In Depth Audio Interview…

SOS Member Adam Grisko

 He is one of our Personal Coaching Clients and a SOS member.

In this Interview we cover the 7 Success Keys that he focused on to open up 2 schools in the past 19 months with almost no cash! Very Imformative and really gives you a “Check up from the Neck up”.

Listen to the Interview Now (Approx time 37 minutes)

Now that summer is almost over, we will have a HUGE chance to harvest fall and winter students. But, planning starts now.

Why not renew or create some goals for the rest of this year? Click Here to get started with setting some goals and a action plan.

 Five Tips and Tactics for Thriving in a Tough Economy

What do people typically call the present status of the economy? A recession?  A downturn?  Whatever you call it, the rate of income growth across US businesses has slowed to a crawl, and that is scaring the pants off of a lot of people. Your own business may not be affected in any way, but the fact is that many people are worried about their future… very worried.

Bad news?  Obviously, in some ways, it really is! Those worried folks only spend less money these days and don’t buy anymore on impulse, making each and every transaction, making each sale a little bit harder.

But for those of us with the right approach, there’s hope. A sure hope and opportunity. You will ask, “Why?” The fact remains to be simple and true and that is while everyone else is capitalizing with less vigor and determination, you can do the exact opposite. As what Paul Lemberg puts it that while timid business owners are pulling in their horns and “conserving cash” you can outmarket them. As the unemployment rate creeps up, you can acquire their staff more easily.  And good businesses are for sale and can be bought on the cheap. How about that?

Here are a few martial arts business tips and tactics that will definitely help when things get rough.  These tips apply whenever your School needs a boost.  You can think of them as turnaround tactics.

1. Market Harder

Make sure to advertise your business harder!  Hey – either they will enroll in your school, or not.  And if they don’t, there are plenty of other clients and prospects, so who cares. But when students and prospects are feeling the pinch they become circumspect about how they spend their money, and it takes more persuasion to get them to enroll.  Research shows that it takes as many as seven – even ten – “touches” to get someone to take action.  And sales data shows that most people stop closing after the first try, and even professional folks usually quit after the third time.   Advertise harder.  Ask more often.  Use stronger arguments. Go back to your people repeatedly and make them see the need!

2. Narrow Your Focus and Broaden Your Lines

This may seem like a paradox – narrow and broaden at the same time.  It isn’t.  You’ve got to free yourself from all distractions.  Prune outlying ventures and offshoots that aren’t really part of your core business.  Narrow your focus and spend all your energy on strengthening the core materials and services that contribute most to your income.  Next, make it easier for your good students/clients to spend more money with you.  Figure out what related promo or services they want and need and make the strategy to offer it to them.

3. Spend More Money On Marketing

Most business owners “budget” for marketing, which only makes sense if you think of it as a cost.  Instead, if you see marketing as a income generator, you should be willing to be spend some defined fraction of that income to acquire yet more income!  That fraction should be a function of your average customers lifetime value.  If you follow tip 2 above, you will quickly increase your average lifetime value, and therefore be willing and able to spend more.  Test first. Make sure your programs work before you roll out big.  One more thing; in tough times, you may also want to think about increasing that fraction itself.  If you normally consider spending 10% of lifetime value to acquire a student, you may want to increase it to 12% or 15%.

4. Establish Your Referral Systems

Teach your Martial Arts Buisness to market itself. How do you do that? Well, it start’s with being REMARKABLE! What is your Buisness Story? This is a great place to start. Create your School’s story, why your passionate about teaching martial arts and how it came to be. Create a great looking sheet to give to prospects, Have a mural painted in your school of the story. This will train your students to TELL your buisness story to others. Also, use social media (video works best) to feature students. You will find when you put up a “student of the week” video on your blog or fan page that your students will be sending them to your page to check it out. Buddy Days, Contests and all other referral tactics only CONSITENTLY produce results when you have made every part of your martial arts business UNIQUE! Think of the last time you had a GREAT experience dining, you wanted to TELL everyone you know to go there. When you run Tactics such as a buddy day WITHOUT being REMARKABLE your students have no impetus to bring your referrals. SPECIAL NOTE - We have a great new Video Training on our REFERRAL FLOOD SYSTEM, watch your inbox for detals.

5. Clarify Your Value Proposition

Remember: even if there really is a ‘recession,’ people are always going to spend money.  Perhaps not as easily or as much, but we all still have needs and wants, and we are going to try to satisfy those.  That means that while people aren’t rushing to pull out their wallets for every offer that comes along, they will still spend on things perceived as valuable.  What does that mean?  Before you may have gotten away with a lot of fast talk.  Now you have to prove it to them.  Spell it out; show them exactly how they will benefit – in financial terms like how martial arts can prevent them from hospitalization bills and other aspects of their lives.  Use case studies, testimonials, examples, demonstrations.

