Find your niche -- and dominate it!

You cannot run a full time studio - with part time thinking!

The biggest and most important fight you will ever have in your life will not be in the ring or the street!
It will be the everyday battle to keep your studio up and running! Be prepared to get a few bloody noses, and take a few "9" counts!

The secret to making the close on a sale is "Budgeting".

The customer is not always right! But only the Sensei/Sifu makes that decision.
Know where and how to draw the line.
Some students you never want back in your studio!

We provide a service but we are no one's 'SERVANT"!

Anything less than the best is - unacceptable!

No one ever regretted buying the "very best"!

You never get a second chance to make a first impression!
Location - sign - reception area - that first phone call - your Gi - when they first walk into your studio!

If you are looking to get onto the "Karate gravy train" I have news for you -- it left town ten years and broke down because it was so overloaded.

No person in their right mind would step into the ring against a person - with the ability to kill you without proper training!
Yet, that same person - will open a "Martial Arts" studio with no business training or having ever managed or ran a successful studio. Risking everything they have save and even more.

You can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results

Offer a product or service - customers will pay a premium price for -- but your competitors cannot -- or will not offer!

If you have to get most business advice from a billing company - or - one of the other business "gurus" -- you won't be in business long!
What if their advice is wrong - you won't know it until it does not work!

Watch for the signs: "Burn-out" is very real! Especially if you are living form hand to mouth! and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

You cannot run a business based upon the
"new gimmick" a month theory! or lets jump onto each new fad: Tae Bo! or If we only had another "Karate Kid" type movie!

Every competitor you have takes food out of your mouth!
(In the ring he wants to knock you out (KO)- or beat you into submission (TKO)
(In business he wants to (KO) or (TKO) you!
No competitor is your friend - nor should you do anything that will help him stay in business!
EXAMPLE: Never support a competitors tournament! If they sell supplies, do not buy anything from them --  not even a $5 belt!

Are you willing to pay the price?
You can have a lot of time for yourself or a lot of money -- but you cannot have both!

Know and understand how you fit into the 80/20 rule:
80% of all the money is made by 20% of the businesses!
Look at the competition who are the top 20%
Who are the bottom 80%
NO BRAINIER: Which one do you not locate next too - if you have a choice?

90/90 Rule - If you teach groups only - 90% of all new students quit coming to the studio in the first 90 day.
To try and beat this rule, studios try to sign students to long term contracts.
Then they are forced to turn the contracts over to a 3rd party to try to collect.

There is no quick, easy way of making money in the martial arts.
But there are a lot of quick ways to go broke!

If you do not structure your business from the beginning to net (Take Home) between 45%-50% of gross (total income)
you have the wrong business plan.

NO BUSINESS PLAN?
If you do not have a business plan - how do you know -- how to get there -- and what to do after you have arrived?

Keep your overhead low!

Get rid of staff -- staff training -- staff meetings -- business planning meetings -- long term planning!
Now that you have done that you get to take home all the money you paid them in wages - and use that time you used to waste with the staff -- to teach people for real money!

If you are a new business -- and the total of All studio expenses is more than $2500-$3000 a month -- you are in real trouble!

REALITY: What happens if you have to hire people to run most aspects of the business because you do not know how? What happens when any one of those (indispensable) people: die, quit, you have to fire them?

You will never solve the problem of "Staff".
You can minimize the problem by having as little staff as possible.

Learn to do you own accounting.
Then with just one push of a button - you will know exactly where you stand at any given moment!

Rule of 50,000 - the rule of net vs. gross
To take home $50,000 - you have the following options:
Gross $100,000 - net 50% = $50,000
Gross $125,000 - net 40% = $50,000
Gross $167,000 - net 30% = $50,000
Gross $250,000 - net 20% = $50,000***
*** business drops by only 10% - expenses are the same - you take home only $25,000
Gross $500,000 - net 10% = $50,000***
*** business drops by only 10% - expenses are the same - you take home  $0000.00

The law of health spas
eventually they all go out of business -
Every major Health Spa chain
starting with American Health in 1956 -- has gone bankrupt!
Look around - how many Health Spas that were here ten years ago are still in business today?

Rule - If you pattern yourself after a health spa - or use their methods or hire their personnel - you will in the long run end up just like them!

If you (personally) don't get back to running a dojo - and assume the role of a traditional sensei/sifu teaching "true martial arts" (self defense) to people who need and can afford it -------- you will  probably be forced to look at a "career change"!

The easy way to tell if your studio is doing well!
If all your bills for studio for the month have been paid.
You have paid all your own personal living expenses,
In addition to  taking home your own paycheck
and putting some money aside each money for your retirement
- do not owe the IRS -
and still have money in the bank - you are doing OK!