My Opinions About Martial Arts School Marketing

Too many martial arts schools only plant marketing crops meant to grow as fast as possible, so that they may be harvested and consumed immediately. They do that, most of the time, because they're starving for cash flow --and when you're starving, you need food RIGHT NOW.

When a schools starving for cash flow, it wil eat just about anything put in front of it --and so junk marketing, like junk food, which is cheap and easy and abundant, becomes the schools main source of "food." Junk marketing is cheap to produce; it doesn't take much money, time, thought, creativity, and/or effort. Pass out fliers (quality be damned), do birthday parties ("They're so easy, anyone can do them!"), host yet another Buddy-Day, hell, go wave signs in front of the local elementary school as the kids are getting out, and do it all like yesterday, because we need to "get the gross up!"

The thing about junk marketing, like junk food, is that the stuff will fill your immediate needs. Your belly will get full on junk food --and you might fill your school up with junk marketing, but in the long run, junk food deprives the person who consumes it of his/her vitality and heath. Likewise, junk marketing eventually steals a schools vitality, creative spirit, ingenuity, and reputation. 

Junk marketing has, literally, laid waste to the martial arts industry. We now have an entire generation of school owners and teachers who think that junk marketing is just about the only way to do the work. Instead of taking the time to create marketing programs of substance, of genuine hard-earned value, programs that don't "sell," but actually inspire, far too many schools go right to the lowest rung on the marketing food chain. They resort to cheap, degrading, and common "marketing" strategies that diminish the schools reputation, its marketability, and most of all, its ability to think up, create, and execute marketing campaigns with soul, with genius, with meaning, mission, and purpose. 

Listening to the marketing methods of many martial arts school owners is just about like listening to the manager of a Popeyes Chicken franchise or an Everything's Just $1 store or the local Big Al's Tire Shop. These aren't educators selling their wares, these aren't MASTER TEACHERS full of wisdom and experience, these folks sell fried chicken, $1 spatulas, and Dunlops. 

The right way for a MASTER TEACHER of a kind of art full of wisdom and life lessons, rich with mentoring and leadership experiences, something that transcends the obvious and becomes a life changing experience, times 10, is to market with a sense of mission. To teach, to affect, to solve problems, to become an integral part of the community. To market is to be in the meetings, to go after the people who need the most help, to see that bullying, for example, is a REAL problem --and instead of giving it the old superficial one-two, going into your community armed, prepared, and ready to work the issue until it is no longer an issue.

The way to market in the coming year is to take your martial arts off of the mat, our of your dojo, out of the box you teach in, and into your community ---and in way that only someone who doesn't take NO for an answer could do. Someone with tenacity, someone with guts, someone who won't quit until they win ---someone on a mission. 

Leave the crap-marketing for the dumb and blind. Let all the other schools fight over who's flier was left on which windshield in which strip-mall parking lot. Let all the other schools jockey for the best place at the flea market. Your marketing has to be smart. It ought to be as complex and rich as your intellect will accommodate. There are problems, right here in River City, right in your own town. Solve them --or at least become a more integral part of the village that's seeking to solve them. People need help, they don't need to be pitched, they need help. Can you supply it?

I think you can, but to do it, you're going to have to delay some of your need for instant gratification --and start putting your energy into marketing strategies that the 24 year old subscriber to our industry's illustrious trade magazines can't easily replicate. You need to initiate strategies that can't be bought or delivered in a box. And if you run into one of your competitors in the same parking lot as you, passing out fliers, see it as a sign that you're playing checkers in a world that only really respects chess. 

OK, understand that I'm not chewing on you, I'm trying like all hell to INSPIRE you to action --and if you're already taking "action," I'm trying to inspire you to MORE action, smarter, more pointed action, the action that has a measurable RETURN for you. If little or none of what I'm about to write applies to you, then please, don't take offense. 

Tom

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In the video, above, the fricking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES speaks out against bullying and promotes bully education. 

DO I need to remind you that you / we should OWN this topic?

