April 29, 2025 • 29 mins
ASA Martial Arts Business Summit 2025
✅ Register now at https://theblackbeltbanter.com/
🗓️ Mark your calendars for October 3–4, 2025—because the ASA Martial Arts Summit is throwing down in Las Vegas at the iconic Paris Hotel & Casino, and you don’t want to miss it. This is the business event for martial arts entrepreneurs ready to evolve, scale, and sharpen their competitive edge.
🔥 It’s a full-throttle experience designed for passionate martial arts professionals who refuse to settle. Only a few weeks left to lock in the $399 early access rate—offer ends August 15th.
Want to rapidly grow your martial arts school? This episode delivers a masterclass in strategic enrollment growth from someone who's done it consistently across multiple locations.
Master Lee breaks down his exact formula for enrolling 20 new students in just 30 days—a system built on proactive marketing rather than passively waiting for inquiries. The mathematical breakdown is refreshingly straightforward: you need 120 leads to book 60 appointments to conduct 40 intros to enroll 20 students. But the magic lies in how to generate those 120 monthly leads through strategic events and community presence.
Birthday parties emerge as the enrollment secret weapon, with each party bringing approximately 15 potential students into your facility. Master Lee reveals how some successful schools dedicate entire Saturdays exclusively to hosting parties, creating consistent lead flow and exposure.
Block Insurance – Providing specialized coverage for martial arts studios nationwide, with over 30 years of expertise in protecting what matters most.
Dynamics World – A one‑stop martial arts supplier offering uniforms, belts, gear, mats, and custom designs, delivering great products, great prices, and great service to martial arts school owners.
https://store.dynamicsworld.com/
Contact Black Belt Banter
- Email us at jimmyhong@blackbeltbanter.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ASAmartialarts
Please rate and review our podcast! Thanks for listening!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this third episode , we will crack the code how to
enroll 20 new students in just30 days.
Welcome to Black Belt Banterthe best podcast to help your
martial arts school increase inprofits and generate substantial
revenue.
I'm Jimmy Hong and my co-hostis Master Chan Lee.
(00:21):
Master Chan has over 2,100active students with multiple
locations.
He is well-renowned and highlyrespected by his fellow peers
for his business acumen inoperating martial arts schools.
Master Chan, let's get straightinto it.
How do a school owner achievegetting 20 new members in just a
(00:43):
month?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We talked about this in our last podcast, so I just
want to do a quick overviewbefore we get into the nitty
gritty of how we do this, andessentially there are two types
of advertising.
The first advertising, which Italked about before, was what I
call reactive advertising, whereyou put a flyer, billboard,
(01:06):
right, internet, your Google ads, whatever, your internet
advertising or anything that youput out there in the world, and
then you just kind of wait forthe phone to ring.
That's one aspect ofadvertising for the martial art
industry.
But what I believe in issomething called proactive
marketing, and proactivemarketing is where you just go
(01:26):
in front of the people that maybe interested and it's in your
demographic.
Like, obviously, if I went to asenior center and did a
demonstration and helped out andwhatever which we've done on
behalf of some grandparents andwhatever, I'm not going to
expect a lot of those seniors totake classes with me.
I want to go into my targetmarket, which is the kids
(01:48):
between the ages of four and 13.
12 is actually probably better.
So four to 12 is really whereI'm looking at and I want to
know where all the four and 12year olds are at, and I also
want to go and make sure that Ihave events that are fun for
four and 12 year olds to come tomy academy and try out things
and so forth.
(02:09):
So if I have to look at mynumbers, if I want 20 new
students, let's assume that Ihave a 50% closing rate, so that
would mean that I would need 40introductory lessons.
I would need 40 people to comeonto my floor and try us out.
You could be better than that.
And if you are great, but let'sjust for this fake dojang that
(02:32):
we're working on that, we'reassuming that you're doing 50%.
We do better than that, but I'mjust trying to make it
realistic for everybody.
That means you got to book 40intros.
That means you need roughly 60appointments and let's assume
roughly 70% of the appointmentsthat you book on your school
calendar to come in for classes,that only 70% will show up.
(02:54):
But if you need 60 appointments, then how many leads do you
need to have to book 60appointments?
And once again I want to sayit's the 50% rule.
It could be 60 appointments.
And once again I want to sayit's the 50% rule.
It could be less or it could beworse.
You just got to adjust it.
In my experience it's been 30%.
But for just this analogy tohelp people, let's go 50%.
(03:14):
And obviously I talked aboutthis in the other thing other
podcasts is that it's based onthe event too.
Certain events have a higherrate of return than that.
But anyway, for this example,let's go 120 leads.
So I need 120 leads a month andif you think about it, if you
break down a month into fourweeks, you really need 30 leads
(03:38):
a week.
So how do we get 30 leads aweek?
I want you to go wear yourdobok and go on a street corner
with a giant sign and say cometo my dojo.
I'm just kidding, you wouldn'tdo that.
We see tax people do that, butthat is not probably the best
strategy to do so in order toget 120 leads.
I really believe in face-to-facemarketing, going in front of
(04:01):
prospective people and makingsure that they get a chance to
taste and try your classes, tryyour teaching style, try all the
energy that you're going toreally inspire people to do this
.
Bad analogy, but I rememberwatching UFC 1, 2, and 3 and
(04:22):
just seeing the Gracies kicksome butt, and you just saw it
on a videotape.
For me it was a videotape.
I wasn't able to get thepay-per-view and I was like, man
, I gotta learn this stuff.
This is really cool.
And I learned some brazilianjiu-jitsu, but it was all based
on the things that I saw in theufc.
I said this is really coolstuff that we need to do.
What kind of effect like thatcan you do that you inspire
(04:46):
people to say you know what, Igot to get my kid involved with
this guy or girl.
I need to have my kid involvedwith this and be inspirational
and have the kids, literallywhatever event you do, tug on
the parent's shirt and say, hey,mom, dad, I really want to do
this, making sure that reallymotivate and really have an
(05:07):
inspirational type of event thateverybody goes.
