Your Budget (Lack of Money) is Not an Excuse to Leave or Not Participate in The 100

Money’s tight, yes?

I understand that. I’d like to help you with that problem, but I have to warn you, it’s just like you’ve come to me and said, “I want to be a martial arts champion.”

If you want to really be a champion, I mean a genuine CHAMPION, it’s going to take about 10-times more work than you are anticipating --or, maybe, than you can even imagine. Most people dream of being that good, but lack the self-discipline and drive to actually make it happen.

We all know this, yes? I know it too; however, the difference between the man or woman who claims to want to be a champion and me, is that I follow through.

I don’t give up --and I can out-work, out-dedicate, out-perform, and out-produce 99% of anyone I teach, coach, or who comes to me hoping that I’ll help them “make money.” Anyone in the industry who can out-perform me, is already on their game in a big way (already a champion).

I charge $300 a month for my services --or $10 a day. My work and all that I cultivate will, if you dedicate yourself to it, if you blend it with what you do, make you millions of dollars over the course of your career. That’s not a guess or hype, that’s a fact, as I’ve done that for an entire generation of teachers. I’ve been doing what I do for so long now that it’s very likely you’re already using things I made up and implemented, whether you know it or not.

However, my work isn’t worth $1 a day to the person who isn’t ready to work the work.

Today, my work has transcended the “freshman” and “sophomore” levels of school management. I now help teachers to do the deep work, the work that changes lives, that affects communities, that makes careers, that redesigns the very roles of the Sensei and the dojo in today’s world.

The reason you’re not a client already --or you’ve decided to leave The 100. so you can “save” $300 a month, is that you really don’t understand what’s taking place. You don’t “get” what the work is doing --or can do for your reputation, for your career, and for your income potential. You either don’t know what I’m doing --or I’ve been coaching you and you’re STILL not engaged in the training at a level that can get the return you’d like to have.

If you want to be a financial and career CHAMPION, in your lifetime, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to, now, tell you the truth:

1. You can’t give up, not without 10,000 tries. Anything less is struggle. You can’t justify the expense of some of the best coaching and help in the world, because you’re either unaware or you lack the self-discipline to apply yourself at a level where return happens. I don’t have to tell this to a champion; he/she is the one telling us/you.

2. People and organization like the one I work in, The 100., don’t thrive and survive on people who are not really willing to GO FOR IT. Ours is a group where the training is hardcore and intense and that requires an all or nothing effort. GO to another organization if you’d like to sit back and whine about money or observe --and move over to make way for the men and women who know that each member has a responsibility to the whole endeavor. Are you committed to turning the info into value (money?). Most people SAY, “yes.” But they fail to act on it in a way that makes it happen.

3. You’ve hired me to be a no bullshit teacher. I’m not here to stroke your ego or take your money. I’m here to push, to pull, and force your hand or guide you --and to cultivate champions. Anything less than that is someone else’s work. I have 40 years in --and 20 years or so left in the industry --and I’m going to go for broke. I’m going to train a new generation of school owners and teachers how to rise above the sales crap the industry so readily endorses: I’m going to coach teachers to embrace a level of education and community involvement that changes the world’s perception of our value. I’m going to turn our strip-mall-franchise-bought-not-a-lick-of-real-master-teacher-training industry mentality into something the world can look at and recognize as absolute and undeniable magic. We have that potential, you know. So do you, but to see it make you money you’re going to have to work for it.

Save your $10 a day --but I have to tell you, you’re missing out. I know, as I’ve been around long enough now to see what creates drudgery and struggle and what brings excitement and passion to the work. I’ve refused to spread mediocrity and deceitful business practices and embraced the hard, but most profitable, kinds of work. Mark my words: The martial arts industry will, in time, do and embrace everything my colleagues and I are doing today. It’s just that most of the “consultants” in the industry are 10 years behind --and already heavily invested in business models that are, right before their eyes, dying out. Change is hard.

I understand how it much easier it is to save $10 a day than it is to go through the pain of what it takes to be a real champion. My only regret is that, somehow, I haven’t yet been able to speak the truth to school owners , who REALLY need help, in a way that gets them “over the hump.”

If you’re reading this and you REALLY want to be a school owner with something different to offer, call me (530-903-0286). The change of your career and income direction won’t happen in a single phone call, a seminar, a workshop, or at a convention --it’s an ongoing training program --and it may be the hardest (but most genuinely profitable) work you ever do.