BONUS TIP – Sweeten Your Offer

Get OUTRAGEOUS! create a offer that your prospects can’t refuse and then sweeten it more. Check out your compettitors offers and make yours 10x better. I suggest using FREE trial offers with a touch of “Velvet Rope -Take away” in the process. Offer them a 2 week Trail and at the end of the 2 weeks we will BOTH see if it;s a good fit. Offer them a bonus gift right after the 2 weeks are up and give them little bonuses throughout the 2 week trail. This will make you UNIQUE and don’t forget to INVITE them into your membership or GRADUATE them into your club at the end of the 2 weeks. Once they have been ACCEPTED it makes it easy to ask them for the names of 3 friends, nieghboors or co workers. I like to do this on the 4 week Check Up call!

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What was your biggest “Takeaway” from this post. Please Share your comments with us below.

“Freakin’ nuts”, is what average school owners think when they hear about what most of the REALLY successful school owners are doing and (advocating other school owners do) during these wild economic times.

Let’s face it…

The ups and downs of the stock market and the constant bad news about our economy are wreaking havoc with the finances of many school owners.

Cash flow is shrinking, students are dropping off, and less prospective new students are calling.
And, for average school owners it’s SCARY. Rightly so.

Meanwhile, the members of the highest-earning bracket of school owners are loving life.
They’ve yet to see their businesses take any significant step backwards in cash flow. In fact, some have actually experienced growth in their cash flow, even with everything taking place on Wall Street.
So, what are these high-earning school owners doing within their martial arts schools that the average school owners aren’t.

Well, it’s not what they’re doing in their Martial Arts business that the average school owners aren’t. The better question is what are the school owners with the shrinking companies NOT doing that the wealthiest school owners are.

The answer…

Marketing, marketing and more martial arts marketing.

Aggressive marketing to be more specific.

You see, what the wealthiest, most successful school owners understand is that marketing for their schools is the lifeblood of their martial arts business.

It’s the engine that drives their company growth.

It’s THE thing that allows their martial arts business to survive and thrive. Nothing else.
And, because of that, your martial arts marketing should be the very last thing to ever get cut our of a budget.

“Marketing is muscle, not fat. Be careful about cutting it”, one journalist wrote.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what so many struggling school owners have done – they’ve cut their marketing budget way back, if not eliminated it altogether.

What a MONSTROUS MISTAKE!
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Register Now For Thursday’s FREE Webinar! Only 23 spots left
Title: “How to set up Your Online Strategy”
Date:  Thursday, October 29, 2008
Time:  11:00 AM – 12:15 PM CST
Register now by clicking the link below:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/158466362 <==
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In fact, a recent article in Business Week, “Five Don’ts for Marketing in Tough Times”, said it best…

“Just as the savviest investors view down markets as a time to buy when everybody else is selling, the savviest marketers know recessions are a great time to pick up market share. They understand that by maintaining their budgets (or even increasing them) they may not come out ahead during the down times, but they can pick up market share that will pay off in the long run.

Marketing dollars in a recession are like oxygen on Mt. Everest, the less there is in the surrounding environment, the more valuable the amount you possess becomes. Cutting your marketing spending is a sure way to give ground to competitors who may be more aggressive during the downturn.”

And ,if that wasn’t enough, here’s what John A. Quelch said in a recent HBS Newsletter:

“It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.”

Lastly, here’s what Business Maven, Laurie J. Storey-Manseau, had to say in the New Hampshire Business Review:

“When times are tough and business is slow, marketing is the very last thing that ought to be cut. Now, more than ever, companies must make themselves and their products known.”

But we recently came across a great quote from marketer Chris Lockhead of Mercury: “Go ahead. Cut your marketing budget when things get tough. I get it. That’s like saying ‘I’ll throw some logs on that fire when it warms up in here.”

It is critical to keep stoking the fire of your marketing campaign. And face it, keeping the fire burning now means you won’t have to rub two sticks together — starting from scratch! — when the “economy improves.”

Martial arts school owners make mistakes you see, when it comes to marketing their schools right now, the last thing school owners should be thinking about right now, is cutting back on their marketing.

No.

Instead, what you should be thinking about when it comes to your school marketing, is doing it more efficiently. effectively, and aggressively.

We believe martial arts marketing online is the best way to do that.