I got to do this, I got to dothis.
So let's start with.
What events can you do that Ithink every martial arts school
should really work on.
To me, one of the biggest leadgenerating events that you can
do in your academy is just doinga birthday party.
Everybody has a birthday party.
(05:29):
It's something that you shouldadvertise internally in your
school and one of the thingsthat we do is we look at
everybody's future birthdayparty.
So if it's the month of January, I am targeting all the kids in
March and April and I'm talkingto those parents so they can
plan their child's birthdayparty and that we are one of the
things that they would considerto put their kids in a birthday
(05:52):
party.
Just making sure you mark itand send an email and a phone
call to all prospective peoplein your academy to do the
birthday party in those months.
The other secret thing that I dois I get one Groupon party at
least a month.
So I'm a big proponent ofGroupon.
People go.
They may hate Groupon becauseof past experience, but I put my
(06:15):
Groupon birthday party at kindof a high dollar amount because
that price sets the kids and thepeople that you know may not be
the right type of clientelethat wants to come into the
classes or whatever.
So if they're willing to spendX amount of dollars on a
birthday party, those are thekids that you look at and really
make sure that you're fillingone birthday party a weekend
(06:39):
right, just at a minimum, and ifyou do that you're going to get
60 leads right there.
Let's assume that each birthdayparty has about 15 kids in it.
They could have more, theycould have a little bit of less,
but I'm just saying let'saverage that out at 15.
Number one really be a birthdayparty school.
It really makes a hugedifference.
I know a super largeorganization and I asked them
(07:02):
what their number one marketingtool.
They don't even have classes onSaturday.
What do they do?
They've booked their wholeSaturdays just on birthday
parties.
So you know, if there's onething you get out of this
podcast right now, you should bein the birthday party business.
Why?
Because it's the friends ofyour current students.
It's just a natural thing thatcauses that.
(07:22):
Yeah, other things that youshould do internally is buddy
days, and you can.
You know one.
There's a general buddy day.
You can say bring a friend toclass or whatever.
You don't want to hit that welltoo hard.
But one of the things thatwe've done for I'll give you an
example we did a January hugebuddy day referral event and it
(07:45):
happens to be the ear of thesnake.
So we I don't know if, but it'sMaster Hong, it's the ear of
the blue snake and we createdthese blue shirts with a snake
logo on it, with our logo, andanybody that brought a friend to
our taekwondo class got achance to get the T-shirt, along
with them and their friends andit was an investment into the
(08:07):
lead.
And I know you're spendingmoney, but it's one of those
things where I think it's moneywell spent.
We didn't do the white snakelogo because it was a band in
the eighties and it was takenalready.
Sorry, that's an old man joke,but anyway, no one's going to
get that.
No only, in fact, the peoplethat are listening to this are
way younger, because a lot ofthe older people don't listen to
(08:29):
podcasts, but anyway, that'show we ran our buddy day and it
was one of those things where wegot 20 solid leads per location
and we converted 10 of them tostudents and so forth.
Right, something that naturallyoccurs is what we do a new belt
party.
So every time, have a beltpromotion.
(08:49):
You should have a party thatgoes with it a week later so
everybody can celebrate theirsuccesses balloons, a backdrop,
people can take pictures, havetheir friends break a board and
make it a little bit of a funcelebration when that's
something you can do.
Other things we do thatnaturally occur we do something
called a report card party.
(09:09):
So we hand out these reallynice medals are for kids that
got a good report card and wecelebrate that every quarter.
And we have a report card partyand they're asked to bring
friends to the event so theysign up for it.
We have some refreshments andthings like that.
We do a mini Taekwondo lessonfor everybody.
That's in the in the in theparty.
(09:30):
Um, we have boy scout, girlscout events.
We're huge partners with theboy scouts and the girl scouts
and so they have a self-defensebadge that they can get.
Um, so we do things like thatthat they can come into the
school and bring their wholetroop.
In fact, we have 50 kids comingin a couple of weeks here at
one of our locations and the denleader happens to be one of our
(09:53):
black belts, so they're reallyhelping us with that.
You can also run what I callseminars, seminars that are
appropriate for your agedemographic.
So, for example, we did ananti-bullying seminar that's
open to our students and thenthey can also bring their
friends and we bring.
We really make sure that we canaffect the community with some
(10:17):
of these anti-bullying party isthat confidence is the key that
you are.
If you have a high level ofconfidence, then you won't be a
victim of bullying or you'llhave the confidence to withstand
anything that happens.
That's bullying as well.
(10:37):
And then things like women'sself-defense.
So we have a women'sself-defense seminar that we do
once a quarter or whatever, andwe want to bring the moms back
into Taekwondo class.
We want to also have them bringtheir friends and so forth.
So doing just these internalevents that you know, you can
constantly think of somethingfor them to do a board breaking
(11:00):
seminar with their friends.
That's another thing you can do.
So, just like I said, justanything, even though I say
buddy day, you want to wrap yourbuddy day into some type of
event or some type of seminar orsome type of reason for them to
want to bring a friend.
And every time you run an eventyou can't think everybody's
going to do it.
(11:20):
Some of them are like, oh man,we're out of town, we have a
soccer game or we have this andso forth.
You know you're not going toget everybody, but it's just
every weekend you should havesomething that's going on.
The other thing that Irecommend is really working with
your school systems having usgo to the schools and teach gym
classes and teaching I know Mayis Asian Pacific Islander month
(11:45):
and having them talk about theculture.
Having us talk about theculture of martial arts and
Korea, because I'm Korean andTaekwondo is Korean and whatever
martial art you're in, it justbrings a little flavor of that
culture to the school.
I'm a huge proponent ofcommunity talks.
I talk to the Rotary Club, theKiwanis Club, the local Chamber
of Commerce.
(12:05):
I'm a guest speaker and I do atleast three or four of these a
year.
And just going out and justtalking to the community about
what martial arts is about andso talking I have a great
PowerPoint on the history of aprogram and what we like to do
with them.
