Tips on having your own Martial Art Gym

[Ari Bolden]

Hey everyone:

I AM LOOKING for advice or tips on what makes a sucessful dojo/gym. While I have a whole host of dos and don'ts and I've written lots about this in other forums, I am looking for your input on the matter. Asking others, students and teachers alike will help me grow

I've done many types of advertising and promos over the years. I know what has worked for me and what has been a waste of $ and time. But, I want to get your views.

1) how to market
2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?
3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?
4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?
5) What pit falls have you avoided or would avoid.

Please let me hear it. Using you guys as a sounding board will help me grow and get to the point where I can "really make a living at this!"

Many thanks in advance.

[Ghosted3]

1) For me word of mouth is always the best. If people on the street ect. are saying how good you and your school is that will make me want to come there more than a pretty sign. Maybe address a local high school with a seminar to get the future of the arts involved.

2) See above, and offer (if you dont already) free intro classes and sit ins so peeps can observe what opportunities they could have.

3) A teacher that wants you to learn and is willing to work with you, not someone who shows the armbar once and comes back in 10 min and shows something else (Im sure you dont have a problem with this though lol)

4) Word of mouth, phone book and lastly web. There arent many buses in my area besides school buses, that may be a good idea if in a larger city though.

5) I dont think I could go to a school that had an instructor that was too full of himself, with a bunch of arrogant students. Luckily I have not seen too many of those.

Hoping for the best my friend, we all know you deserve it!

[virginiamma]

1) how to market


Have several winning fighters that started at your gym or have been with your gym for sometime. Thats the only thing that matters to me when I am screening gyms.


2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?


- Less traditional stuff the better.
- Offer more than bjj/wrestling have thai as well.
- Did I mention fighters?
- If you and a majority of your instructors aren't physically fit in relation to your age then you get negative points.
- Good mix of senior and new students that are fun to roll with and not trying to win at all costs. This is really important..
- 1 month or 2 month no obligation clause in the contract. I want to try your gym long enough to make sure its for me.


3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?


Enough bags etc to go around and basic set of workout equipment.

4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?

Web.. my gym advertises on tv during fights and other mma related shows and claim good results.

5) What pit falls have you avoided or would avoid.

NA

[mmasurfer]

Marketing is gonna depend on your area, but if your near a college campus, almost all of them allow you to advertise on campus (just have to pay for flyers). Also, the school I go to does advertising at all the local events and we seem to have a lot of people come in through that also.

[Ghosted3]

- If you and a majority of your instructors aren't physically fit in relation to your age then you get negative points.

Ok, maybe this is just me, but isnt it the point of JJ to show that people of all body types big small fat skinny ect can use this wonderful art against anyone? I personally would love to see various sized people showing techniques. It seems easy for the "fit" people to do it, but what about the others. When they do it, it will give confidence to younger / newer students who are yet to be in the shape that they desire.

/end hijack
*sorry*

[virginiamma]

I don't mean ripped to shreds just reasonably physically fit.

[CEB]

Hey now. I'm fat. .... But I bet I squat more than you. :D

[virginiamma]

Are we counting your belly fat towards the squat weight?

[Ghosted3]

Okay, back to the thread at hand please, and please respect fellow members. From here on out, if it is not about the original topic take it to PMs :D
Sorry for the derailment :(

[CEB]

Are we counting your belly fat towards the squat weight?

No but that is a good idea. I could break 700 pounds on my reps if I do that.

[virginiamma]

No but that is a good idea. I could break 700 pounds on my reps if I do that.

lol...

we need a laughing smiley

[Ryan]

Ari-

What would really get me interested in one gym over another is the "team" atmosphere. I have always wanted to be apart of something so if your gym had a BJJ team that went around to different tournaments and rallied around each other I would really dig the gym.

I think when you open up your new gym you should really market the 10th planet banner. Not only is it a cool name but its very marketable. I like your banner too so having 2 cool logo's would be awesome.

A local dojo has made it on the news quite a bit for their charitable actions. See, living in Ohio you see a lot of people falling on ice and getting major head and back injuries so a local sensei has set up FREE classes to learn how to fall properly. This got him and his school on the news which gave free publicity.

Ari- kids who are in elementary school are very influenced by the martial arts. I suggest asking the local schools if you can do a 20-30 minute seminar at an assembly and get people interested. At the very least, print off enough flyers to have the schools hand them out with report cards.

[Oneiros]

1) how to market

Word of mouth, WEB... I think these two are the most important

2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?

A goods atmosphere... good hygiene

3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?

I screen the teacher (I dont mind if he is ripped like Bruce Lee... he can have too much kg?s, I dont care.. If he can teach the thing then its okay...

4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?

Word of Mouth, Web
________
PREGNANT MASTURBATION (http://www.fucktube.com/categories/916/masturbation/videos/1)

[jakem]

No but that is a good idea. I could break 700 pounds on my reps if I do that.

watch out for the "blubber guard":D just kidding

[Ryan]

guys. c'mon... enough with the weight jokes. This is a thread to help Ari.