I work at www.The100.us ----here's how to come in and see the work (you must be or want to be a teaching professional): http://thenewwaynetwork.ning.com/?xgi=3WGEl3HqtHWkTr

Tom Callos

Martial Arts Business: 5 Staff Training Wisdom-Blasts, for Staff Members On The Rise

This is For The Staff Member of a Martial Arts School

Hi, I’m Tom Callos and I fancy myself one of the best martial arts school staff-member trainers in the Known Universe. So, in the following 600 words, I’m going to lay my wisdom upon you. It won’t take long; so here we go:

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 1
Make magic. Yes, make magic where ever your feet take you. When you walk in the front door of your dojo, brighten the room. Do it with eye contact and acknowledgment, with smiles, with kind comments, and with a level of attention given to every person that forever sets the example of how it’s done --when it’s done masterfully, perfectly, and with a light that radiates from the center of your being.

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 2
Over-fricking-deliver like nobody you’ve ever known. If 10 is the expectation, you show up with 100. Every job is important beyond our ability to comprehend it; treat the work you’re gifted with deep respect and reverence (as work isn’t a labor to the Staff-Member-Master, it’s like a-best-Christmas-ever gift).

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No 3
Act like you already make the money you want to make, times 10. Listen: The money doesn't come first --and then you start acting like you’re worth it. No. FIRST you develop the skills, the aptitude, the attitude, and the portfolio of someone worth the big, big, big bucks ---and THEN you stand a chance of actually getting to lasso the purple pig (I don’t know, exactly, what “lasso the purple pig” means, but I’m using it here as a way to say “make the money that perfectly fits your value to the world.”).

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No 4
Don’t stand under the apple tree waiting for fruit to fall into your waiting hands, climb up there and get what you want (thank you Grandmaster Rhee). In today’s world, with information and almost instant access to just about anyone you might need to connect with, if you wait for the school’s leader/owner/manager to teach you or tell you something, it’s already WAY too late.

Don’t wait for someone to talk to you about “making a job duties list,"bring yours, compiled from your research in the industry (calling / connecting with other people who do what you do), and present it. In fact, use your graphic design skills to make a resource like your teacher has never see before. Blow her/him away with it.

Don’t wait to be “taught” how to affect the school’s bottom line, get online and connect with the information days, weeks, months before the owner has a chance to form the idea in her head.

Don’t wait to be taught how to spot potential drop outs and get them back on track, how to keep the dojo clean, how to use a day-planner, or any (as in: ANY) skill. Be ahead of the game, always, like a chess player.

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 5
Understand that you don’t really “work for” the illustrious guy or gal who owns the school; you work for yourself. You are a one man / woman company and wherever you go you spread good tidings, good ideas, goodwill, harmony, and peace. You do the work of 10 normal people. You serve, serve, serve --and as a result, you are building a portfolio of skills that will, someday in the near future, make you worth the money you want to support the lifestyle you’re hoping to become accustomed to.

Anyone who “hires” your company will say this: “I have never met anyone who works harder and smarter than this person; someone who always brought the best ideas to the table; who set the pace for work; who knew how to both lead and follow in perfect proportion; and who always seemed to be 10 steps ahead of everyone else.”

Martial Arts Business: The Business of Mastery is Our Business

If you're HERE, on The 100. site --and spending your hard earned money on the program, then I'm talking to you (and OK, YOU too). 

I'm seriously counting on you to BE a master teacher like the world has rarely, if ever, seen. I know you're capable of it --and I can't think of a better path to follow.

Mastery of your own thinking.

Mastery of your ability to make change where it's most needed.

Mastery of compassion and connection.

Mastery of the basics of good business.

I'm counting on you, whatever your style of martial arts, to STEP UP as a teacher, a leader, a friend, a student, and a human being.

READ. Read veraciously --and buck the idea that our attention spans are becoming shorter. No, yours is becoming longer.

PARTICIPATE. Don't sit back, don't do nothing, don't do "little," and don't not do something every day that puts you in a league of your own. Make it a practice to create some magic in the world every single day of your life. 

STUDY under real masters (REAL MASTERS). Garbage in, garbage out. Who are your heroes? Why? And what are they teaching you? How good of a student are you? Are you following the Gods of The Ice Cream Social, The Upgrade, and The Giant Whopping Gross? Or are you paying attention to humanity, to the falseness of endless want, to your own thinking and what it contributes, to simplicity, and to the boundless value of being/living in the here and now?

FORGET the Martial Arts Industry, For Now. The industry is sick and crippled by greed, trivial pursuits, questionable integrity, and lack of vision. To lift the martial arts and the profession of being a teacher out of the ditch it's in, we're going to have to get away from the present "leadership" and re-think why we're here, how we're going about the work, and what has got to change. We're not here to be organizers of "ice cream socials," "pizza parties," "sleepovers," "day care centers," and/or rabid dogs chasing the car-fender of membership upgrades and the next big cash-out. We'll come back to fix the industry, but first we have to fix ourselves.

Mastery of a New Kind of Education for MA Teachers.

Mastery of taking the work out of the dojo and into the world. 

CREATE things of beauty and value.

