July 24, 2025 • 39 mins
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Master Lee shares the fastest way to build a martial arts business through strategic networking and learning from successful peers rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
• Success leaves clues – learn from those who have already achieved what you want
• Having the right mindset is critical – be open to new ideas and changes
• Take immediate action on what you learn through networking
• Surround yourself with people more successful than you to grow faster
• Networking provides accountability, motivation, and friendship with like-minded owners
• The American School-Owners Association (ASA) Summit in Las Vegas brings together successful school owners
• Learn both business strategies and teaching techniques from industry leaders
• ROI from networking events can be substantial through implementing just one good idea
• Staff development is crucial – bring your team to learn professionalism and career pathways
Join us at the ASA Summit this October in Las Vegas to connect with the best minds in the martial arts business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In this week's episode the fastest way to build
your martial arts businessconnect and conquer.
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.
Master Chan has over 2,100active students with multiple
(00:25):
locations.
He is well-renowned and highlyrespected by his fellow peers
for his business acumen inoperating martial arts schools.
Master Chan, welcome to theshow, and I don't really
understand this topic today.
What are you talking about interms of connecting and
networking?
(00:45):
And conquering is the fastestway to build your business, and
it's not marketing, it's notlike sales and it's not
retention.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
here there are people that are a lot more successful
than all of us, in whateverindustry.
I recently got a chance in fact, you were there too we got a
chance to meet a billionaire,and we got a chance to meet this
guy at his office and we weretalking about some things and he
happens to own a very famousMMA gym.
That's one of his manybusinesses, and so a friend of
(01:18):
ours who is the head coach atthat gym gave us an introduction
and we wanted to bounce somebusiness ideas off of him and
his principles were super simpleand then I realized it's the
same principles I also abide byand I really wanted to kind of
(01:38):
share that with you.
Is that and here are some ofthe things that he said success
leaves clues.
People that are alreadysuccessful have already done
there and been where you want togo.
So instead of trying toreinvent the wheel, why not just
do the same thing right andthen tweak it for what you do?
And I realized that in mymartial art career.
Like the only way I learnedabout running a martial arts
(02:00):
school originally was my dad.
He ran the martial arts school.
I learned from him.
He had a kind of an old school,1970s, 1980s way of doing
things and then I just had tocome up with different.
I mean, back in the day myfather's classes were two hours
long 30 minutes of stretching,30 minutes of basic technique,
(02:21):
30 minutes of working on yourforms and the last 30 minutes
was sparring.
No kids, it was just all adultslearning how to fight and it
was just kind of a rough, roughthing, not a very sustainable
business model if you want toscale.
It's a very strong subset ofpeople and our market changed.
Our market changed in 1985 whenthe Karate Kid movie came and
(02:42):
all these kids came andeverybody now had to learn how
to teach children.
You have to adapt.
You also have to kind of veryexpertly learn from other
industries and be able to workwith children.
And so when I got into theindustry I only knew the way to
do things that my dad told me todo it and I knew some of these
ways were not a successfulformula.
(03:04):
So even though he had a reallysuccessful school he had back in
the day he had 300 students byhimself that were rabid fans of
the way he did things.
But as more kids got involvedwe had to kind of change things,
mentors and people and and inthat case there was no martial
(03:27):
art industry association, therewas no NAPMA, there was no ASA
or or anything any of thesetrade groups that are out there.
There was nothing.
There was no internet.
So literally you were like Iheard, this guy does well, and
then you would try to find thephone number and then call and
say, hey, I'm going to visityour school, is that okay?
And then you would get on anairplane and fly all the way
there and at that time I had amentor that lived in Florida and
(03:50):
he had eight schools and wasdoing super well and just
basically shared the way he wasdoing things.
And then we met a martial artconsultant.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Can I just say I never received any of those
calls.
I never got one call duringthat time.
So I just want to point thatout.
Well, the point is nobodycalled me Well here the thing is
successful people, right.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So you wanted to call successful people and at that
time you were floundering andanyway, that's right, and some
people it was a secret society.
So sometimes I went to New Yorkand I visited a karate school
that I heard was doing reallywell and I was like, hey, I was
wondering if you can give mesome lessons.
And I'd go in there and theygave me their lesson.
And then in fact, thisorganization had videotapes and
(04:38):
for the kids that don't knowthat before, before you went to
watch them, you had to put stuffin a videotape and then put it
in a machine, a VHS machine.
They gave out VHS tapes oftheir style.
So I got that.
I mean, I literally traveledeverywhere and I just said, ok,
well, let me, let me watch otherclasses and see how things were
done.
And then you go through trialand error.
(05:00):
You know you go and say, ok,let's, let's do this and see if
so.
You know you go and say, okay,let's, let's do this and see if
so.
For example, one of the thingsthat I really got into was
Olympic full contact sparringand I said this is going to be
great, this is really going tobe good and you know, we did
full contact sparring, gotpeople ready for a competition
(05:21):
and I got two kids on nationalteam and that was kind of my
model and I realized, wait, thisis not for the masses, people
that want to do that type ofsparring, they're going to quit.
And so we went to pointsparring, we went backwards, we
went back to point sparringlight touch.
We created a competition teamthat was separate, that did that
(05:42):
type of stuff.
So basically, my whole point isis that you have to fly
everywhere, go everywhere,network, learn, bring the ideas,
try it and then see if it fitswithin your culture and if it
doesn't, then you redo it.
The first time I saw a coloreduniform I mean, my dad is a
traditionalist it was whiteuniforms and I created a
(06:04):
leadership team and they worered uniforms and I remember just
saying, dad, I'm telling you,we don't have a lot of kids, let
me run with the kids program.
We fought tooth and nail andfinally he allowed me to get red
uniforms and all of a sudden Ikid you not, we're making about
$2,000 a month just on reduniforms.
(06:24):
And we had a leadership team, ahuge, great leadership team,
and then later on I created ademo team and they were blue
uniforms and this and that, andso you know, he saw the
retention and he saw that and hesaid, okay, maybe, maybe as a
traditionalist it doesn't fit mymodel, but for children it's a,
(06:45):
it's a separate adjunct program.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
he had an open mind to it.
So yes, sir, back back then,when my father was running the
the school, there was no, likeyou said, there was no internet,
and because there was no way toconnect.
I mean, obviously he hadfriends who was doing other
dojangs and stuff, but for forme, we didn't connect with
anybody and I guess that was whywe were so isolated and we did
(07:11):
all this trial and error and wedidn't know what was working or
not in the industry.
And I know my dad didn't knowand I sure didn't know as well.
So we were very in a bubble andwe just thought we were doing
so great because we had nobodyto compare it to.
I didn't have a network ofpeople to bounce ideas, to see
what was working in the industryand looking back on it, we
(07:34):
weren't doing well at allcompared to what I know now.
We just thought we did becausewe didn't know any better.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Right, and that's the thing.
Once you're in your own siloand you think this is the way it
should be, you just don't grow.
Which then brings me to my nextthing is that you got to have
the right mindset.
If you go, this is, you couldlead a horse to water and you
can't make it drink.
That's an old adage.
You could give someone thegreatest idea in the world and
(08:02):
they go that's not going to work.
Then it's not going to work.
If people don't have an openmind about doing things and
getting things done, then you'renot going to grow.
I'll give you an example.
I took five years of kendo andgumdo and I learned some Aido
(08:23):
and so forth.
And you know, I learned from atraditionalist and so I revered
the sword.
I thought, oh man, we've got tolearn Crouching Tiger, hidden
Dragon, the Last Samurai, we'regoing to learn some good swords.
I did all the sword stuff andjust got into it for a while.
And then, you know, one of myinstructors proposed to me and
they said, sir, I saw this we'regoing to take a birthday cake,
(08:48):
we're going to take the swordand we're going to cut the cake
with it.
And I was like dude, that's thedumbest idea on the planet.
You know, when you take out asword, my friend, that means
you're about to kill someone.
That's the meaning of the sword.