And then communitydemonstrations we go to churches
, synagogues, temples and ourdemonstration team will go and
(12:29):
do a demonstration and then wedo an anti-bullying seminar
throughout the community.
I just gave you 20 differenttypes of things that you can do
in the community that you shouldput on your marketing calendar.
A good friend and mentor of mine, master Merton, says and it's a
great quote I can tell you howsuccessful a school is based on
(12:50):
their event calendar and I'lltell you that that is such a
true statement is that you canreally see how great a school is
and how successful they are andthe size of them based on the
business of what they're doing.
And when we run our martial artsschool, what we tend to be busy
with is just we're busy runningclasses and getting people
(13:14):
ready for testings ortournaments or events or
demonstration and so forth, andsometimes you miss out on this
marketing, and I think I saidthis in the last podcast
Marketing is hard, in fact.
I don't like to swear, butmarketing is F word hard.
It's so hard In fact.
I don't like to swear, butmarketing is F word hard, it's
so hard.
And the more you work on makingsure that you are spending a
(13:37):
fair amount of your timemarketing, I'd have to say that
40% of your time running yourschool if you had the percentage
out where you spend your timein your school, 40% of it should
be focused on marketing.
So let's also look at leadcollection, master Hong.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, I just want to chime in real quick.
This is why keeping stats is soimportant.
If you don't keep stats withthese events, you're not going
to know which events areeffective, you're not going to
know which events draw in theleads and appointments.
Leads a week, 120 leads a month.
(14:17):
If we just for an averagesingle school owner that's I
don't know 60 to 120 students,it seems like a lot of leads.
Maybe not for multiple schoolowners with hundreds and
hundreds, maybe thousands ofactive students, maybe not.
But as a single school owner,120 leads seems like a lot.
Bringing down 30 leads a weekseems a lot.
(14:41):
But if you go through all theseevents that you mentioned
birthday party, group time,buddy day, not even including
social media, report card party,boy Scouts, girl Scouts events,
seminars, women's self-defense,anti-bullying class, board
breaking day, working withschools and you're making sure
(15:02):
that you leave these time slotsopen for these events, whether
it's Friday night, saturdaymorning, you could easily get 30
leads if you're doing all theseevents every weekend, every
month.
So it depends on how you view.
If you're just sitting in theoffice and you have 80 students,
(15:22):
you're like how am I going toget 120 leads this month?
You're not going to get itbecause you can't visualize it,
but if you go and make sure youschedule an open Saturday
morning for one of these eventsevery weekend, then it's a lot
more achievable.
That's great Community talkswith your local church and
(15:43):
organization that's priceless,master Chan.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I know, and you talk to a lot of school owners and
you go, oh, what time do you getto the dojang?
And a fair amount of them willsay I don't get there till 3.30
because my first class is atfour.
What did you do in the morning?
You know, I want to sincerelypoint out you will get results
in where you spend your time andmaking sure that I'm going to
(16:07):
run my school and I'm going tospend 40% of my time on some
marketing and making sure thatI'm working with my school
systems and things like that.
Or I'm at a school and I'mrunning gym classes that day and
so forth, and we're in thisweird social media phase where
people are, hey, relax at homeand have this income that just
(16:28):
comes in and you don't have todo a thing, and so forth.
We're in this weird generationand I think it's just back to
like the basics.
You got to just work hard andyou've got to promote your brand
and this is stuff that I'vebeen doing pre-internet.
This is the stuff that I had todo with my dad as we're running
our academies is that this isthe quickest way to grow your
(16:48):
school is to do a lot ofinternal marketing and then
going out into the community aswell, and it's just critically
important that you do that.
You can obviously adjust yournumbers If you're getting five
students a month.
Naturally, obviously, thewalk-ins it's a referral that
it's a neighbor of a studentthat happens to walk in and so
forth.
But I don't count on that.
(17:08):
I really make sure that let'suse this formula 120 leads a
month.
Let's work hard to make surethat we're able to collect as
much names, numbers and info ofmany people that we can.
And then we have to make surewhatever presentation we're
doing is rock solid.
It's got to make sure that.
(17:30):
It's one of these things wherepeople go.
Man, I really got to make sureI get my kid involved with this.
Man, I really got to make sureI get my kid involved with this.
Two of the primary things thatyou have to understand is that
parents are not interested in agood sidekick or the style that
you did, or the number oftournaments that you've won or
(17:50):
number of champions you produced.
It doesn't mean anything tothem.
What they do want to do is yougot to speak the benefits
language.
If my kid does this, he willturn into.
And what is that.
What is that?
That's every.
These are your universal thingslike having your kid become
more confident.
What parent doesn't want that?
(18:11):
Having your kid be resistantagainst bullying, that's a
confidence thing.
Having your kid become morefocused in school, having your
child become more disciplined intheir work habits for school,
and so forth, and making surethat you deliver.
You could have a great intro,but at the end of your intros,
(18:33):
if you're not having that kid beloud or that kid is not
standing straight and listening,it's a hot mess.
One thing that I think makes medifferent a little bit than
everybody else is that I stilllove teaching.
So this morning I went to oneof our locations and I taught
this beginner class.
I had a four-year-old rollingon the floor and licking the mat
(18:55):
, doing all this crazy stuff,and I talked to the kid, I tried
to inspire him to do this andso forth, and I talked to the
parent.
I'm like you've hired us tohave him become more confident.
So if he doesn't listen, he'sgoing to have to sit out.
It's a safety issue and it'sone of those things that you
know he's got to grow up alittle bit.
I can't help that kid Right now.
(19:16):
He's not doing anything.
I'm busting my hump trying toget this kid to do something.
He's just a little bit tooyoung at that point.
He doesn't have the maturitylevel.
Same class I had athree-year-old.
This little girl did everythingwas loud, followed directions
the best she can.
She did not roll around on thefloor.
(19:37):
That's something I can workwith.
So just making sure that youare promising what you delivered
.
Obviously the kid that'srolling on the ground.
