Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast
Welcome to Black Belt Banter, the best martial arts business podcast for instructors, school owners, and entrepreneurs who want to increase their profits and generate substantial revenue. Whether you're running a single studio or scaling a multi-location empire, we break down the strategies, stories, and systems behind profitable martial arts businesses. From student retention and marketing hacks to leadership, curriculum, and community building, we cover it all. Tune in for weekly insights from Master Chan and Master Jimmy Hong, who’s been in the trenches and come out kicking.
Email us at jimmyhong@blackbeltbanter.com
Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast
#21 | Maximizing Martial Arts Impact: The Face-to-Face Marketing Advantage
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In this episode of Black Belt Banter, hosts Master Jimmy Hong and Master Lee discuss effective face-to-face marketing strategies for increasing enrollment in martial arts schools. Master Chan shares insights from his experience running multiple successful locations with over 2,100 active students. He emphasizes the importance of direct interactions at community events, birthday parties, and other engagements to drive trial enrollments. Additionally, the episode covers scripting for conversations with potential students and parents, the importance of having motivated and well-trained staff, and the broader impact of martial arts on children's development. The discussion also touches on the value of practicing what you preach and being an active, confident representative of the martial arts program.
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From Hello To Enrollment
SPEAKER_02In this week's episode, we'll discuss the topic from hello to enrollment, face-to-face marketing that fills your martial arts schools. Welcome to Black Belt Banter, the best podcast to help your martial arts school increase profit and generate substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hong, and my co-host is Master Chan Lee. Master Chan has over 2,100 active students with multiple locations. He is well renowned and highly respected by his peers for his business acumen in operating martial arts schools. Master Chan, welcome to the show. For those who might not be familiar, what exactly do we mean by face-to-face marketing in a martial arts school setting?
Why Face To Face Beats Ads
SPEAKER_00Face-to-face marketing would be considered when you meet a prospective student at a booth, at a school. They come to your school because they are doing a birthday party or a Boy Scout event, or anybody that just randomly you meet on the street and they're talking to you. And based on what you say, that would get them to enroll or do a free trial or some type of trial to start martial arts training at your academy. And that to me has been the most successful way of growing your school explosively is doing a lot of those trials. I think a lot of people are when they do marketing, and I want everybody to repeat this. If you're listening to this podcast, I want you to listen to this. I want you to say it out loud. In fact, close the door, roll up the windows, and say this marketing is hard. I think everybody has this idea of thinking, gosh, if I just put up a flyer, or you know what? If I just put this Facebook ad out, or if I just do this, I'm gonna have people flood my school. In fact, I just put a sign in front, people will flood my school. And every successful school owner I know, or everybody I've met, there is no silver bullet. There's not this one thing that just works hand over fist. It's a multitude of things. And if I had to rank all the things in order of what is the most successful marketing thing that we do to help grow our organization, it's face-to-face marketing. Just meeting people in large areas. You know, we did, you know, an event at the zoo. We went and did a meet and greet event downtown for fitness and wellness. We had a booth for what is it? They call it the night out with the police department and the whole community and keeping your community safe. Uh, we do county fairs. Uh I, if there is an opportunity for me to have a booth, I'm there. At the same time, I do a lot of face-to-face marketing where I'm bringing people back to my school. And birthday parties are the big ones. I know everybody keeps cracking up. Oh man, you guys, all you talk about is birthday parties. It's a naturally occurring event that happens in your students' lives and it's all their friends. It's like the greatest referral thing ever.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then but but I'm sorry, going back to the birthday party, I have to say that a lot of our audience and listeners, I've been contacted by them. And because birthday party's been around a long time. It's not some new marketing ploy, right? So they come and they're like, oh my gosh, they're re-energized, re-motivated by listening to our podcasts, and then they're like, I'm doing something wrong with my birthday parties because I restarted doing them. They're not getting the results they once had before, or whatever the reason is, but they understand and see the value of the birthday parties. We we need to do an episode where we just deep dive into a birthday party classic.