You take that sword out of thathilt, right, you're going to
kill someone, right?
That was the idea.
And then he did it and he tooksome pictures and I was like, oh
(09:09):
, people love it, kids love it.
What a great picture thing.
And I was like sometimes yougot to get out of your own way,
and being around young peopletoo, sometimes is a great way
because they're able to kind ofget away from the traditions.
And our birthday parties areare epic they're, they're fun.
And here we are, we're talkingepisode whatever, and we're
(09:30):
talking about birthday partiesagain I wanna, I wanna talk
about birthday parties.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Once we have to, we gotta drop it in and be like
it's gonna be a mission.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
We need more cowbells .
The people listening to I getthe reference and the younger
people are like cowbells.
What's a cowbell?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No, but you're absolutely right with the
younger people, because theyhave this perspective that
you've never even thought about.
And some of them arefar-fetched out there, but a lot
of them are like, hey, that's agreat idea if you're
open-minded, if you're atraditional master business
owner.
But no, no, no, my way, my way,you're not going to get
anything.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But if you listen to your younger staff and your
younger leaders I meanleadership students, I mean they
have some great ideas and youdon't want to be surrounded by a
bunch of yes people, right, youwant people to bring some ideas
and you guys can all worktogether and all this.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well, that's why my family, they never say yes to me
.
They're all no people.
It's the only you're successful.
I follow that.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
The only person that listens to you is your dog,
pixie, but anyway, she doesn'teven listen.
But my whole point is if youare exactly where you're at,
based on the habits and mindsetyou have now, so if you continue
to have them, then thefollowing year you're going to
(10:50):
do the same thing.
So you got to change things.
You got to have a positivemindset and an open mindset to
change.
The next thing too is I haveseveral juniors Like.
I have a junior I call him thephenomena.
Within three years of meetinghim he's built a multimillion
dollar building.
His school is bursting out ofthe seams and before that it was
(11:14):
just a small mom and popoperation.
And this kid also has an MBA.
Smart kid immediately takesaction.
You give him an idea and he'slike hey, what do you think of
that?
Oh, yeah, I already institutedit.
The person by the T takesimmediate action in whatever
they take.
They don't just sit on it, mullon it and whatever, and they
(11:37):
take action.
And sometimes the actionspectacularly fails.
They said it didn't work andthen they call you and you go
hey, this didn't work.
Okay, did you do it this way?
Oh, they have feedback.
They're able to kind of keepre-engineering the idea.
It's people that here we go.
It's people that say birthdayparties don't work and you're
(11:58):
like, how many did you do Two?
And I'm like, all right, what'dyou do?
And I taught the kids how to doa form and we stretched for
half the class.
Okay, well, that's a terriblebirthday party If you don't
experiment and keep trying andtrial and error and keep going,
it makes a huge difference.
Oh, by the way, talking aboutsecret to success, I have a I
(12:20):
don't want to name the companybecause it's kind of company
secrets, but I know this company.
My wife's best friend worksthere and it's a sporting goods
type stuff, very big and manydifferent brands that they cover
, and they're losing moneybecause of the economy right now
People are not buying some oftheir products.
And I said, well, what aboutthis?
And she goes well, there's onedepartment that's kicking ass.
(12:41):
I go really, it's our apparel.
And I go really, they're up300%.
And I just out of curiosity, Isaid, why, what are you guys
doing?
She goes oh, we hired the samecompany that did Lululemon and
they are now doing our marketingand we're doing the same
(13:02):
products and we just copied andnow we're up 300 percent and
it's the same stuff that Davetold us about.
It's the billionaire.
It's like, take a formula rightSuccess leaves clues.
Just do it and copy the peoplethat are ahead of you and be in
being ahead of you, and thenreformat and rinse and repeat.
Just keep doing it.
And to me that's justincredibly important.
(13:25):
Advice is that, yes, you mayhave a unique idea, but if
someone else is doing it, justjust copy it and then redo it
and then refashion it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
That just for our listeners and our viewers.
Dave is a person that we metthrough one of our associates
and he he is a multimilliondollar, multimillion dollar
success, but not in our industry.
He he's in a different staffingindustry of all industries.
But we ended up picking hisbrain for hours when it was
(13:58):
supposed to be a 20-minutemeeting.
But he liked us so much he wassharing how he got his success,
what he did from the ground up,from the first company to others
.
And then you asked a greatquestion there in the middle and
he's like why would you do allthis?
He's like I'm not even a smartguy.
(14:19):
I'm paraphrasing.
All I did was I just copiedfrom a successful company.
And then I just did it myselfand did it better.
And at first we were like, Imean, it seems so simple, we
didn't think much of it.
But now, going back, just likewhat you're saying, it's oh my
gosh, you know, and thatLululemon story, I mean how many
(14:40):
of these billion-dollarcompanies, just instead of
creating something, they're justcopying something else and just
doing it better.
That's all the time, every dayin America 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
That's all the time every day in america, 100 and
and and that's the thing is,people go I'm going to do this
and and just do it my own wayand this is the way, and and
they just don't.
They don't have, you know, theidea that don't recreate the
wheel, just just do what people,what other successful people
have done and and doing it.
I'm saying I'm not a big realestate guy and I have.
(15:13):
I have a couple of students andpeople that I know and friends
that are big time real estatedevelopers, like huge, and you
know, I would sit down and say,okay, how did you guys do this
deal?
How does one person works,works strategically with a
grocery company and he puts upall the grocery stores here in
(15:34):
town and I'm like, how do youguys negotiate a deal like that
and how you're able to workthrough?
I have another friend thatworks with a coffee company and
has put up 20 locations for themand he owns a piece of the real
estate and I'm like, how doesthat work?
And I have a few deals myselfthat I put together some strip
malls and whatever.
And as I was just getting intothat, I didn't want to come up
(15:56):
with my own idea.
It's not even my wheelhouse.
So I contacted these two people, I had lunch with them, paid
for some drinks and we sat downand talked and next thing, you
know, I had a template of whereI needed to go with some of my
real estate deals.
And next thing, you know, I hada template of where I needed to
go with some of my real estatedeals, because that's within the
norm.
I know, Jimmy, you do very wellwith real estate and I know in
(16:17):
the beginning you didn't come upwith these great ideas.
With your real estate holdings.
You followed a template, right,you followed.
And then, not only that, you'repart of a big networking group
that says these are the latesttrends.
And at one point you were comingup to me and I introduced you
to some people too, and one ofthe friends I have has 200 units
(16:38):
of apartments and I know you'reinvolved in a little bit of
stuff like that and you guysstarted talking and I'm sitting
here and you guys spoke the samelanguage of how to do a zero
down deal on this and that orwhatever, and I'm just sitting
there going holy cow, here'sanother world.
I just really don't know abouthow you guys were just talking
and doing stuff.
And then you guys got intotrailer park homes and you told
(16:59):
me about this way back and I'mlike you trash, I can't believe
you're getting into trailer parkhomes.
You're telling me that.
I'm like I can't believe.
I was like you'll just doanything for a buck.
Yeah, yeah, you get a Lord.
And all of a sudden this guy Iknow that with 20, he's like hey
, we bought three trailer parkhomes.
I'm like what he goes?
(17:19):
Yeah, these things aremoneymakers and and and you're
telling me he was already aheadof you.
But then, just from you guysnetworking, I was just sitting
there going holy cow.
And so here's my next point Ifyou're the, the, you're, if
you're the best person in yourgroup and your friend circle,
then you're in the wrong circle.
(17:40):
You need to be around peoplethat kind of scare, you kind of
intimidate, you kind of like aredoing better than you.
And and I really believe if you, if you don't do that, you're
not going to grow.
And to me that's an importantpart of that.
I can sincerely say I'mprobably the least successful
person in my friends group.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I know your friends, Master Chan, and you are
definitely not the leastsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, I'm saying, the group I'm with you is, that's
the lower tier group.
I'm talking about my otherhigher tier group.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Anyway, you, know you just got with that dig.
