Summertime of Marketing

Wow, I am super busy and finding the time to journal is difficult. Most karate schools resolve themselves to the fact that summers at a Martial Arts Schools are slow. I have a totally different attitude.

Every summer, I don’t accept the whole slow theory. I see it as an opportunity to hit the pavement running and I spend my time marketing my school. Yes, that’s right. If you’re a school owner, don’t fret the summer – get busy now and you’ll have the busiest fall season of your life.

I feel the difference between success and failure is that…

The successful people always focus on tasks that will combat worries

Whenever I am worried about my student enrollments, the only way for me to elevate them is to perform tasks that will solve the problem –MARKETING. Instead of becoming a victim to my “poor-me” thoughts, I do everything in my power to fight back. I feel relieved when I write an e-mail campaign. Passing out flyers comforts me. Hanging posters reassures my soul.

What worries do you have? Focus on the activities that will produce the results that you desire and cast off the worries. Comfort yourself with the right activities and enjoy a worry-free summer.

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Wealth Secret – Money moves towards…

I use to believe that money moves towards work. In other words, the harder I work the more money I make. This idea is self-limiting because we only have some much time available.

Later, as my tenure as a customer service manager, I realized that…

MONEY MOVES TOWARDS VALUE

This concept is true whether you are a business owner or an employee. The greater the value, the more money flows towards it. The concept is so simple and effective. The object is to add value to your business or job every day.

Adding Value for the Employee

• Think like an owner – One of the biggest complains from business owners is that their employees don’t think like an owner
• Create Measurable Results – The measurable results should involve a money impact. This could be creating a system that saves time (Non-value time saved), it could be increase in sales, etc.
• No overtime – I found that people typically do overtime because of poor time management. Use the 80/20 rule (80% of the results flow from 20% of the activities) to determine the activities you focus on. Your 20% should be the activities that produce measurable results.

Adding Value for the Entrepreneur

• Constantly look to add value – Improve every aspect of your business to add value for your customers. This includes the sales systems, marketing systems, cleanliness, service, etc.
• Charge more for the extra value - Most of value is perceive by price. For example, two shops down from me is a bagel shop with coffee. The coffee costs $1.00 while around the corner Dunkin Donuts charges $1.70. I like her coffee (Green Mountain Blend) better than the Dunkin Donuts. I have heard her complain about the amount of income she’s earning. I always think to myself that she should raise the price of her coffee but I don’t say anything because I feel the price is great. If she raised the price to $1.70, I’d still purchase her coffee because I like it better, in fact, I would think that she got smart.
• Don’t forget the importance of perceived value – Most people have a perception of value. Think about cars – if I talk about the Yugo, you think one thing and if I say Mercedes, you think differently.

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First Mastermind Conference Call

My first conference call with my mastermind group was great. We talked about pre-framing customers at the beginning to upgrade into higher level programs. I learned a ton of information.

Today, I spend on the action items from the meeting. We needed to write four letters for the first four weeks after a new enrollment. Weeks 1, 2, and 3 talk about the benefits of their training and the added benefits of the Leadership program. The week 4 letter indicates that they may experience an increase in price depending on the plan they select.

I am super excited about this Peak Performers and believe it's going to help skyrocket make my school one of the top schools in the country.

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I joined the Peak Performers - Mastermind Group

I joined a mastermind group. It's called the Peak Performers group.

So what is a mastermind group?
It's a group of non-competing school owners that get together to develop ideas to help each member out and hold each other accountable. I expect great results from this networking experience.

Why did I join?
Well, I am finding the more successful our business becomes the more resistance I receive from the people around me. If I want to change the curriculum, I am told that I am going to cheapen the art. Later, I do it and find that it produces better students and student outcomes. If I believe we are undervaluing our tuition, I am told that I will price myself out of the market. Only to find that raising the tuition has no effect on the number of students and a huge effect on the revenues.

These are all self-limiting beliefs. I need to get around people that are all ready producing the results I want. This is what a mastermind group is all about.

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Thoughts on Mentors

I have an organization attempting to court me into their business mentoring services.

Common knowledge states that you NEED a mentor or coach in order to be successful. The interesting thing is that the same people professing this wisdom are interested in signing you up for their coaching services.

Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.

In my experience, the more expensive the service the less value it seems to add. It's lots of Hoo-RA and no practical knowledge. Also, I think paying for these services hits a point of diminished returns.

What is a business owner to do?

Well here's some better and free options as opposed to spending a fortune

1. Network with Other Successful Businesses - Make sure that you only listen to business owners more successful than you. I keep in touch with a friend that owns a school like mine but is twice as successful. You better believe that I listen carefully to everything he says. One visit to his school gave me enough ideas to work on for a whole year. Each idea added thousands to my bottom line.
2. Have clearly defined goals - Define your goals for the next year. With these goals, create monthly goals that align with your yearly goals. Finally, work off of a daily task list that is created from looking at the monthly goals.
3. Take massive action - Most people hire mentors as a magic pill for their own laziness, only to find that they still need to do the work in improving their business.
4. Be a forever learner - Reading is one of the best and cheapest forms of learning. I glean more ideas from one good business book than any other source.
5. Look for one good gem - Suspend your judgment of other peoples ideas and listen. Even if 99% of their ideas are off base that one gem may generate endless amounts of revenue.
6. Boost your Marketing efforts - Marketing is one of the best tools for boosting your income. Most businesses market themselves too little.
7. Raise your prices - Constantly look for ways to increase your perceived value to your customers. Most people vastly underestimate the amount that customers are willing to pay for a product.
   