DO I need to point out that with nearly the entire WESTERN WORLD up in arms over the subject, that YOU (as in YOU, YOU, YOU!) should be THE NUMBER ONE Bully Prevention Activist in your community.

WHY? 

It's self-defense. It's something CLEARLY under the umbrella of "the martial arts," and it could MAKE YOU someone very, very, VERY important and useful in your community, which --somewhere down the road, would translate into two things:

1. Student in your school (money in your account); and

2. The actual reduction of suffering and pain to people who need to reduce both --and as a direct result of your life's work. 

Do you OWN The subject?

Have you spent anywhere even NEAR  10 minutes a day over the last year studying, teaching others, writing, promoting, and brainstorming ways to be THE SOURCE for bully prevention info, classes, help, guidance, and assistance in YOUR COMMUNITY?

I doubt it. 

Have you done anything but the most minimal steps to OWN the subject, to be a real, concrete, proactive, powerful resource for your community? Have you take 10 steps, mobilized 10 other teachers, made connection with 10 other activists, taught 10 classes....20, 50, 100? Have you sat in 10 meetings with local community leaders representing the subject. 

I hope you can say yes to one of the questions above, but I doubt you can.

I'm AMAZED at how little most teachers I've talked to have done on this subject. I'm shocked at how much I hear about passes, flyer distribution, birthday parties, boxed-fitness-program purchases, conventions attended, and blah, blah, blah -------while bully prevention sits in the back room waiting and waiting and waiting. 

Wonder why the Mayor hasn't called you? The principle? 20 teachers? 500 parents? 

Wonder why you're not invited to the meetings?

Wonder why the paper's not asking you to write a column?

Wonder why you've not drafted a SINGLE request to corporate sponsors in your community to help finance a program to combat the problem?

Because you're letting the opportunity to BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION, to be a THOUGHT LEADER, to be a LEADER at all ---pass you by.

You're on Facebook though!

You're doing this --and you're doing that, but what you, apparently,  WON'T BE DOING in the next year is initiating a MASTER PLAN to reach every man, woman, and child in your community, to form meaningful and constructive unions with counselors and other activists, and to be THE source far all of the help needed, desperately needed, in your community. 

You'll sit in your office. You'll put on your uniform. You'll walk your students thru forms, and pad drills, and grappling sessions. You'll perpetuate the ignorance of the industry, as you'll gauge yourself, measure yourself, NOT against the brightest, the most proactive, the real DOERS, but by the lame-brains in the  "martial arts industry" who don't hardly DO jack-shit about anything that doesn't get an immediate financial return. Who treat every subject like they can't be bothered to do the homework, but they're happy to adopt the marketing ideas. 

It disappoints me to no end --and, as you can tell, it pretty much pisses me off too. Right here, staring you in the face, is the opportunity of a lifetime. And do you know what most school owners are doing? They put a banner on their website, teach a few classes on the subject, with little planning by the way, and then look on Facebook for some new school "marketing" ideas. 

The purpose of this rant? To get you to step up. There's so much to do, there's a real potential for return on your investment in the work, but there's such a glut in real, smart, proactive LEADERSHIP in the industry on the subject we could and should be MOST engaged in, there's such a bullshit, superficial treatment, overall (with exceptions, of course) of the subject matter, that it makes us look like the clowns we are, when we slide into the path of least work and of least resistance.

While the President pleads, we stand by and do so little, so very little, that it's simply embarrassing --and VERY telling of why we, as an industry, seem to suck up to every birthday party health club sales nonsense that floods the trade mags.

Thank you for contacting my martial arts school, The Dojo.

Marketing 101

This last week I reviewed a video of a martial arts business teacher, a friend of mine, teaching a group of school owners about how to market their schools. In the short video my friend stood at a white board and asked the group about the “kinds of marketing they could do.”

Well...out came the usual litany of methods, which included lead boxes, birthday parties, VIP passes, flier distribution, etc.

