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Author: Tom Callos | Total views: 26 Comments: 0
Word Count: 817 Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 6:19 PM

Sustainable-Business Practices for Martial Arts Schools (And a Lot of Other Businesses!)

Sustainable business practices are things you do in your business that sustain it, rather than drain it.

Here is one example:

Clear-Cutting Students (Read: Customers)

You can't clear-cut a forest and expect to go back the next year and harvest another tree crop from it. You can't fish out a lake and then go back the next week and look for more fish. And you can't sell martial arts lessons (or anything) to people in your community, with a win-lose proposition, and expect the well not to eventually run dry.

A win-lose is when one side of a transaction wins all the benefits and the other side doesn't fare as well. As you know, a win-win is when both sides feel that they have a mutually beneficial deal.

A typical win-lose in the martial arts "business" game is when the school wins a lot of tuition, for untaught lessons, and the student gets lessons that don't thrill, chill, and/or live up to the promise of the original "sales talk."

The school's position is, "Hey, we do what we do, you saw it, and you bought it. Done deal." The student position is, "I got excited by the promise of what you were selling me, but now I'm not as thrilled now."

Now you, like I have in the past, might say or think, "Hey, you just have buyer's remorse. I have (or will) live up to MY end of the bargain, now you live up to yours." Well, that's all fine and dandy, but the truth is, a lot of school are great on sales -and fall flat on long-term service.

Yes, yes, I know. Charging students for long-term courses and accepting advance payment for those lessons is a standard method of operation in our industry. Paying big bucks for dance lessons is (used to be?) a standard method of operation in those rip-off dance schools too, you know, the ones that fleece old-folks out of enormous sums of money. Just because something is a standard method of operation doesn't mean it's a good policy.

There are martial arts schools in our industry, right now, that have a spoken or unspoken philosophy that has them looking at prospective students as "short-timers" -and who intentionally try to get students into a position where they are paying in advance for lessons that the school anticipates they will not take. The policy is: Get your cash now, up-front, because you and I both now the student is fickle and will probably drop out.

Well, that is a win-lose. The school wins, the student loses. It's one of the reasons that state governments have, in many cases, regulated what the dance industry can or cannot do, and it's why the same thing is happening to the martial arts industry. When you operate with a policy like that, you make a lot of money fast -but eventually you run out of willing prospects (you either fish them out -or word of mouth makes you change your pricing policies).

The bottom line? You have to price your lessons or services in a way where you still meet your financial needs, but that doesn't put you in a win situation and your customers on the losing end of the deal.

Suggestions:
1. Don't allow new students to pay in advance for lessons until they've been with you for 90 days, minimum.

2. Offer an up-front solution to students who pay or sign up for lessons in advance that allows them to receive some money back or a cancellation of their course, but at a higher pre-negotiated per-month or per-class rate.

3. Develop a business-plan and method of operation that doesn't require you to take big up-front payments to survive.

Offer Full Disclosure

One of the unhealthy business practices in the martial arts industry that has surfaced in the last few years is the pricing and curriculum policy that has schools holding back some of their curriculum for courses that cost more money. In other words, you sign up for the first "basic" course, but you don't get to do the exciting "stuff" or curriculum until you join the next course.

Now we all know that has nothing to do with teaching the martial arts _and everything to do with money. The question this tactic addresses is: How do we extract as much money as we can from our students?

Well, I don't have problem with asking and taking money from my customers. What I have a problem with are schools that deceptively initiate this idea upon unsuspecting parents and students. FULL DISCLOSURE of all prices and policies, before a student enrolls, is the way to do this correctly.

About the Author

Tom Callos is a 6th degree black belt, innovator in the international martial arts community, and founder of The New Way Network. Check out Tom's FREE online newsletter with specific tips and strategies for martial arts school promotion. You can sign up right now at: Martial Arts School Tips.