8. Find a Niche - This relates to #7. The better you define your target customer the more you can cater to their needs. The end result is commanding a higher price point.

There's my list of eight things to do instead of paying a mentor.

Can you think of more? Please leave us a comment.

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The Method IS The Message

In direct response marketing, experts always talk about the headline, the message, and the offer. The message dictates why someone needs or wants your service. I find that in most services, you find that the message is outlandish claims and maybe a few great testimonials (I always wonder if the best testimonials would have received the results anyway).

With all of these outlandish claims, I wanted to discover how our school could be different and unique from our competitors in delivering our message. Well, I believe…

THE METHOD IS THE MESSAGE

What does this mean? How we living, think, and eating – The method - becomes our message. I am talking about personal branding here. Living in a small community (~2500 people), I understand that almost everyone knows who I am. People call me the “karate guy” or if they know more about karate, “Sensei”.

I could create any slick piece of marketing but everyone knows me. So if I didn’t living the Martial arts way, people would realize that my message is garbage pretty quickly. Blogging is my way of being transparent and accountable. By journaling, you are building your personal brand.

What is my personal branding? I stand for frugality, the environment, and simple living. I also strive constantly for personal excellence in everything I do. I maintain a healthful diet and a high level of physical fitness. I found the karate was my best vehicle for living my message.

Everyone who walks in our dojo will in someway experience my personal branding because it’s unavoidable. I built all of the schools systems so they naturally reflect my attitudes towards life.

Okay now it's your turn.
What is your personal branding (what are you all about)?

What is your method for delivering your message?

Is your journaling in-line with this message?

What systems can you put in place to deliver your message?

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How to run a successful business without being business obsessed

I liked the martial arts business because I felt that it had the potential to be run only less than 8 hours a day. I said potential too… because when I first quit my regular job to pursue my karate business I found that I was working 12 hours a days. I was business obsessed. I thought the more hours that I worked the more successful the business would be. Instead, it burned me out and hurt my bottom line.

I see now that being business obsessed is a huge problem. I needed to work smart, not harder - to make a business more effective. This idea started me on the path of working towards reducing the number of hours but at the same time increase my results. Now that we're $10,000+ a month business, my business makes more money, but I actually work only about four hours per day.

Eight Steps to conquering business obsession and working fewer hours
Step 1: Automated billing – This step alone saved tons of hours. Chasing after people every month for their tuition is no fun. Automated billing makes collect tuition a cinch. We require this for every student. Okay, I hear someone saying that I will lose customers with these strict billing terms. Actually, I found this helps qualify good customers. If a customer does not like these terms, in essence, they are saying that they really cannot afford your services.

Step 2: Train your staff – For every hour of staff training, I free up about two hours of my time. A good staff multiple your effort ten-fold. In addition, you need to avoid the temptation to do tasks for them. During the day, I could easily finish the administrative tasks for my student manager, but I remind myself that it’s not my job. I use to do this and watch my student manager sit at the front desk bored out of her skull.

Step 3: Forward Business Phone to Cell Phone – During the typical day, we receive very little phone traffic. Most of the phone traffic is at night after people return from work. I was hanging out at the school all day, but found this added to my burn out. In addition, the only walk in traffic I received was time wasters like sales people attempting to sell advertisement or local vendors looking to chat. By forwarding my phones, I can work from home and still answer the important phone calls during the day.

Step 4: QuickBooks Integration - My billing company offered the option to integration my billing system with QuickBooks. I paid for the upgrade. Now, I push a button and in a few seconds, I’m done. The extra money is well worth the hours of time saved. As a bonus, I save money in accountant fees too.


Step 5: Website Opt-in - Here’s another upgrade I paid for. My website allows customers to Opt-in. The website opt-in automatically enters their information into my system for follow up. This saves the effort of manually entering their information and puts them in the cue for automatic follow up e-mails and our monthly newsletter.


Step 6: Create our own customer list – When prospects coming to my school or call, we get their address and e-mail. It’s easier than you think. This way, I can put them on my mailing and e-mail list. If they don't sign up right away, we consistently try to reconnect on a regular basis with them through mailings and our e-newsletter to entice them to join our school.

Step 7: E-newsletter – We had a newsletter that we printed and mailed every month. It was time consuming, expensive, and ineffective (not to mention wasteful with all the paper). Instead, we e-mail a monthly e-newsletter. No paper, no stamps, and it’s easy to put together. Customers can unsubscribe automatically (I don’t want to spam them). I blend elements together to easily make the newsletter. Feedburner Buzz Boost is great for this. With Buzz Boost, I create an automatically updating calendar of events, blog articles, and school announcements. I post this newsletter on our student section website too. All these elements create a synergistic effect because I use the same messages in many forms.

Step 8: Write a Blog – My personal blog at http://timrosanelli.blogspot.com gets more hits than my school website, therefore, casting a larger net for capturing the attention of potential students. In addition, you’re creating an atmosphere of being the obvious expert in our community for the martial arts. Currently, I have hundreds of reader following my own and schools adventures at the blog. Since not everyone is in my community, it also creates the opportunity to generate other products that you can market to these remote students.

Next steps: I generated more ideas to maximize my results and minimize my time. I plan to implement them by the end of the summer.