You got to get that dig inAnyway.
So, and I think it's importantthat you have all types of
people and I'm going to do aquick pitch here.
I'm part of the AmericanSabanim Association and I helped
create this group and it's anetworking group that I helped
(18:37):
put together and because I justwanted to give back to other
people that helped me, becauseif it wasn't for all my other
seniors that got together andhelped me be where I'm at, then
I'm just kind of paying itforward.
So we have a group of it'sactually a super eclectic group.
There's an eclectic, there's ahigher group of people that have
(19:00):
10, 15, you know, 20 locationsto people that have five, five,
six locations, to some peoplethat are they're probably six
months away from closing thatare there and they show up and,
yeah, we do seminars.
Of course, these people talkand they talk about how they did
(19:20):
it and the secret to theirsuccess and we have everything
from marketing to staffing, toteaching good classes, teaching
new drills.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, okay, to bring in the audiences of our
listeners and viewership.
Master Chan started thisorganization called ASA and it's
American.
It's actually American SchoolOwners Association.
I don't know why Master Chankeeps talking about different
American School OwnersAssociation for all martial arts
school owners and what he doesis that he shares.
(19:56):
We meet once a year in the bestevent in Las Vegas in October
every year.
We've been doing it for 20something years.
It's crazy awesome.
Everybody comes from all overthe country.
This is actually how MasterChan's been building his network
of successful andnon-successful martial arts
(20:17):
schools.
There will be successful schoolowners that come in to see what
the industry is doing, whatMaster Chan is doing, and then
there are single, small schoolowners coming in to increase
their and grow their schools.
So we have all range of martialarts, and this is not just
Taekwondo, by the way.
This is all martial arts, fromkarate, from jujitsu, from Kung
(20:42):
Fu school owners.
So everybody's invited.
It's all inclusive and it's thebest martial arts business
seminar because of what MasterChan does.
Seminar because of what masterchan does.
He shares everything, like likehe's sharing right now with you
in these podcasts.
He's sharing everything ofwhat's going on in our industry,
(21:03):
what is working and what is not.
And it's, and, master chan, Iremember when we did this.
We've done this survey ofparticipants and we found out
that every participant thatincreased their profits and
student count and retentionthreefold within the three
(21:40):
months and they're keeping intouch.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I mean, you know, this is the event of the year,
the thing that's I mean, just asimportant as the actual
seminars is there are threereally main events of networking
.
So at our opening ceremonyactually we're not doing opening
ceremonies, we're doing aopening mixer where everybody's
getting together in a roundtable with each of our speakers
(22:05):
and some high-level schoolowners and they are going to be
able to kind of talk and askspecific questions.
At Friday night there is a kindof a mixer, kind of an informal
mixer.
A lot of people, in fact 90% ofthe people, go there and meet
up and talk and you can ask.
All our speakers and all oursuccessful school owners are
(22:27):
readily available to talk andexplain how they're doing it and
you can bring their questions.
And then Saturday night we havea barbecue.
We have a Korean barbecue thatwe go out afterwards and
everybody just really enjoyseach other's time.
So I think most things likethis, people go all right, I'm
in, I'm out, and but really ityou're really missing the point
(22:50):
if you're not doing thenetworking portions and
everybody's really helping usout.
And and we've got some prettyamazing speakers We've got the
master, tony cook, who is inCanada, who used to be a U S, a
Canadian team member.
He's also a Brazilian jujitsublack belt.
He has six very successfullocations and his seventh
(23:11):
location is is a BJJ school andhe's going to talk about how to
do staffing and how to createdynamic staff, how to motivate
dynamic staff and how he's doneit.
We have Master Tony Chung, whohas been on this podcast,
amazing speaker and has a wealthof knowledge in how to build a
small school and be veryprofitable at it.
(23:32):
Master Bronson Ko, who I'veknown for 20 plus years.
His father is also agrandmaster in Taekwondo.
He has, in my opinion, one ofthe most beautiful schools in
the United States in Kansas City, and also charges one of the
highest dollar amounts I've everheard of $400 plus a month in
tuition.
And he's just talking about whathe does.
And I asked him once.
(23:53):
I said what was your secret?
Are you teaching blow darts andninja stars and you're climbing
rock, climbing a wall, or no,just Taekwondo, just very, very
basic Taekwondo and how he doesit.
And then one of the things Ilike about our ASSA sessions is
that we also do have physicalsessions that you can bring into
your classroom.
So we have a world strikingcoach.
(24:16):
Coach Eddie Cha is going to bethere and he's an MMA coach with
a company called Fight Ready.
He's created three UFCchampions out of that gym and
he's also a Taekwondo guy, so hehas some background in
traditional martial arts.
He's going to teach us someadvanced rules that you can use
for your black belts and foryour students.
And then we have Master StephenLambden Olympian in 2016, I
(24:38):
believe in Taekwondo is going totalk about some advanced drills
.
And then we have Master TimThackery, who is a strength and
conditioning coach, is going tobe talking at this year's ASSA
as well.
We also have Dave Young DaveDave Young and Dave Young is the
(25:01):
master of reality-basedself-defense, and if you say
self-defense, you're going tohave to include knife and gun,
because if we ever get mugged onthe street, it's probably going
to be with one of those twoweapons, and so it's super
important that people have thattype of realistic curriculum in
their repertoire, and so we havehim, who is his day rate for a
police department is about$10,000.
(25:22):
So it's kind of cool to havehim at our summit teaching.
We also have Master VictoriaRepepe, who helps manage eight
martial arts schools in theCleveland area and she's the
head of the sales and some ofthe staff there, so we're going
to get her expertise.
And then we have Josh Lannan,who I met him at an AI marketing
(25:43):
conference and he spoke lastyear and just blew our minds
with the technologies of how AIand how you can use that in your
marketing pieces.
And then we have the famousDave Zewine, who is a very
successful business guy, who'sgoing to be speaking at this
year's conference as well.
So it's a star-studded lineupof the who's who in martial arts
and people that can help yourbusiness.
(26:05):
And, more importantly, I reallydo believe I would not be where
I'm at today if I didn't networkand I flew all over the world
talking to people at individualschools.
You guys get a chance to do allthis in one stop shop, at a, at
a thing, and then, importantly,you'll make some friends.
That's going to help you, keepyou accountable, to help you
(26:26):
grow into your next, the nextlevel of where you want to be.
So if you want a fast track togrowth, don't reinvent the wheel
right.
There's a shortcut.
The shortcut is ask the peoplethat have been there and that's
done it and meet up with themand then I will be there.
I would love to meet you andhelp you and as an industry, we
are doing a super poor job.
(26:48):
We're still less than 3% of theUS population, so we really
need to do a better job ofmarketing for the US population.
So we really need to do abetter job of marketing,
teaching, inspiring, changinglives.
And if you do that in mind, Ireally believe you'll be
successful.
And so, anyway, that's kind ofmy two cent pitch.
I know I've been given a lot ofgreat advice through these
(27:11):
podcasts and things like that,but I really do believe the
shortcut is networking with someof the top people in our
industry.
And what's crazy is we'll haveother people like we have one
school owner who she spoke atpast events of ours.
She did two and a half milliondollars in one location.
She's there networking andlearning and seeing.
(27:34):
So if there's someone that Iknow and, by the way, she has
got an MBA from Stanford Ifthere's people that that's going
to be there, then I reallybelieve then you have no excuse
to be there.
They're learning, there's areason, they're successful and
that's, and that's important,that you guys go to get get a
chance to kind of network and beout there and and be able to
kind of talk to other peoplewell, can I, can I add it's we,
(28:01):
I.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I get this all the time.
Just going through day-to-daygrind, I get tunnel vision
because I'm just focused on, onthe school, on the day-to-day
that, so I I forget to step backand and take bigger picture.
And that's what this ASA Summitis all about.
It's a martial arts businessseminar held in Las Vegas, of
all places.