[Ari Bolden]

Its all good Ryan...as long as they ain't making fun of me:)

[Ryan]

alright. Didn't know if it was touchy for Ed or not..... lol. The alarm kind of hit when Corry said something since they train together :)

[CEB]

No. I am not a very sensitive. I have been listening to my wife for 20 years

Plus I exaggerate a whole lot anyway. I think I'm in OK shape for a man my age. I could stand to take off 10 or 15 pounds but I'm fairly solid at 215 .... and I'm old enough I could probably be most you guys' Grandpa.

[danjr]

Hey everyone:

I AM LOOKING for advice or tips on what makes a sucessful dojo/gym. While I have a whole host of dos and don'ts and I've written lots about this in other forums, I am looking for your input on the matter. Asking others, students and teachers alike will help me grow

I've done many types of advertising and promos over the years. I know what has worked for me and what has been a waste of $ and time. But, I want to get your views.

1) how to market
2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?
3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?
4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?
5) What pit falls have you avoided or would avoid.

Please let me hear it. Using you guys as a sounding board will help me grow and get to the point where I can "really make a living at this!"

Many thanks in advance.

1) how to market:

Make a youtube video! thats how I found sub101. I found my bjj club from a flyer on a university bus. then I joined the judo club through word of mouth. I got the tae-kwon-do experience also but that was sorta a class and it was listed with all of my other classes to choose from

2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?

A friendly atmosphere. Not to play devil's advocate but I disagree with VirginiaMMA in the sense that, I don't want to train in the shadow of more important fighters. then again I'm not training to be a fighter.

3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?

Umm, cheap seminars and cheap gi's. I don't care if a gym membership comes with exercise equipment like some gyms do.

4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?

Web is good... Yellow pages possibly.. flyers stapled to telephone poles..

Not sure what question 5 is asking but let me say this - I hate my judo club (until we practice groundwork), Tae Kwon Do was BORING!!!!, but I can't get enough of my jiu jitsu club.

Tae Kwon Do was organized, clean, quiet, and overall just tame. The instructor was very traditional, and he should be (bow, stand up straight, face away from him when you adjust your gi, etc) It was too tame, and slow paced.

Judo was somewhat organized, somewhat clean, somewhat quiet, but WAY out there. There are a few blackbelts that are older gentlemen and they keep to themselves but are really good at judo. The instructor is overweight and has a bad knee so he doesn't really throw or be thrown all that much. He feels like a back seat teacher - always there to dictate and point out where I am doing things wrong. The club practices at an extremely fast pace, IMO. I'm brand new and being held at similar standards to the brown and black belts. I dread going to practice because I walk away damaged (haha). It still hurts to be thrown but they dont slow down at all (Thinking back, some people go lightly on you if you ask them to... then again those same guys are also in the JJ club haha!). The club was also not quite traditional, where other people gave their input on certain things and theory.

Jiu Jitsu is by far my favorite club activity. The class is clean enough to be healthy but disorganized enough to be fun. Every day someone else might teach, and thats probably because we are only white and blue belts and a purple belt that rarely comes. We're like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off, but it works beautifully. When rolling, if someone wants to go slower and easier, the other guy is extremely easy to work with, and that is the kind of class necessary to learn! While I dig the idea of having some kind of leader around that is there to correct people when they need to, I think it is detrimental to have a be all - end all kind of authority. You should treat your members like they own part of the dojo and there shouldn't be a whole lot of stress. A new thing that our club has been doing that works pretty well is, instead of having one person teach a move, drilling it, teaching a little more, drilling, etc, we have been splitting up into three groups (that tend to be about 9-10 people per group) and each group has a teacher and they teach a move and then we switch the teachers up so that each group learns each move, except the classes are small.

As far as attracting members, I think proclaiming yourself as a self defense attracts more people and they learn to love JJ whereas the judo club is about 1/4th the size of the JJ club and they are more about sport and competition. I should also note that Tae Kwon Do attracts disgustingly large amounts of people by claiming to be self defense classes. It may be just people looking for an easy college credit or some sense of self gratification for little effort, because about 10% of the people that take the class go on to join the intermediate class - so take that with a grain of salt.


Sorry for writing a novel but it's spring break and I'm sick...

[BadKarmaRising]

Hey everyone:

I AM LOOKING for advice or tips on what makes a sucessful dojo/gym. While I have a whole host of dos and don'ts and I've written lots about this in other forums, I am looking for your input on the matter. Asking others, students and teachers alike will help me grow

I've done many types of advertising and promos over the years. I know what has worked for me and what has been a waste of $ and time. But, I want to get your views.

1) how to market
2) What speaks to you as a consumer? What would make you join my club?
3) What are you looking for? What perks are good at a gym?
4) how do you find info? telephone book? Web? work of Mouth? Side of a bus?
5) What pit falls have you avoided or would avoid.