Now, while there’s nothing criminally wrong with that, it simply and painfully reflects just how far we have not come in the last 20 years, as this is, for all accounts and purposes, the same meeting, with the same content, we were having back in the mid 1980’s.

My thoughts?

My friends, STOP showing up for kindergarten for crying out loud --you’re in COLLEGE! No, in fact, you’ve graduated college and you’re supposed to be changing the fricking world! It’s “your time” --and it shouldn’t be wasted talking about lead boxes, ice-cream socials, pizza parties, referral contests, door hangers, sleep-overs, “ninja-nights,” summer camps, after-school child care, and two-for-one guest passes.

THOSE things are a given. They’re ever-present. They’re the brushing your teeth, washing your clothes, putting on your socks and undies, and putting your keys in the car’s ignition of the martial arts teacher’s life.

Everyone has to tie their shoes, but note: WE DON'T LIVE TO TIE OUR SHOES. We live, (to borrow from Walt Whitman) to sing the body electric.

The basics have to be on automatic. They're made of the things you do, that don't require a lot of thought, they're just a part of your practice. Talking about them, now, today, at this time in your career is, well...a bit of an embarrassment. It’s kind of an insult to your intelligence and, frankly, I think it can’t be making it any easier to focus on the things you could --and should --be focusing on.

The Solution to This Problem

Take a piece of lined paper. Get a plastic sleeve for your day-planner. Sit down one afternoon with your paper and start writing down all (as in ALL) of the things you can think of to promote your school. You know, all the tools under the sun. Here are a few to get you started:

Fliers
Lead-boxes (if you must)
Door hangers
Business cards
Postcard guest passes
Posters
School educational seminars / talks
A-frame signs
T-shirts
Referral contests
Groupon
Websites
Blogs
Youtube videos
and blah, blah, blah...

You will find this list isn’t infinite, but “finite.” Start the list and add to it whenever you hear about or think of another way, another tool to use, to market and promote your school. Keep the list in your plastic sleeve, at the very front of your dayplanner.

Now, that being done, you will NEVER, EVER have to pay to sit in another meeting where someone has to ask you --or remind you of --the ABC’s of how to market your school.

I’m reminding / telling you about this as I want you to take your marketing and promotion plan to a whole new level. I want you to think like a master teacher, like a chess player, like an educator, like a Nobel Prize winning genius. I want you to cultivate programs to promote your school that bring people to tears, that solve social problems, that tackle health issues, that reduce suffering, that inspire and lift, and that reflect a level of thinking, of understanding, and of clarity that is supposed to come with 10, 20, 30, and 40 years + of martial arts training.

If you show up to learn how to manage a school, as a senior, master-level, martial arts educator --and we have to remind you to brush your teeth and tie your shoelaces, we’re in deep fricking kim-chee.

Instructors, school owners, your position in the world is a (potentially) sacred one. You have the opportunity to play a role in the world, an immensely important one --OR, you can be the kind of teacher, the kind of manager and organizer that goes to seminars to be reminded of the most rudimentary, brain-dead aspects of school management.

To market your school in a way that distinguishes you, that’s dignified and intelligent, you need to cultivate your skills as a problem solver, not a flier distributor or party host. To market your school in a way that sets you apart from the tire store, the Curves, the health club, the Popeye’s Chicken, and the 22-year old who’s opening his first karate school, you need to cultivate your ability to pull off organized, multiple-step projects that involve planning, the forming of new relationships, that USE your experience and wisdom, and that transcend the lead box and the VIP pass.

Really, I’m not trying to insult you; I’m trying to direct you to a kind of work that gives credit to your life’s work. There’s a kind of marketing and promotion you can do that causes your brain to light up, that inspires, that builds esteem for our profession and that, in the long run, is far, far more profitable that picking the low lying fruit of basic, tired, formulaic marketing (empty of spirit, empty of meaning, purpose, and vision).