I'm not going to be like, hey,listen, come in my office, I'd
love to talk to you, and time toenroll.
That's not going to work unlessI start getting this kid to
comply with what I want to do onthe floor.
And that's an incredibletalking point in making sure
(19:57):
that.
And if you don't have a goodcall script to call right to
have them come in, then itdoesn't matter.
Here let me just do a callscript for you.
Let me give you my birthdayparty call.
It's super simple but it isreally effective for us, a
family and I'll call andimmediately I'll go.
(20:20):
Can I speak to the mother orfather of Johnny?
Hi, this is Johnny's father, hi, and usually when they go, the
mother or father of Johnny?
Hi, this is Johnny's father Hi,and usually when they go, the
mother or father of Johnny, whatdid Johnny do Then?
Right off the bat, I go hi, myname is Instructor Chan Lee.
I don't call myself Masterbecause it sounds weird.
I'm Instructor Chan Lee with JKLee's Blackfoot Academy.
Hey, I met your son.
(20:41):
Three days ago he came to abirthday party for Joey.
Three days ago he came to abirthday party for Joey.
Did he have a good time?
Regardless of the answer, I go.
All the kids that came to theparty got a free two weeks of
lessons at our martial artsschool and in those lessons we
want to help kids become better,focused in school and also
become confident againstbullying.
(21:01):
And the reason I'm calling isto schedule his first
introductory lesson and we havetime Thursday or Friday.
Which one is good for you?
I just assume they're going tosay yes and at that point, once
I go through my spiel, they aregoing to either have a question
or they'll say you know what,we're not interested, or
whatever, maybe later on, orwhatever, and so forth.
(21:21):
And I'm telling you you'regoing to have a 50 to 70% return
based on the quality of thebirthday party and the quality
of the lead and super importantthat you're able to whoever's
calling should you know, scriptthis out, sit down, practice it,
and that they have the righttype of mindset and attitude to
do the calls.
I used to put this at aninstructor he was still with me.
(21:44):
Instructor Paul Loved the guy.
He's still with me.
Instructor Paul Loved the guy.
He's been with me for 20 yearsand when he was in college I
didn't want to do these calls soI'd give it to him.
I would go in the room I calledthe sweat box here's 100 leads
from this weekend.
Call and don't come out untilyou get me at least 10
(22:05):
appointments.
And then one day I just kind oflistened to what he was saying
and he's okay, are youinterested?
We saw you and I had the wrongperson doing calls.
I did.
The guy didn't want to do it,He'd rather be teaching on the
floor.
You know this could be anon-instructor, someone with a
very bubbly personality, in factone of the people that's in our
organization.
In fact, one of the peoplethat's in our organization.
She is a marketing director fora church and she is the most
(22:30):
positive person I've ever met.
And I asked her about doingcalls.
She said, sir, I'd love to dothe calls and we just I give her
a script, we practiced and I'mlike winner chicken dinner, here
we go and she is the rightperson to do that.
So, just making sure you havethe right pieces and the right
people to do these things, andif you don't have someone to do
(22:50):
that, you're going to have to doit yourself.
You need to set aside a time ona Saturday afternoon, right A
day that maybe you're notteaching classes.
You need to get on these callsand if you're a smaller school,
it's probably you in the firstplace, but you need to make sure
you practice your phone scriptsand make sure you sound super
high energy and so forth.
(23:11):
By the way, calling is dead.
No one answers their phone.
You're going to leave a reallygood, positive message.
Texting also is working.
So one of the things we do is wedo a text text and then we call
, so letting them know we'reabout to call, and then I also
give them a text offer as well.
You got to use multi forms ofcommunication and then we also
(23:33):
follow up with an email as well.
So just making sure you'rehitting up all these different
types of things and, once again,this is a lot of time, right.
There's a lot of time that youhave to spend curating leads and
talking with them and so forth.
I don't want this to say, ohyeah, you get 120 leads, you'll
get 20 students.
There's a process making sureyou're calling your leads
properly, you're setting theappointments.
(23:53):
Once the appointment's made,you're confirming the
appointment of the day and thatyou're texting them in the
morning and saying, hey, lookingforward to seeing you today at
four o'clock or five o'clock orwhatever.
It is making sure your introprocedures are rock solid, right
, that the class itself sellsitself and that you're getting a
high number of those people tosign up for your programs.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's a great point about your.
Okay?
So let's say you're a two-manschool, You're the master
instructor, and then you havethis instructor and his strength
is on the floor.
Why pull him out of hisstrength to make a less
percentage-based appointmentfrom these leads?
There are plenty of people thatsupport you, the families that
(24:37):
support you.
Get somebody who is extroverted, who's comfortable talking with
strangers and making cold calls, and have them do it and don't
take time out from yourinstructor on the mat to go out
and make these calls.
You got to think outside thebox here and that's a great
point.
Everybody just assumes, oh,because my instructor's on the
floor, he's got to make the call.
(24:57):
That's not his area ofexpertise.
That's not if it's his strength.
Keep your staff on the strengthof what they do best and look
outside the box.
I know for a fact that you,Master Chan, you have a lot of
the parents volunteer and helpas well.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
And that's another great thing.
Sometimes you have I have somehead corporate people or some.
I actually have a woman atanother one of our locations and
she used to be the McDonald'scorporate trainer.
She really trains a bunch of 14, 15, 16 year olds to work at
McDonald's and she's great atonboarding and calling and so
(25:37):
forth and she even gives meideas.
And so one of the things youcan do in lieu of tuition or in
lieu of testing fees or in lieuof gear, you can also ask
volunteers, someone with a gooddisposition that doesn't mind
calling right, and give them ascript and practice with them
and have them do it as well.
(25:57):
I one of my head instructors,who he's a great guy.
He's Marine Corps veteran, youknow, served and went into some
war-torn places and also did twoyears of professional
kickboxing.
So he, he knows his stuff, he'sa good, he's a great guy.