My friends, I'm really counting on you to redesign your role, to redesign what your school does for people, for your community, and for YOU. The money will come when your roots are deep, when your intention is beautiful, when you make the work your PRACTICE. 

I am working to make The 100. a place you feel at home, a place that appreciates your effort and supports it. A place that you can come to and find re-charge, inspiration, and vision. So...help MAKE IT SO. Be here. Contribute, spread the word. 

I'm counting on you to be a master teacher like the world rarely (if ever) sees. Smart, educated, with perfect intention, with amazing work-ethic, with a portfolio of endeavors that say so much about what you do, who you are, and how you use your martial arts ---that the next generation of teachers gets to START where we leave off. 

The 100. isn't here to help you "make money." The 100. is here to help you make history, to make your career, to make all the work something that shines, to help light the fire of your mastery. The money you make will be all the more useful when your head is in exactly the right place.

Martial Arts Business: A Wake Up Call for Staff Members and School Owners

A Letter to The Staff Member Who Could Use a Wake Up Call

My name is Tom Callos and I’m a business consultant to martial arts school owners and master teachers.

When it comes to doing good business, as in smart business, It seems like I am forever advising, encouraging, reprimanding, and even verbally slapping owners upside-the-head for having an attitude, habits, and/or behaviors that are anything but business-healthy --and that lead to unnecessary stress and a less-than-happy business life (and when business isn’t good, it’s hard not to let that stress boil over into one’s personal life).

However, while I often advise owners, I rarely speak directly to staff members, but today I will.

Now I’m sure you (Mr. or Ms. Staff Member) have many fine qualities and do, in general, great work; but I’m not here to talk about the work you do well, I’m here to tell you what needs to change.

First, I'm going to guess that you probably would like to make more money. Most of us do. What I need you to do, starting immediately, is to start acting like you already "make more money." I want/need you to start acting like you already made 6-figures; and if you’re going to make 6-figures, you will know how to do the following:

• Organize your time, using a day-planner, like a master. You will not mistake activity for accomplishment. You’re so good at time management that you could lead a seminar on the topic --worth, Oh say, $500 per person. Do you get my point?

• You know the school’s numbers; that is you know where break-even is (when the school pays its expenses but doesn’t have a profit). If you go a single day without understanding what the school has to make, that day, to meet its overhead, then you are disconnected from what your activities have to do with the profitability of the school --and that makes you ineligible for anything less than survival pay.

• You know how to MAKE MONEY for the school. In fact, you bring in 10-times your salary/pay. Do this and you’re worth every single penny you earn.

• There’s nothing in the school you can’t or won’t do; and typically, you’re never asked to do something, as you’ve already seen the need --and taken the required action (without being prompted).

• You never, ever, EVER say you can’t do something when you most certainly can. You can teach the kids, you can organize marketing campaigns, you can look up the class and take it without being told, you can clean, train, manage, and in fact, you can do anything --and that is why you’re so well paid

• Every single working day of the year, a 6-figure staff member HUNTS DOWN the right info. Good enough is never good enough. You know the best people in the industry you’re in --and you pick their brains 12 months a year; until you are as good, or better, than the best in the world.

• You’re able to bring in a minimum of 1 new student every working day of the month. It doesn’t matter if you’re working a front desk, managing the training floor, or simply assisting, you’re not really a 6-figure employee unless you know how to get business for the school.

The “You’re Still Eating” Theory

I have a very, very famous friend. My friend is at the center of a whirlwind of activity, publicity, and the production of potential income-generating activities. Last year his “crew” filmed and edited a 13 episode TV show. They did it speculatively, with the intention of selling it to a network; it took them hundreds of hours and they spent a good deal of money on the project. I saw some of the shows and they were, indeed, spectacular. About 4 months after they were completed I was talking to my friend’s father and I asked him if the show had been sold yet --and he said, “No, they spent a lot of time and money on it all and it seemed genuinely promising, but they hadn’t yet sold the show or got any viable sponsors for it.”

And I said, “I see. Do you know why they haven’t sold the show yet?”
He said, “No, why?”

“Because they’re still EATING, that’s why.”

Understand that those shows weren’t sold because nobody on the crew was going to go hungry as a result; and there, RIGHT THERE, is the difference between someone who can --and someone who won’t. Someone who is not going to eat FINDS a way to make things happen. Someone whose labors are disconnected from the outcome of the work, does things that can be downright destructive to the business.

INSTRUCTIONS: Get into the school’s “work” deeper than you are; get in so deep and get so clear a grip on what makes the schools wheels turn, that if the business doesn’t do what it needs to meet it’s overhead (plus) on any given day, you simply DON’T EAT.

And when you don't eat, see how long it takes you to find the motivation to do what needs to be done.

Take on this attitude and you start acting like someone who will FIND A WAY to make it happen, whatever “it” is. When you do that, you'll be acting like someone who’s worth 6-figures.