Where Your Target Parents Gather
SPEAKER_00I'll do that. But before we do, what I'm gonna talk about in today's episode is just as important because if you just because you're in front of an audience doesn't mean they're ready to buy. And there was a marketing guy named Chet Holmes, and he basically said, if you had a hundred of your ideal clients right in front of you, what could you say in three minutes that would get them to buy from you? Right. And that that resonated with me. And so I really worked hard on our scripts and our buying proposition, our unique selling proposition, our paradigm shifts. These are all things that are, I think, super important that people need to know. And like I said, it all that is a moot point. If you're running all these birthday parties, but you're not able to speak the language of value and understanding and and benefits, then people are not gonna buy from you. There's no reason why they should. They think it's just a taekwondo class. I uh and it's just another activity for kids to do. So it has to go beyond that. In my opinion, I think that that's what I'm gonna talk about is very important. But face to face, if you're looking at your school and you're like, okay, what can I do to get as many people in my school and I need to grow it, then you need to be in front of a large audience of people of your target market. And let's talk about our target market. Our target market is what between the ages of 28 and 45 that have kids. And the reason I say women is because most of the people that bring kids to our taekwondo school are women, and they're the ones you have to convince. And yeah, there's dads too, and so forth. But if I said if I had to categorize one thing, it's that. So, where are all the moms and where are all the kids of ages between four and 12? The zoo is a great place. Boy Scouts is a great place, Girl Scouts are a great place, schools are a great place. These are all the strategic relationships that you need to have with your community, and you need to provide the type of benefit that goes, yeah, we don't mind Master Chon Lee and his group coming in because they do a good job of helping our kids become better citizens, anti-bullying, being confident, kicking off a kindness campaign. I'm giving you guys a lot of ideas here, but I'm just basically saying that this is where you've got to focus your efforts. So, what exactly I want to talk about a paradigm shift. And a paradigm shift is important. And I talk about this to a lot of people, and I grew up in an era where not wearing a seatbelt was a very it was an uncool thing. If you wear a seatbelt in the car, you're a square, you were a nerd. That's how old I am. You know what I mean? I grew up in an area where people smoked in restaurants. It was like just understood, right? That you had a smoking section and an unsmoking section, which didn't help because the unsmoking section still smelled like the smoking section.
SPEAKER_02There was an invisible wall that separated smoking and non-smoking.
SPEAKER_00Right. But there was a paradigm shift that basically said secondhand smoke was bad for you and they banned all smoking in restaurants and airplanes. So there are things. So there's another big paradigm shift that's happening. It's happening in media. Movies are dying, people are getting content on their phones and so forth. It's shifting. People are subscribing to services. Uh, and so that is moving to a different direction. There's another shift. I heard, so I have a daughter in college right now, and my daughter's generation of kids, they are the least amount of kids that are drinking in the history of alcohol. Alcohol is no longer considered the choice thing to do. You know what I mean? So people are now like doing other things like edibles and and vaping and smoking pot. It just changed. There's a Wait, wait.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're I I thought this was good news that kids are not doing alcohol, but you're saying kids are replacing alcohol with these edibles and other stuff. That's what I'm saying. Well, there's a shift.
SPEAKER_00There's a shift. They're considering that to be healthier than doing alcohol.
SPEAKER_02You were gonna go into oh, kids are gonna be more responsible, they're not drinking anymore. I'm like, oh, that's great. But you're saying they're doing other stuff.
SPEAKER_01That's worse.
Paradigm Shifts That Drive Buying
SPEAKER_00I'm just saying there's shifts. There's shifts on things. You know what I mean? I know, unlike you, I'm tech savvy. I use Spotify. I know you still listen to everything on CD. And uh anyway, I'm just kidding. Oh, so there's these shifts. Yeah, I use I use Napster, Master Tom. Napster, and I download my music from Napster. We are really dating ourselves. Half the audience is like, Napster, yeah, I remember that. And the other half is, what the hell is a napster? Is that to help you sleep? Anyway, so what I'm trying to say is that right now, in traditional parents' thinkings, if they didn't do martial arts, it's a foreign thing. It's a very foreign thing. It's just another activity for them to do. And what we need to do is we need to like shift their thinking that the martial art program is a great way for their kids to enhance their confidence. And it's a great way for them to learn about being disciplined and focused. And it's a trained trait. And the more you do it, the kids are gonna get better at it. So I'm gonna give you like my key buzzwords. What like when I talk to a parent, this is Master Hong was like a parent that came to my booth or came into my school. I start off the conversation in a very simple formula, and I'm gonna give that formula to you. All right. The first formula is just asking questions. And the first question would be like, Have you ever thought about doing martial arts? Or has your son or daughter done martial arts before? And more than likely, the answer is no. No, we haven't done any martial arts or anything like that. Okay. And then the second thing is I do a kind of a power statement. I just go, martial arts is one of the greatest activities that I know that helps kids learn how to become better focused and how to become better confident. And by taking classes, there's a huge transformation in the child just by learning how to kick and punch and do things they didn't think they can do and so forth. What I would recommend at our academy is there is a two-week free trial. I would just give that program a trial to see what type of differences we can make in your child. And then I assume they just said yes. Then I go, Do you have time to come and do our beginner class on Monday or Tuesday? And at that point, it'll be yes, we'll just do it. Or they'll look at me and just be like, Oh, we have some more questions, or we'll think about it and so forth. And then I need to talk to my wife, whatever that is. All right. And that's really important that you guys get a chance to really be able to say and have them understand it just goes beyond the kicking and punching.