But if I ask him to ask a momfor $20 because she had to buy a
(26:19):
headband or something like that, he can't do it.
He has a lump in his throat andhe's like, sir, do you mind,
can you have someone else do it,or whatever.
But if I go hey, listen, thatguy came from a different
martial arts school and he wantsto freeze for us and fight to
see if our system works, he goes.
Oh yeah, no problem, just tohave him come in and I'd be
happy to freeze.
He'll fight anybody, but ifjust to ask him to ask for money
(26:41):
, it's just quite comical.
So just make sure you are ableto identify the right people in
your organization that can helpyou out and having you help you
grow your operations in yourschool.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
There you have it, folks.
That's the code Master Chancracked to achieve 20 new
students in 30 days.
We need to conclude here.
If you're enjoying our show, goahead and rate and review our
podcast or YouTube channel.
Our goal is to get our show assuccessful as possible, and your
review will help achieve that.
Have a great week and I lookforward to our next episode.
In this third episode , we will crack the code how to
enroll 20 new students in just30 days.
Welcome to Black Belt Banterthe best podcast to help your
martial arts school increase inprofits and generate substantial
revenue.
I'm Jimmy Hong and my co-hostis Master Chan Lee.
(00:21):
Master Chan has over 2,100active students with multiple
locations.
He is well-renowned and highlyrespected by his fellow peers
for his business acumen inoperating martial arts schools.
Master Chan, let's get straightinto it.
How do a school owner achievegetting 20 new members in just a
(00:43):
month?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We talked about this in our last podcast, so I just
want to do a quick overviewbefore we get into the nitty
gritty of how we do this, andessentially there are two types
of advertising.
The first advertising, which Italked about before, was what I
call reactive advertising, whereyou put a flyer, billboard,
(01:06):
right, internet, your Google ads, whatever, your internet
advertising or anything that youput out there in the world, and
then you just kind of wait forthe phone to ring.
That's one aspect ofadvertising for the martial art
industry.
But what I believe in issomething called proactive
marketing, and proactivemarketing is where you just go
(01:26):
in front of the people that maybe interested and it's in your
demographic.
Like, obviously, if I went to asenior center and did a
demonstration and helped out andwhatever which we've done on
behalf of some grandparents andwhatever, I'm not going to
expect a lot of those seniors totake classes with me.
I want to go into my targetmarket, which is the kids
(01:48):
between the ages of four and 13.
12 is actually probably better.
So four to 12 is really whereI'm looking at and I want to
know where all the four and 12year olds are at, and I also
want to go and make sure that Ihave events that are fun for
four and 12 year olds to come tomy academy and try out things
and so forth.
(02:09):
So if I have to look at mynumbers, if I want 20 new
students, let's assume that Ihave a 50% closing rate, so that
would mean that I would need 40introductory lessons.
I would need 40 people to comeonto my floor and try us out.
You could be better than that.
And if you are great, but let'sjust for this fake dojang that
(02:32):
we're working on that, we'reassuming that you're doing 50%.
We do better than that, but I'mjust trying to make it
realistic for everybody.
That means you got to book 40intros.
That means you need roughly 60appointments and let's assume
roughly 70% of the appointmentsthat you book on your school
calendar to come in for classes,that only 70% will show up.
(02:54):
But if you need 60 appointments, then how many leads do you
need to have to book 60appointments?
And once again I want to sayit's the 50% rule.
It could be 60 appointments.
And once again I want to sayit's the 50% rule.
It could be less or it could beworse.
You just got to adjust it.
In my experience it's been 30%.
But for just this analogy tohelp people, let's go 50%.
(03:14):
And obviously I talked aboutthis in the other thing other
podcasts is that it's based onthe event too.
Certain events have a higherrate of return than that.
But anyway, for this example,let's go 120 leads.
So I need 120 leads a month andif you think about it, if you
break down a month into fourweeks, you really need 30 leads
(03:38):
a week.
So how do we get 30 leads aweek?
I want you to go wear yourdobok and go on a street corner
with a giant sign and say cometo my dojo.
I'm just kidding, you wouldn'tdo that.
We see tax people do that, butthat is not probably the best
strategy to do so in order toget 120 leads.
I really believe in face-to-facemarketing, going in front of
(04:01):
prospective people and makingsure that they get a chance to
taste and try your classes, tryyour teaching style, try all the
energy that you're going toreally inspire people to do this
.
Bad analogy, but I rememberwatching UFC 1, 2, and 3 and
(04:22):
just seeing the Gracies kicksome butt, and you just saw it
on a videotape.
For me it was a videotape.
I wasn't able to get thepay-per-view and I was like, man
, I gotta learn this stuff.
This is really cool.
And I learned some brazilianjiu-jitsu, but it was all based
on the things that I saw in theufc.
I said this is really coolstuff that we need to do.
What kind of effect like thatcan you do that you inspire
(04:46):
people to say you know what, Igot to get my kid involved with
this guy or girl.
I need to have my kid involvedwith this and be inspirational
and have the kids, literallywhatever event you do, tug on
the parent's shirt and say, hey,mom, dad, I really want to do
this, making sure that reallymotivate and really have an
(05:07):
inspirational type of event thateverybody goes.
I got to do this, I got to dothis.
So let's start with.
What events can you do that Ithink every martial arts school
should really work on.
To me, one of the biggest leadgenerating events that you can
do in your academy is just doinga birthday party.
Everybody has a birthday party.
(05:29):
It's something that you shouldadvertise internally in your
school and one of the thingsthat we do is we look at
everybody's future birthdayparty.
So if it's the month of January, I am targeting all the kids in
March and April and I'm talkingto those parents so they can
plan their child's birthdayparty and that we are one of the
things that they would considerto put their kids in a birthday
(05:52):
party.
Just making sure you mark itand send an email and a phone
call to all prospective peoplein your academy to do the
birthday party in those months.
The other secret thing that I dois I get one Groupon party at
least a month.
So I'm a big proponent ofGroupon.
People go.