So, las Vegas, we want you towork hard, we want you to go to
(28:27):
the summit hard and we want youto vacation hard as well.
So make it an event.
But, master Chan, I have aquestion for you.
What do you say to those singleschool?
Master Chan, I have a questionfor you.
What do you say to those singleschool owners who doesn't have
a staff?
How are they supposed to cometo this event?
What do you say to those?
I mean, forget about the schoolowners who have a staff that
(28:48):
will, I don't know, take care oftheir school while they're
attending.
But what about the singleschool owners who don't have a
staff to continue their schoolon that weekend let's say it's
the first weekend of it's,october 2nd to 3rd, it's in Las
Vegas.
What do you say to those schoolowners?
How are they supposed to?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
come.
If you're really, I'll give youtwo things.
If you're really scared aboutsomething happening or you don't
really have anybody to help runthe school two days, that you
close, you can tell and I'vedone this in the past when I was
a smaller school owner and Ihad to go to places or wanted to
learn something or go to atournament, is that I would call
(29:26):
it instructor development, justlike any school.
Schools kind of have a forschool teachers, they have
teacher in service and they doteacher development or teacher
learning or instruction.
So I would tell your studentsearly on saying, hey, this is
the weekend that will be closedfor two days and we're going to
do and learn new things to bringback to our schools, to make
(29:50):
our school better and let peopleknow.
So that's my answer to that.
If you're really scared aboutstaffing and so forth, then just
to close it for four, you won't.
You won't go out of businessafter being closed for two days
and but but you will go out ofbusiness if you don't attend
this.
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So go, go, come, come and learn, I mean.
(30:13):
And how can you go, come, comeand learn?
I mean, and how can you?
What's important is that yourroi right return on investment
if you come back with an idea.
I mean, I remember one year wehad a grandmaster, Kim from
Rochester, and he gave us anidea and I I just took copious
notes and then all weekend Ihounded him and I took more
(30:35):
notes and then I gave him, Iplayed the what if?
Game and then afterwards I hithim up again and he had this
Black Friday sale for uniforms.
I mean the guy did $200,000 inone weekend on membership sales
slash.
Like what else did he do?
He did retail apparel.
(30:55):
I didn't make that much.
Usually I do a holiday sale 20,25,000, whatever and I remember
we did his ideas and I was likeI doubled it.
I was at 75,000.
And to me I mean, yeah, it's acouple thousand dollars to get
out to Vegas and your hotelrooms and pay for the seminar
ticket and dinners and this andthat, but the return on
(31:18):
investment was like it waspeanuts.
Just that idea alone made me$35,000.
And so if you look at otherthings from that standpoint, you
got to look at the investmentin your education and growing
your school Coach, Eddie.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, can I also add I forgot to make the point of
having tunnel vision withday-to-day and then you're
coming out for one weekend andyou're meeting everybody that
knows where you're coming from,knows how hard you work for your
school.
Going through the daily grindof your classes raising that
(31:54):
really opens up something,master Chan.
I'm like when I daily grind ofyour classes raising, that
really opens up something,master Chan.
When I come out of that weekendI'm refreshed, I'm re-energized
, re-motivated and I'm soproductive for the months
afterwards I can confidently sayyou have to come.
It's not like you should come.
You have to come because yourschool will be so much more
(32:17):
successful in just a few monthsafter coming because of all, not
only all the knowledge thatyou're gained from from all
these speakers and theirseminars, but from the important
part that nobody talks about isthe networking of people who
you're meeting.
And guess what?
You're going to continue yourcommunication with these people
(32:37):
that you've met in an ASA eventthroughout the year, because
then you're going to motivateeach other to do hey, did you
try this, did you try thisbirthday party?
Did you try this buddy day?
And you're going to comparenotes and get better and better
and that's how your school isgoing to be successful.
Through networking, throughnetworking.
That exactly what this topicand this episode.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
You know, I was listening to Grandmaster Tony
Chung's podcast and he wastalking about filling sandbags.
And if you go, you're justfilling sandbags, because I told
you to fill sandbags.
Or did you fill sandbagsbecause there's a flood about to
come and you need to help savethe town?
And now there's a little bitmore purpose into why you're
filling sandbags.
(33:20):
And and I I believe sometimeswe, if you're just coming to the
summit to make money, then Idon't really don't want you
there, I don't think you shouldbe there.
But if you really feel likeyou're going to make an impact
in making your communitystronger and making your
students better and then reallymaking an impact in helping
(33:41):
changing lives through martialarts, if you are from that
mindset and mold, I reallybelieve, then on the other end,
then the money's going to bethere, all that's going to be
there, and I really believe thathaving a purpose and having a
philosophy behind what you domakes you a better teacher and a
better, a better business.
(34:02):
Owner of your martial artsschool.
Um, and and we've all heardthis we, we know all the guys
that have run martial artsschools purely for the money and
they all fail because we'remaking a commitment to our
students and and helping them bethe best they can be through
the arts, and we have a uniqueprivilege of doing that.
So, as you're saying, yeah,you're working in your business
(34:24):
on the grind, but then all of asudden you're the teacher, so
you need to go out and you needto educate, be re-motivated,
find better strategies forrunning your schools, helping
you kind of get to that nextplateau of changing as many
lives as you can doing what youdo.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Can I also add, obviously, everybody who's in
this industry.
There are other events that'sgoing on in the country, but
what makes ASA summit sodifferent than others?
Those people are nerds.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Those people are nerds and we're cool.
That's the that's I mean.
That's all you need tounderstand.
That's the main difference.
Like who would you rather sharea chocolate milk with what?
What type of protein shake canwe eat and and and?
Was that the answer?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I can confidently say , confidently say, master Chan
and I have been to all theseevents.
What makes ASA Summit differentis that these other big events,
they don't share anything, theydon't network.
Their speakers are there justto give them a little nugget and
(35:44):
upsell their program.
That they're selling popular isbecause we share everything
with the intent of trying tomake school owners better and
successful the next day.
(36:04):
And our ASA Summit, it's thegrand event that we're doing.
These episodes are just nuggetsfor everybody, but then come to
our event and then you will seethat everything that we talk
about, it all comes togetherbecause there's no, we don't
hold anything back.
We share everything that'sgoing on with the industry, with
(36:25):
what works, what doesn't, andall these topics.
The list of our speakers is so,it's so big we don't even know
how we're going to filleverybody in on these events.
But that's just what we do.
That's that's how we like tooperate, this is how we like to
show and that is why our ASAsummit is so much better than
(36:45):
than.
I'm not even going to namenames by the other events out
there, because there's nosharing.
They they just say, oh, come tothis, you're going to learn
this, but they don't shareanything and anyone who goes to
that because I've gone to that,master Chana has gone to that,
and we come back and we're likewe didn't learn anything at all.
We don't even know what this isabout.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So the last thing I want to leave everybody with so
it doesn't feel like we're doingone big pitch here is that we
launched something for the firsttime and it is called the staff
university and we are I'm, I'veI've been bringing my staff, my
and my head instructors to this.
I know a lot of martial artsschool owners are bringing their
, their staff, and so we'regoing to have a section on the
(37:25):
professionalism of becoming amartial art, martial art
industry person, um, and sowe're going to talk about sales,
marketing, some of the how torun a good classroom floor, how
to be a professional in themartial art industry I think
these are all very, veryimportant things and having the
standards.
So we're going to have anowner's section and then now
(37:46):
we're going to have a staffuniversity.
So cool story.
I took one of my part-time stafftwo years ago and he went to
ASA and we hung out.
He got to meet other people.
He saw the potential of this asa career.
Came back a year later he goessir, I'm going to do this as a
career.
So we're going to be openingour seventh school with this
person.
So very kind of a cool thingthat we're doing, but it's a
(38:11):
great way to kind of celebrateour successes thing that we're
doing.
But it's a great way to kind ofcelebrate our successes, our
victories, our losses, ourthings that are.
We're kind of like knee deep inand having a hard time.