SPEAKER_02Where where, Master Child, where is this all taking place? So talking to these fake parents. So is it when they walk into your school and you're talking to them at the lobby? That's it.
SPEAKER_00Or if he's at it can be anywhere. But let me just give you an example. If they come off the street and they come into my school uh for an event, right? We just did a Boy Scout event. And I think we had something like 12 kids there. And then my instructor told me we got seven of those kids to do a trial. And it's just this simple script that we just put that I just put together with you guys, right? Now, obviously the event was really well done too, which you know I can talk about as well. I did a booth at a night out, and and I was training new people there. Um, and a couple other things. Just make sure you get personable people. I had one lady who is a gym teacher. No, she's a music teacher, and she was there helping me out. And then I had another mom there who sells insurance, and her kids are in our program, and she loves the program. And so I had these two super moms that were there, and I taught her the script. They have they were personable, and I did something new. Like back in the day, I used to have a gazillion boards. Man, come here, give me, fill out this information, break the boards, and I'll I'll deal with you guys later. Here's two weeks free, and I'd have a conversation with them and so forth. And it caused like a huge storm of work that with very little effort and with a tremendous amount of effort. I think I did an event and we did 160 leads, and I was like, wow, this is a great event. And then we go back to our dojong and we're calling and emailing and texting and trying to get these people into the school. And I think we got like a very low result with that. And I was like, okay, that everybody just came to break the board. They really had no interest in doing martial arts and so forth. We got some students out of it, and I was like, but it wasn't like it was a tremendous amount of work on the back end, and I think I tallied the amount of hours we spent on the back end for a staff member to follow up with those leads. Um, but anyway, so I we decided to do something different. So in this case, we had squishy toys, these little squishy toys that my 18-year-old daughter helped me pick. I we went to a dollar store. We bought like a gazillion of these little toys for$1.50. I must have bought like$150,$200 worth of stuff. And I laid it out on the table. And so we had some visual. And then we had spin the wheel. And in the wheel, they had to do various activities like five jumping jacks. Here, let us show you how to do a one-two punch. Let us do an elbow strike. And so they had to do something that was on the wheel. So there's a little bit of a martial art buy-in. So when you see the kids, goes, How do we get a squishy? You get a squishy by spinning the wheel. That that everybody gets that. And then while that's going on, I have one instructor working on that aspect. On the second aspect, what we do is then we talk to the parent and we go, hey, listen, we're giving away two weeks of free martial arts lessons. Have your has your child ever done a martial art class before? No. Oh my gosh. It's a huge transformative experience. You'll see all our kids that do take classes, they become immediately more confident. They become better focused. And I would invite you to come in and try the two-week trial just to see how he likes it. And it's a great way for them to learn some life skills that go beyond the kicking and punching. Do you have time either Monday or Tuesday to come back to a first class? Super easy. They fill out their information. And I said, by the way, we're giving away a month of lessons in a uniform. So if you fill this out, right, you get a drawing for that and you may get a uniform as well. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So I'm collecting everything. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Master Chan. So you're saying instead of trying to accumulate as much leads at the event as possible and following up the following week through email trips and phone calls and texts and so forth, you're saying your paradigm shift is talk with these individual parents face to face and schedule them into your two-week trial program from there. So instead of trying to get a hundred leads and following along and get a low percentage, talk to 10 parents who are really enthused, interested, thought about it, and get those 10 people into your trial program afterwards.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_02Am I reading am I reading that? Correct.