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Rapport Building - Gaze into my eyes

In business, your success hinges on mastering rapport building skills. One of the best ways to build an instant rapport with someone is through eye contact and a smile. This will lead to a relax and friendly conversation. People will feel an instant connection to you - almost like you are an old friend.

But... most people feel uncomfortable and don't know what the appropriate level of eye contact is.

Well, here's a cool drill that will help.

I love little drills that you can basically practice through the regular course for the day. When you say "hi" or greet someone, just make a mental note the color of their eyes. It's so easy and works like a charm. Recognizing the color of their eyes will give you the exact proper amount of eye contact - about two to three seconds.

I found this work for one-on-one conversations, and also for groups when I teach my classes. You know, most of rapport building happens through non verbal communication. That little eye contact with each of my students during class makes them feel that I am paying attention to them. They also seem to listen better because it makes you more engaging.

At first, you will find yourself thinking the colors of their eyes - blue, brown, hazel, etc. but in time, I will become more natural. Give it a try for a week and see how it goes...

Do you have any good rapport building drills? Please comment below.

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Sending Post to Blogger via Jott

Hi everybody. I just discovered the coolest thing. A few weeks ago, I was talking about this service called Jott. I found out that you can have Jott add a post directly to Blogger. It's the coolest thing. Right now, I'm just walking my dogs as I'm,well, making a journal entry into my this blog. Isn't that really cool? Okay, we'll talk to you soon.

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New Special Needs Karate Classes – Opportunity Knocks

A few months ago, I had the idea of starting a special needs class for children Autism Spectrum Disorder. I spread the word about my interest to students, prospect, and members of the community

I thought teaching the class on Saturdays right after our leadership training would be a great opportunity for our leadership team to get some hands on – one on one – training. This would give a high student to teacher ratio – a win-win for everyone.

Suddenly last week, I got an e-mail from a caseworker, Ashley, at the Penn Foundation. She heard from a client that I would be interested in teaching children with Autism Spectrum Disorders – PDD, Asperser’s, ADHD, etc.

I called her and she said that there’s a huge interest in a Karate Summer Program, but no one provides such a program for special needs children. What a great opportunity I thought!

Martial Arts Schools usually experience a summer slow down. Well, I found out that these children receive a summer program grant (no price resistance) and for one class a week – 12-week program, I can set a tuition rate that approaches my elite program rates!

I had a modest goal of 10 children. I wanted 10 children because it would give me the opportunity to fine tune the program and fill our school with enough students to makeup for the students that leave for the summer. In less than a week, I have two students signed up and five prospects. It looks like I may need to open another class.

If you’re school slows down for the summer (and you do not own a school in close to mine – LOL), you may want to look into this idea.

Sensei Tim Rosanelli
Maximum Impact Karate
(215) 249-3532
www.maximpactkarate.com
timrosanelli.blogspot.com

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Breaking the Paid by the Hour Paradigm

One of the main reasons for my interest in starting a business was that I hate the Paid by the Hour idea of work. Once I became a salary employee, I hated that even more because your boss expected you to work overtime without extra compensation.

A business pays you by the results.

Good results mean good money. Poor results mean poor money.

I set out to create a business to unleash me from the paid by the hour paradigm. In other words, the old saying states “time is money”. This is a very paid by the hour thought.

After reading the The 4-Hour Workweek, I decided that I want to change the “time is money” to “the least time for the most money”. I am constantly looking for new ways to get greater results on less time.

I graduated college with a science degree so I am constantly experimenting. The experiment is to see if I can gradually start reducing my work hour to only 4 hours per day, five days a week.

So far, I’ve been very successful. I found that I was easily able to reduce my work hours from 10 to 12 per day, to about 5 hours per day. I am looking for people interested in teaching and eventually, I hope that I’ll be able to take some days off.

I’ll let you know how my experiment continues.

Tips on Cleaning from the Fly Lady

I believe in running a school with white glove cleanliness. To make it easier on my staff, I wanted it outline each responsible. I am always looking for the most effective and efficient way. In my research, I run across the www.flylady.net.

I used the Fly Lady concepts to organize the cleaning at our business.

The Fly Lady’s concepts in a nutshell

1. Create Zones – The first area is to divide your business into zones. I divided our school in 5 zone: Entrance, Mat Area, Front Desk, Waiting Area, and Bathrooms
2. Make a Control Journal – The Control journal is where you store your basic routines and basic weekly plan.
3. Set Basic Routines – For each zone, you make a basic cleaning routine. The basic cleaning routine is a checklist tasks to finish the zone.
4. Determine the Weekly Plan – The weekly plan determine each day which routine and zone to cleaning.

Creating the control journal with a checklist of tasks and a schedule makes training and implementing with a staff easier. The bottom line is that your students reap the benefits. Most people don't want to train in an area that smells like a gym locker and they especially don't want to send their children there.

If you want to organize your business or home, I suggest visiting the www.flylady.com and set up your routines today. Next task to organize my home.

Eight Tips to Setting up your Small Business

“Are you Crazy!?” are the exact words that came from my wife’s mouth when I told her that I wrote a business plan to start a Martial Arts School. She was reacting to me telling her that we would require about $50,000 for start up costs and the first few months of operating costs. Back to the drawing board, I went. I tweaked my plan so that we were able to start on less than a $1000. In less than 4 years, our business grew to a six figures income.

In those first three years of operation, I learned many important lessons that drove our business to success. Here’s some tips to setting up your small business.