OWNERS
Cultivate the right attitude in yourself --and in your team. If you have an employee who refuses to do some aspect of the work at your school, because it’s not “comfortable” for them, then look to replace him or her as soon as possible. Look, instead, for people who are hungry, so hungry in fact, that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the business work.

Know that your employees, especially the young and inexperienced ones, have NO IDEA of the financial obligations and risk you take being in business. They don’t know about the leases, the taxes, and the legal liability --as if they did, they’d be knocking on your door all day long asking you how they might better serve the school.

And trust me, you’re not doing your staff any favors by not giving them lessons in the hardcore realities of doing business in today’s world. You’re actually doing them a great disservice by not educating them, as they will never earn the money they want by being disconnected from the realities of business --of ANY business. Keeping them in the dark is not fair to them --and not smart for your school.

A Final Word:

I get questions from school owners about the issues above --all the time. But I have not yet, not in the last 10 years anyway, fielded one smart or business oriented question from a staff member anywhere on the Planet Earth (I take that back, there is one man, Peter Liciaga, in New Jersey, who does all of the above. That’s one staff member among thousands. Go Peter!).

What this means is that YOU, Mr. or MS. Owner are negligent in your duties. It means you aren’t training your team how to ask the right questions --and how to hunt down the information needed to improve. You’re cultivating staff members who live in a bubble --and you’re training them to “do enough to get by.” BIG MISTAKE (this is your wake up call).

The 100. allows staff members of primary members to join, for free. There's a good reason for this; know what it is? Here's a one week free pass to see why The 100. is the sharpest, smartest, and most valuable school owner (and staff member) tool in the international martial arts community. 

Martial Arts Business: Better Business in 2012, Starting Now

Ok, school owners and teachers, what is my job? What do you pay me for? Why are you here? 

You didn't define my job duties, I've done that myself (although I am completely at your service, if you know how to ask questions and present problems I can help you with). 

My Job Duties:

• Get you to do LONG RANGE planning, so that this time next year, you are more profitable, more efficient, more challenged with things WORTH being challenged with, more focused, and one year closer to a kind of mastery, a kind of thinking and being in the world, that sets the mark for what a "Master Teacher" is --and what a "Master of the Martial Arts" does in (and for) the world. I believe these things are not only the things that will make you more profitable, but craft your career into something you find extraordinarily fulfilling. 

• My job is to push you, even when being pushed is uncomfortable --or even damn-right maddening. I was pushed by my best teachers --and I am still benefiting from it today. I pushed my students to try and get out of their comfort zones (where little or no growth takes place) --and that effort represents some of the best work I've ever done. And I believe that if I stay a constant force in your career --pushing for better, for smarter, for richer, that you will --in the end --be better for it. 

•  My job is to get you to think in a way you might not think today; as this time next year you could be playing an all new, highly sophisticated, educationally super-charged game ---that isn't the same old crap being boxed, franchised, packaged, and copied by every guy/gal who invest the $10,000 or less it takes to open a martial arts "school."

I think the industry, in general, caters to the fast turn-around, the easy path, the path that requires the least amount of steps, and whose measurement of success is based upon, "How much can I gross --and how fast?" I don't see or hear many teachers working on programs and projects that couldn't be duplicated by an ambitious and resourceful 1st dan 22-year-old. 

So, this time next year, let's have you somewhere you are not today. Come to The 100. unafraid and willing to stretch. Be here like it's a school for Masters-in-Training, be here to create something, together, that isn't in the reach of any one person. Play full out --and see what happens. 

My job is to be a catalyst in your life --and the life of your staff members (everyone, actually, in your sphere of influence) --for growth, evolution, and good times. I don't know how I'm going to make that happen, exactly, but I do know that pushing myself out of my own comfort zone is Step 1. That makes what's good for me --part of what's good for you. If you will do the same, what's good for you becomes what's good for me --and what's good for your students. 

Push starting now --and this time next year we stand the chance of having done 10 years of work (for the average teacher) in just 12 months. 

Martial Arts Business: How Teaching the Martial Arts Is Changing. The On-Line Campus

Let's look at the (potential) power and influence a "Digital Dojo" --your school's on-line campus, which is now, I believe, an absolute must for the serious master teacher --might have, mathematically on your work.

(NOTE: I am a champion of extremely low-cost technology, of owning your own websites, and of keeping your overhead crazy-low, while your productivity career-making high. That's the coaching you get as a member of the 100.)

In a year's time, if you spend an hour a day, 3 times a week with a student, you will have worked with him/her for 156 hours. Now we all know that we can make a good deal of progress with the average student in a year's time (with good, high quality interaction, yes?). 

Well, if you could ADD the idea of 10 minutes a day on your ON-LINE Campus, 6 days a week (as in you write and/or produce something, the student writes and/or produces something, and/or you post something by someone else that's worth a few minutes of reading/viewing), you increase your time with a student by 52 hours a year. 