So we would love to see youguys there and, if you can make
it, be rest assured, you'rehanging out with the coolest
people in the martial artindustry.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That wraps up another power-packed episode of the
Black Belt Banter podcast.
My thanks to Master Chan Leeand the ASA Summit.
Registration is live now, socheck out the link in our show
notes or head totheblackbeltbantercom to reserve
your spot.
Thanks for listening and seeyou guys on our next episode.
In this week's episode the fastest way to build
your martial arts businessconnect and conquer.
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.
Master Chan has over 2,100active students with multiple
(00:25):
locations.
He is well-renowned and highlyrespected by his fellow peers
for his business acumen inoperating martial arts schools.
Master Chan, welcome to theshow, and I don't really
understand this topic today.
What are you talking about interms of connecting and
networking?
(00:45):
And conquering is the fastestway to build your business, and
it's not marketing, it's notlike sales and it's not
retention.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
here there are people that are a lot more successful
than all of us, in whateverindustry.
I recently got a chance in fact, you were there too we got a
chance to meet a billionaire,and we got a chance to meet this
guy at his office and we weretalking about some things and he
happens to own a very famousMMA gym.
That's one of his manybusinesses, and so a friend of
(01:18):
ours who is the head coach atthat gym gave us an introduction
and we wanted to bounce somebusiness ideas off of him and
his principles were super simpleand then I realized it's the
same principles I also abide byand I really wanted to kind of
(01:38):
share that with you.
Is that and here are some ofthe things that he said success
leaves clues.
People that are alreadysuccessful have already done
there and been where you want togo.
So instead of trying toreinvent the wheel, why not just
do the same thing right andthen tweak it for what you do?
And I realized that in mymartial art career.
Like the only way I learnedabout running a martial arts
(02:00):
school originally was my dad.
He ran the martial arts school.
I learned from him.
He had a kind of an old school,1970s, 1980s way of doing
things and then I just had tocome up with different.
I mean, back in the day myfather's classes were two hours
long 30 minutes of stretching,30 minutes of basic technique,
(02:21):
30 minutes of working on yourforms and the last 30 minutes
was sparring.
No kids, it was just all adultslearning how to fight and it
was just kind of a rough, roughthing, not a very sustainable
business model if you want toscale.
It's a very strong subset ofpeople and our market changed.
Our market changed in 1985 whenthe Karate Kid movie came and
(02:42):
all these kids came andeverybody now had to learn how
to teach children.
You have to adapt.
You also have to kind of veryexpertly learn from other
industries and be able to workwith children.
And so when I got into theindustry I only knew the way to
do things that my dad told me todo it and I knew some of these
ways were not a successfulformula.
(03:04):
So even though he had a reallysuccessful school he had back in
the day he had 300 students byhimself that were rabid fans of
the way he did things.
But as more kids got involvedwe had to kind of change things,
mentors and people and and inthat case there was no martial
(03:27):
art industry association, therewas no NAPMA, there was no ASA
or or anything any of thesetrade groups that are out there.
There was nothing.
There was no internet.
So literally you were like Iheard, this guy does well, and
then you would try to find thephone number and then call and
say, hey, I'm going to visityour school, is that okay?
And then you would get on anairplane and fly all the way
there and at that time I had amentor that lived in Florida and
(03:50):
he had eight schools and wasdoing super well and just
basically shared the way he wasdoing things.
And then we met a martial artconsultant.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Can I just say I never received any of those
calls.
I never got one call duringthat time.
So I just want to point thatout.
Well, the point is nobodycalled me Well here the thing is
successful people, right.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So you wanted to call successful people and at that
time you were floundering andanyway, that's right, and some
people it was a secret society.
So sometimes I went to New Yorkand I visited a karate school
that I heard was doing reallywell and I was like, hey, I was
wondering if you can give mesome lessons.
And I'd go in there and theygave me their lesson.
And then in fact, thisorganization had videotapes and
(04:38):
for the kids that don't knowthat before, before you went to
watch them, you had to put stuffin a videotape and then put it
in a machine, a VHS machine.
They gave out VHS tapes oftheir style.
So I got that.
I mean, I literally traveledeverywhere and I just said, ok,
well, let me, let me watch otherclasses and see how things were
done.
And then you go through trialand error.
(05:00):
You know you go and say, ok,let's, let's do this and see if
so.
You know you go and say, okay,let's, let's do this and see if
so.
For example, one of the thingsthat I really got into was
Olympic full contact sparringand I said this is going to be
great, this is really going tobe good and you know, we did
full contact sparring, gotpeople ready for a competition
(05:21):
and I got two kids on nationalteam and that was kind of my
model and I realized, wait, thisis not for the masses, people
that want to do that type ofsparring, they're going to quit.
And so we went to pointsparring, we went backwards, we
went back to point sparringlight touch.
We created a competition teamthat was separate, that did that
(05:42):
type of stuff.
So basically, my whole point isis that you have to fly
everywhere, go everywhere,network, learn, bring the ideas,
try it and then see if it fitswithin your culture and if it
doesn't, then you redo it.
The first time I saw a coloreduniform I mean, my dad is a
traditionalist it was whiteuniforms and I created a
(06:04):
leadership team and they worered uniforms and I remember just
saying, dad, I'm telling you,we don't have a lot of kids, let
me run with the kids program.
We fought tooth and nail andfinally he allowed me to get red
uniforms and all of a sudden Ikid you not, we're making about
$2,000 a month just on reduniforms.
(06:24):
And we had a leadership team, ahuge, great leadership team,
and then later on I created ademo team and they were blue
uniforms and this and that, andso you know, he saw the
retention and he saw that and hesaid, okay, maybe, maybe as a
traditionalist it doesn't fit mymodel, but for children it's a,
(06:45):
it's a separate adjunct program.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
he had an open mind to it.
So yes, sir, back back then,when my father was running the
the school, there was no, likeyou said, there was no internet,
and because there was no way toconnect.
I mean, obviously he hadfriends who was doing other
dojangs and stuff, but for forme, we didn't connect with
anybody and I guess that was whywe were so isolated and we did
(07:11):
all this trial and error and wedidn't know what was working or
not in the industry.
And I know my dad didn't knowand I sure didn't know as well.
So we were very in a bubble andwe just thought we were doing
so great because we had nobodyto compare it to.
I didn't have a network ofpeople to bounce ideas, to see
what was working in the industryand looking back on it, we
(07:34):
weren't doing well at allcompared to what I know now.
We just thought we did becausewe didn't know any better.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Right, and that's the thing.
Once you're in your own siloand you think this is the way it
should be, you just don't grow.
Which then brings me to my nextthing is that you got to have
the right mindset.
If you go, this is, you couldlead a horse to water and you
can't make it drink.
That's an old adage.
You could give someone thegreatest idea in the world and
(08:02):
they go that's not going to work.
Then it's not going to work.
If people don't have an openmind about doing things and
getting things done, then you'renot going to grow.
I'll give you an example.
I took five years of kendo andgumdo and I learned some Aido
(08:23):
and so forth.
And you know, I learned from atraditionalist and so I revered
the sword.
I thought, oh man, we've got tolearn Crouching Tiger, hidden
Dragon, the Last Samurai, we'regoing to learn some good swords.
I did all the sword stuff andjust got into it for a while.
And then, you know, one of myinstructors proposed to me and
they said, sir, I saw this we'regoing to take a birthday cake,
(08:48):
we're going to take the swordand we're going to cut the cake
with it.
And I was like dude, that's thedumbest idea on the planet.
You know, when you take out asword, my friend, that means
you're about to kill someone.
That's the meaning of the sword.
You take that sword out of thathilt, right, you're going to
kill someone, right?
That was the idea.
And then he did it and he tooksome pictures and I was like, oh
(09:09):
, people love it, kids love it.
What a great picture thing.
And I was like sometimes yougot to get out of your own way,
and being around young peopletoo, sometimes is a great way
because they're able to kind ofget away from the traditions.
And our birthday parties areare epic they're, they're fun.