Please let me hear it. Using you guys as a sounding board will help me grow and get to the point where I can "really make a living at this!"

Many thanks in advance.

Man can I tell you about pitfalls. :)

Cash flow is king, to that end consider contracts with monthly EFT or better, direct debit to a credit or debit card. There are servicing companies that will handle all of that for you, including collections. They take a cut but in the end, they're worth it.

Kids and women pay the bills. Consider women's only self defense classes taught BY A WOMAN.

With the kids program, the things the parents want to hear are things like discipline, self confidence, self esteem,and self defense. If you market the sports aspect of MA to parents, you're going to have a hard go because they always want to know "When is the season?"
"Um, we don't have a season?" or worse "it's all year round"
Now you're an activity that has to compete with little league baseball, soccer, and whatever else, all of which have structured seasons.

Here in the states most areas have a Police Athletic League and they are great sources of grant money for running programs for at risk kids. Is there anything similar in BC? They'll not only pay for the gi's and such, but direct kids to your program.

Don't fall into the trap of trying to attract serious fighters. Serious fighters are the guys you want to roll with and the guys you want to train with BUT if you aren't careful they'll destroy your school.

Not intentionally, but like a bull destroys a china shop.
They have trouble paying, they swear like sailors, and they play very rough.

Let a parent see blood all over a shirt and shorts and you won't see little Johnny again. Same holds true if they get caught staring at some timid secretary in the women's class.

So you don't raise the skull and crossbones until the woman and children have gone for the night. Then you pull the blinds shut and beat the hell out of each other.

Other things to stress in a grappling school. White belts don't get thrown, ever. They hit the floor then they hit the door.

White belts never randori with each other. They always wind up getting hurt. Injured students don't attend class. Absent students don't like to pay.


I strongly recommend that as part of registration you require a membership in an athletic organization that provides insurance. That may wind up being separate than any sanctioning body membership for whichever MA style you're ranking students through. Judo in the us has USJA, USA Judo, and USJF and ALL of their insurance coverage's suck. We require all students have yearly AAU memberships period. No exemptions for private health insurance or anything else. One serious uninsured injury can financially ruin you. Compound it because the injured party is a new guy who got hurt rolling with a senior student, and in the states at least, it gets costly.

Marketing ideas.
Print up a flyer with a coupon on it and run a gazillion copies. Then pass them out everywhere you can get away with it. Latch Key programs, office buildings, churches, scouting meetings, community centers and on and on.

Run a referral program. Bring a friend and when they've been there a set amount of time, you get a month free or some such.

Offer family packages.

Start a Demo team then contact organizers of local fairs and events, scouting organizations, whatever you can get to and put on a show for them. All the while handing out more of your gazillion flyers. At those types of events, ground work doesn't sell well, So big throws with loud break falls are money.

If you haven't already considered this, don't try to teach every class. You''ll have advanced students with a desire and ability to teach so direct them that way. I was a good competitor before I started teaching, I became a good judoka after. Nothing teaches like teaching, in my opinion.

Your time will be best spend managing curriculum and teaching the teachers and advanced competitors.

[Ghosted3]

I wasnt trying to help Ed or anything, just trying to keep the thread on track lol. Ari, are you thinking of making a compilation of this stuff to be available to people looking to open their own gyms one day?

[Ari Bolden]

No really a compliation. I wanted to have this thread here for others to see (it speaks for itself, so I don't really have to edit or compile anything. I like the raw answers that are going up here). I saw something like this on another board but the guy doing it kept all the info to himself (email me your thoughts). What is the point of that if everyone can't reap the benefits right?

Thanks everyone for your answers. Keep them coming and add more things if they come to your mind.

[Ryan]

Are you using a lot of these ideas already or are they mostly new?

[Ghosted3]

Ari - do you mean jayskuls? I filled out 2 of his surveys to help him out and never got the PDF back that he was promising everyone.

[Ryan]

One thing I can always guarantee on..... Ari delivers!:D



No though, sorry about ruining the fun earlier..... didn't know if Ed was ok with it or not. Don't want anyone pissed off.... especially the good members :)

If Eds cool with it.... carry on :D

[Ari Bolden]

Ari - do you mean jayskuls? I filled out 2 of his surveys to help him out and never got the PDF back that he was promising everyone.

Yeah, I think that was it. I'd just hate to see that PDF show up as an ebook for SALE when all the content is by people who gave free info to him and put the effort in.

Ryan, I use many of these already but I don't know everything and people have different experiences so it helps tons!

Remind me, when I have time, to write a thread on "How to deal with a mentally unstable person trying to join your dojo." I have a story that will blow you guys out of the water (cringes to even think about it).

[Ryan]

WOW, I wanna read that......*Reminding Ari now*

[Ghosted3]

Ari, you arent suppose to tell the story of me trying to join your dojo!