Print ads
• TV spots
• Radio spots
• Inserts
• Magazine and newspaper articles
• Classifieds
• Direct mail
• Direct response
  
• And FREE local advertising

For this free report called Offline Strategies for Online Business's simple go to our website and register. The report is FREE with no strings attached. I have used this information myself to help drive prospects to register on my school website.

What have you got to lose?

Driving traffic to your website

I have mentioned on our website that one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and increase your search engine rankings is to write press releases and articles. I received a tweet today about doing just this with a fanatic list of various websites that will publish your articles.

Follow this LINK to read more about posting articles and driving traffic to your website or blog! Also for some great advise on marketing online follow dsmpublishing on twitter.

Writing internet articles has helped make my school website number 1 on Google and Yahoo without me spending a cent advertising it.

Time Management

How best do we manage our time so there is more available to us each and every day. Well the truth is that there is only 24 hours per day, so we cannot create any more time, we have all there is, but we can begin to manage it better.

First, start to log your normal activities each and every day. See if there are places, and there will be, were you can improve your efficiency. When I first did this I ran the log for about 3 weeks. I was shocked at how much time I was wasting on a continuous basis. On this list also remember to prioritize these tasks. Be honest too.

When the 3 weeks is past take a long hard look at what you are doing. Area's of improvement will become very obvious too you.

Time Vampires

For martial arts school owners and instructors these are a very real threat! These are often well meaning students, parents, staff or friends who just drop in to your office to talk. These people are always themselves running from place to place trying to get things done. This problem must be resolved. Have students or parents come to see you at preset times or by appointment. You can lose hours per week or day if you don't take charge os this problem ASAP.

This is a great start to getting control of your time and reducing your stress levels. I will go into other time management strategies in later posts.

Goal Setting 101

Of all of the topic I discuss on the floor in class and in articles I write on different websites and blogs this is one of my favorite topics as well as one of the most important.

Success psychologists say that 95% - 97% of the people in the world do NOT have written goals and fail, while 3-5% have written goals and succeed. These people also succeed to what their goals and desire are and really no further.

If you take a look at the current conditions of our world you can see what this lack of foresight by the masses has created. Why don't people have written goals? Mostly because they are too lazy to do it! The idea of goal setting is to plant a suggestion in your non-conscious mind, and have it go to work on creating the reality you desire. By writing your goals out you etch the desired result into your unconscious mind, which will then take over and provide the ideas and method to achieve these goals. But you MUST do the programing to be successful!

Being a martial artist means learning to set goals. Your first goal when you begin is to achieve your first stripe. You are also looking at the higher ranking belts and wanting to be like them. Black Belt is the first long term goal! Watch this 9 minute video to understand the true life changing power of goal setting!

Don't wait! Get started today and create the life you want to live, rather than the one the media is telling you that you are going to. And as Tony Robbins always says "Live with Passion!"

Your Business Education

How much time and money do you spend on developing your business knowledge? I have found that most martial arts school owners basically fly by the seat of their pants and hope for the best. Some will do alright for a while, but eventually the lack of knowledge on running a business will catch up to them.

At this time I am personally spending about 12,000 dollars per year on business education. Has this been worth it? YES. Actually I should spend more.

Now I know what you are saying, I can't afford that much money right now. This might be true, but you can't afford not to get started! First get yourself a copy of Dan Kennedy's Magnetic Marketing. The link I am providing is for an electronic version and the price is AMAZING. You will not be sorry you did!

Next use your car as a learning device. Listen to business audio in your car while you are driving. Zig Ziglar calls this going to Automobile University.

Finally look into coaching programs. These can be VERY expensive, but we offer one via email for only $19.95 per month. You can cancel at anytime also.

Good luck everyone!

Shift your Focus, the Power of Questions - Tony Robbins.

Check this video out.

Don't throw away your advertising $$$$

Hard economic times require that you continue to market. No matter where you might live there are always people doing well in any economy. An example is cars sales being down, then auto repair is booming. It is also a fact that those businesses who continue to market during tough times are in a better position when things get better than those who did nothing.

What do you need to do? First you must clearly define WHO exactly your market it. If you answered everyone, you are wrong! My best market are families with parents between the ages of 30-45, with 2 young children, a home and an income of $50,000 or more. With this information I can locate where they are living. (Like attracts like) and market to this group with better effectiveness.

Next I am going to decide what media I want to use to deliver my message to them. This also requires research and planning. I really don't want my message to be delivered to people who cannot afford my services, nor to people who don't want my services. This is a waste of money in a time when no one can afford to do that.

I know of a local martial arts club that is very new to the business. They decided to have some large postcards delivered to the entire neighborhood in the area that the club operated. They created a very expensive multi colour card, which was full of logos and pictures telling the world about all the things they had available for the public. One one half of the card there was a picture of two ring fighters, with one receiving a heavy punch to the head. On the other half (same side) they had a child in uniform telling parents about their great kids program. I can guarantee that the only business generated from this was for the recycle people. There were too many messages on the card and they were in direct conflict with each other. Someone looking for ring fighting doesn't want kids around, and parents don't want their kids beaten up. This is a BAD messages.

I could go on for hours on this topic alone. Check out are website for more on this and other marketing topics.

How Important is Retention?

What is retention and how important is it? Retention is simply, how many students as a percentage are quitting each and every month. An example is if you have 100 students in your school and 5% quit this month, you know have 95 students. If your school has 300 students and 5% quit, you now have 285 students.

These number can be very sobering! The trick is of course to enroll more students than you have quit! So lets look at this again.

Example 1

School A has 100 students with a 5% quit rate, they need to enroll 5 new students each month just to keep even. To grow they need to either enrol more students, or drop their quit rate!

Example 2

School B has 300 students with a 5% quit rate, they need to enrol 15 new students each month to break even! WOW they is an even more difficult task. If they don't enroll 15 new students they are losing ground. This school must look at reducing the number of students quitting as well as getting new students.

From these example you can see how important retention is! 5% is also well below the average for most martial art schools! If either school can get the quit rate down to 3% they make the job of growth far easier!

Run these number for your school and see how you are doing!

#1 Leads????

Martial Arts School Owners spend a lot of money advertising. They decide to advertise in Penny Savers, Coupon Books, Kids Magazine etc, etc etc. Often the return is very poor at best. This type of advertising is OK in moderation, but it is often chosen by MEDIA rather than MARKET. This topic however is for another time.

#1 Leads are something most school owners neglect. These are the people who have contacted you on their own or from advertising and said they are interested but did not enroll for some reason. These leads are GOLD because we know they are interested already. Are you keeping track of these people? Are you getting name / address /phone number? If you are not start doing so ASAP.

These leads are great to market to. We will talk more about this later.

Now is the time to Market

Have you been paying attention to your mailbox recently? Well I have! I don't get anywhere near the amount of "JUNK" advertising mail as I did a year ago. Why? The economy is bad, so business stops advertising. This just does not make any sense at all!

Since the mailbox is slow, now is the time to increase your activity to drive people toward your school or business. Send mail to former members and any #1 Leads you have. Make sure your sales letter is a good one, with a headline, lots of content and a great offer.

This is also a great time for fliers to go out! Follow the links provided for more information on writing sales letters and creating fliers.

Remember to us the Law of Attraction and focus and what you want for an outcome and not what you don't want!