They may hate Groupon becauseof past experience, but I put my
(06:15):
Groupon birthday party at kindof a high dollar amount because
that price sets the kids and thepeople that you know may not be
the right type of clientelethat wants to come into the
classes or whatever.
So if they're willing to spendX amount of dollars on a
birthday party, those are thekids that you look at and really
make sure that you're fillingone birthday party a weekend
(06:39):
right, just at a minimum, and ifyou do that you're going to get
60 leads right there.
Let's assume that each birthdayparty has about 15 kids in it.
They could have more, theycould have a little bit of less,
but I'm just saying let'saverage that out at 15.
Number one really be a birthdayparty school.
It really makes a hugedifference.
I know a super largeorganization and I asked them
(07:02):
what their number one marketingtool.
They don't even have classes onSaturday.
What do they do?
They've booked their wholeSaturdays just on birthday
parties.
So you know, if there's onething you get out of this
podcast right now, you should bein the birthday party business.
Why?
Because it's the friends ofyour current students.
It's just a natural thing thatcauses that.
(07:22):
Yeah, other things that youshould do internally is buddy
days, and you can.
You know one.
There's a general buddy day.
You can say bring a friend toclass or whatever.
You don't want to hit that welltoo hard.
But one of the things thatwe've done for I'll give you an
example we did a January hugebuddy day referral event and it
(07:45):
happens to be the ear of thesnake.
So we I don't know if, but it'sMaster Hong, it's the ear of
the blue snake and we createdthese blue shirts with a snake
logo on it, with our logo, andanybody that brought a friend to
our taekwondo class got achance to get the T-shirt, along
with them and their friends andit was an investment into the
(08:07):
lead.
And I know you're spendingmoney, but it's one of those
things where I think it's moneywell spent.
We didn't do the white snakelogo because it was a band in
the eighties and it was takenalready.
Sorry, that's an old man joke,but anyway, no one's going to
get that.
No only, in fact, the peoplethat are listening to this are
way younger, because a lot ofthe older people don't listen to
(08:29):
podcasts, but anyway, that'show we ran our buddy day and it
was one of those things where wegot 20 solid leads per location
and we converted 10 of them tostudents and so forth.
Right, something that naturallyoccurs is what we do a new belt
party.
So every time, have a beltpromotion.
(08:49):
You should have a party thatgoes with it a week later so
everybody can celebrate theirsuccesses balloons, a backdrop,
people can take pictures, havetheir friends break a board and
make it a little bit of a funcelebration when that's
something you can do.
Other things we do thatnaturally occur we do something
called a report card party.
(09:09):
So we hand out these reallynice medals are for kids that
got a good report card and wecelebrate that every quarter.
And we have a report card partyand they're asked to bring
friends to the event so theysign up for it.
We have some refreshments andthings like that.
We do a mini Taekwondo lessonfor everybody.
That's in the in the in theparty.
(09:30):
Um, we have boy scout, girlscout events.
We're huge partners with theboy scouts and the girl scouts
and so they have a self-defensebadge that they can get.
Um, so we do things like thatthat they can come into the
school and bring their wholetroop.
In fact, we have 50 kids comingin a couple of weeks here at
one of our locations and the denleader happens to be one of our
(09:53):
black belts, so they're reallyhelping us with that.
You can also run what I callseminars, seminars that are
appropriate for your agedemographic.
So, for example, we did ananti-bullying seminar that's
open to our students and thenthey can also bring their
friends and we bring.
We really make sure that we canaffect the community with some
(10:17):
of these anti-bullying party isthat confidence is the key that
you are.
If you have a high level ofconfidence, then you won't be a
victim of bullying or you'llhave the confidence to withstand
anything that happens.
That's bullying as well.
(10:37):
And then things like women'sself-defense.
So we have a women'sself-defense seminar that we do
once a quarter or whatever, andwe want to bring the moms back
into Taekwondo class.
We want to also have them bringtheir friends and so forth.
So doing just these internalevents that you know, you can
constantly think of somethingfor them to do a board breaking
(11:00):
seminar with their friends.
That's another thing you can do.
So, just like I said, justanything, even though I say
buddy day, you want to wrap yourbuddy day into some type of
event or some type of seminar orsome type of reason for them to
want to bring a friend.
And every time you run an eventyou can't think everybody's
going to do it.
(11:20):
Some of them are like, oh man,we're out of town, we have a
soccer game or we have this andso forth.
You know you're not going toget everybody, but it's just
every weekend you should havesomething that's going on.
The other thing that Irecommend is really working with
your school systems having usgo to the schools and teach gym
classes and teaching I know Mayis Asian Pacific Islander month
(11:45):
and having them talk about theculture.
Having us talk about theculture of martial arts and
Korea, because I'm Korean andTaekwondo is Korean and whatever
martial art you're in, it justbrings a little flavor of that
culture to the school.
I'm a huge proponent ofcommunity talks.
I talk to the Rotary Club, theKiwanis Club, the local Chamber
of Commerce.
(12:05):
I'm a guest speaker and I do atleast three or four of these a
year.
And just going out and justtalking to the community about
what martial arts is about andso talking I have a great
PowerPoint on the history of aprogram and what we like to do
with them.
And then communitydemonstrations we go to churches
, synagogues, temples and ourdemonstration team will go and
(12:29):
do a demonstration and then wedo an anti-bullying seminar
throughout the community.
I just gave you 20 differenttypes of things that you can do
in the community that you shouldput on your marketing calendar.
A good friend and mentor of mine, master Merton, says and it's a
great quote I can tell you howsuccessful a school is based on
(12:50):
their event calendar and I'lltell you that that is such a
true statement is that you canreally see how great a school is
and how successful they are andthe size of them based on the
business of what they're doing.
And when we run our martial artsschool, what we tend to be busy
with is just we're busy runningclasses and getting people
(13:14):
ready for testings ortournaments or events or
demonstration and so forth, andsometimes you miss out on this
marketing, and I think I saidthis in the last podcast
Marketing is hard, in fact.
I don't like to swear, butmarketing is F word hard.