And here we are, we're talkingepisode whatever, and we're
(09:30):
talking about birthday partiesagain I wanna, I wanna talk
about birthday parties.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Once we have to, we gotta drop it in and be like
it's gonna be a mission.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
We need more cowbells .
The people listening to I getthe reference and the younger
people are like cowbells.
What's a cowbell?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No, but you're absolutely right with the
younger people, because theyhave this perspective that
you've never even thought about.
And some of them arefar-fetched out there, but a lot
of them are like, hey, that's agreat idea if you're
open-minded, if you're atraditional master business
owner.
But no, no, no, my way, my way,you're not going to get
anything.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But if you listen to your younger staff and your
younger leaders I meanleadership students, I mean they
have some great ideas and youdon't want to be surrounded by a
bunch of yes people, right, youwant people to bring some ideas
and you guys can all worktogether and all this.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well, that's why my family, they never say yes to me
.
They're all no people.
It's the only you're successful.
I follow that.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
The only person that listens to you is your dog,
pixie, but anyway, she doesn'teven listen.
But my whole point is if youare exactly where you're at,
based on the habits and mindsetyou have now, so if you continue
to have them, then thefollowing year you're going to
(10:50):
do the same thing.
So you got to change things.
You got to have a positivemindset and an open mindset to
change.
The next thing too is I haveseveral juniors Like.
I have a junior I call him thephenomena.
Within three years of meetinghim he's built a multimillion
dollar building.
His school is bursting out ofthe seams and before that it was
(11:14):
just a small mom and popoperation.
And this kid also has an MBA.
Smart kid immediately takesaction.
You give him an idea and he'slike hey, what do you think of
that?
Oh, yeah, I already institutedit.
The person by the T takesimmediate action in whatever
they take.
They don't just sit on it, mullon it and whatever, and they
(11:37):
take action.
And sometimes the actionspectacularly fails.
They said it didn't work andthen they call you and you go
hey, this didn't work.
Okay, did you do it this way?
Oh, they have feedback.
They're able to kind of keepre-engineering the idea.
It's people that here we go.
It's people that say birthdayparties don't work and you're
(11:58):
like, how many did you do Two?
And I'm like, all right, what'dyou do?
And I taught the kids how to doa form and we stretched for
half the class.
Okay, well, that's a terriblebirthday party If you don't
experiment and keep trying andtrial and error and keep going,
it makes a huge difference.
Oh, by the way, talking aboutsecret to success, I have a I
(12:20):
don't want to name the companybecause it's kind of company
secrets, but I know this company.
My wife's best friend worksthere and it's a sporting goods
type stuff, very big and manydifferent brands that they cover
, and they're losing moneybecause of the economy right now
People are not buying some oftheir products.
And I said, well, what aboutthis?
And she goes well, there's onedepartment that's kicking ass.
(12:41):
I go really, it's our apparel.
And I go really, they're up300%.
And I just out of curiosity, Isaid, why, what are you guys
doing?
She goes oh, we hired the samecompany that did Lululemon and
they are now doing our marketingand we're doing the same
(13:02):
products and we just copied andnow we're up 300 percent and
it's the same stuff that Davetold us about.
It's the billionaire.
It's like, take a formula rightSuccess leaves clues.
Just do it and copy the peoplethat are ahead of you and be in
being ahead of you, and thenreformat and rinse and repeat.
Just keep doing it.
And to me that's justincredibly important.
(13:25):
Advice is that, yes, you mayhave a unique idea, but if
someone else is doing it, justjust copy it and then redo it
and then refashion it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
That just for our listeners and our viewers.
Dave is a person that we metthrough one of our associates
and he he is a multimilliondollar, multimillion dollar
success, but not in our industry.
He he's in a different staffingindustry of all industries.
But we ended up picking hisbrain for hours when it was
(13:58):
supposed to be a 20-minutemeeting.
But he liked us so much he wassharing how he got his success,
what he did from the ground up,from the first company to others
.
And then you asked a greatquestion there in the middle and
he's like why would you do allthis?
He's like I'm not even a smartguy.
(14:19):
I'm paraphrasing.
All I did was I just copiedfrom a successful company.
And then I just did it myselfand did it better.
And at first we were like, Imean, it seems so simple, we
didn't think much of it.
But now, going back, just likewhat you're saying, it's oh my
gosh, you know, and thatLululemon story, I mean how many
(14:40):
of these billion-dollarcompanies, just instead of
creating something, they're justcopying something else and just
doing it better.
That's all the time, every dayin America 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
That's all the time every day in america, 100 and
and and that's the thing is,people go I'm going to do this
and and just do it my own wayand this is the way, and and
they just don't.
They don't have, you know, theidea that don't recreate the
wheel, just just do what people,what other successful people
have done and and doing it.
I'm saying I'm not a big realestate guy and I have.
(15:13):
I have a couple of students andpeople that I know and friends
that are big time real estatedevelopers, like huge, and you
know, I would sit down and say,okay, how did you guys do this
deal?
How does one person works,works strategically with a
grocery company and he puts upall the grocery stores here in
(15:34):
town and I'm like, how do youguys negotiate a deal like that
and how you're able to workthrough?
I have another friend thatworks with a coffee company and
has put up 20 locations for themand he owns a piece of the real
estate and I'm like, how doesthat work?
And I have a few deals myselfthat I put together some strip
malls and whatever.
And as I was just getting intothat, I didn't want to come up
(15:56):
with my own idea.
It's not even my wheelhouse.
So I contacted these two people, I had lunch with them, paid
for some drinks and we sat downand talked and next thing, you
know, I had a template of whereI needed to go with some of my
real estate deals.
And next thing, you know, I hada template of where I needed to
go with some of my real estatedeals, because that's within the
norm.
I know, Jimmy, you do very wellwith real estate and I know in
(16:17):
the beginning you didn't come upwith these great ideas.
With your real estate holdings.
You followed a template, right,you followed.
And then, not only that, you'repart of a big networking group
that says these are the latesttrends.
And at one point you were comingup to me and I introduced you
to some people too, and one ofthe friends I have has 200 units
(16:38):
of apartments and I know you'reinvolved in a little bit of
stuff like that and you guysstarted talking and I'm sitting
here and you guys spoke the samelanguage of how to do a zero
down deal on this and that orwhatever, and I'm just sitting
there going holy cow, here'sanother world.
I just really don't know abouthow you guys were just talking
and doing stuff.
And then you guys got intotrailer park homes and you told
(16:59):
me about this way back and I'mlike you trash, I can't believe
you're getting into trailer parkhomes.
You're telling me that.
I'm like I can't believe.
I was like you'll just doanything for a buck.
Yeah, yeah, you get a Lord.
And all of a sudden this guy Iknow that with 20, he's like hey
, we bought three trailer parkhomes.
I'm like what he goes?
(17:19):
Yeah, these things aremoneymakers and and and you're
telling me he was already aheadof you.
But then, just from you guysnetworking, I was just sitting
there going holy cow.
And so here's my next point Ifyou're the, the, you're, if
you're the best person in yourgroup and your friend circle,
then you're in the wrong circle.
(17:40):
You need to be around peoplethat kind of scare, you kind of
intimidate, you kind of like aredoing better than you.
And and I really believe if you, if you don't do that, you're
not going to grow.
And to me that's an importantpart of that.
I can sincerely say I'mprobably the least successful
person in my friends group.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I know your friends, Master Chan, and you are
definitely not the leastsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Well, I'm saying, the group I'm with you is, that's
the lower tier group.
I'm talking about my otherhigher tier group.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Anyway, you, know you just got with that dig.
You got to get that dig inAnyway.
So, and I think it's importantthat you have all types of
people and I'm going to do aquick pitch here.
I'm part of the AmericanSabanim Association and I helped
create this group and it's anetworking group that I helped
(18:37):
put together and because I justwanted to give back to other
people that helped me, becauseif it wasn't for all my other
seniors that got together andhelped me be where I'm at, then
I'm just kind of paying itforward.