Eight Tips to Setting up your Small Business

1. Start small first - . Most people dream of that cushy retail spot with plenty of space that will bring in many walk-by customers. Beware… a prime retail spot comes with a huge price tag, think small at first. Ask yourself, “What is the quickest way to make money?” For example, my original plan calculated the cost for a prime retail spot. Instead, I found an alternate location at a church auditorium. This decision suddenly made starting a martial arts school affordable because the monthly rent was ten times less than a retail spot.

Starting small had many advantages, too - It provided us time to build better systems, find a niche, grow our customer base, and create an income stream to reinvest in the business without the risk. Yes, after a year, we got that retail spot but only after our idea proved itself and we earned enough capital to move without worries.

2. Create a detail plan – Most people ignore creating a detail plan in favor of just starting the business. A detail plan will help you identify a niche and determine how you will get customers in your door. Ask, “How is my business different then the competition?” and “What methods will I use to get customer in the doors?”

Your plan should detail your break-even point. The break-even point is the amount of money required to stay in business. Brainstorm on how you will meet this break-even amount.

3. Get professional advice - Before you open your door for business, seek the advice from a qualified accountant and lawyer. Your accountant and lawyer will become important members of your team to help you reach your business goals, assess risk, and hold you accountable.

4. Find a niche - You definitely do not want as Dan Kennedy says, “to roll around in the mud with Wal-Mart competing for the lowest price” This is a losing strategy for any business instead look for a niche – a special area that has little or no competition. A niche market resonates with specific customers – they want your product or service because it’s special – different. Niche markets enable you to charge a premium for your product or service, therefore maximizing your business revenue.

5. Market like crazy – Don’t let anyone come within 5 feet of you without telling them about your business. Constantly, paint a picture of the benefits of what you offer. Along with traditional marketing – flyers, ads, and mailers, the best marketing for small businesses comes through referrals and networking. Building referrals systems will assist in your businesses grow exponentially. Prospects referred from existing customers will purchase more and give less price resistance because their friend sold them on your business before even walking through the door.

6. Test your idea – Put your product or service in the market on a limited time basis. You could mail a simple test advertisement, set up a table at convention or festival, or offer it through a website. Stimulating interest in this way will provide valuable feedback so that you can tweak your product or service to fit with the public demand.

7. System driven business – Once your business is up and running, focus on creating a system driven business. Michael Gerber’s states in his book, The E-myth, that most business owners are technicians that one day suffers an “entrepreneurial seizure”. Instead of thinking about technical part of doing the job, build systems to drive the business. How will you greet the customer? What do you say when you answer the phone? What is your system of creating referrals and repeat business? What is your sales presentation? Every aspect of your business needs to be a written down procedure that you and employees follow consistently. The system can change but test each change and measure the results. With excellent systems, customer will applaud your efforts and you will save time to spend on the most important activities in the business.

8. Become the Obvious Expert – Do you want customers to flock to your business? Yes. Then work on becoming the obvious expert in your field. There are many methods of becoming the obvious expert. Here’s some quick ideas for you to boost your status to the obvious expert - writing article for newspapers, create a blog, give free talks and seminars, provide valuable free resources on a website, or publish a book or e-book

With a little brainstorming and perspiration, you can start your own small business. If you play it smart, you too can start your successful small business with little or no capital.

5 Essential Environmental Self-Defense Techniques

Today, you are going to earn your white belt in Environmental Self-Defense. Just like in the martial arts, I teach 5 basic blocks for white belt. We're going to talk about 5 essential techniques of Environmental Self-Defense. Once you implement these 5 essentials into your school – congratulation, you earned your white belt in the new martial arts style of the Green Warrior.

Why start with these 5 techniques?
I have organized the information so that the first five techniques are the easiest to implement and give the environment and your wallet the biggest impact. So, let’s get start! Shall we?

Checklist of 5 Essential Environmental Self-Defense Techniques
1) Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) – Replace any standard incandescent bulbs in your business used more than 15 minutes per day with compact fluorescent light bulbs.

2) Programmable Thermostat - Did you know that you could save over 33% on your energy bill by getting a programmable thermostat. You create a 10% energy saving on heating or cooling by simply turning your thermostat back 10% to 15% for 8 hours. 10% means, instead of setting you’re heating to 68, you set it to 62 or for cooling; you set the thermostat to 78, instead of 72. Programmable Thermostats make this easy by programming a schedule to turn your thermostat back when you are not there.

3) Water Heater Insulation - Water heating accounts for about 13% of your total heating costs. Reduce your impact by turning the thermostat down and insulating your water heater.

4) Recycle – Businesses are one of the biggest producers of garbage but also, business are less likely than individuals to have a recycling plan. Green you’re school by providing recycling bins. Place them in high traffic areas for example, by the entrance, by the front desk, in the parent’s waiting area, and by any vending machine. Make sure to clearly label the recycling bins and communicate with your students regularly about the importance of recycling.

5. Weather Stripping Doors – Tremendous heat loss occurs at the entrances and exits. Adding weather stripping to your doors will minimize this heat loss - especially focus on the often-neglected emergency exits. Weather stripping will not only assist in reducing heat loss but it has the added benefit of making the room more comfortable for your students and families by reducing drafts.

