This blog post will focus on one method that can be used to get more martial arts students.
It is more of a concept than an exact method but trust us; this is useful information.
Do you know anyone who says they ‘used to do martial arts?’
I bet you do,
What about people who say “I would love to lose a few pounds of weight” or even “I want to earn more money”.
Do you know why most people never achieve these goals?
It is because they all have chosen to stick with their default settings, but once you understand this, then you will have at your disposal a powerful tool to use in your business.
What Are The Default Settings And Why Are They So Powerful
When you first log into Facebook your account has default settings.
When you buy a new TV or computer, it has default settings
and guess what… everyone has default settings.
The default setting for everyone is just normal life, and this is pretty compelling.
Many years ago I had a martial arts class that bombed, I mean we had like five students, and I had no idea about marketing, sales or anything else back then.
Looking back I now know one of the core reasons it failed, I had the session at 7 pm on a Friday night.
Do you know what the default setting for adults on a Friday night is? Well, it involves either getting home and getting ready for a night out, a takeaway in or just opening a bottle of wine after a tough week.
So, to get that class off the ground I was not only fighting to promote the class and club, but I was going up against the default Friday night settings. In fact one time a person came for 3 weeks and stopped coming.
When I asked why he was stopping, he told me “To be honest I love going out to the pub on a Friday, and I can’t do both”.
Whenever you ask someone to take up martial arts or any other activity, you are fighting against their default settings.
You are asking a person to come home, get out of their car and then get changed and go out again.
You are asking them to walk past their sofa and the TV and go out and get back into the traffic and pay you for an hour martial arts instruction.
Like some Jedi power, the force is strong and very often the sofa and TV win.
Now although this is worse on a Friday night it happens every other day of the week as well, anytime you ask people to come to your martial arts class you are fighting a battle against that person’s default settings.
But do not worry there is a way to win this fight, and I will explain how.
How To Encourage A Person To Challenge Their Default Settings
Do you ever wonder why all these fitness classes have exploded in popularity?
You know the ones who have 30-minute high-intensity training sessions with kettlebells, ropes and massive tyres.
I will let you into the biggest secret in the fitness industry and explain why they are so popular.
These classes are not new in fact they have been around for 20 years. They were just packaged differently back then, such as boxercise or circuit training.
What happened is that the product was changed to fit the market, people had less time and wanted faster and greater results. So the industry cut classes from 60 to 30 minutes long (and some shorter).
In the process, they made them more intensive, and they made them cheaper. So for £3 a person can have a great workout, lose weight and make friends.
Suddenly we saw busy mums getting super fit and Dads with beer bellies getting ripped.
Just think how these classes work. You simply go online and press a button and book your place and pay either online or when you get there. It takes minutes to book a class that fits in with your life.
In case you missed it here are the key points:
- The product evolved to fit the users
- The product delivered results
- The product was easy to access
You can get fit at any gym, however, what happens is that people go to a gym and chat to their friends, they get out their phones while on the bikes, they see the swimming pool and sauna and promise to do their cardio the next day.
They are there for 2 hours, and they often do very little working out, and this compounds so the results they want do not appear and people give up.
Here is the key part in all of this: FRICTION
Anytime there is friction; you are unlikely to do something.
The friction to a good workout in a gym is the person doing the workout. They have to push themselves, train themselves and focus themselves. The sauna provides friction, the Jacuzzi does, your phone does.
Do you see how there is less friction in one of those high-intensity classes?
It is easy to book, you go and are told what to do, you get a workout and leave.
Remove the friction and you help that person to challenge their default settings.
So let’s look at removing the friction in martial arts to get more students.
How To Get More Martial Arts Students Forever
I have studied a lot of different martial arts business models, and the ones that are successful all have common traits.
1. They pitch the bill payer and not just the end user
2. They make it easy for you to sign up
3. They make it easy for you to attend a class
So let’s break this down further.
The Pitch
Everyone has a bill payer in the house. The person that holds the purse strings. Now this might be the person that handles the money, but they are the ‘manager’ that controls the budget.
So let us say you are in a supermarket with a promotional stand up trying to sell your classes. Along walks a man who is the right fit for your style of martial arts, however, he is with his wife and young baby.
The mistake here would be to try and sell lessons to them both. After all, they have a young child, so one of them is going to have to look after the child if the other signs up.
So you focus on the man.
Wrong again.
This man is with his wife. She is going to be the friction when he goes out 2 or 3 nights a week to your school.
So the best sales people focus on removing the friction and tell both of them why this will benefit each of them in the ways that matter most to them.
Making Life Easy
The next step of reducing friction is simple. You need to make life as easy as possible for the person so they can sign up
So how could you do this?
Well, monthly direct debit payments are a great way because they are simple and once done you forget about them.
The next aspect is how they fill them in.
If it is a form, then write it out for them so all they need to do is add the bank details.
Or have a PayPal button on your website, so paying is just set up with two clicks.
Make life easy even if you have to do it yourself for them.
The same goes for your website, use Google maps so they can find your location, have contact details visible on your site also.
Make finding information about your school easy.
Help Them Get To Class
The final aspect is related to venue and communication.
If your venue is a 45-minute drive away, then you have a huge friction issue.
If you have no parking at the venue, you have another huge friction issue
If it is cold or raining heavily you have more friction issues.
The solution is simple. You need to reduce the friction.
You can do this by getting a venue that is easy to get to and has plenty of parking.
If the weather is bad, make sure you get onto your Facebook page and send out motivational messages all week and keep your students engaged.
Conclusion
The default setting for everyone is to do nothing. You are fighting against this.
If you provide friction with your business processes, then you will make life difficult for a student to come to you.
If you focus on making coming to your school as easy as possible, then you have a reduced the friction that stops people coming to your classes.
Focus on making life easy for them to become your customer and you will make more sales.
Now go and look at your business. Have you made it easy for someone to become a customer?