So we have a group of it'sactually a super eclectic group.
There's an eclectic, there's ahigher group of people that have
(19:00):
10, 15, you know, 20 locationsto people that have five, five,
six locations, to some peoplethat are they're probably six
months away from closing thatare there and they show up and,
yeah, we do seminars.
Of course, these people talkand they talk about how they did
(19:20):
it and the secret to theirsuccess and we have everything
from marketing to staffing, toteaching good classes, teaching
new drills.
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, okay, to bring in the audiences of our
listeners and viewership.
Master Chan started thisorganization called ASA and it's
American.
It's actually American SchoolOwners Association.
I don't know why Master Chankeeps talking about different
American School OwnersAssociation for all martial arts
school owners and what he doesis that he shares.
(19:56):
We meet once a year in the bestevent in Las Vegas in October
every year.
We've been doing it for 20something years.
It's crazy awesome.
Everybody comes from all overthe country.
This is actually how MasterChan's been building his network
of successful andnon-successful martial arts
(20:17):
schools.
There will be successful schoolowners that come in to see what
the industry is doing, whatMaster Chan is doing, and then
there are single, small schoolowners coming in to increase
their and grow their schools.
So we have all range of martialarts, and this is not just
Taekwondo, by the way.
This is all martial arts, fromkarate, from jujitsu, from Kung
(20:42):
Fu school owners.
So everybody's invited.
It's all inclusive and it's thebest martial arts business
seminar because of what MasterChan does.
Seminar because of what masterchan does.
He shares everything, like likehe's sharing right now with you
in these podcasts.
He's sharing everything ofwhat's going on in our industry,
(21:03):
what is working and what is not.
And it's, and, master chan, Iremember when we did this.
We've done this survey ofparticipants and we found out
that every participant thatincreased their profits and
student count and retentionthreefold within the three
(21:40):
months and they're keeping intouch.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I mean, you know, this is the event of the year,
the thing that's I mean, just asimportant as the actual
seminars is there are threereally main events of networking
.
So at our opening ceremonyactually we're not doing opening
ceremonies, we're doing aopening mixer where everybody's
getting together in a roundtable with each of our speakers
(22:05):
and some high-level schoolowners and they are going to be
able to kind of talk and askspecific questions.
At Friday night there is a kindof a mixer, kind of an informal
mixer.
A lot of people, in fact 90% ofthe people, go there and meet
up and talk and you can ask.
All our speakers and all oursuccessful school owners are
(22:27):
readily available to talk andexplain how they're doing it and
you can bring their questions.
And then Saturday night we havea barbecue.
We have a Korean barbecue thatwe go out afterwards and
everybody just really enjoyseach other's time.
So I think most things likethis, people go all right, I'm
in, I'm out, and but really ityou're really missing the point
(22:50):
if you're not doing thenetworking portions and
everybody's really helping usout.
And and we've got some prettyamazing speakers We've got the
master, tony cook, who is inCanada, who used to be a U S, a
Canadian team member.
He's also a Brazilian jujitsublack belt.
He has six very successfullocations and his seventh
(23:11):
location is is a BJJ school andhe's going to talk about how to
do staffing and how to createdynamic staff, how to motivate
dynamic staff and how he's doneit.
We have Master Tony Chung, whohas been on this podcast,
amazing speaker and has a wealthof knowledge in how to build a
small school and be veryprofitable at it.
(23:32):
Master Bronson Ko, who I'veknown for 20 plus years.
His father is also agrandmaster in Taekwondo.
He has, in my opinion, one ofthe most beautiful schools in
the United States in Kansas City, and also charges one of the
highest dollar amounts I've everheard of $400 plus a month in
tuition.
And he's just talking about whathe does.
And I asked him once.
(23:53):
I said what was your secret?
Are you teaching blow darts andninja stars and you're climbing
rock, climbing a wall, or no,just Taekwondo, just very, very
basic Taekwondo and how he doesit.
And then one of the things Ilike about our ASSA sessions is
that we also do have physicalsessions that you can bring into
your classroom.
So we have a world strikingcoach.
(24:16):
Coach Eddie Cha is going to bethere and he's an MMA coach with
a company called Fight Ready.
He's created three UFCchampions out of that gym and
he's also a Taekwondo guy, so hehas some background in
traditional martial arts.
He's going to teach us someadvanced rules that you can use
for your black belts and foryour students.
And then we have Master StephenLambden Olympian in 2016, I
(24:38):
believe in Taekwondo is going totalk about some advanced drills
.
And then we have Master TimThackery, who is a strength and
conditioning coach, is going tobe talking at this year's ASSA
as well.
We also have Dave Young DaveDave Young and Dave Young is the
(25:01):
master of reality-basedself-defense, and if you say
self-defense, you're going tohave to include knife and gun,
because if we ever get mugged onthe street, it's probably going
to be with one of those twoweapons, and so it's super
important that people have thattype of realistic curriculum in
their repertoire, and so we havehim, who is his day rate for a
police department is about$10,000.
(25:22):
So it's kind of cool to havehim at our summit teaching.
We also have Master VictoriaRepepe, who helps manage eight
martial arts schools in theCleveland area and she's the
head of the sales and some ofthe staff there, so we're going
to get her expertise.
And then we have Josh Lannan,who I met him at an AI marketing
(25:43):
conference and he spoke lastyear and just blew our minds
with the technologies of how AIand how you can use that in your
marketing pieces.
And then we have the famousDave Zewine, who is a very
successful business guy, who'sgoing to be speaking at this
year's conference as well.
So it's a star-studded lineupof the who's who in martial arts
and people that can help yourbusiness.
(26:05):
And, more importantly, I reallydo believe I would not be where
I'm at today if I didn't networkand I flew all over the world
talking to people at individualschools.
You guys get a chance to do allthis in one stop shop, at a, at
a thing, and then, importantly,you'll make some friends.
That's going to help you, keepyou accountable, to help you
(26:26):
grow into your next, the nextlevel of where you want to be.
So if you want a fast track togrowth, don't reinvent the wheel
right.
There's a shortcut.
The shortcut is ask the peoplethat have been there and that's
done it and meet up with themand then I will be there.
I would love to meet you andhelp you and as an industry, we
are doing a super poor job.
(26:48):
We're still less than 3% of theUS population, so we really
need to do a better job ofmarketing for the US population.
So we really need to do abetter job of marketing,
teaching, inspiring, changinglives.
And if you do that in mind, Ireally believe you'll be
successful.
And so, anyway, that's kind ofmy two cent pitch.
I know I've been given a lot ofgreat advice through these
(27:11):
podcasts and things like that,but I really do believe the
shortcut is networking with someof the top people in our
industry.
And what's crazy is we'll haveother people like we have one
school owner who she spoke atpast events of ours.
She did two and a half milliondollars in one location.
She's there networking andlearning and seeing.
(27:34):
So if there's someone that Iknow and, by the way, she has
got an MBA from Stanford Ifthere's people that that's going
to be there, then I reallybelieve then you have no excuse
to be there.
They're learning, there's areason, they're successful and
that's, and that's important,that you guys go to get get a
chance to kind of network and beout there and and be able to
kind of talk to other peoplewell, can I, can I add it's we,
(28:01):
I.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I get this all the time.
Just going through day-to-daygrind, I get tunnel vision
because I'm just focused on, onthe school, on the day-to-day
that, so I I forget to step backand and take bigger picture.
And that's what this ASA Summitis all about.
It's a martial arts businessseminar held in Las Vegas, of
all places.
So, las Vegas, we want you towork hard, we want you to go to
(28:27):
the summit hard and we want youto vacation hard as well.
So make it an event.
But, master Chan, I have aquestion for you.
What do you say to those singleschool?
Master Chan, I have a questionfor you.
What do you say to those singleschool owners who doesn't have
a staff?
How are they supposed to cometo this event?
What do you say to those?