Once you mastered these 5 Essential Environmental Self-defense tasks, you can consider yourself a white belt in environmental self-defense. Your Green Warrior journey to a black belt in Environmental Self-defense has begun…

Making money work for you

These days, money seems to slip through your fingers as easily as the sands of time. The rich know that in order to build wealth, you must be able to keep money in your pocket and have methods of continuing to increase it’s value over time. Making money work for you is as simple as getting money and using it to create more money.

Essential Steps to Make Your Money Work for You

1. Control your expenses - If you don't control your expenses, your money will come in as a paycheck and disappear as an expense - leaving you living from paycheck to paycheck. This phenomenon happens regardless of your income level. As most people’s income increase, so does their spending. To control your expenses, create a buying policy. For example, waiting at least 24 hours before buying anything valued more than $50 then ask yourself the follow questions, “Is this sometime that I need?” “Do I own something that can serve the same purpose?” “Can I borrow one, find one used, or make one instead of buying new?” Like the defense of professional football team, draft a superior financial defensive line to tackle unnecessary purchases before they happen.

2. Save 10% of your earnings - At 10%, you'll see that your money will grow - giving you “attitude money”. What is attitude money? When you have money invested, you feel more secure and abundant, therefore, gaining a better attitude towards money and your financial situation. Okay, most people claim that they can't afford to save 10% of what you earn. Notice that people earn different salaries but are all equally as broke. This signifies that most people just spend as much as they make and don't really control what they're spending. The wealthy find ways to control their expenses and save 10%. Once you start saving 10%, I bet that you will not even notice that it's gone. Make saving this 10% easy by automatically deducting it directly from your paycheck into a wealth account. Essentially, paying yourself first.

3. Generate Passive Income – Now that you have an excess of cash flow and savings, it’s time to create a passive income. Passive income is money generated from sources that require some upfront work and generate a stream of income for a long time. For example, some passive income sources are investments in stocks or bonds, real estate or property rent, writing for Helium, creating a blog, or designing a website that generates advertisement income. These are just a few examples. Let the miracle of compound interest start working for you by building multiple streams of passive income.

4. Increase your current salary – Nothing can increase your worth quicker than receiving a raise or promotion. If you receive a 10% raise, as quick as Clark Kent changing into superman, you become instantly 10% richer. The best way to increase your salary is to “show up” for work. Most people just punch the clock and mill their way through the day. Give your job the full eight hours of attention it deserves. Talk to your boss about your desire to increase your value (read as salary) to the company. Ask yourself what are the five most important tasks to do today that will get you noticed. Assist your boss move up the corporate ladder and like the links of a chain, you will move up too.

5. Create your own Business – Are you going to slave away making all the money for someone else. Creating a side business is a terrific way to earn more money. Start small and follow your passion. Who knows in time, it may become a full time occupation. With a fantastic business and the right mindset, it's possible to work less hours per day and make more money than you did at your regular job. Wouldn't you rather have more time in your life and make more money?

By employing, these five essential strategies to making money work for you, you will begin a snowball effect on your finances. Each day adding snowflakes until the snowball builds momentum. That’s what making your money work for you is all about – overcoming the financial inertia holding wealth at arm’s reach.

Cater to our best customers, Fire your worst

I had a new prospect come in the parents talked to my wife, Ester. They were really drilling her with question and did not like our terms. Another words, they complained about the classes being only half hour long, asked if we could pick their son up from the daycare down the street, and making all kinds of other ridiculous demands. My wife could hardly believe it.

I think that excellent student service is vitally important, but when does it go too far. In America, we’re taught to be very accommodating especially to customers to the point of nauseam. Don’t get me wrong here. I believe in stellar service but this sometimes sets you up for someone take advantage of you at the expense of your good customers.

The impact… Your worst customers are still unhappy and complaining even with your special accommodations and your best customers suffer and leave. Would you rather keep your best customers, not your worst customers?

The longer I'm in business the more I realize the importance of attracting the right people to your business. I see too many business owners completely change the way they do business just because of one complaint. These changes often hurt the business because it take into consideration one client over the needs of your current clients - leaving them feeling disillusioned and upset about the change in service that they already enjoy.

Why?
Because you create a system of doing business, you must remain in the system for it to work very effective. When individuals go around the system, the system is no longer effective, and rest of your business follows.

If a prospect doesn't like the way, you do things, and wants you to do sometime totally differently. Beware… this is the start of a problem and this customer maybe better off as some else’s client. The best rule of thumb is to remain within your core competency.

Finding good customers assists your business in many ways. They are easier to service, complain less, see the value your service, spend more money, provide well-qualified referrals, and benefit tremendously from your service. Sounds like a win-win deal. On the other hand, get rid your complainers, cheapskates, whiners, and any other people who cause trouble and create more headaches. It's better to charge more for your tuition and to have fewer students that really enjoy your service than have many customers that only partly enjoy your service.

Introduction to Greening your Dojo

The series of blog posts are your step-by-step guide to Greening Your Dojo. Each post will rank you from White to Black Belt according to the actions taken to green your business.

Why Green your Dojo?

As Martial Arts teachers/ educators, we teach our students a level of social consciousness. You would not tell students after their first lesson to go home and practice their punches and kicks on their parents and siblings.

Of course not! Instead, we give the new student a sense of responsibility with the new skill and teach them to respect the new skill - developing a level of social responsibility.

Greening your martial arts school is extension of this social consciousness to wider field, which includes the environment. By leading by example, you integrate a new level of learning experience into your school.

We all know that our students follow what they see.