As we said, the key to surviving and even thriving in these tough economic times is improving your Martial arts school advertising efficiency and effectiveness.

While it is not a black box you can throw money into and expect great results, the web is a proven martial arts school marketing medium that can generate phenomenal returns for you.

Successful online school marketing campaigns can often take time, effort, and creativity; however, these efforts can certainly provide a substantial ROI (return on investment) when compared to pricey traditional offline marketing for schools.

The key, though, regardless of whether you do it online or offline, is that you continue marketing your school.
# Continue to invest money in generating new students.
# Continue to invest money in marketing to previous students.
# Continue to invest money in things that automate processes in your school.

Don’t stop. Don’t even slow down.

Let other competing school owners around you do that.

Let your competition make the potentially life-changing FATAL MISTAKE of thinking that in tough, trying-times the correct decision is to cut-off the ONE and ONLY activity that can fix a decline in cash flow and new customer flow.

And, while they do that, you continue doing your school marketing… and when all is said and done with this crazy economy… you’ll be the #1 school owner in your geographic area making some serious bank!

It happens all the time.  Just make sure you’re on the correct side.

Yours for a better school,
~Dunae and Dion

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Register Now For Thursday’s FREE Webinar! Only 23 spots left
Title: “How to set up Your Online Strategy”
Date:  Thursday, October 29, 2008
Time:  11:00 AM – 12:15 PM CST
Register now by clicking the link below:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/158466362 <==
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We believe there are a couple of martial arts marketing “tools” that will absolutely grow your school…

These “tools” are really more of “martial arts marketing methods” rather than anything. But, nonetheless, they are some of the most powerful and proven methods for getting new students and growing your school.

Let’s skip the fluff and get right to them:

Martial Arts Marketing Tool #1: PPC Martial Arts Marketing (Google Adwords)

PPC marketing is nothing more than advertising your martial arts school on the major search engines… with a cool twist.

With PPC marketing you DON’T pay when your ad is displayed. You ONLY pay when a prospective student sees your martial arts advertisement, clicks on your ad, and actually comes to your website.

But, it gets even better…

With PPC martial arts marketing, you get to choose EXACTLY when your ad is displayed on the major search engines, so you can target your advertisements strictly to the most qualified searchers of martial arts instruction online, display your ad just to them, and then only pay if they take an action and click on your ad. It’s actually the most targeted form of martial arts marketing in existence today.

Seriously. And, because of that, you end up only paying for traffic to your martial arts website that is ultra-targeted and highly-likely to convert into a paying students. It’s really incredible stuff! And, because of how effective this strategy is right now, We had to include it on the list of “martial arts tools that will absolutely grow your school”.

In fact you can listen to a free call we did with our very own personal Certified Google Adwords (PPC) Expert. Click HERE to get access to it.

Martial Arts Marketing Tool #2: Endorsed Offers

Endorsed offers are nothing more than having another local business owner or operator in your geographic area endorse you and your martial arts school to their customers, clients, patients, members, etc. When you set up this type of relationship, the percentage of prospective students that get converted into paying students for you in your school goes thru the roof.

Why? Because when another business owner or operator, who already has trust and goodwill built with their list of customers, endorses you and martial arts training at your school, the response is sometimes 20-30% higher than any other form of martial arts marketing.

Think of it like this…

Imagine a local school teacher talking to their students parents about the value of martial arts instruction with you, and why they recommend it. Or, imagine a local massage therapist or chiropractor talking to their clients about martial arts instruction with you. Again, because the trust and credibility is there already, the response is almost always much, much higher than typical “cold martial arts advertising”.

Why would another local business owner or operator endorse you and your school, you may be wondering?
Well, there are several reasons.

First, you can work on a barter arrangement with them. In other words, they endorse you and your school in exchange for complimentary martial arts training with you. Second, you can work out a co-endorsement arrangement where you endorse them to your parents and students in exchange for them endorsing you. The opportunities of the type of endorsed offer you arrange is only limited to your imagination.

Martial Arts Marketing Tool #3: Automated Martial Arts Marketing Via Email

Because email marketing can be set-up to work on autopilot perpetually… and because there’s no cost right now to use email marketing, it’s a great tool to follow-up with prospective students, educate existing students, generate referrals, and grow your school.

And, even more important, because martial arts email marketing is 4x more effective than most other forms of marketing (according to the Direct Marketing Association), it’s a must on the list of “martial arts tools that will absolutely grow your school”.

Think of it like this…

You can set up an email marketing campaign ONCE, and let it work over and over and over for you. You can do this for new students. You can do this to reactivate inactive students. You can do this for unconverted leads. You can do this to generate referrals every week. You can even do this for networking partners.