The Three Minute Power Script
SPEAKER_00It's less work. It's less work on the back end. And you have And less and less leads total. Right. But you get people that you can just focus on immediately. And a lot of community awareness. You go out, there's some people that still come by and just take the information, but as they're waiting in line to do their activity to spin the wheel, right? I get a chance and my staff get a chance to talk with them and try to convince them to try the two-week trial. So right there on the spot. Gotcha, gotcha. And what I say is I hey, you should try it. You should try it. Come back to class. Here, let me give you a reason why. It's a hugely transformative experience for kids to learn how to become better focused and more confident. All right. And you'll see the amount of confidence that the kids build by doing it. And by coming by the class, you'll even get a chance to break a board there. So it it's good conversation, right? And by the way, um we had another event. We had a birthday party event. I think my staff's they have another thing there, but we sell a$29 a month in a uniform, and our staff, we give the money back to our staff there. We they signed up six students on the spot for a trial, or six prospective students on the trial for$29.
SPEAKER_02And it is By implement by implementing that face-to-face marketing that face-to-face in a script.
SPEAKER_00And that's hugely important, is just going out and doing a script and going out and talking to them and and making it completely engaging and uh and transformative.
SPEAKER_02If you just Well, can I can I ask you on that last event where you did where you did the spin the wheel and the pledge toys, how many what were the numbers like? How many people did you talk to? How many enrolled into the new trial, into the trial, versus if you did it your old way of collecting leads, what would that have been?
SPEAKER_00I think we we collected maybe you know roughly about 50 leads, 50 or 55 leads. So we got a lot of names and numbers, and then roughly what 40 percent, 40, 45 percent. So we had a higher kind of um turnaround.
SPEAKER_02And then 25, 20 to 25.
SPEAKER_00About 22, about 22 students. That's a lot. It's 40 percent from one event, right? Wow. I'm telling you, it's the greatest thing you can do is face-to-face marketing. But if you are there, can you imagine? Let's like roll reverse this. You just stand there and you go, hey, you guys should do karate or taekwondo. Here, here's some information. Here, hi, hi, how you doing? There was another martial arts school that were there, and they all just stood around and handed out information and talked to people and so forth. But I don't know what they said, but it's a smaller school than ours, and they've been established in that community longer than we have, and we're way bigger than they are. You know what I mean? And I once again it goes back to any marketing looks like this. You gotta know your market, you gotta know what your message is, and then you gotta convert. That's simple. Market, message, convert.
SPEAKER_02That that's a great point because you don't want to just doing the event is one thing, but you need to schedule, set a goal and outline for your staff, and to approach it with a certain requirements, like you said, face-to-face, the the goal in mind, and with a goal in mind, all that, not just do the event and and that's it, and hope for the best. Right. So it sounds like the other school did that. Your school had a specific goal. You trained your staff to achieve that goal, how to do that goal. Face-to-face marketing, what to say, how to say it, and then the end result is getting the trial.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And uh let me just say, like, some of I I'm not even the best at it. Like our junior staff are really good. And there's an opportunity there because I tell our staff all the time, I say, when you guys leave J.K. Lee's, you leave our martial art school and you go off into the world and you're doing something, right? You're gonna be you're gonna be asking and doing conversations and things that are way harder than talking to these people, like asking your boss for a raise or your initial interview and what your salary requirements are, right? And talking to them. And I tell these like 14, 15, 16 year old kids that you can practice the art of conversation with new people through the marketing efforts of the school. You're learning things. So I the way I tell our staff is that you guys, we're training you guys up. Up to move beyond us, right? And secretly, obviously, we're hoping that some of them stay and become staff members of ours, but you're gonna have a and some of these kids are super high level, like you they're gonna be scientists and lawyers and really super high level people somewhere. Um, but I want this to be part of their experience of how they grew. And so I tell the kids, so here's a formula that I tell these kids is that the art of a great conversation is one, ask or no, I'm sorry, introduce yourself, right? And you have an introducing question. Hi, are you guys originally from the area? Hello. Have you heard of JK Lee martial arts before? Hi, have you thought about doing martial arts program? My name is and then they just introduce themselves. Junior instructor Jones, nice to meet you. Great. How long have you and then ask a second question? How long have you guys lived in this area? Ask a question within the question. So introduction, ask a question, ask a question within a question, right? And then after you do that, you have to do your what your power statement. What's the statement that you're gonna say that draws them in? And then the last thing is what making sure that you give them an offer that they can't refuse.
