After 50 years of running and operating a martial arts business, I decided to help other small schools and instructors that want to be successful. As you probably do now, I had a dream of running my own school since I was 16 years old. I really started my business at a time that the martial arts business was in its infancy. I've seen all the changes to business models, curriculum, marketing, and more. Dice in and learn more.

When I did open my first school, it was a franchise under my teacher at the time who was using the Tracy business model. Let’s just say my first experience with a franchise, even under my teacher at the time, was not a pleasant experience.

I later broke away from my teacher and the franchise. I used what I had learned in my next school. I made a few modifications to the curriculum, but still taught the privates and again charged everyone a weekly fee. Yes! I said a weekly price. That was part of the original model. No one at the time thought about charging a monthly fee.

QUICK NOTE: Yes. I’m Cindy Rothrock’s ex-husband and teacher.

During that period, I learned about advertising (yellow pages and newspapers), marketing, and refining the different processes of running a martial arts school. I attended various business workshops and eventually went to a monthly payment model and PIFs. Later I added the BBC and the Master’s Club.

I went through recessions. One that was so bad, I had to sell two of my schools to keep the third afloat. I learned a lot over the years from having member schools to managing and training staff. I’ve opened about 10 schools and help other students open their schools.

So why am I doing this? I’ve gone to several business workshops and seminars throughout the years. Everyone gives you teasers, but never the meat that would help you as a school owner. What they all try to do is to upsell you to their $20,000 a year program. Nothing wrong with that, but they promise more than they can deliver.

One of the Business Workshops I attended promised a fantastic website that would draw 50 to 60 paid intros a month. Wow!  A lot of people went for it. I looked at the website. It was nice, but nothing super amazing. I thought you’d have to drive a lot of traffic to the site, which this person did with Facebook and Google. He was using an exercise model for Kickboxing, so it had a wider audience than traditional martial arts.

I thought that this really wouldn’t work for a regular martial arts school. My staff started hounding me to send the $1000 or so to have the website built. I was reluctant because I was not convinced that it would be effective for martial arts.

Here's Why.

I had other website businesses, convince me that they could build me a super website, and I would get lots of prospects. They assured me that the site would rank high in the search results. The first design was awful. I had to write to them many times about things that I wanted to change.

The last straw was YouTube videos. They placed some of my YouTube videos on the website. After the video played, a bunch of other videos would show up on the video screen. I’m sure you’ve seen this. Some were related to martial arts, and some were not. What was bad about this? It took prospects away from my website. When I asked them to fix this, they said the website engineer could not do it. What! I sent them the HTML code to use so that the YouTube videos would not display other content.

So, here’s the other annoying thing about these companies, you can only make changes once a year. As you know, business moves at lightning speed, and you must be able to change quickly. You cannot wait a year to make a change, such as schedules, special classes, etc.

I decided to cancel my agreement with the website development company. They said I couldn’t. I stated that they were not providing the service that I wanted nor fulfilling the promises that they made. Off I went to my lawyer to get it resolved.

Well back to my encounter with the previous company offering fantastic websites. If you remember, I was reluctant because any site must be promoted. You cannot just throw it up on the internet, and things work like magic. Well, the complaints started rolling in. People were not getting the contacts as promised from the website. Do you know what they were told? You guessed it. They had to promote the site with flyers, postcards, Facebook ads, newspapers, etc.

Even though I had some experience with building websites, that’s what motivated me to delve into and learn more about websites. I was tired of relying on other people and companies. I’m sure that you have had things like this happen to you.

Today a website is the lifeblood of your business. Years ago, it was the yellow pages. Those days are gone. Postcards, flyers, newspapers, and magazines are still useful. However, the only purpose of these other marketing tools is to drive people to your website.

I once spent $5000 to go to a martial arts marketing workshop. They were supposed to have all the secrets. I got sucked in and went. Three days later, I discovered I knew as much as they did and maybe a little more. I also met some of the other attendees, who were paying the $20,000 a year. They knew little about running a martial arts school, so the promise of a magic bullet mesmerized them.

At one point, we broke off into groups to come up with a marketing plan. I don't remember exactly what the goal was but the bottom line was they wanted to spend as little as possible on just one medium. I brought up the fact that would not work because it wasn't cohesive and that they should use the shotgun approach. I got blank stares. Let's just say that the plan sucked.

The bottom line is that they didn't know the difference between marketing and advertising.

The only magic bullet there is to implement and work hard. There is no magic bullet. The magic bullet for any business is to offer something that people need, want, or desire. To have a successful martial arts school only requires three things: get new members, keep the members you have, and sell them higher value-added programs.

 I also ran a few private seminars and laid out how to do an entire operation from A to Z. The feedback that I received afterward was great, but way above the head of most of the attendees.

What I learned was to start small and educate in small bites. I also learned that 90% of people that run a school have little business knowledge other than having a desire to teach. I also learned that many of these same teachers desire to be successful, but always have excuses for why they are not.

I am looking for smaller schools that desire to be successful with the business aspect of running a martial arts school, not the large conglomerates. It is not about changing your curriculum or style. It is about making small changes that can have significant benefits to your school’s success.

• Over 50 years of Business Experience

• Business Advice and Forms

• Marketing Advice and Layouts

• Ads, Emails, Letters, Post Cards and more…

• Web Site Advice and Design

• Database Management

• Understanding and Tracking your Stats

• How to Sell Trials, Extensions, Renewals & Upgrades

• No up-sells to $20,000 a year program

Three different ways to get started. Each plan is billed monthly until you cancel. Not sure where to start? Start with the Novice Plan. As your school grows, then you upgrade to the Black Belt and the SMS Software.

Charged monthly

Package available for a limited time

Charged monthly

Package available for a limited time

Charged monthly

Package available for a limited time

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