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@martialartsbusiness
The 100. could only be what it is due to the Internet. Instant communication, the posting and updating of intricate how-to's and instructions, the ever-present coaching, the networking, seeing who is available now, the storage of 1000's of reports and videos, the talent, the ambitious undertakings, the flow of info, and the networking. Brilliant, NOW, perfect, connecting, and so needed in the MA world.
Below, I Offer You 11 Pieces of Business and Management Advice
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my martial arts teacher, Master Ernie Reyes, Sr. --as he taught me, by his example, how to make things happen. It's been my experience that just about everywhere Master Reyes goes, he leaves behind something extraordinary. I make it my practice to try and do the same.
My association / school, The 100. is purposely unlike any other martial arts organization in the world. I wouldn't say we are "better than," The 100. simply deals with subjects and ideas not often (if ever) addressed in the billing services, retail manufacturers, sport and/or style focused associations, and business groups that currently populate "the industry."
Our purpose, in part, is to:
Dramatically affect the quality of your life --and from their, your family, your school, your community, the international martial arts community, and the world.
To redesign the ROLE of the martial arts teacher and the martial arts school in today's world.
To redefine "self-defense" to include dialogue about issues in today's world relevant to personal safety, health, and well being.
To bring about a revolution in educational resources for martial arts teachers, so that the next generation of teachers create a more valuable, relevant, and important kind of leadership and curriculum.
To cultivate better leaders, thinkers, and activists within the martial arts community.
The 100. is, intentionally, leading a revolution in thinking in the martial arts industry.
Whether you ever join this movement --or not, I offer you some of the ideas and experience I've garnered from my work. I hope it serves you in some useful way.
Tom Callos
www.TomCallos.com
PS. You may see 2 other projects I really enjoyed putting together:
Black Belt Advice and 10 Simple Self-Defense Lessons for Girls.
Learn How To Train Others to Help You
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a martial arts school owner complain about not having any (or enough) qualified help, I’d be a very wealthy man. Mastering the martial arts is a piece of cake compared to the work involved in nurturing other people (to help you as you help them). Management is defined as “getting things done through the efforts of others.” That’s a very easy thing to say --and for some people (all people), it can be a very hard idea to put to work.
As a school owner you not only have to help people help you, but you’re obligated (if you’re smart/wise) to help them to love helping, to become better people by helping, and to feel as though they are a valued and important part of the work (they can/should be).
How often do you search for, train, nurture, and guide your help? How often do you breath? In the school that is The 100., all staff members of primary members get to sign on to our on-line campus for free. This way, as the teacher learns and grows, so does his or her team members.
To me, being a black belt is more than a physical experience. Yes, a black belt should be able to execute precise, effective, beautiful, and technically proficient martial arts techniques, whatever the style. But just as importantly, a black belt should be able to execute precise and beautiful ideas, equal to or better than their physical techniques. A black belt should have an attitude equal in its brilliance to his or her physical skills. What makes a master is not physical skill alone but mental clarity, emotional maturity, and spiritual awareness.
--Tom Callos, from an Interview in What is Enlightenment (EnlightenNext) magazine
Learn To Transcend The Subject
One of my all time teaching heroes is architect Samuel Mockbee. In a nutshell, Mockbee taught young people about life and giving and compassion and participation through teaching them about architecture. He transcended his subject matter --the way all great teachers do.
To make your school successful, to fulfill your potential as a teacher-citizen, and to build a career that leaves something important in its wake, you have to think beyond your style, your system, its country of origin, its politics, its affiliation and limitations and guidelines.
Armed with this idea -and this attitude, you become a student of all teachers; and you stand a chance to be a teacher, like Sam Mockbee, who is wise enough to appreciate (and teach) what is really important in the world.
Note: The people / teachers that will most impact what and how we teach the martial arts in the future, are not people who currently work in "the martial arts world." The people who will most influence what and how we teach are not martial artists. Just as we need to take our martial arts "out of the dojo and into the world," we need to bring the world back into the dojo.
The 100. is an association that seeks to blur (if not completely eliminate) all the lines between what is good for the martial arts --and what is good for the world.
Your life is your "dojo." My life is my dojo is the name of my blog. My martial arts life is too big for the mat, it can't be contained in a dojo. When I say, "martial arts," I think "life." When I say, "martial artist," I think, "human being."