You needn’t forgot all the old tools, as many of them can still serve you, but recognize and rise to the idea that there are other things you can do to promote your work that can cause people to stop, look, and listen in a way that is indicative of the kind of mastery that brought you to the martial art world in the first place.

When you’re ready (as in “When the student is ready..."), reach out to me. I’m a teacher for school owners who are ready to engage in (and/or already doing) master-level work. Don't just promote, promote ingeniously.

You tie your shoe laces while you think about where your shoes are going to take you.

Tom Callos
530-903-0286

It isn't really complicated, this school and teaching success thing.

It begins with 1 person. You.

What do you really know? Everything you teach, your approach to teaching, the tools you use to teach, the language you use, your intent, and the results you seek to create are all based on what you've done, what you know right now, how you put what you know to work, and how you go about "sharpening your saw."

The reality is that you do not "teach martial arts." What you really seek to do is to inspire people to move, to grow, to be interested, and to be engaged. The martial arts is a great tool for that, as it's reasonably engaging --and in fact, some aspects of what we practice requires full engagement, yes?

Once someone is "engaged," what you really know and think --and your intention --then has a chance to go to work. This is the place where what you know, at this time in your life, shines through --or demonstrates that you are still in need of some significant growth.

It begins with 1 person. You.

What do you really know about the world? What have you studied (enough to make you an "expert"?). How do you describe what your work really is? How do you use words? What is important to you? How self-absorbed are you? How afraid --or unafraid --are you?

My son, Keenan, is currently considered the best competing purple belt in BJJ in the world. He's training, to the point of exhaustion, 4 to 6 hours a day, 5 and 6 days a week. His teammates are also world-class competitors --and so you can imagine that the workouts are intense, yes?

Keenan's efforts to be the best are a perfect example of the effort you need to put into your cultivation of knowledge, Teacher, to be a world-class Sensei. Lot's of people play BJJ, like me for example, but to be a world-class competitor one needs to practice with vigor, intent, and mission.

If you want to have a martial arts school that earns you and your team a world-class income, one that takes care of all financial issues, I'd like to suggest that you get focused --and apply yourself with a world-class effort --Every day for 4 to 6 hours. Intense, focused, passionate, and driven --that's how you become a world class school owner.

It begins with 1 person. You. It happens every single day, day at a time. It's what you eat, what you read, how you practice, what you think, and who you learn from.

It's simple, because it's a one-day-at-a-time thing.

But note: You MUST get on the mat. You won't earn the money or have the happiness you seek to create, to be, if you don't put in the time. You will still "be alive," but chances are you won't be doing what it takes to be a world class teacher, school owner, leader, and value creator. 

At the core of business and personal failure (marriage, money, contentment, wisdom, business, living in the here and now) is the person and his or her belief system, knowledge, and resourcefulness. Leases can be signed, school layouts can be created, signs can be bought, contracts assembled, marketing campaigns initiated, and curriculums documented by people who are not yet great teachers ---people who simply cannot impart enough value to others to create the success they imagine they're worth.

As a teacher myself, the first thing I analyze and ask questions about when I'm helping someone with their business is what the owner's PRACTICE is. What does he or she do as a daily practice? See a person's practice, how aware he or she is of the now, what he or she makes a part of her daily living, and you can begin to get a handle on what kind of value a persons efforts can create.

For real success, deep success, the kind of success that spills out into other people's lives, a sustainable kind of success, the training begins with the owner. You.

That is, in part, what this work, the 100. is about. What we have here is a place for you to study and to practice. What you hear and see here on our campus you typically won't see or hear any where else in the martial arts community. That's due in part because this work isn't a sales platform. We've nothing to sell you here; this is a place of inspiration, of sharing, for thinking, and for honesty-in-practice.