In fact we are going to show you how you can do it yourself this Thursday, October 29th on our FREE webinar.

***************************************************************
Register Now For Thursday’s FREE Webinar! Only 59 spots left
Title: “How to set up Your Online Strategy”
Date:  Thursday, October 29, 2008
Time:  11:00 AM – 12:15 PM CST
Register now by clicking the link below:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/158466362 <==
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If you’re not using email marketing in your school right now, you’re really missing out on an incredible school-building tool. Seriously. And if you are then GREAT congratulations to you. May be you just might pick up 1 or 2 things you’re not currently doing that could improve your results.

Register now by clicking the link below:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/158466362 <==

SPECIAL BONUS POST TODAY AT 2pm CENTRAL were we will cover Marketing for Martial Arts Schools – What To Do During a Brutal Economy.

Yours for a better school and life,

~Dion and Duane

Here’s a great little free resource for you.

It keeps SCORE of how well you’re using your time to grow your martial arts business, cash flow, etc.

See if you can beat your score. Use this Scorecard and you’ll have FUN growing your school.

DOWNLOAD THE SCORE CARD HERE

The FORCE that changes your DESTINY…

While at our summer home I discovered the SECRET to controlling your Martial Arts Business destiny.

You see, I just got back from a nice little getaway with Dina and Molly To our summer home.

And, while there I read something that PROVES why some school owners struggle while others succeed.

It’s actually “the FORCE that shapes your martial arts business life and financial destiny.”

It impacted me so much, I actually created a little video for you this morning that explains everything.

Click The Video To Play:

I just discovered something HUGE for School Owners that is going to SAVE YOU MONEY… BIG TIME!!

It shows the exact time of year you should *NOT* be investing your marketing dollars on advertising for your school.

I think you’ll be pretty blown-away by this clear cut trend…

Watch this short 5 minute video:

Now don’t get me wrong…I am not saying don’t market!

What I am saying is be very accurate where you put your marketing dollars. This is a great time for back to school marketing, but look for low cost tactics if you can first. That’s why email and event marketing our great ways to leverage your ROI and should be primary strategies at this time of year.

Try to use your resources when you know that people are actually searching for you. (you will actually land more qualified prospects during this upward trends!).

Focus For The Martial Arts Business Owner

Focus is the one thing which sets apart a successful Martial Arts Business owner from those others who have not managed to make it. It can not be denied that any business, from start-up to those which are already established, that there seems to be a lot of things which must be done, covered and attended to in order to make it in any business. A day always seem to be filled with many issues and ideas which poses several trade-offs and impacts.

For some very lucky individuals, the trick to getting everything done is to have someone do it for them. However, not a lot of us are very fortunate to have individuals at our beck and call. Even those who have other people at their disposal would still agree that despite the disposal of resources and manpower, not everything gets done still as time may not always be on their side. Budget and time-constraints present to the individual an opportunity to make a choice and consider trade-offs.

This dilemma does present pressing questions among individuals. Pressing questions which makes the entrepreneur weigh all the matters which must be done which are presented on their plate. It can not be denied that while these matters are important, they are of different impact and effects; some may offer the possibility of more reward, while some may offer greater risks with maximum of benefits.

One of the most powerful piece of advice anyone can give to anyone about dilemmas like these is that the individual must focus on the one thing which they believe matters the most and divert their focus on the said thing. It must be understood that some priorities must be sacrificed in order to give in to other priorities which are of higher value. There are attachments and priorities which can be let go in order to attend to the one thing which matters the most.

Time and resources may not always be on one’s side as there may be things which must be done preferably prioritized over others. There are some questions which must be considered in order to determine the value of the things we have on our plate. These questions help to determine which must be prioritized and sacrificed in order to reach success.

Which item would prove to have the most significant impact? What will provide the most profits? Which can prove to be most successful? What is the most rewarding? What takes up most of your time and if done would help free your time? What will be the most strategical if done first?

These questions will succinctly address what is the most essential to your martial arts business success. These questions help one focus on the one thing which require attention as it yields the best and most profitable results. Focus on this one thing, and it will surely help you avoid being overwhelmed with having too much to do.

TRY School Owners Secrets Insiders Club for $1

Please comment on what the top 3 things you wished you did not focus onin the past  in your school…

In your Martial Arts Business you must have staff!

More importantly a well trained staff. In this video we answer your most pressing questions about staff specifics!

• Instructor Job Duties
• How to inspect what you delegate
• and a LOT more!
• The Teach by teaching Instructor training method
  

Please feel free to ask any questions or give us your feedback if this video was helpful in the comment section below.