SPEAKER_02So you don't just go and do the event, you're actually you gotta really train your staff on how to approach the event. How long does that training take, Master Chan?
Booth Design And Spin The Wheel
SPEAKER_00It's just like 20 minutes, 30 minutes before they practice. But let me just that's yeah, that's not a lot. It's not a lot, but let me just say you gotta you gotta find the right personalities. You got like the mumbler teenager. Hi, my name is wrong kid to be putting in that position. If you got staff that are shy and you got staff that it doesn't matter what script I give them, if they have the wrong personality, then I have gosh, I have this girl that is uh is 15 years old and at 13, really shy girl, couldn't let you, she couldn't look you in the eye, and so forth. And the other day I was at that location and she was like, Everybody line up! Great. I just like the head instructor there did a great job of transforming her when we do internal events. She's like talking to these random parents about why martial arts is the greatest thing. And the parents see what the value of what they do with these teens, and these teens don't look like they're 14 or 15. And I'll say it, I go, Oh, yeah, that girl that you just talked to is 15 years old. She's our junior instructor. That's how we want your kid to turn out to. My point is that you know, you've got to have the people in place to represent you correctly, but you need to train them to say the right things, and then they see the magic of what's going on, and it makes a huge difference. So, you know, face-to-face marketing to me is the greatest thing. And so here's another paradigm. I'm gonna give you guys a few paradigms. The first paradigm is you are who you are based on your past life experiences. Everything that you've gone through in life has shaped you as a person. Martial arts is the greatest life experience system for children to learn at an early age. How do you learn about effort until you do something hard? How do you learn about being confident until you do something that scares you, like performing in front of others and then doing it and then knowing that you can do that very well? How do you learn focus until you do, you know, intricate martial art moves in front of a large audience? Martial arts is experiential learning. It's philosophy and action for your kids to learn a slice of life. And I tell parents you need to put them in before the age of 12. Because if you don't indoctrinate and teach these lessons early, then everything they're learning about themselves, if they're shy now, and if you don't fix that now, they're gonna be shy when they're 12. And at 12, 13, 14, I know it. I'm a parent that have older kids. Your kids don't want to do anything to do with you, they won't even listen to you. Try talking to a 13, 14-year-old. A listening teenager is a very hard thing. So, parents, you have a limited window to teach your kids while you're in charge. That is Master Chon Lee's greatest hits. You're welcome. And uh if you don't like and subscribe and smash the like button, then please don't ever watch any future episodes. No, I'm just kidding. I don't even know what that means.
SPEAKER_02No, but that's absolutely true. And that would be a huge, huge uh what's the word I'm looking for? Not a selling point, but if you're telling parents and their kid is 10 and you're like, don't wait any longer, don't wait until they're 14 to have them start martial arts running, it'll be too late. You gotta have them join now. That's gonna be a big factor of them joining immediately versus later.
SPEAKER_00So I've had this week, I've had five parents start classes, and I've been on them for three weeks. Like three weeks. I'm like, you should start classes. They're on their phones. You should do class with your son. You should do class with how that's his activity. So I said, okay. And then I tell him this story, and I go, listen, this is a true story. I said, My daughter in September drove the car to high school, and my wife and I looked at each other and we said, We got 10 months before we're empty nesters. And we just said, How did this happen? Like it happened very quickly. And I tell parents, you have a finite window to spend as much time as you can with those kids. Spend as much time before they don't want to spend any time with you. My college-aged sophomore right now, she doesn't want to do vacations with us anymore. She's like, Dad, I'm gonna go out of the country with some friends for spring break. I'm like, don't you want to go with us to Florida? No, she's ready to like, she's moved on. She's moved on from us. We haven't I'm telling you right now, don't waste this opportunity on your phone. Go out on the class and train with your kid, not to learn martial arts, to spend time with them and build some memories. You're here to build memories, dad. And then I just leave it there. And then a week, I'm telling you, a week later, they come back and they go, Master, I thought about what you said. I'm ready to start. I'm like, all right, get your ass out there.