Here's How I Suggest You Begin --or Re-Begin --To Make it Simple, as a Practice

• Work out, at least 5 days a week.
• Read, every day --and don't read trash, read the best books, magazines, blogs, etc.
• Meditate, every day --and study meditation from masters like Thich Nhat Hanh.
• Eat for health --and make food a part of your teaching.
• Do for others, above and beyond, as a daily practice.
• Study some discipline or school of thought that helps you cut thru the BS, that helps you cope with self-dillusion, ego, fear, possessiveness, attachment, self-centerdness, anger, resentment, and right-thinking. If you don't do this, you are destined to suffer unnecessary pain.
• Stop talking about yourself --and start engaging in the stories and lives of others. If your advertising is about you, you're screwed (until you grow up).
• Learn and practice masterful time management.
• Study management and leading others, as you're going to want to do a lot of both.
• Simplify. Simplify and reduce. If you want nothing, if you don't need to buy anything, you greatly reduce your stress. Don't keep up with the Jones's out of ego and consumer consciousness. Buy only what you absolutely need --and find wealth in the simple life. Nobody really gives a hoot about what kind of car you drive.
• Your physical skills have value, but it's your philosophy of life and service to others that, in the long run, will really bring you wealth (that and your self-dicipline / work ethic).

You Weren't Trained to Apply Yourself to THE WORK

Let's admit it, as we were coming up as students/teachers, most (if not all) of us were NOT "trained" to apply any sort of academic or professional rigor to our methods of community service, community integration, community education, and/or course development. 

We were not guided to develop documentation of our efforts as proof of what the foundation of our efforts / education / and training are about --or what they produce. 

But HAD WE, marketing our schools, gaining credibility with educators and school administrators, and other people  and entities within our communities, AND providing valued services that actually address and/or solve relevant-to-today problems in our communities would be, well ----it would all be very different than what "we" do today as martial arts teachers. 

We came up in a school, most of us, that had a very, VERY narrow focus of effort and curriculum. Some of us came up in a business-education environment where billing services and "consultant" associations were the primary providers of teacher education and school-management-focus ---and those institutions, which in the past I played a significant role in, only just scratched the surface of ANY sort of intelligent approach to teaching, to intent, to mission, to actual education, and to anything but the most rudimentary, simplistic approach to "the work." For the sake of argument, there are/were exceptions, of course, but in general the industry has been absorbed in and propagating a "freshmen year" "dance / health club" approach to the work of the martial arts teacher --for more than two decades now. 

In this work, The 100. and The Ultimate Black Belt Test, which you are part of, we are redesigning HOW we think about who we are to our community. We're rethinking WHAT we are capable of, HOW we "make money" --and from WHAT. We are breaking out of the very narrow box, definition, description, and role of teacher/business owner that the industry has, for all accounts and purposes, accepted as "the standard."

To make your career more profitable and meaningful, I suggest you reject the industry's dominant paradigm of school management, curriculum, and marketing. Unsubscribe from the magazines, for now, that promote a kind of repetitive, brain dead approach to "school success." Disconnect from the sales conferences and conventions and seminars (except for technical) promoted by the industry. Refuse to participate in the idiocy of the franchised, boxed, pizza party, milquetoast world of the billing services and the multitude of "consultants" promoting the same old, tired approach. Refuse to participate in the time-wasting dialogs on Facebook about "overcoming sales objections," and what two-for-one deals and cage-fitness programs schools are jumping on this month; instead, jump into the world of avant garde education and educational technology. Launch yourself out of the current and popular description of what a Sensei does, for a living, and how a martial arts school serves its community. 

In every group there are people who major in minors, people who get stuck, and who are driven by motivations that, in the end, are about the most inane and misguided ambitions. Then there are leaders and people who grow, purposefully; people who break out of the herd. If you and I met every day for 10 minutes or more, for the next 10 years --and I was a part of the team of people you looked to for help --all I would do is encourage you to hang out with the best of the best people, thinkers, and doers in the world; I'm afraid that, at the moment and in my opinion, these people are NOT "martial arts masters" or "industry / business gurus." Changing your peer group, alone, would --or could, if you're present and accounted for --show you, quite clearly, how shallow our training has been. It would also show you exactly how to proceed and how to build an all new level of value in what you/we do as teachers of the martial arts.