Benefits of Green Your Martial Arts School

The benefits of Green your business vary from reducing waste to saving money.

• Allergy free environment – Many store bought cleaners contain additive that cause allergies.
• Reduced waste that end up filling up landfills
• Energy savings – electric and heating cost
• Reduce Co2’s

In the next post, you will earn your white belt in Environmental Self-Defense just like a student performing an introductory lesson by completing a checklist of 5 Essential Environmental Self-Defense Techniques.

Talk and Transcribe with Jott.com

I found this great free service called jott.com. It allows you to call a number and leave a message. Jott.com translates the message and e-mails it to you. You can even setup reminders, or send a email or text to people or groups added to your account.

It's a great way to capture ideas on the move. For example, I always get ideas for writing while walking my dogs - usually caught without a pen and paper. Now, I just take my cell phone and basically dial in my ideas.

Okay, jott.com requires that you are able to talk to yourself which seems a little silly at first, but after a while you get use to it. With practice, it becomes much, more natural. The clearer you speak the better the transcription.

Jott has really increasing my productivity. You know, I am just like anybody else. I have a family and responsibilities at home, but Jott lets me to do my work around the house while I continue to write (talk?) through Jott. It's pretty amazing!

In fact, most of this post was written through Jott.com

Weekend Links – Off to My Accountant Edition

Today, I sit down with my accountant for my 2007 taxes. Looking back, 2007 was a challenging and rewarding year – quick my full-time day job, finished the UBBT team 3, sold our home and moving into the new home.

I meet huge challenges head on – financially and in my business. I made vast changes in my school and now in 2008, I am reaping the benefits. The turbulent seas are calming and I foresee some smooth sailing on the horizon.

I see our school becoming like the flywheel that Jim Collins talks about in “Good to Great.” At first, the flywheel is hard to turn but once inertia takes over, the flywheel starts chugging along.

I found some great links to reading for this week.

• I read this free report called Teaching Sells. It's great reading for any business owners out there. It's a great concept for Martial Arts School Owners.
• Crunchy Chicken interesting and risqué blog post provides tips for planning a Green Valentine's Day.
• Zen Habits is one of my favorite blogs. This week, he talks about The Simple Guide to being Present for the Overworked and Overwhelmed. Why not making meditation part of our workday too.
• Having trouble meeting your goals? Maybe they are not specific enough. Hop over to Goal2Go at here.
• Write to Done shows how to put more zest into your writing, here.

I hope you enjoy your weekend reading.

I’m not frugal, I’m a conservationist

Okay, the word frugal for most people brings up images of self-denial, suffering, and like Mr. Pink in the Movie “Reservoir Dogs” does not leave tips at restaurants. So I will not call myself frugal but I’m a conservationist.

Why?

Because… I believe things like time and money are resources not to waste. Also, committing to a frugal -oops, I mean conservationist- lifestyle gives me a huge margin of error in my business. Owning a business is a huge risk. Every decision could create a gain or loss on your P&L statement.

I combat risk by being conservationist – just in case the unexpected happens. Believe me, in business the unexpected happens frequently.

Ester and I moved to a new home. Our new home is beautiful but has some significant advantages over our old home.

For example

Lower Mortgage – This is amazing since we moved from a townhouse to a single family house. Since the townhouse was located in an upscale community, home values were much higher. (Save on mortgage and taxes)

Close to Dojo – We are extremely close to our business. In fact, I walked my dogs there this morning. (Huge savings on Gas and Car Maintenance – over 10,000 miles/yr)

Peer Pressure – When you live in a more upscale area, there is huge levels of social proof that spending and a high consumption lifestyle is acceptable and normal.

Community Association Fees – The association fees at our old home were $115 per month.

Compare prices – A cup of coffee at our old house was almost $2 and a cup of coffee here is $1. I see similar price differences at the grocery store adding up to tons of savings.

I found that being a conservationist gives you a real piece of mind since your cash flow exceeds your expenses. Besides that, we love our new home in it's quite location.

Dynamic Newsletter

I am very excited about my new e-newsletter. Feedburner has created a new generation of marketing by allowing you to publish blog materials directly to a website using tools like Google Calendars and your blog.

Check out our newsletter here. Sorry, about the poor formatting. I am still working on it. I worry about the functionality first then design second.

The great thing about this page is that it automatically updates as I add events to my google calendar and write my blogs. At the beginning of the month, I update the school information and e-mail it to current students, canceled students, and prospects through my Mr. Marketer from Championsway.

Part of my phone script asks for your e-mail address. In fact, I barely let prospects walk in the door without finding out their e-mail. Ha Ha! My e-mail prospect list has grown to over 250. The thing that I love about e-mail list is that it virtually free and less time consuming then mailers. Oh yeah! Did I mention that you don't waste paper?

I am generating many new students through our newsletter because even if they do not join right away, they receive our monthly newsletter. Because I write the articles, the prospects view you as the obvious expert in your community – giving you the upper hand over your competition.

Here’s a video on how to setup your own feeds for your calendar.
Video: Google Calendar published on a web page

I figure out that the same process will work for a blog using Buzz Boost at Feedburner.

Rationale for Canceling Our Kickboxing

Once the evening rolls around, our karate school is buzzing with activity. Our kickboxing class is no exception. It appears like every other class with lots of students involved in a high energy workout.