SPEAKER_02Here's the here's the difference, Master Chan. Here's the difference. You are the master market, so you are very comfortable with talking with people, and you really believe in your system and your school and and martial arts and taekwondo in general. There are a lot of school owners that's that loves taekwondo. They got into the business because they love martial arts, not just taekwondo, obviously, but the marketing aspect, the personnel aspect, the personable aspect is not their forte, it's not their first thing. So they for listening to you, they need to come out of their shell and do this every single day. They need to replace classes instead of trying to do marketing around their classes, they need to replace classes with marketing efforts and marketing events. So if Saturday morning, if you want to just do instead of having six classes, just do two classes and four hours is dedicated to marketing events, because that is gonna help your school grow, your business grow, and not just focus on the classes, but the marketing face-to-face events, exactly what you're talking about, Master Chan.
SPEAKER_00Hey, did you ever hear this story of Gandhi where the kid, I think I told this story before, but real quickly, it was like at the end of the day, Gandhi would see all the people in his village, like, and people would get a chance to talk to him and he would dispense words of wisdom. And then this lady are you are you Gandhi in this scenario?
SPEAKER_02Is is that what no?
Quality Trials Over Cold Leads
SPEAKER_00There's some wisdom. I'm not Gandhi. I'm Chandi. Sorry. This bad joke. We're gonna get all this hate. Anyway, essentially the story is that this mom waited in line for hours and then finally she gets to Gandhi and goes, Gandhi, can you just tell your my son to stop eating so much sweets? I can't uh, you know, he eats so much sweets and so forth. And then Gandhi goes, I will have him come back tomorrow. So she says, Okay, whatever. So she comes back next day, waits in line for hours again, and then Gandhi says, Stop eating sweets, young man. It's bad for you, it's gonna rot your teeth, it'll make you fat. Don't eat sweets. And then the kid's like, Yes, Gandhi, he reveres Gandhi and then walks off. And then the mom was like, Why didn't you say this yesterday? Why'd you make me wait in line again? And then Gandhi looked at her and said, In order for me to say to your son not to eat sweets, I had to stop eating sweets myself. And the point is that he had to be what he represents. And the reason I'm I tell you this story is that if you're saying that you need to be confident and you need to be disciplined, like we got to represent it. And you say, Oh, yeah, these are great marketing tricks and toys, it's I really believe in what I say because I've lived it. I've I I want to make sure that we are the most confident people. Like we should be able to do speeches and we should be going in front of others because that's what we expect of our students. We should be able to do demonstrations because that's just the way we are, that we're martial artists. You know, I remember I was like 24 years old. I was with my dad. We went to a wedding, was one of the first grandmasters' kids I grew up with that got married. And we get there, and my dad, and then typically in the wedding, the everybody the music starts, and then no one started dancing at the wedding. And my dad looked at me and he goes, Chun. I go, yes, dad. He goes, start, go dance. I go, Dad, I'm not gonna dance. Everybody's he goes, aren't you supposed to be a master? You're supposed to be confident. You're gonna be confident everywhere. Go dance. Yes, dad. So I went in the middle of the dance floor.
SPEAKER_02I'm asking, I've seen your dance, so I know the outer bed.
SPEAKER_00It was bumping, like, you know, the longest.
SPEAKER_02No, I meant the other way, bumping like really badly.