That's a lot more time to talk to, interact with, and influence students --and it's all cerebral, giving some real credence to the idea that the education you provide is more than kicking and punching. 

So, if you have 52 more hours to make a difference in someone's life, what do you fill it with?

Martial Arts Business: Better Black Belt Tests, Testers, and Black Belt Test Thinking

This is a concept for the (very) advanced Master Teacher / Martial Arts School Owner. It's not easy to do, it doesn't come in a box, it can't be purchased, and you won't hear about it at "the convention" or in the "millionaires mastermind roundtable" sales meeting. 

The Concept and Cultivation of Your Sphere of Influence

This is the core concept, a foundation, that should affect your thinking about black belt testing, marketing, business, and community involvement. It doesn't cost money to implement or practice, it sumply takes some intelligence, some foresight, self-discipline, and no small amount of vision. 

Step 1

Ask one person to do something for you, something small. 

Click to read more ...

How to Do $20,000 (minimum) in Holiday Sales (Retail Sales Advice).

It’s November 3rd and 52 days to Christmas. Christmas, of course, being the time when people buy gifts for each other for a variety of reasons --and retailers hope to see their sales go up accordingly.

Maybe you already feel some pressure to sell more, to compare past Christmas seasons to this one, or to compare your numbers to the guy/gal you know (or heard about) who makes more retail sales in Nov. and Dec. than you made in all of 2010?

Click to read more ...

Martial Arts Business: Why Your Website Isn't Working

What's wrong with your website?

Technically? Nothing, most likely, that can't be fixed in about 15 minutes. Nothing that has to cost you very much money. Nothing that is outside of the realm of your own ability to do the work, yourself. Nothing that can't be researched and/or answered in hundreds of free articles and/or video tutorials (some of them are actually more than sales pitches designed to find people who can't figure out how to build a site on their own). Nothing that you can't handle, quickly. 

 What's really wrong with your website is it's probably ugly and/or it's confusing (that's my specialty). And (here are the real issues):

1. You expect too much of it. 

2. The site isn't backed up with an army of other tools, actions, and community-based involvement to be much more than yet another 4-color ad for yet another business. 

3. Your "pitch" is indistinguishable from every other "I follow a formula" website out there. Chances are you haven't put even 5 solid hours, in the last month, into what is supposed to be a very dynamic tool for communicating what you do to as big an audience as your OTHER work in your community can cultivate.

4. In that any arse --and I mean ANY --can put up a website, for free, in minutes, using all the right words, images, mailing list requests, formulaic ad copy, video, and everything else that makes something look appealing on the web ------even a school owner whose martial arts background consists of a 5th degree black belt he/she got in 6 years doing little more than showing up for classes and paying for tests; even the school owner whose entire philosophical training consists of "Think and Grow Rich," "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," and Tony Robbins Ultimate Power CD collection, of which they listened to half of. 

NOTE: When anyone can steal your web text, look, images, video, and "pitch" just by going to a site and stealing it, then how much value are we putting on a website?  

Now what's HARD TO RIP-OFF? Real work.
Real, honest-to-God, no bullshit, hands-on, hard fricking work --in your community, doing things that aren't easy, being someone who can be trusted, who puts out more than just the minimum amount of effort, and who has trained him/herself to be a real hero --and to train others to step up and do real work (real, hard, meaningful, complex work). NOBODY steals that, because it's too hard --and fake leaders, opportunists, and the lazy don't do hard, complex, involved, engaged, meaningful work. They try things a few times, look for the easy route, and when things don't go their way, they slide into the closest comfort zone available ----they also tend to despise those who don't.

 5. You think you have to have 1 website. When they're free and they can all point to your main site and they take a few hours to put up right, why would you have just one ad in the phone book?

 6.  You talk a good game, but you offer nothing, nothing at all that anyone else can't talk about too. You say you "teach respect." So does she. You say you teach leadership. So does the other school. You say a lot --and you're very worried about what you say and why it's not converting more "hits" to "leads," but keep in mind everyone SAYS they do things ----and the same things you say you do, too. 

How about you start posting real proof? How about 10 stories of real people making real, measurable, tangible progress? How about 100 stories? You've been in business 10 years? How about 1000 stories? How about going beyond "testimonials" (the sugar water of website sales strategy) --and doing stuff that's really complex, hard, honest, and telling? THAT is what sets you apart.

When everyone buys the same clothes from the same stores and looks almost exactly the same, how do you tell one from another? What distinguishes the lazy poser from the committed Master?

This is part of the reason your website isn't doing what you want it to do. It has to be backed up with real, priceless, blood-and-sweat-and-toil WORK. Do the work, in nice clothes, but do what the lazy won't. 

Note: The real work is, of course, never approached from a "what's in it for me" perspective.