It's so hard In fact.
I don't like to swear, butmarketing is F word hard, it's
so hard.
And the more you work on makingsure that you are spending a
(13:37):
fair amount of your timemarketing, I'd have to say that
40% of your time running yourschool if you had the percentage
out where you spend your timein your school, 40% of it should
be focused on marketing.
So let's also look at leadcollection, master Hong.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, I just want to chime in real quick.
This is why keeping stats is soimportant.
If you don't keep stats withthese events, you're not going
to know which events areeffective, you're not going to
know which events draw in theleads and appointments.
Leads a week, 120 leads a month.
(14:17):
If we just for an averagesingle school owner that's I
don't know 60 to 120 students,it seems like a lot of leads.
Maybe not for multiple schoolowners with hundreds and
hundreds, maybe thousands ofactive students, maybe not.
But as a single school owner,120 leads seems like a lot.
Bringing down 30 leads a weekseems a lot.
(14:41):
But if you go through all theseevents that you mentioned
birthday party, group time,buddy day, not even including
social media, report card party,boy Scouts, girl Scouts events,
seminars, women's self-defense,anti-bullying class, board
breaking day, working withschools and you're making sure
(15:02):
that you leave these time slotsopen for these events, whether
it's Friday night, saturdaymorning, you could easily get 30
leads if you're doing all theseevents every weekend, every
month.
So it depends on how you view.
If you're just sitting in theoffice and you have 80 students,
(15:22):
you're like how am I going toget 120 leads this month?
You're not going to get itbecause you can't visualize it,
but if you go and make sure youschedule an open Saturday
morning for one of these eventsevery weekend, then it's a lot
more achievable.
That's great Community talkswith your local church and
(15:43):
organization that's priceless,master Chan.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I know, and you talk to a lot of school owners and
you go, oh, what time do you getto the dojang?
And a fair amount of them willsay I don't get there till 3.30
because my first class is atfour.
What did you do in the morning?
You know, I want to sincerelypoint out you will get results
in where you spend your time andmaking sure that I'm going to
(16:07):
run my school and I'm going tospend 40% of my time on some
marketing and making sure thatI'm working with my school
systems and things like that.
Or I'm at a school and I'mrunning gym classes that day and
so forth, and we're in thisweird social media phase where
people are, hey, relax at homeand have this income that just
(16:28):
comes in and you don't have todo a thing, and so forth.
We're in this weird generationand I think it's just back to
like the basics.
You got to just work hard andyou've got to promote your brand
and this is stuff that I'vebeen doing pre-internet.
This is the stuff that I had todo with my dad as we're running
our academies is that this isthe quickest way to grow your
(16:48):
school is to do a lot ofinternal marketing and then
going out into the community aswell, and it's just critically
important that you do that.
You can obviously adjust yournumbers If you're getting five
students a month.
Naturally, obviously, thewalk-ins it's a referral that
it's a neighbor of a studentthat happens to walk in and so
forth.
But I don't count on that.
(17:08):
I really make sure that let'suse this formula 120 leads a
month.
Let's work hard to make surethat we're able to collect as
much names, numbers and info ofmany people that we can.
And then we have to make surewhatever presentation we're
doing is rock solid.
It's got to make sure that.
(17:30):
It's one of these things wherepeople go.
Man, I really got to make sureI get my kid involved with this.
Man, I really got to make sureI get my kid involved with this.
Two of the primary things thatyou have to understand is that
parents are not interested in agood sidekick or the style that
you did, or the number oftournaments that you've won or
(17:50):
number of champions you produced.
It doesn't mean anything tothem.
What they do want to do is yougot to speak the benefits
language.
If my kid does this, he willturn into.
And what is that.
What is that?
That's every.
These are your universal thingslike having your kid become
more confident.
What parent doesn't want that?
(18:11):
Having your kid be resistantagainst bullying, that's a
confidence thing.
Having your kid become morefocused in school, having your
child become more disciplined intheir work habits for school,
and so forth, and making surethat you deliver.
You could have a great intro,but at the end of your intros,
(18:33):
if you're not having that kid beloud or that kid is not
standing straight and listening,it's a hot mess.
One thing that I think makes medifferent a little bit than
everybody else is that I stilllove teaching.
So this morning I went to oneof our locations and I taught
this beginner class.
I had a four-year-old rollingon the floor and licking the mat
(18:55):
, doing all this crazy stuff,and I talked to the kid, I tried
to inspire him to do this andso forth, and I talked to the
parent.
I'm like you've hired us tohave him become more confident.
So if he doesn't listen, he'sgoing to have to sit out.
It's a safety issue and it'sone of those things that you
know he's got to grow up alittle bit.
I can't help that kid Right now.
(19:16):
He's not doing anything.
I'm busting my hump trying toget this kid to do something.
He's just a little bit tooyoung at that point.
He doesn't have the maturitylevel.
Same class I had athree-year-old.
This little girl did everythingwas loud, followed directions
the best she can.
She did not roll around on thefloor.
(19:37):
That's something I can workwith.
So just making sure that youare promising what you delivered
.
Obviously the kid that'srolling on the ground.
I'm not going to be like, hey,listen, come in my office, I'd
love to talk to you, and time toenroll.
That's not going to work unlessI start getting this kid to
comply with what I want to do onthe floor.
And that's an incredibletalking point in making sure
(19:57):
that.
And if you don't have a goodcall script to call right to
have them come in, then itdoesn't matter.
Here let me just do a callscript for you.
Let me give you my birthdayparty call.
It's super simple but it isreally effective for us, a
family and I'll call andimmediately I'll go.
(20:20):
Can I speak to the mother orfather of Johnny?
Hi, this is Johnny's father, hi, and usually when they go, the
mother or father of Johnny?
Hi, this is Johnny's father Hi,and usually when they go, the
mother or father of Johnny, whatdid Johnny do Then?
Right off the bat, I go hi, myname is Instructor Chan Lee.
I don't call myself Masterbecause it sounds weird.
