Martial Arts Business Success Tips: How to Structure and Teach Intro Courses The martial arts business industry is rife with "business experts" offering advice on starting and running your own martial arts school.
And, it seems every one of the "gurus" has their own advice on what procedures you should follow when enrolling a new student.
One-week intros, two-week intros, "no-intro" school tours, group intros...
it's enough "intro-info" to make your head spin.
While I can't really speak to what other schools are doing, I can share what has worked well in my schools over the last fifteen years.
It's an approach that I discovered mostly through trial and error, and that I've fine-tuned over the last ten years.
How to Use Introductory Courses to Increase Your Enrollments During the "school months" of August through April, you'll want to sell both a 1-week and a 1-month intro program (includes a free student uniform), to encourage people to try out classes (we price ours at $19 and $77 respectively, but charge what you feel is a fair price).
The introductory course should include the student's group classes for the length of the course.
Start each student off by scheduling a 20-minute private lesson with them, usually the evening before or the evening of their first group class.
The Initial Lesson...
What You Should Cover During the private lesson, you should cover the things a student would need to understand in order to feel like they know what's going on during their first group class.
In our experience, this seems to be way more important for retention and conversion than just focusing on teaching them "sizzle" techniques.
So, cover how to line up, how you bow in or start class, and proper etiquette - but without belaboring the topics.
Then, you should teach a few basic moves that are representative of your beginner's curriculum.
For example, in our kid's program we teach a modernized version of Korean Moo Duk Kwan Tae Kwon Do...
so, in an intro lesson for a child we teach horse stance, how to chamber the fist, middle punch, high block, fighting stance, front kick, and an escape from a hold.
(Hint: If you use a rotating curriculum, choose techniques that are in the current beginner's rotation.
) It's also important to use an extra helping of positive reinforcement and encouraging remarks while you're conducting the introductory lesson.
This is an important consideration for students who are new to martial arts.
Success for new students is greatly dependent on their confidence, so spend some extra effort on finding ways to offer your new students some sincere praise and encouragement.
Wrapping Things Up at the End of the First Martial Arts Lesson Always finish by awarding the student their white belt (or you could use hand wraps if you're a kickboxing school, or the official class t-shirt - use your imagination here), and congratulate the new student on a job well done (with kids, write their name on their belt - it'll help you if you forget during their first week).
By this time, you should have developed some rapport with the student, and their parent(s) if the student is a child.
This will help with retention and conversion to a regular membership later.
If you can get them to finish their intro course, most of your new students will enroll before their introductory course is up.
In Closing...
Some Final Tips To Help Improve Your Martial Arts Business Skills If you really need to boost your enrollment (maybe your attrition rate jumped up, or several new students were promoted, etc.
) you can offer to waive the registration fee for anyone who enrolls before the end of their introductory course.
Try to let the student know this option exists at the time of their first lesson, as it will help boost your enrollment rates.
Finally, I'd just like to say that martial arts business procedures don't have to be complicated.
And, even though there are a lot of so-called experts out there who are telling you that starting and running your own martial arts school is something akin to rocket science, all you really need is a simple system for handling the most basic and routine tasks in your school.
If you'd like to read more articles on martial arts business topics, go to StartingAMartialArtsSchool.
com.
And, it seems every one of the "gurus" has their own advice on what procedures you should follow when enrolling a new student.
One-week intros, two-week intros, "no-intro" school tours, group intros...
it's enough "intro-info" to make your head spin.
While I can't really speak to what other schools are doing, I can share what has worked well in my schools over the last fifteen years.
It's an approach that I discovered mostly through trial and error, and that I've fine-tuned over the last ten years.
How to Use Introductory Courses to Increase Your Enrollments During the "school months" of August through April, you'll want to sell both a 1-week and a 1-month intro program (includes a free student uniform), to encourage people to try out classes (we price ours at $19 and $77 respectively, but charge what you feel is a fair price).
The introductory course should include the student's group classes for the length of the course.
Start each student off by scheduling a 20-minute private lesson with them, usually the evening before or the evening of their first group class.
The Initial Lesson...
What You Should Cover During the private lesson, you should cover the things a student would need to understand in order to feel like they know what's going on during their first group class.
In our experience, this seems to be way more important for retention and conversion than just focusing on teaching them "sizzle" techniques.
So, cover how to line up, how you bow in or start class, and proper etiquette - but without belaboring the topics.
Then, you should teach a few basic moves that are representative of your beginner's curriculum.
For example, in our kid's program we teach a modernized version of Korean Moo Duk Kwan Tae Kwon Do...
so, in an intro lesson for a child we teach horse stance, how to chamber the fist, middle punch, high block, fighting stance, front kick, and an escape from a hold.
(Hint: If you use a rotating curriculum, choose techniques that are in the current beginner's rotation.
) It's also important to use an extra helping of positive reinforcement and encouraging remarks while you're conducting the introductory lesson.
This is an important consideration for students who are new to martial arts.
Success for new students is greatly dependent on their confidence, so spend some extra effort on finding ways to offer your new students some sincere praise and encouragement.
Wrapping Things Up at the End of the First Martial Arts Lesson Always finish by awarding the student their white belt (or you could use hand wraps if you're a kickboxing school, or the official class t-shirt - use your imagination here), and congratulate the new student on a job well done (with kids, write their name on their belt - it'll help you if you forget during their first week).
By this time, you should have developed some rapport with the student, and their parent(s) if the student is a child.
This will help with retention and conversion to a regular membership later.
If you can get them to finish their intro course, most of your new students will enroll before their introductory course is up.
In Closing...
Some Final Tips To Help Improve Your Martial Arts Business Skills If you really need to boost your enrollment (maybe your attrition rate jumped up, or several new students were promoted, etc.
) you can offer to waive the registration fee for anyone who enrolls before the end of their introductory course.
Try to let the student know this option exists at the time of their first lesson, as it will help boost your enrollment rates.
Finally, I'd just like to say that martial arts business procedures don't have to be complicated.
And, even though there are a lot of so-called experts out there who are telling you that starting and running your own martial arts school is something akin to rocket science, all you really need is a simple system for handling the most basic and routine tasks in your school.
If you'd like to read more articles on martial arts business topics, go to StartingAMartialArtsSchool.
com.
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