When you are an icon in your community, you will be an icon in your community. 

When you contribute, significantly, to the quality of life in your community, then you will be someone recognized for contributing, significantly, to the quality of life in your community.

When your students become change-agents for genuine change in your community, then you will be recognized for your ability to teach more than "self-defense," "taekwondo," or whatever it is that any business-person can claim to teach by signing a lease, putting up a sign, and setting up a free website.

(And in case you didn't notice, this article doesn't pitch you with a "one time, once-in-a-liftime" offer; a "click this for your FREE REPORT" offer; or any pitch for my services. I respect you more than that --and if this work I do doesn't call your name, I understand that there's little I can do to help you. If this article doesn't make you want to see what The 100. is up to, then your help, your teacher, and your resources reside elswhere). 

Martial Arts Business and Chris Brogan? Is Chris a Master of Martial Arts Thinking (I Say, "Yes)

Chris Brogan might have taken a karate class or two when he was a kid, but I don't think so. He did, a while back, ask me if I knew a martial arts teacher in his area (I didn't), as he was looking to start working out. 

So, I'm going to guess he might, like most people, recognize Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris, but other than that he's probably not familiar with my world ---but let me tell you, I'm all into his world. 

Take, for example, his post from today, The Practice is the Reward. I have been talking to instructors about this very thing, practice --and making their work "a practice." 

And recently Chris wrote Tell Us Your Story, about telling the stories of your work, which is also something I've been coaching teachers to do. 

Chris might not know what a rear naked choke is (and Mr. Brogan, if you happen to read this, trust me, it's not what it sounds like), but the man KNOWS plenty about what a martial arts master teacher needs to think about and, you know, "practice."

I like his work, I respect his attitude, and I pay attention to just about everything he's interested in and writes about. 

Martial Arts Business: Master Teacher Brain Fodder, by Tom Callos

Perhaps, someday, you and/or any one of your students will meet someone very special. 

This person won't be exactly like most people, there will be something in them, something about them, that is very uncommon. 

Click to read more ...

We are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 4. Raising the Standards for Black Belt Testing

Graphic artists do this really cool thing (as do photographers and a lot of other artists), they build a PORTFOLIO of their work.

When an artist shows you his or her portfolio, you can see, quite clearly, what they're capable of, they're specialty, and what kind of talent they have (or do not have).

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We Are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 3. Ways to Make Better Black Belts.

I've been a fairly harsh critic of the black belt testing process, in "the industry" specifically, where selling black belt memberships has become like hawking used Hyundai's, where black belts are earned in 12, 18, or 24 months (especially in taekwondo schools for some reason), where 10 year olds sport 3rd degree black belts but couldn't punch their way out of a wet black belt club contract, and where black belt test requirements and standards have, in general, been gliding down a slip-and-slide towards a real mud-pit of lackluster, unimpressive, near-pitiful mediocrity (ask me sometime, I'll tell you how I really feel about it). 

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We Are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 2. Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

(Oh man, now that's a question --of which I will address one "industry-relevant" aspect of in this not-so-short essay)

Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

That’s a tough one, but today, as the martial arts world is, as the world is, I would cast a definite “No” vote.

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We Are NOT a Black Belt School. I Like it!

Richard Hubbard, an instructor friend of mine and member of both The Ultimate Black Belt Test

and The 100., has come up with the ironic martial arts school anti-slogan-of-the year, maybe for

the coming decade:

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Martial Arts Business: What's Changed About Teaching and Owning a Martial Arts School (and how to use it)

What’s Changed About Teaching and Owning a Martial Arts School

(and how you can use it all to your benefit)

By Tom Callos

I started helping my first martial arts teacher with his classes when I was a yellow belt, which would put the date somewhere around 1974. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a whole lot of real ”help” (more like a handful I think), but I already had it in my head that I was going to teach the martial arts --for a living. I’m now writing this in the year 2011, which puts 37 years between my start as a teacher and today. 

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Martial Arts Business: Advice for New Martial Arts School Owners

Where to Start, When You’re Starting a Martial Arts School
 
There are a lot of things to consider and embrace when you’re starting (and operating) a martial arts school. Below, I point out a number of things worthy of consideration --and in no particular order (feel free to list your own thoughts in the comments box, below):

• Your school’s simply a bucket, with holes in it. Fill the bucket, stop up the holes (an impossibility) as best you can. It will always leak, making some room for new students. The fewer leaks, the better you are at the more difficult of the two jobs. “Your job,” initially, is to fill the bucket; then it’s to stop the leaks. You should, over time, be a master of doing both things (as it’s not rocket surgery). Your bucket has a finite capacity --how many students will it need to meet your needs?