Here are some ways when to ask for referrals without destroying the Student / Instructor relationship.

Clients praised your product or service: When your students  tell you what a great experience they have with your school. End the conversation with “If i can ever help you or anyone you know please let me know”. You have gained their trust and you are welcoming new students in.

Referred Student: If you have a new referred student and they are happy with your school, ask them if they have anyone that they know that would benefit from training at your school. Referrals always begat other referrals.

Give the Extra Mile for a student: Make your students feel that you are going the extra mile the call duty for them. Then they will obviously notice the special effort you have made and then when the time is right ask them to introduce you to some of their friends and family.

These are just some of the best times to ask for a referral.

Of course you should have referral systems in place that automatically generate referrals.

Finally, one of the best ways to keep a steady flow of referrals coming into your school is to reward any effort a student makes to introduce you to a friend or family member and you will see how 80% of the time it produces more referrals for your school.

Lets start a discussion of the BEST referral systems that you have used and Duane and I will chime in with some of our favorites.

We just had our Q & A call for our paying SOS Insiders Club Members and we thought you would like to get a preview of what these calls are like.

In this 60 minute call we cover everything of how to structure your offer, school owner productivity, cool new automation tools, how to get the most out of your birthday parties, outdoor signage and snipe signs and a bunch of other really good questions from school owners like yourself. Don’t forget, you can either listen to the call online or download the MP3 file for use on your MP3 player.

All this stuff pertains to your Martial Arts School Business and marketing.

Instead, of commenting on the call Duane and I want to know what are your most pressing questions.

If you don’t have any then comment on what has been working for you to enroll students…The best tactic you have used in the past 3 months.

Comment below.

Now click on the audio player and ENJOY!

Download the file Q & A Call SOS Insiders 7-2009

This is a sample of what’s inside of SOS insiders club. Business Wisdom Briefs is a distilled action plan from the top business books so that YOU don’t have to read them. You only get the actionable items from these book summaries.

	Stop trying to make the workplace fun. Instead focus on expressing the MISSION and PURPOSE of your company.
	Have a break room with a computer, a phone, and a sofa. Everywhere else is 100% workspace.
	Be yourself! Flaws and all. Hire thick skinned employees who can handle you at your extremes.
	Make your most important jobs BETTER jobs — by making that job more profitable so you can afford to pay well, etc.
	Educate your employees during orientation that THEIR job is to make themselves so valuable to the company (profit-wise) that the company wouldn’t want to see them go.
	Make every job a profit center by redefining the job & adding marketing-related goals.
	Be on the lookout for excuses… they indicate “activity” without “results”.
	If an employee is not an “A” player, redefine the job description, develop the employee aggressively, demote employee to a better matched position, or free up that employee to seek a better match at a different company.
	Find a way to use the combination of MEASUREMENT + COMPETITION to motivate your employees. This requires public display of individual performance. Your best employees will love it. Your worst employees will quit.
	Consider buying a 50” HDTV for the office that constantly displays employee numbers. It’ll cost you just $150 a month or so on credit, and the rewards will be exponential.
	Systemize all the small things in operations manuals.
	Apply the 5-step system below to get SPEED into your business model.

This is a sample of what’s inside of SOS insiders club. Business Wisdom Briefs is a distilled action plan from the top business books so that YOU don’t have to read them. You only get the actionable items from these book summaries.

	Write down everything that’s on your mind for a week. Does this free your mind?
	After that week, sit down and process everything you wrote… do one of the following actions for each and every item: Do it, Delegate it, Defer it, Archive it, Trash it.
	Find mechanisms to delegate, defer, and archive both email and paper items.
	Schedule a weekly processing time in your calendar. DO THIS OR ELSE!
	Change your voicemail greeting and email out-of-office message so it encourages people to contact someone else for routine stuff.
	Change your voicemail to an ‘extended absence greeting’ and leave it there so people are required to press ‘1′ before being allowed to leave a message.
	When you’re taking a day or a week off, change your voicemail and Out-of-office greetings so it tells people you’re not only out of office but intending to blanket ignore any voicemails or emails left during your absence!
	Unsubscribe from every email list you’re on except the ones you really, really care about.
	Say ‘no’ more often!

FREE TELESEMINAR

Thursday July 16th 1pm central (2pm Eastern)

Fill Out the Form Below To Get Access To the Call:

Please help us: We want to know what area of Marketing your having the most trouble with.

Put your answer in the comment box below so we could produce some resources for you pronto.

Ciao,

Duane and Dion

PS Comment link is right under this post on the right side!