I'm Instructor Chan Lee with JKLee's Blackfoot Academy.
Hey, I met your son.
(20:41):
Three days ago he came to abirthday party for Joey.
Three days ago he came to abirthday party for Joey.
Did he have a good time?
Regardless of the answer, I go.
All the kids that came to theparty got a free two weeks of
lessons at our martial artsschool and in those lessons we
want to help kids become better,focused in school and also
become confident againstbullying.
(21:01):
And the reason I'm calling isto schedule his first
introductory lesson and we havetime Thursday or Friday.
Which one is good for you?
I just assume they're going tosay yes and at that point, once
I go through my spiel, they aregoing to either have a question
or they'll say you know what,we're not interested, or
whatever, maybe later on, orwhatever, and so forth.
(21:21):
And I'm telling you you'regoing to have a 50 to 70% return
based on the quality of thebirthday party and the quality
of the lead and super importantthat you're able to whoever's
calling should you know, scriptthis out, sit down, practice it,
and that they have the righttype of mindset and attitude to
do the calls.
I used to put this at aninstructor he was still with me.
(21:44):
Instructor Paul Loved the guy.
He's still with me.
Instructor Paul Loved the guy.
He's been with me for 20 yearsand when he was in college I
didn't want to do these calls soI'd give it to him.
I would go in the room I calledthe sweat box here's 100 leads
from this weekend.
Call and don't come out untilyou get me at least 10
(22:05):
appointments.
And then one day I just kind oflistened to what he was saying
and he's okay, are youinterested?
We saw you and I had the wrongperson doing calls.
I did.
The guy didn't want to do it,He'd rather be teaching on the
floor.
You know this could be anon-instructor, someone with a
very bubbly personality, in factone of the people that's in our
organization.
In fact, one of the peoplethat's in our organization.
She is a marketing director fora church and she is the most
(22:30):
positive person I've ever met.
And I asked her about doingcalls.
She said, sir, I'd love to dothe calls and we just I give her
a script, we practiced and I'mlike winner chicken dinner, here
we go and she is the rightperson to do that.
So, just making sure you havethe right pieces and the right
people to do these things, andif you don't have someone to do
(22:50):
that, you're going to have to doit yourself.
You need to set aside a time ona Saturday afternoon, right A
day that maybe you're notteaching classes.
You need to get on these callsand if you're a smaller school,
it's probably you in the firstplace, but you need to make sure
you practice your phone scriptsand make sure you sound super
high energy and so forth.
(23:11):
By the way, calling is dead.
No one answers their phone.
You're going to leave a reallygood, positive message.
Texting also is working.
So one of the things we do is wedo a text text and then we call
, so letting them know we'reabout to call, and then I also
give them a text offer as well.
You got to use multi forms ofcommunication and then we also
(23:33):
follow up with an email as well.
So just making sure you'rehitting up all these different
types of things and, once again,this is a lot of time, right.
There's a lot of time that youhave to spend curating leads and
talking with them and so forth.
I don't want this to say, ohyeah, you get 120 leads, you'll
get 20 students.
There's a process making sureyou're calling your leads
properly, you're setting theappointments.
(23:53):
Once the appointment's made,you're confirming the
appointment of the day and thatyou're texting them in the
morning and saying, hey, lookingforward to seeing you today at
four o'clock or five o'clock orwhatever.
It is making sure your introprocedures are rock solid, right
, that the class itself sellsitself and that you're getting a
high number of those people tosign up for your programs.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's a great point about your.
Okay?
So let's say you're a two-manschool, You're the master
instructor, and then you havethis instructor and his strength
is on the floor.
Why pull him out of hisstrength to make a less
percentage-based appointmentfrom these leads?
There are plenty of people thatsupport you, the families that
(24:37):
support you.
Get somebody who is extroverted, who's comfortable talking with
strangers and making cold calls, and have them do it and don't
take time out from yourinstructor on the mat to go out
and make these calls.
You got to think outside thebox here and that's a great
point.
Everybody just assumes, oh,because my instructor's on the
floor, he's got to make the call.
(24:57):
That's not his area ofexpertise.
That's not if it's his strength.
Keep your staff on the strengthof what they do best and look
outside the box.
I know for a fact that you,Master Chan, you have a lot of
the parents volunteer and helpas well.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
And that's another great thing.
Sometimes you have I have somehead corporate people or some.
I actually have a woman atanother one of our locations and
she used to be the McDonald'scorporate trainer.
She really trains a bunch of 14, 15, 16 year olds to work at
McDonald's and she's great atonboarding and calling and so
(25:37):
forth and she even gives meideas.
And so one of the things youcan do in lieu of tuition or in
lieu of testing fees or in lieuof gear, you can also ask
volunteers, someone with a gooddisposition that doesn't mind
calling right, and give them ascript and practice with them
and have them do it as well.
(25:57):
I one of my head instructors,who he's a great guy.
He's Marine Corps veteran, youknow, served and went into some
war-torn places and also did twoyears of professional
kickboxing.
So he, he knows his stuff, he'sa good, he's a great guy.
But if I ask him to ask a momfor $20 because she had to buy a
(26:19):
headband or something like that, he can't do it.
He has a lump in his throat andhe's like, sir, do you mind,
can you have someone else do it,or whatever.
But if I go hey, listen, thatguy came from a different
martial arts school and he wantsto freeze for us and fight to
see if our system works, he goes.
Oh yeah, no problem, just tohave him come in and I'd be
happy to freeze.
He'll fight anybody, but ifjust to ask him to ask for money
(26:41):
, it's just quite comical.
So just make sure you are ableto identify the right people in
your organization that can helpyou out and having you help you
grow your operations in yourschool.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
There you have it, folks.
That's the code Master Chancracked to achieve 20 new
students in 30 days.
We need to conclude here.
If you're enjoying our show, goahead and rate and review our
podcast or YouTube channel.
Our goal is to get our show assuccessful as possible, and your
review will help achieve that.
Have a great week and I lookforward to our next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.