The core training we've received has great value (we all know that); it's how we have not been trained to represent that training in the world, that is causing us to run in place as professional teachers and leaders.

I have dedicated the remainder of my career to elevating the profession of "martial arts teacher" to something very different than it is today. Step number 1 is to reject the foolishness of high pressure sales, of "sales formulas," of deceit and unsustainable business practices, of promoting educational concepts without actually studying the subjects, of modeling sales methods promoted by "consultants" who aren't holding themselves to standards that bring dignity and value to our profession. We must elevate the quality of our work, both on the mat --and in the world.

It's not an essay, this work, it's not a seminar, an article, a report, or something learned at "the convention," or from high priced marketeers. This work is a daily on-going dialogue. It's a daily practice. It's a tightening of the screws of mission, intent, purpose, and value-in-today's world ----and it's a loosening of the hold that sales-people, marketers, retailers, franchisers, and profiteers have had on our thinking, career expectations, and the very essence of how we go about our work. 

The farther I move away from the martial arts industry as it is today, the clearer the better path becomes. My goal is to explore better, smarter methods --and lead the industry in a better direction. All of this work depends on you. If I can get you to approach the work from a smarter and more value-driven place --and you manifest that kind of success in your own career, the "industry" will follow. 

If you're HERE, on The 100. site --and spending your hard earned money on the program, then I'm talking to you (and OK, YOU too). 

I'm seriously counting on you to BE a master teacher like the world has rarely, if ever, seen. I know you're capable of it --and I can't think of a better path to follow.

Mastery of your own thinking.

Mastery of your ability to make change where it's most needed.

Mastery of compassion and connection.

Mastery of the basics of good business.

I'm counting on you, whatever your style of martial arts, to STEP UP as a teacher, a leader, a friend, a student, and a human being.

READ. Read veraciously --and buck the idea that our attention spans are becoming shorter. No, yours is becoming longer.

PARTICIPATE. Don't sit back, don't do nothing, don't do "little," and don't not do something every day that puts you in a league of your own. Make it a practice to create some magic in the world every single day of your life. 

STUDY under real masters (REAL MASTERS). Garbage in, garbage out. Who are your heroes? Why? And what are they teaching you? How good of a student are you? Are you following the Gods of The Ice Cream Social, The Upgrade, and The Giant Whopping Gross? Or are you paying attention to humanity, to the falseness of endless want, to your own thinking and what it contributes, to simplicity, and to the boundless value of being/living in the here and now?

FORGET the Martial Arts Industry, For Now. The industry is sick and crippled by greed, trivial pursuits, questionable integrity, and lack of vision. To lift the martial arts and the profession of being a teacher out of the ditch it's in, we're going to have to get away from the present "leadership" and re-think why we're here, how we're going about the work, and what has got to change. We're not here to be organizers of "ice cream socials," "pizza parties," "sleepovers," "day care centers," and/or rabid dogs chasing the car-fender of membership upgrades and the next big cash-out. We'll come back to fix the industry, but first we have to fix ourselves.

Mastery of a New Kind of Education for MA Teachers.

Mastery of taking the work out of the dojo and into the world. 

CREATE things of beauty and value.

My friends, I'm really counting on you to redesign your role, to redesign what your school does for people, for your community, and for YOU. The money will come when your roots are deep, when your intention is beautiful, when you make the work your PRACTICE. 

I am working to make The 100. a place you feel at home, a place that appreciates your effort and supports it. A place that you can come to and find re-charge, inspiration, and vision. So...help MAKE IT SO. Be here. Contribute, spread the word. 

I'm counting on you to be a master teacher like the world rarely (if ever) sees. Smart, educated, with perfect intention, with amazing work-ethic, with a portfolio of endeavors that say so much about what you do, who you are, and how you use your martial arts ---that the next generation of teachers gets to START where we leave off. 