My goal is to transcend the style, the brand, the limitations, the dojo, the politics, and self-defense as we know it today. What I seek to practice and pass on to my students has very little to do with technique, as I've found that to be incredibly easy; what's hard is being a teacher of all the things that really matter in the world.
This is, all of it, one of the main reasons I started The 100. What a martial arts association could and should be --needs to be deeply explored and experimented with. I don't believe we are, yet, meeting 1/100th of our potential to make positive change in the martial arts world --or in The World.
Learn to Manage Money
Where is going to come from? Exactly how much do you really need? How are you planting the crop you will harvest a month from now? Two months? 6 Months? A year? When the money comes in, where is it going? For all of the pain and joy making money brings, for the tool it is in our world, I find it shocking how little time most school owners spend on planning and implementing intelligent, well-thought-out plans for development and management of cash flow. Of all the training that school owners do (and, sadly, do not get), cash management should be at the top of the list.
How often should you pay attention to cash management? As often as you spend money. Many (most) of the struggles school owners deal with are a result of not paying attention to money management. Money management is like training, it’s a daily issue. One of the many services I provide school owners in The 100. (and the one most infrequently asked about) is detailed money management strategies.
And just to keep our focus in the right place, here's my favorite money quote:
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.” --Maya Angelou
Learn to Retain Your Students
If you can’t keep your students, you’re destined for a lot of work, pain, suffering, and struggle. On the other side, if you CAN keep more of your students, you are destined to fill your school.
Students drop out for a number of reasons, but I think the two primary reasons are: 1. You’re not meeting their needs, and; 2. They don’t really know the benefits of their participation. If you were actually meeting their needs, they’d be far less likely to leave your care --and if they really, truly, viscerally, knew the benefits fo the long term study / practice of the martial arts, I don’t think they’d miss many classes. Of course, people also leave when they get bogged down with school, college, children, money issues, and relocation; the goal is simply not to lose students you really don't have to lose.
The secret to not losing as many students is self-discipline. YOU (and your helpers) have to do three basic things:
1. Know your students needs, even as they evolve (communication).
2. Be able to clearly "paint the picture" of what the benefits of long term practice are (all the time, in all possible / practical ways).
3. Be able to identify potential drop-out BEFORE they leave --and to be ultra-proactive in your approach to "re-enrolling" them in your program.
How to go about these things are contingent upon the resources, creativity, conviction, and self-discipline of the owner/master teacher.
Learn How to Keep Your Overhead Down
Expenses creep up on you and eat at your financial stability.
You know this, you live it, but nevertheless, they creep up. The phone, rented movies, Starbucks, $50 here, $25 there, car maintenance, Starbucks, air conditioner repair, shoes, clothes, protein powder, organic food at the health food mega-store, gas, electronics, Internet, nights on the town, Starbucks, Starbucks, books, magazine subscriptions, and the list keeps on going, doesn't it! Having a rock-bottom, wholesale lease, reducing unnecessary expenses, and living a life that is outwardly simple, but inwardly rich (the mantra of voluntary simplicity) can play a big factor in your long term success (and sanity).
If you put a lot of stock in the brand name of your watch, the car you drive, the suit you wear, and all the bling associated with “success,” then you not only show that other people's marketing works, but you get to add money to the bank accounts of other people (people who have managed to get their brand name linked to your own self-image and self-worth).
As a part of The 100.'s teaching platform, we advocate a sensible return to simple living; not to live without, but to live with a deep spiritual awareness of what is genuinely valuable --and what is not.
In the end, real school / career success won't be measured by the amount of money you earned and spent, but by what you did in --and for --your community.
In The 100. I train teachers to use video, to tell the authentic story of their school, it's work, the teacher's work, and the accomplishments of students. Video, today, is not only an inexpensive and amazing tool, but it creates an opportunity for the school owner to expand his/her role as a teacher --and the school's role in its community.
This is what we need in the martial arts industry: A complete makeover and a redesign of just HOW a master teachers serves his/her community.
Learn How to Advertise and Promote, in Today's World
There's no secret to marketing your school effectively. Just show and tell your community what you're doing. If what you are doing is amazing, you'll have no shortage of things to talk about.
The tools you/we use today allow you to show the authentic you, the real work you do. We're no longer handcuffed by the cost of advertising, it's all free.
