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Positioning the school for success

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high quality business cards – Warning: You May Have Black Belt Eyes

Has a spouse or significant other made a suggestion about your martial arts school or how you teach? What was your reaction? I know mine was essentially ‘Who the heck are you to tell me, the black belt, about martial arts?’ The key, though, is:

They don’t care about martial arts; they care about you. They usually represent Market Eyes, and they are almost always right.

In a previous article, I introduced the concept of “Black Belt Eyes” and how they are based on false assumptions and often get in the way of our more useful “Market Eyes”. Market Eyes could represent the eyes of a potential student who doesn’t know a black belt from a green belt but has a willingness to learn.

Other examples of Black Belt Eyes include:

1. Using your style name as a headline or, worse, a school name.

This is a huge assumption that the reader or prospect knows how your style or technique translates to benefits for them.

2. Using a logo that looks like martial arts hieroglyphics.

If your logo contains a fist, a yin-yang, a circle, a triangle, Asian lettering, or a bug, you may have Black Belt Eyes.

3. Listing techniques instead of benefits in your black belt marketing.

This may disappoint you, but the odds are miniscule that someone seeing an ad that touts Hun Gar 3 Step Waza will exclaim to his wife, “Honey! Hun Gar 3 Step Waza! Just what I’ve always wanted!” Only your Black Belt Eyes will know what that means. I don’t even know what it means.

4. Confusing your wins as benefits.

Black Belt Eyes assume people want to know that you are an accomplished black belt. It’s not that no one cares, as much as that listing your tournament wins, hall of fame inductions, or that you trained the military police simply don’t translate into benefits for potential students. Mike Tyson is a great boxer, but I don’t want him teaching my kids. Study the ads for private schools. They don’t list the teachers’ résumés. Market Eyes want to know what you can do for them or their children.

5. Having long classes.

The assumption is that more is better. The truth is that better is better. If more were better, a four-hour class would be better than a two-hour class. People are busy, and it’s presumptuous to assume that your class is so important it has to take two hours of their day. Most people have 16 waking hours per day. Two hours is more than 10 percent of that day. Good instructors can teach a great class and produce outstanding black belts using one-hour classes. If your classes are longer than this, reduce them to one hour. Your students will not complain. They will thank you.

6. Keeping archaic exam requirements that are important to you, not the student.

When I was a student, for part of your brown belt exam you had to break two boards with a reverse punch, round kick two boards, and do a running jump side kick over two people to break three boards. This was for the blue belt to fourth degree (kyu or kup) brown belt and usually occurred about a year into training. I opened my school with the same requirements.

When the children’s invasion began in the mid-1980s, those requirements became a real problem. Eight- and 10 year olds have no high quality business cards doing those types of breaks. So I dropped board breaking as a requirement and added board-breaking seminars that the students could pay to attend. I turned a negative element of the belt exam process into a fun profit center. To accomplish this, I had to overcome my Black Belt Eyes.

7. Conducting marathon exams.

During the days of my marathon Saturday exams, it seemed as though we measured the quality of an exam by the number of ambulance calls. I thought it was important for students to deal with the stress of the high-pressure, marathon exams because it would help them deal with the stress of self defense… which is just dumb. I also waited until enough people were ready before I held the exam. This is classic Black Belt Eyes combined with the Control Factor. In time, I switched to monthly exams (stripes and belts) that were held in class. This greatly increased retention and student progress – and reduced stress.

8. Displaying weapons on the wall or in the office.

You may love weapons but, to the market, a wall full of knives, swords, and

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Black Belt Rules

you have what it takes to become a black belt in martial arts? We believe that every student has the potential to achieve this. Are you willing to work hard and make sacred? ESC to become a black belt? Are you willing to walk for miles “extra” to overcome obstacles and do whatever it takes to win this happened? If you want to do black belt, and any other challenging goal, you will need internal unity pushing yourself to succeed. We call this your “Black Belt Determination” Good intentions are not enough. This is why many people fail to achieve their resolutions every year. Black Belt determination “is not something that can be learned overnight or” on “and” on “whenever you need it consciously. Rather, it is something that is developed internally over time and becomes part of you. As for the arts martial skills, no matter how strong you are physically, like you, “Determination of black belt” is mostly a mental response and over time should become instinctive. In our school, develop your “Black Belt determination “helping you reach the top and then or more points of maximum outputthis type of behavior “cups” (constant and continuous improvement). To help you better understand the concept of peak, here's an example that everyone can relate to. Let's say that you can do thirty push-ups and the last four or? Escape physical strength. Thirty is the peak for push ups. To extend the peak, you must squeeze every ounce of mental energy to use any physical force have left to do at least one other. If you can do push-ups on May 1, will be made two very important objectives. RTD is setting a new peak (thirty), and The second is that you will be strengthened “the determination of black belt.?” In the above example, both objectives are crucial for growth as a person and martial arts. “Determination of Black Belt” needs constant reinforcement through many successes. To have a real impact on your life, success must be achieved and subsequently rules specifi c,, “Not to risk building a false sense of accomplishment and ? RTD rule is that when an obstacle challenges that your goal it is essential to a “give your all attempts” to overcomeE “or you say” should “when re-creating? Ecting on past actions. Third rule is to establish goals that will test your determination to achieve