• Beware of getting stuck in the “fill the bucket” mindset (as that attitude is as common as sand at the beach). Getting stuck in that place, where you take on “the job” of filling the bucket as your primary occupation, is like getting stuck in your freshman year of high school --and returning to the same subjects over and over without going on to where those basics are supposed to lead. The martial arts industry, like life in general, is fat with people who fail to understand that filling the bucket is, as Bruce Lee said in Enter The Dragon (borrowing from The Buddha), “...like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory."

• Every martial arts teacher thinks (at one point or another) that his or her methods of teaching and curriculum are just simply wonderful, as in something to brag about. Nine times out of 10, the opposite is true. What you have to teach is far less that 1/2 of what you have yet to learn. Your curriculum isn’t of any value, if it doesn’t serve the people you teach --and in a way that keeps them coming back and that puts them on the sensible path to self-improvement. In other words: Your curriculum isn’t as important as the attention and personal guidance you give your students. This is difficult for some to understand, but it’s what separates instructors on the path from those who have stopped moving forward.

• People stay in or quit your school for two primary reasons: 1. You meet or don’t meet their NEEDS (and their perceived needs and/or their needs as they change/evolve). 2. They don’t know the BENEFITS awaiting them from the long term study and practice of the martial arts; because if they genuinely knew what the training does for the mind, body, and spirit, they’d hardly ever miss a class. Your job is to become a master of establishing people’s needs (and meeting them, if at all possible) --and communicating the benefits of the practice of the martial arts lifestyle. When I write “communicating the benefits,” I mean more than ad copy. I mean with every action, idea, project, and breath. By embracing this attitude (that you are the product) you transcend the role of “school owner,” and move towards being a genuine master teacher.

• Get a rock-bottom, wholesale, shock-your-mama lease on your dojo’s space. Keep your overhead as low as humanly possible (no new cars, bars, cigars, watches, showy homes, or any of the other silly and superficial ego crap that can turn your wonderful little adventure into a joyless grind). When you’ve got a year of your income in savings, then, MAYBE, you can spend a bit on stuff that in the end, won’t mean squat --and that is no measure, for the deeply aware, of success. As a master teacher it’s your mission to cultivate a life that is outwardly simple and inwardly rich.

• Always take the high road. Advertise your benefits constantly. There are, I should remind you, 365 days in a year --and each one of them calls on you to practice 5 to 10 “acts of marketing.” This is not “advertising” in the traditional sense, this is you practicing the discipline of your profession. Go through your student body, each week of the year (52) with a fine tooth comb. You’re looking for potential drop-outs, so that you can do something about the problem long before it gets to be one. Always train people to help (always as in it’s a daily practice). Even when there’s nobody to teach to help you, pretend there is --and teach them all the same. “Management” is “getting things done through the effort of others.” Far too many MA Teachers are white-belt people/task managers. NEVER send a student to a collection agency. Spend 99% of your time on people who appreciate your efforts, 1% (or less) on dealing with the people who don’t.

• Continuous study and growth is essential to your career. However, that being said, you will find that 9 out of 10 martial arts teachers you know and/or see at “the convention,” are not doing 1/100th of what they could or should do to evolve as master teachers. Part of that is peer pressure from the incessant sales-consciousness of the “industry,” part is due to ignorance, part to human nature, and most of it is caused as a result of hanging out with the wrong people.

• Teaching classes is NOT “your job.” It’s part of your job the way feeding your children is a part of the job of raising them.  You HAVE to feed your children --and ideally you feed them the best diet you can muster. However, if that’s the job you focus on, if that’s what you think “being a parent” is, well --how sad that would be for you and your kids. Your job is much more than teaching great karate (or whatever brand name you choose to attach yourself to). If you find your daily activities are primarily focused on teaching great classes, you are failing to do the more difficult, but equally important jobs of a genuine master teacher.

• Keep accurate daily business stats and learn how to use them to be a better school manager. If you have to keep stats and don’t, you will suffer--and make others suffer too. If you don’t have to keep stats (and you don’t HAVE to do anything but die and pay taxes, yes?), you’re in a place where your income greatly exceeds your expenses. Good for you (keep them anyway, so you can teach your children how to live when money’s tight).

• This is one of the noblest of careers --or it isn’t. Some teachers will tell you “martial arts is martial arts and business is business,” but for the master, there is no separateness. All things are connected. Be ready for a lot of failure (If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sure sign that you're not trying anything very innovative.' — Woody Allen).

Martial Arts Business: There is No Such Thing as No Effort Marketing

I partnered up a couple of years ago with a two fellows who seemed to really have their game on in the marketing department.

One was even teaching marketing at a college.

It didn’t take very long (and only cost me $$$ and a fireman’s axe strike to my reputation) to dissolve the partnership for all the usual reasons partnerships don’t work; one of them controlled the money we brought in, but didn’t feel the necessity to provide any sort of accounting; and neither of them seemed to be able to do much of anything substantial enough to make the partnership a win-win-win.