SPEAKER_00No, two minutes later, I got everybody dancing. My whole point is that we gotta be able to talk to anybody and we gotta be evangelists of what we do. And everybody should be like, this is the greatest thing I can do for my kid. And the more people we can get involved in it, guess what? It's gonna be good for your business, it's gonna be good for them, and the amount of value you got to bring is tremendous. And uh, anyway, here's my point make a script, right? Practice it. Be able to say, I can like try to get this person to get their kid to be in martial arts and so forth. And then you should talk to as many people as you can. Just do more of it. And I'm I'm doing an after-school gym class, and one of the things I did a little talk on, and I said, you will be strong by doing things that are hard. And the only way that you do is you got to test yourself. You got to keep doing things that test yourself. And martial arts is a great way to make yourself strong, not just for school, but for the rest of your life. And that's my next thing is that you got to make sure people realize when they're practicing martial arts with you, it's beyond the kicking and punching. It, it's, it's, it's character building, it's life-changing. And and if they move beyond the block and beyond the exercises, and by the way, you still gotta have fun. Don't get me wrong, you gotta have fun. Um, we recently made a huge shift in our class procedure and we changed it up, but I'll put I'll talk to everybody on the podcast about that. But just uh making huge shifts in strides, I firmly believe. Oh by the way, I was talking, I did one of these speeches, and a principal of a school came up to me uh at uh at my school, at my dojong, and essentially the principal said that if you have kids that are anxious and shy, and the parents keep coddling them and they don't fix it at an early age, they become like unfunctional adults by the time they turn 16, 17, 18, that they have it where they'll have social anxiety and anxiety for the rest of their life. And I just sat there and she gave me more ammunition. I was like, holy cow, like we gotta help fix these kids. Like, we got to help these kids become confident in life because this is gonna, and kids are now, because of the fact they don't want to interact as much, they're not as social. They're socially off a little bit. And this gives us an opportunity to really fix it. And I really believe we have the greatest tool for children to really learn about life. I I I cannot stress to you enough that there's not enough kids doing martial arts. And if more kids were doing it, holy cow, you would make your city strong. You would make your community strong because of it. Um, and that's where that's a place I come from. And yes, your business will get better and all these other things, but you know, the most important thing is start changing lives through this. And it's such an invaluable tool. I've been teaching for a long time, like over 25 years. Actually, shoot. I downselled. I I've been teaching over 35 years, and I've done it right and wrong. I you are going to make a humongous difference in someone's life. The parents just don't know it because they don't realize what it is, right? But being confident, being focused, being disciplined is a universal thing. If you put 100 parents in a room and say, who wants their kid to be more confident in life? I guarantee 98% of the people will raise their hand. And if you say, Who wants their kid to be more disciplined in life? 98% of those kids will raise their hand or parents will raise their hand. So super important. You guys are everybody that's out there, you guys are doing tremendous work and making a huge difference. And I'm 100% sure you guys are getting a lot of the same emails and letters of lives that you changed by just being there. You just didn't you just need to make more of an impact.
Train Staff To Converse With Confidence
SPEAKER_02Can I add that for school owners that are just not a natural marketeur, you practice at your school. I understand the scenario, the situation. If you go outside, if you're at your town's fair or or at a mall or some kind of outdoor event, you might be more out of your element. But if you're in your school, you're you're more comfortable in your setting. So practice that face-to-face marketing when you're doing an in-house event, like birthday parties, buddy days, I don't know, like parents' night out. And and don't just stay in your office, but go to the lobby and practice that face-to-face marketing, because then you get more comfortable, you'll know how to tweak your conversation to get it better and more effective, more effective. So when you do go out to fairs and zoos and and and boy scouts and girl scouts, you'll have honed that that conversation, that person, that personality to make those trials convert into trials into a much highly successful percentage, just like Master Chan.
SPEAKER_00So here, you want to do something really out of your comfort zone. I I did this my whole life. My in fact, my wife has to like pinch me when I'm with her to have me stop doing it, right? But I have, I don't know, maybe 50 business cards in my pocket.
SPEAKER_02And nobody, nobody has business cards anymore, Master Chan.
SPEAKER_00I do. I still hand out tons of business. If you're not handing out business cards, I don't know. Everybody should have a daily. I'm gonna hand out five business cards a day. And I just doing stuff.
SPEAKER_02Do you still recommend that handing out business cards?