But, is it really like every other class? On the outside, yes but on the inside, no. I hope that this article will help other business owners understand when it's time to call it quits on a poor performing service or program. Also, non business owner, you can think in terms of time. For example, is getting that second job really worth the time?

Some tough questions to ask

Could I make more money with different class in the time slot?
The kickboxing monthly tuition is almost half the tuition of the regular program. I think this says it all. I need to double the class size to make as much money as our regular program. Which takes us to question number two.

How is the program retention?
The retention rate refers to how many people stay with the program each month. High retention rates means that students are stay with the program longer. The retention rate determines how many new students you need to grow the program. The average kickboxing student stays about three months while my karate students stay for years. Bottom line, we need to spend more money and time in marketing the kickboxing.

Are we spending marketing dollars on a program that would give a higher return in another area?
Any way you slice it, we need to divide our marketing budget between the regular program and the kickboxing program. Two marketing programs requires either splitting your efforts in half or spending double the time.

Is the program capital intensive?
Our kickboxing program required us to purchase expensive standing heavy bags and exercise bands.

Does the program provide the opportunity for addition retail sales?
No, once they get the initial equipment, they do not require anything else. The regular program provides the opportunity for addition retail sales and services.

Is there the ability to upgrade students to higher value programs?
No, the kickboxing program is a kickboxing program. I am not saying that you could not develop something, but for me, that takes time away from developing the karate program.

In the end, I believe the change is not only going to be good for the program and business but it will free up some more of my time.

Book Review: The Richest Man in Babylon

I just finished reading the classic book, The Richest Man in Babylon: Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century by George S. Clason. This personal finance book has sold millions of copies since it’s original release in 1926. It’s advise is still as relevant today as it was in 1926.

Unlike many dry and boring finance books, George Clason wrote The Richest Man as a parable with characters from ancient Babylon. The Richest Man in Babylon tells the Seven Simple Rules of Wealth. I love the simplicity of the rules.

Seven Rules of Wealth

1. Start thy purse to fattening
2. Control thy expenditures
3. Make thy gold multiply
4. Guard thy treasures from loss
5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
6. Insure a future income
7. Increase thy ability to earn

Here’s some of the highlights of The Richest Man in Babylon
• Saving 10% of what you earn therefore fattening thy purse
• “All men are burdened with more desires than they can gratify.” As we grow the ability to earn, so does our desire to spend if we do not control thy expenditures.
• Invest 10% so that it works for you and make thy gold multiply
• Beware of get rich quick schemes. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Guard thy treasures!
• Purchase a home so that you are not paying rent forever.
• Think long term and build a passive income for when you grow old. Insure a future income.
• Constantly increase your value at your current occupation. Your employer will recognize your efforts and increase your salary. If they do not, look for a new employer. Therefore, you increase thy ability to earn.

The Richest Man in Babylon was enjoyable reading and offers some great time tested advice from ancient Babylon. I found the chapter on the real tablets from Babylon that researchers discovered very interesting. The tablets talk about a man’s journey to get out of debt. He lays out a plan for getting out of debt and the final tablet is about his day of debt liberation.

Making Tough Decisions

As a business owner and entrepreneur, we need to make tough decisions. Well, I made the tough decision to cancel our kickboxing program.

From a business standpoint, this makes complete sense. With our growing children’s program, we needed a new time slot for more classes. Since the kid’s program is where most of our profits come, we could not deny this opportunity for growth.

But…

I can’t help but feel sorry for taking this course of action. I build relationships with all the members of the kickboxing and I hope they understand the reasons for my actions. There I go, talking about reason, logic, and the rational. I know from past tough decisions that these things appeal more to the emotions and are much deeper.

I could tell by kickboxing student’s reaction that they were disappointed. I offered to let them into the karate program at a greatly reduced tuition.

They’re still unhappy and I understand completely because I am sad about it too. I loved the kickboxing class because I could jump into the class and get my workout too. Unfortunately, I cannot think of only my needs. We need to think about the needs of the program/ business first.

My next article will go further into the reasons for this change.

What’s your story?

One of my favorite blogs is Duct Tape Marketing. I recently read his post on Share your Story

I love this idea!

What is a story?
Duct tape marketing states, “stories are nothing more than fun, captivating, motivational, honest conversations that illustrate what makes you knowable, likeable and trustable.”

I already used it to some extent but now, I plugged right into my enrollment presentation. It works great because it builds an instant connection with my prospects.

Here’s our business story.
“I started the Martial Arts at the age of 9 years old. My parent drove me pretty far for me to take lessons. Well, I feel that I benefited from that early training in so many ways and that I can not imagine how my life would have been without it.

I always had the dream even back then to start a karate school in my hometown to help children just like me and give back to the community.

Well, in 2004, the gym that I taught karate closed and I still had the desire to teach. I thought it would be a great time to follow that childhood dream and start a school in my hometown.

I started teaching at a church auditorium and the school grew to the point that we moved to our current location. We continue follow our mission to help develop children and give back to the community."

Making Checklists

Yes, when I first started Maximum Impact Karate, I had what Michael Gerber terms in his classic book, The E-myth, an “entrepreneurial seizure”. I believe that my teaching skills would carry the business to great heights.

I was wrong. I struggled along as “wing it” in everything from my sales presentations to my classes. Slowly and gradually, I took moments of extra time to start systemize every activity.

Now, I have write procedures for everything from phone calls to enrollments.