What I'm teaching members of The 100. to do is to develop their vocabulary and writing skills, so that they can write effectively about the power of their work. I'm teaching them to remove the formulaic website advertising, to ignore the cliche of the "FREE REPORT" and all the nonsense that over-zealous new web-marketers think contains the secrets to getting "prospects" to buy.
I'm teaching members how to use video to go beyond the membership "pitch," and how to use the web so that we inspire people with what we are actually accomplishing in our communities. If you're really doing the work, marketing take the shape of your documentation.
Your work speaks for itself.
Learn How to Create and LIVE Your Own USP
USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition --which is what you sell that is uniquely yours. When you have something that is "yours," the school down the street can't buy it in a box and advertise the same thing. Your USP is found in your unique experience, knowledge, and your approach to teaching.
For the teacher of the martial arts, for THE MASTER TEACHER, he or she IS the product --and the better the product, the better the business. In The 100., I coach instructors to adopt a living-practice than represents the very benefits the school claims to "sell."
If the school says "respect" as part of it's USP, then the owner and staff members are charged with making their respect come alive. If the school sells "leadership training," then the owner is responsible for covering that subject like a champion, like nobody else can.
It is my belief that school owners, in general, do not spend nearly enough time establishing and cultivating their USP --and as a result, their marketing tends to be copied from other people, dry, and nondescript.
Physical practice is --and will always be --one of the four legs that we stand upon. In addition to the training is education, emotional maturation, and the spiritual quest. This is our "business" --and this is the business of the work done in The 100.
This video was shot at BJ Penn's Academy in Hilo, HI - March of 2011.
Learn How to Keep Learning
We start as athletes. We're young, energetic, unafraid, and healthy. Our martial arts is intensely physical and we attack almost everything we do with that, you know, youthful, pedal-to-the-metal approach.
It works, for awhile.
But somewhere along the road, maybe in your 30's or 40's (or younger if you're lucky), you realize that the purely physical approach is wearing you out. At some point you "get" that it's also a matter of your brain-power, your emotional maturity, and a good deal of spiritual "something" that makes you a better, smarter, more effective teacher, leader, and human being.
As a young athlete you didn't really need to study history, so that you could be a better teacher and leader. Taking a comparative religion class, so that you might better understand where the traditions of the martial arts come from, their root sources, might have been wasted on you at 23.
Science, health, Buddhism, sustainable agriculture, astronomy, pedagogy, environmentalism, cooking, photography, filmmaking, and graphic design? You might have laughed at us if we had told you these were all subjects that would be relevant to your curriculum, marketing, and educational platform as a master teacher of the martial arts.
The teacher and/or school owner who slowly --or abruptly --stops being a student, builds a tall and nasty wall between himself and a kind of success that means anything in the world. The greatest master teachers, those men and women who stand out as living treasures, as bright beacons of what is best about the martial arts, are people who haven't stopped pursuing their educations. It's easier now to go to college than ever before in human history. On-line classes are abundant and affordable.
I see The 100. as a college --and every day I expect the students and teachers to show up and share what they are learning.
Look back on the last 12 months and make a list of the books you've read, the classes you have taken, the new subjects you have studied, and the projects you have engaged in --and if you're left unimpressed, consider this note a call to action.
Pema Chodron's "troublemakers" is a lesson I often revisit. I would call it "required viewing" for all members of The 100.
Learn How to Mobilize People
The foundation of my work with The 100. is based upon DOING. We (the martial arts world) have spent years talking about what we do, but there isn't an overwhelming body of evidence that we have actually walked that talk.
What a school owner needs to practice is the art of mobilizing people to take what they practice on the mat --and put it to work in the world. From there, the advertising a martial arts does would rest completely on the stories of how that happens --and what it produces.
It's not the instructor's job to do all the exercises in a class, it's his/her job to get the students to do the training. Likewise, it's not the teacher's job to go into the community and prove we teach respect, courtesy, perseverance, honor, and so on, it's the instructors job to mobilize the student to action.
The instructor who masters this idea spends nothing on advertising --and invests everything in helping his/her students succeed, in supporting and problem solving in the community, and in finding new ways to show that the martial arts is indeed what we have so often claimed it is.
Photos from The 100.'s Alabama Project, courtesy of Mr. Bob Laramie.
Who you hang out with is a form of self-defense. This is what we need to live --and teach the young people in our care. The Internet, today, facilitates close contact to the best thinkers --and the most proactive doers.
Some of my favorite people to hang out with can be found at:
www.Ted.com
www.The100.us