SPEAKER_00All the time. Like I get random people coming in like at different locations that are like, sir, did were you at Starbucks and you gave someone? I'm like, yeah. Let me give you my greatest hits. So here, I'll go into Target or something, and I need to get something, or, or even better, I'll go to Home Depot or just something I need to get for myself, and I'll see a dad with a kid or a mom with a kid. And I'm like, hey, is that your son? Oh, great. Hey, I'm sorry, I know you're really busy. My name is Chon Lee. Don't call yourself master, they don't get it. And they think you're what, Dungeons and Dragons or something like that. Hi, I'm Master Chon Lee. Let me just tell you, they call me master because don't do that. They're like, hey, my name is Chon Lee. I run a local martial arts school here. And one of the things we make a big difference in kids learning how to become better confident and better disciplined and so forth. Your kid is like the perfect age to start. Here's a VIP pass, and here's my card there. This isn't this is what my dad used to do. This is this is what some of the other bigger schools back in the day used to do. I still do it. I go to a restaurant and here's some cards. Here's some cards. Everybody should know me as the martial art guy in my town. I go everywhere and I'm handing stuff out. Half the time, people will do this. Oh, great. Thanks, crazy guy. Have a good day. The other half is, wow, I've been thinking about this. This is great. I'm like, yeah, where do you? Sometimes they don't live in my area. Okay, all right, good. Here, go to your other local school. Both my kids got black belt. It's a transformative event. Do it. Right? One of my senior black belts, third degree black belt, he's been with me for 12 years. I met him on an airplane coming back from Colorado, Hamadang. He was coming in from Comic Con and he was in San Diego and his layover was in Denver. I asked him to switch seats with me because I can sit next to my family. I wanted to sit behind my family because it was 3 3 1. And he did because he was just a nice guy. I gave him a month pass and I said, You should do this. It'll really change your life. It's a great way of getting in shape and also learning how to defend yourself. But you'll feel good about yourself. I trust me. Forgot about him. I saw him at 90 days later. I saw him at one of our tests, and he goes, Hey, I'm the guy on the airplane. I'm like, oh, wow, great. He's been with us 12 years now. Guys, it's simple. Practice what you preach. Practice what you preach. Put this, handout all this stuff. You don't have students, go get them. They're out there. There's not a shortage of people. There's like, where are all the people? They're all out there. Go talk to them.
SPEAKER_02Master Chan, talking at an event that you're hosting and you're running outside the school, whatever, inside around your town, around your city is one thing. It's very different to go out and just talk to random people face to face. Not a lot of school owners or people for that matter will be comfortable doing that. And I bet they have small schools.
SPEAKER_00What? That's not a dig. I'm just saying they they probably have small schools. And then they're the ones that are like, I don't know, how do I get those students? Listen, I can only tell you what I do. If you don't want to do it, then don't do it. I'm not telling you to go do it. I'm just telling you what I do.
SPEAKER_01No, that's exactly what we're doing right now. We're telling them to do it, Master. What are you talking about? Well, we're saying right now, go ahead and do it to these corners. That's what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00Listen, I can only suggest. I to be honest with you, I have one staff member. He's 6'6, he's 250 plus, he's a big dude. And man, I was a real jerk. I used to Be like, here are 10 passes, go to Toys R Us, send him out, and come back. He got kicked out of Toys R Us. He now runs one of our locations, but we always joke about all the things I used to make him do. And the guy is a sweetheart of a person, and I'm super blessed to have him on as a part of our team. But I'm just saying if you're gonna be confident, then show it. If you're gonna be disciplined, show it. It's not, oh, okay, I'm just gonna be disciplined when it's convenient for me or when I'm like in in front of the bathroom mirror when no one's looking. You gotta represent everything you do, you gotta represent. And that's part of having a magnetic personality. You gotta go out and just be able to talk to everybody. And when they come into the school, a parent should be I would love my child to be influenced by this guy or this girl. My child would, I feel my child would be a better human being by being here. That's the feeling I want. That's the that is the value that I want to give.
SPEAKER_02Awesome, Master Chonley. This I think this episode is just it's gonna resonate with a lot of our our audience and listeners.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but they have small schools. Sorry. You know what? This is what I want. I want people who listen to this and be like, I'll show him how big my school can get. And then they go out and they're like, I gave out a thousand business cards in a day.
SPEAKER_02They're gonna they gotta first go to a local print shop and print those business cards out because they don't have any like you do. They don't have a thousand business cards in your in their pocket ready to go. You want to tap? Just give them a business card, walk away. Jeez lease. All right, let's conclude. Audience, let's conclude there. Master Chan Lee, thank you for sharing your wisdom, practical insights on face-to-face marketing. I think a lot of the school owners are gonna forget that sometimes the most powerful form of marketing doesn't require fancy tech, like a tap on the phone, it just takes a business card. For those who's listening, start small, get out into your community and remember that every enrollment begins with a great conversation. And Master Chon Lee just gave you a script on that conversation. If you found value in today's episode, make sure to follow Black Belt Banter on YouTube and your favorite podcast platform, like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And as always, thank you for being part of the martial arts community and keep growing and giving back. We'll see you next time. Have a great one, everybody. Bye, Master Chon Lee. Bye, everybody.