The final touches are creating Checklists for each job and developing a master schedule. I have the basis for the master schedule. The Master schedule is a sequence of tasks divided between first week, second week, third week, and fourth week activities.

This month, I worked on creating checklist for each of these activities. For example, the picture below is my new student checklist.

Using my master schedule has two advantages. First, it keeps me on tack. The master schedule details all the required and important activities for the month. Once I complete everything for the week, the rest of my time is free time. It’s that easy.

The second advantage of a checklist is that activities become easier to delegate to my staff. I can hand them the checklist and they can complete the tasks required.

It’s incredible how much time this has freed up for me.

I'm Back

I’m back! My wife, Ester and I moved into a new home last week. I was unable to blog because we were so busy and we did not have an internet connection. Getting everything back together is a huge undertaking!

We meet a few challenges. First, we meet challenges getting the appliances installed. The appliance store informed us that they back ordered our cloths washer and dryer. After one trip to the Laundromat, we decided this was a top priority.

Second, our plumbing is this new tubing called Pex. I found that most plumbers won’t touch the stuff. The builder referred us to a plumbing company to install our dishwasher and said, “Tell them we referred you”. I did just that and they quoted me a price of $450. I thought “What!!! That sounds high”. So I proceeded to call every plumber in the phone book, I received quote $159. That’s more like it! I guess the other quote was the builders special. Thank god that I follow my purchasing policy.

Finally, THE INTERNET. We planned to switch to Verizon FIOS service for the internet and TV. I started calling them Mid-December to schedule new service. The sales representative gave me a phone number to call to setup service. I called 9 times and left detailed messages. I finally called the main number on December 4 and scheduled installation for December 23. It really bothered me because now we needed to wait for 2 weeks after moving in to receive these services. I cancelled the installation with Verizon (I waited for 45 minutes to get a representative) and we went back to Comcast.

Why tell you all of this? In the life of entrepreneur, the lines between your personal life and business life fade. When I worked for a company, the line between work and home were perfectly clear – now, everything is gray.

Save Money with a Purchasing Policy

Do you have rules for purchasing items? Whether it's our personal finance or business finance following specific purchasing rules will save you money and find better services.

A good purchasing policy assist you find the best value for your money - notice I didn't say the cheapest service. I found, in most cases, basing decisions solely on price will cost you money in the end. By best value for your money, I mean looking for services that best fits your needs.

My wife (Ester) and I are moving to a new home so I've set up services with many new vendors.

My purchasing policy has two simple rules:

1. Get three price quotes for each item or service - For new services, I call at least three to five vendors to interview them. For items, a little research online or a quick trip to a few stores should do
2. Wait at least 24 hours on any purchase over $100 - Quick, on the spot decisions will cause many errors and wasted money. Many services will attempt to offer a deal if you sign up right away. I combat this sales technique upfront by telling the sales representative that I will not make a decision today and that all special offers need be valid for 24 hours.

Okay, now that you created a simple purchasing rules to live by, it's time to interview the vendors. The interview will help you decide on the best vendor. Here's some tips for interviewing.

• Write down questions in advance - To get a fair comparison, ask all the vendors the same questions.
• Take notes -After you interview a few vendors, the interviews start to blend together. Taking notes separates all of the conversations.
• "Is there any question that I should have asked but did not?" - This is one of my favorite questions. Since you are not likely to be an expert in the field that you are researching, this question prompts the sales representative talk about what defines them from the competition, gives you good questions to ask the next vendor candidate, and lets you know important information that you may have missed. For example, when I called some propane companies for my new home heating, I found asking this question that not all propane companies will service our tank if it leaks.

Through this interview process, I find many surprising deals. In the case of finding a Propane company for our new home, one vendor originally installed the underground tanks and delivered to most of our development, therefore offering special rates. I also got the best feeling from what the sales representative said. With prices 72 cents cheaper per gallon, we will save $720 per year on the average 1000 gallons that we will purchase.

My Simple 2008 Business Goal

Since the holidays, it’s been difficult getting back in the groove of blogging.

I read Leo's post called 7 Essential Tips to Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever at Zen Habits. His first tip is about having one simple goal. I agree with him that one goal refines your focus so hitting the bulls eye of your goal becomes easier.

With this idea in mind, I examined my monthly roll up statistics. Tracking specific areas of my Martial Arts business enables me to target areas for improvement.

Main Categories of My Statistics

• Inquiries (how many people contacted me)
  
• Introductory Lessons (how many people tried the program)
  
• Enrollments (how many people joined)
  
• Total Students (total number of members)
  
• Attrition Rate (percentage of cancellations)
  
• Student Value (the amount of revenues each student creates)
  

I took these statistics and compared them to my industries benchmarks. This year, my inquiries to enrollments rate went from 15% to 25% meaning that I improved in my sales presentation. The interesting part is that I improved despite the fact that tuition rates increased 20% since prior year. Lesson Learned: pricing is elastic and people are willing to pay more for better service.

Okay, on to my simple 2008 business goal, I realized that the number of inquiries limits my schools growth. If your average attrition rate is 5% (I was below 5% for the year), a school of 100 students loses 5 students per month. At a 25% inquiry to enrollment rate, I need to find 20 inquiries per month to sign up 5 new students. If I accomplish this goal consistently over the next few months, my school will grow to 100 students.

There you have it.

My Simple 2008 Business Goal = generate 20 new inquiries per month

If my attrition rate is better than 5%, I will reach my goal quicker.