But worse:

One of the most ridiculous and destructive paths we took (and I admit, I stood by and let it happen thinking, Ok, I’m willing to try it.) was promoting no-effort marketing for martial arts teachers. I'm thinking about it all today becuase I ran across one of our old ads on my hard drive this morning, it said something like “Get XX number of leads with no effort on your part at all.”

No effort marketing. Just sit back and watch the leads simply tumble into your in-box and through the front door of your school. What a lie. Marketing takes effort. Getting good leads isn’t effortless, isn’t something you delegate to others while you go on vacation.

Everything my partners wanted to charge people for --and get them on long term contracts for --were things any school owner could set up in a couple of days. I found myself in relationships with people who didn’t want to “work” at the business. They’d bought the fabrication promoted at so many of today’s “marketing guru” sales-seminars: that there was some easy path and system that once followed, printed money like a well oiled machine.

If they could only write the right copy, get enough people on a formulaic phone conference and say the carefully scripted right things in just the carefully scripted right order, the cash would flow in. It didn’t. What did happen is they (me included) used my name and reputation to draw in a 1000 plus inquires to something that must have sounded carefully scripted and like 3 guys selling snake oil. 

I sold out, thinking that there just might be an easier way to grow my business than the way I had been pursuing. Sound familiar?

What I did learn, however, was a great big lesson in the folly of going after the cheap and easy. I spent money, two years of my life, and a good chunk of the credibility I’d developed in the industry for not being a sleazy salesman --on a reminder that marketing isn’t a no-effort thing.

We’d all like it if it was, but most of the time when we fall victim to the lure of easy money, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. Well, two years of effort? Not too much I guess to learn what's really worth the time and effort marketing takes. I know a lot of people who are still there, in that place, looking for the easy route.

Tom Callos

Martial Arts Business: How to Market Your Martial Arts School

How to Market Your Martial Arts School
Or, How to Make Yourself a Better Person

First, your person:

1. Make Cosmetic Changes: New clothes, new hairstyle, new makeup, new car, etc.

2. Make Deep and Meaningful Changes in Your Thinking and Attitude: Meditate on simplicity, love, compassion, patience, kindness, and giving to others, change your diet to improve the quality of your health, enroll yourself in a new education, revamp your attitude about anger, peace, love, relationships, and spirituality.

Now, your Business:

1. Make Cosmetic Changes: New paint, new mats, new ads, new programs (buy one!), new VIP passes, etc.

2. Make Deep and Meaningful Changes in Your School’s Intention, Purpose, and Mission: Embrace dietary self-defense, become a force for good in your community, commit your resources to solving problems in your community, redesign your curriculum to embrace anger management, healthy eating, attitudinal development, community involvement, peace education, environmental issues (you know, stuff that genuinely matters in the world --as it is today), etc.

You will not find any individual or group in the international martial arts community more dedicated to the wholesale change of the very core of martial arts education --than the people at The 100. Visit www.MartialArtsBusinessToday.com to change the things about your school that will make what you do a deep and meaningful kind of work, valuable to your community --and to the world.

Martial Arts Business. Why People Aren't Lining Up for Your Lessons.

How much are your martial arts lessons?

For argument’s sake, let’s say that you charge $150 a month (and I know, a lot of you charge a lot less than that).

$150 a month divided by 30-days in a month --comes out to $5 a day.

So, martial arts school owners and teachers, your burden is to make your classes worth $5 a day --or more. That’s it.

In a world where obesity is rampant, where diets destroy the health and vitality of not only individual people, but the very spirit of our (your) nation, where billions of dollars a year are spent on cigarettes, alcohol, and recreational drugs (not to mention prescribed pharmaceuticals), where millions more are spent on self-help books, videos, and seminars, where communities are literally crumbling from disconnection and dysfunction, and where the educational system is struggling to produce students who can even read and write (much less lead the nation), all you need to do is use all of your training, your focus, your self-discipline, your clarity of thinking (brought about by your training, yes?), and your energy ---all you have to do is convince people in your community to invest $5 (or, OK, $10 a day) in training that will empower them like they don’t even know.

And they don’t know, do they? Because if they really knew what daily training and the martial arts lifestyle could do for them, they’d fill your school, they’d line up for classes, they’d invest in what you offer ---as we both know, it’s life-changing, empowering, enriching, and rich.

People don’t know how good the training feels, how it can extend vitality, clear the head, bring meaning to other things in one’s life, build friendships, improve one’s attitude (dramatically), and make life a little bit --or a lot --more complete, fun, fulfilling, and meaningful.

Do you know WHY they don’t know this. You and me. That’s why. We haven’t, yet, done our work in a way that convinces people to invest $5 a day in themselves --and for all the right reasons.

This is exactly why I do what I do at www.MartialArtsBusinessToday.com, home of The 100.