The 100. isn't here to help you "make money." The 100. is here to help you make history, to make your career, to make all the work something that shines, to help light the fire of your mastery. The money you make will be all the more useful when your head is in exactly the right place.

You didn't define my job duties, I've done that myself (although I am completely at your service, if you know how to ask questions and present problems I can help you with). 

My Job Duties:

• Get you to do LONG RANGE planning, so that this time next year, you are more profitable, more efficient, more challenged with things WORTH being challenged with, more focused, and one year closer to a kind of mastery, a kind of thinking and being in the world, that sets the mark for what a "Master Teacher" is --and what a "Master of the Martial Arts" does in (and for) the world. I believe these things are not only the things that will make you more profitable, but craft your career into something you find extraordinarily fulfilling. 

• My job is to push you, even when being pushed is uncomfortable --or even damn-right maddening. I was pushed by my best teachers --and I am still benefiting from it today. I pushed my students to try and get out of their comfort zones (where little or no growth takes place) --and that effort represents some of the best work I've ever done. And I believe that if I stay a constant force in your career --pushing for better, for smarter, for richer, that you will --in the end --be better for it. 

•  My job is to get you to think in a way you might not think today; as this time next year you could be playing an all new, highly sophisticated, educationally super-charged game ---that isn't the same old crap being boxed, franchised, packaged, and copied by every guy/gal who invest the $10,000 or less it takes to open a martial arts "school."

I think the industry, in general, caters to the fast turn-around, the easy path, the path that requires the least amount of steps, and whose measurement of success is based upon, "How much can I gross --and how fast?" I don't see or hear many teachers working on programs and projects that couldn't be duplicated by an ambitious and resourceful 1st dan 22-year-old. 

So, this time next year, let's have you somewhere you are not today. Come to The 100. unafraid and willing to stretch. Be here like it's a school for Masters-in-Training, be here to create something, together, that isn't in the reach of any one person. Play full out --and see what happens. 

My job is to be a catalyst in your life --and the life of your staff members (everyone, actually, in your sphere of influence) --for growth, evolution, and good times. I don't know how I'm going to make that happen, exactly, but I do know that pushing myself out of my own comfort zone is Step 1. That makes what's good for me --part of what's good for you. If you will do the same, what's good for you becomes what's good for me --and what's good for your students. 

Push starting now --and this time next year we stand the chance of having done 10 years of work (for the average teacher) in just 12 months. 

Let's look at the (potential) power and influence a "Digital Dojo" --your school's on-line campus, which is now, I believe, an absolute must for the serious master teacher --might have, mathematically on your work.

(NOTE: I am a champion of extremely low-cost technology, of owning your own websites, and of keeping your overhead crazy-low, while your productivity career-making high. That's the coaching you get as a member of the 100.)

In a year's time, if you spend an hour a day, 3 times a week with a student, you will have worked with him/her for 156 hours. Now we all know that we can make a good deal of progress with the average student in a year's time (with good, high quality interaction, yes?). 

Well, if you could ADD the idea of 10 minutes a day on your ON-LINE Campus, 6 days a week (as in you write and/or produce something, the student writes and/or produces something, and/or you post something by someone else that's worth a few minutes of reading/viewing), you increase your time with a student by 52 hours a year. 

That's a lot more time to talk to, interact with, and influence students --and it's all cerebral, giving some real credence to the idea that the education you provide is more than kicking and punching. 

So, if you have 52 more hours to make a difference in someone's life, what do you fill it with?

This is a concept for the (very) advanced Master Teacher / Martial Arts School Owner. It's not easy to do, it doesn't come in a box, it can't be purchased, and you won't hear about it at "the convention" or in the "millionaires mastermind roundtable" sales meeting. 

The Concept and Cultivation of Your Sphere of Influence

This is the core concept, a foundation, that should affect your thinking about black belt testing, marketing, business, and community involvement. It doesn't cost money to implement or practice, it sumply takes some intelligence, some foresight, self-discipline, and no small amount of vision. 

Step 1

Ask one person to do something for you, something small.