I mean, forget about the schoolowners who have a staff that
(28:48):
will, I don't know, take care oftheir school while they're
attending.
But what about the singleschool owners who don't have a
staff to continue their schoolon that weekend let's say it's
the first weekend of it's,october 2nd to 3rd, it's in Las
Vegas.
What do you say to those schoolowners?
How are they supposed to?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
come.
If you're really, I'll give youtwo things.
If you're really scared aboutsomething happening or you don't
really have anybody to help runthe school two days, that you
close, you can tell and I'vedone this in the past when I was
a smaller school owner and Ihad to go to places or wanted to
learn something or go to atournament, is that I would call
(29:26):
it instructor development, justlike any school.
Schools kind of have a forschool teachers, they have
teacher in service and they doteacher development or teacher
learning or instruction.
So I would tell your studentsearly on saying, hey, this is
the weekend that will be closedfor two days and we're going to
do and learn new things to bringback to our schools, to make
(29:50):
our school better and let peopleknow.
So that's my answer to that.
If you're really scared aboutstaffing and so forth, then just
to close it for four, you won't.
You won't go out of businessafter being closed for two days
and but but you will go out ofbusiness if you don't attend
this.
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So go, go, come, come and learn, I mean.
(30:13):
And how can you go, come, comeand learn?
I mean, and how can you?
What's important is that yourroi right return on investment
if you come back with an idea.
I mean, I remember one year wehad a grandmaster, Kim from
Rochester, and he gave us anidea and I I just took copious
notes and then all weekend Ihounded him and I took more
(30:35):
notes and then I gave him, Iplayed the what if?
Game and then afterwards I hithim up again and he had this
Black Friday sale for uniforms.
I mean the guy did $200,000 inone weekend on membership sales
slash.
Like what else did he do?
He did retail apparel.
(30:55):
I didn't make that much.
Usually I do a holiday sale 20,25,000, whatever and I remember
we did his ideas and I was likeI doubled it.
I was at 75,000.
And to me I mean, yeah, it's acouple thousand dollars to get
out to Vegas and your hotelrooms and pay for the seminar
ticket and dinners and this andthat, but the return on
(31:18):
investment was like it waspeanuts.
Just that idea alone made me$35,000.
And so if you look at otherthings from that standpoint, you
got to look at the investmentin your education and growing
your school Coach, Eddie.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, can I also add I forgot to make the point of
having tunnel vision withday-to-day and then you're
coming out for one weekend andyou're meeting everybody that
knows where you're coming from,knows how hard you work for your
school.
Going through the daily grindof your classes raising that
(31:54):
really opens up something,master Chan.
I'm like when I daily grind ofyour classes raising, that
really opens up something,master Chan.
When I come out of that weekendI'm refreshed, I'm re-energized
, re-motivated and I'm soproductive for the months
afterwards I can confidently sayyou have to come.
It's not like you should come.
You have to come because yourschool will be so much more
(32:17):
successful in just a few monthsafter coming because of all, not
only all the knowledge thatyou're gained from from all
these speakers and theirseminars, but from the important
part that nobody talks about isthe networking of people who
you're meeting.
And guess what?
You're going to continue yourcommunication with these people
(32:37):
that you've met in an ASA eventthroughout the year, because
then you're going to motivateeach other to do hey, did you
try this, did you try thisbirthday party?
Did you try this buddy day?
And you're going to comparenotes and get better and better
and that's how your school isgoing to be successful.
Through networking, throughnetworking.
That exactly what this topicand this episode.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
You know, I was listening to Grandmaster Tony
Chung's podcast and he wastalking about filling sandbags.
And if you go, you're justfilling sandbags, because I told
you to fill sandbags.
Or did you fill sandbagsbecause there's a flood about to
come and you need to help savethe town?
And now there's a little bitmore purpose into why you're
filling sandbags.
(33:20):
And and I I believe sometimeswe, if you're just coming to the
summit to make money, then Idon't really don't want you
there, I don't think you shouldbe there.
But if you really feel likeyou're going to make an impact
in making your communitystronger and making your
students better and then reallymaking an impact in helping
(33:41):
changing lives through martialarts, if you are from that
mindset and mold, I reallybelieve, then on the other end,
then the money's going to bethere, all that's going to be
there, and I really believe thathaving a purpose and having a
philosophy behind what you domakes you a better teacher and a
better, a better business.
(34:02):
Owner of your martial artsschool.
Um, and and we've all heardthis we, we know all the guys
that have run martial artsschools purely for the money and
they all fail because we'remaking a commitment to our
students and and helping them bethe best they can be through
the arts, and we have a uniqueprivilege of doing that.
So, as you're saying, yeah,you're working in your business
(34:24):
on the grind, but then all of asudden you're the teacher, so
you need to go out and you needto educate, be re-motivated,
find better strategies forrunning your schools, helping
you kind of get to that nextplateau of changing as many
lives as you can doing what youdo.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Can I also add, obviously, everybody who's in
this industry.
There are other events that'sgoing on in the country, but
what makes ASA summit sodifferent than others?
Those people are nerds.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Those people are nerds and we're cool.
That's the that's I mean.
That's all you need tounderstand.
That's the main difference.
Like who would you rather sharea chocolate milk with what?
What type of protein shake canwe eat and and and?
Was that the answer?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I can confidently say , confidently say, master Chan
and I have been to all theseevents.
What makes ASA Summit differentis that these other big events,
they don't share anything, theydon't network.
Their speakers are there justto give them a little nugget and
(35:44):
upsell their program.
That they're selling popular isbecause we share everything
with the intent of trying tomake school owners better and
successful the next day.
(36:04):
And our ASA Summit, it's thegrand event that we're doing.
These episodes are just nuggetsfor everybody, but then come to
our event and then you will seethat everything that we talk
about, it all comes togetherbecause there's no, we don't
hold anything back.
We share everything that'sgoing on with the industry, with
(36:25):
what works, what doesn't, andall these topics.
The list of our speakers is so,it's so big we don't even know
how we're going to filleverybody in on these events.
But that's just what we do.
That's that's how we like tooperate, this is how we like to
show and that is why our ASAsummit is so much better than
(36:45):
than.
I'm not even going to namenames by the other events out
there, because there's nosharing.
They they just say, oh, come tothis, you're going to learn
this, but they don't shareanything and anyone who goes to
that because I've gone to that,master Chana has gone to that,
and we come back and we're likewe didn't learn anything at all.
We don't even know what this isabout.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So the last thing I want to leave everybody with so
it doesn't feel like we're doingone big pitch here is that we
launched something for the firsttime and it is called the staff
university and we are I'm, I'veI've been bringing my staff, my
and my head instructors to this.
I know a lot of martial artsschool owners are bringing their
, their staff, and so we'regoing to have a section on the
(37:25):
professionalism of becoming amartial art, martial art
industry person, um, and sowe're going to talk about sales,
marketing, some of the how torun a good classroom floor, how
to be a professional in themartial art industry I think
these are all very, veryimportant things and having the
standards.
So we're going to have anowner's section and then now
(37:46):
we're going to have a staffuniversity.
So cool story.
I took one of my part-time stafftwo years ago and he went to
ASA and we hung out.
He got to meet other people.
He saw the potential of this asa career.
Came back a year later he goessir, I'm going to do this as a
career.
So we're going to be openingour seventh school with this
person.
So very kind of a cool thingthat we're doing, but it's a
(38:11):
great way to kind of celebrateour successes thing that we're
doing.
But it's a great way to kind ofcelebrate our successes, our
victories, our losses, ourthings that are.
We're kind of like knee deep inand having a hard time.
So we would love to see youguys there and, if you can make
it, be rest assured, you'rehanging out with the coolest
people in the martial artindustry.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That wraps up another power-packed episode of the
Black Belt Banter podcast.
My thanks to Master Chan Leeand the ASA Summit.
Registration is live now, socheck out the link in our show
notes or head totheblackbeltbantercom to reserve
your spot.
Thanks for listening and seeyou guys on our next episode.
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