MA Business Success 79: Transitioning

Watch the video below 

Listen to the podcast below

Transcription 

Graham :
Hey guys, Graham McDonnell here and welcome to the martial arts business success podcast number seventy nine. Now, we have done a bit of a role change. Normally Phil for the last seventy eight episodes is intro. We thought we would change it up and give it to you guys straight. So, we have got a pretty exiting ...

 

Phil:
Take five

 

Graham :
Take five. Yes, honestly.

 

 

Okay guys, Graham McDonnell here from the institute of martial arts and were here for ...

 

 

Welcome to the martial arts ...

 

 

Hey guys, Graham McDonnell here and welcome to the martial arts ... I can't get it out

 

 

So a pretty exciting episode this time and really it's all about you guys as a business owner. Taking that transitions from being the face, being the guy that does everything, to slowly stepping back, and being able to step off the mat and really kind of spend time invested in your business and not having to do everything yourself. So, Phil, what straight have we done to able to step of the mat?

 

Phil:
Initially you need to build a team to be able to support that. So definitely if your a solid man or woman operator and your in there and you've got no team no assistance no nothing. I would first start there. Building an instructed team of assistants, helpers that you can trust. That you can rely on to you know like ... imagine if you didn't have them [inaudible 00:01:35] Then class is there all by themselves.

 

 

That's just not going to work. So you really need to start investing in your team and building a team right from the ground level all the way up to the point where you have pen pals, odd partner fillers, you've got people who can walk around tying belts, you got those that type of thing. You got people who can take Walmart etc. etc. etc. So really building your instructive team would be strategy number one.

 

 

Strategy number two would then be slowly, very slowly, like sort of bleeding yourself off the mats. The first thing that I would be doing, if I had an instructor that was ... had capable to take little warmups and bits and pieces, skills and drills, is literally the first thing would be is step behind them and be the voice in the ear. So let them take the drill, the warm up, the whatever it may be, the game of the class but maybe on the mat whispering in the ear helping them, guide them, picking them up on their little mistakes and how they can improve it. That would be sort of step number one, would you say, yeah?

 

Graham :
So, in regards to that sort of price, I know that myself haven't done as quite well as when we step slightly back and whisper in there ear. That's one thing. But to be out there an give them the roll where we then can move back to where the parents are or the other people watching are, and always do a third party promo.

 

 

What I mean by that is we basically point out ... for example lets say Phil was taking a class, I expected parents to go, wow, look how well Phil is doing. Geeze, what a fantastic job roll he's in to be able to learn and develop as an instructor. So, what I'm doing, I'm singing their phrases and the parents or the other people who are watching are nodding going, yeah, wow, that's great. So they don't see the void of me just gone. They start to look at Phil or whoever the instructor is and hold different light as, wow that's great they get the opportunity to learn and develop but I'm still there to support an help out.

 

 

So, we definitely done that where we would maybe do a lap around, speak to the parents for about a minute or so and then go back and rejoin the instructor. So they know they're not left there all by themselves. That's really paid dividends to us and that lap slowly gets longer and longer and longer. Before you know it your almost sitting in the crowd with the parents watching the entire class and they're telling you how good the instructor is, that they're almost better then you. That's a great success point.

 

Phil:
Big part of the third party promo is really pushing and promoting everyone else rather than you. One of the biggest lessons we learned to get out of the engine room and start selling our ship was when we first started ... you know its inevitable you want to be everywhere. Your names on every flyer. Your photos everywhere. People see you everywhere. They hear you everywhere. They expect you everywhere.

 

 

So there was that moment when I remember when we were like, that's coming down that's coming down, we'll take our name off there. Now these letter are going out and they're going to have this head instructors name on it, not ours. And it was really just giving the perception that this school was being run by us but it had been sort of the people who were on the engine room floor were all a team as well. Were really promoting them as key players, key people of influence within our business. So that was another strategy that we use as well.

 

 

Going from letting them do a drill and whispering in their ear then walking around and doing the laps, speaking to parents, doing third party promo. Then its almost like ... so if I break my class down into twenty twenty twenty in an hour plan.

 

 

Everyone does things a little different. Would be like let the instructor do the warm up as I do the loop and talk to parents also give feedback. Then I can step back in and do a drill/skill to show the difference between the two an show this is what I would do better. This is how I would do it so they can watch and learn.

 

 

So one is whisper in the ear and give them feedback so they can do in drill sort of phrasing. Then watch me do it so they can watch and see it happen. Then give them another six hour classes and try and do it and how I did it. So its almost like this tic-tac-toe of this class ... now, let me just get this right and straight off the bat, that this process is probably a three, six, even twelve month process depending on the instructor.

 

 

To be safe everyone learns differently. So you might have to stay with the whisper in the ear for quite a long time. Someone might pick it up real quickly, now your doing, show me, do like this and then you do it. That might be a three month six month process. And then that time gets longer and longer. So the person ends up taking ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty minutes, fifty minutes of class.

 

 

I end up being on the mat with them. I'm on the bench with the parents. Then they see that I'm looking from afar. And I'm slowly bleeding myself out of that class.

 

Graham :
Yeah. Look, it's really important to get the instructor or the developing instructor to also look at you as an instructor and give you feed back for what your doing. So, for example we do this in our programme where myself and Phil may take a class, do a drill, whatever else. We'll ask the growing instructors, the developing ... So what did we do? What did you notice about what we did? So they're actively looking not just nodding and going, wow that was wonderful, but what did we do that was a little different? So again, it gets them thinking analytically so they can start to develop that an then go, great.

 

 

We did better volume, more hand gestures, whatever it may be so that next time you take the drill I want you to add that in. So, it's always important to communicate, get feedback in small steps. Like Phil pointed out, this is not one minute sort of affair where you get it done, sit, forget. It's a development.

 

 

I guess something else that we spoke about recently with a couple of guys that we mentor and help out is, don't be afraid to let your staff make mistakes. It is okay. And I think when we've asked our staff who now run our schools for us, and they're like ... you know they're running a multi million dollar school now twenty five and doing a phenomenal job. We asked, what was it that we did as the owners and the bosses that helped you develop to the level you are? And they said, that the first and foremost thing is you believed in us but you allowed us to make mistakes. And what you do is you made the mistake goin, guys well done great effort, if it was me next time round try a little bit more like this and you may get better results. Rather than, what did you do that for? So, it's important that you only give them enough so they don't make critical errors but just enough to grow and build on top of that as you go.

 

Phil:
Yup. And that really comes down to the eight twenty rule. You know?

 

Graham :
Yeah

 

Phil:
I could take the class and the experience for the students and parents in my point of view is a hundred percent. The level of instruction ... you know its my school, my business. I can deliver one hundred percent value. But I'm stuck by not letting someone else come in and deliver a lower level of service or ability. But its that allowance of your instructor to come in and be under your level, eighty percent, unless your remove yourself and work on twenty percent on the business an running it. And the only way you'll be able to run your business is if you can spend that twenty percent of the time working on your instructor not showing them. So you really you got to ... the eighty twenty rule is so relevant to so many things in business it's not funny. So don't think that your instructor is ever going to be to your level. We actually think and I said this to my staff the other day, I want them to be better than me.

 

Graham :
Yeah

 

Phil:
But the only way they can be better than me is to first let them have a chance and give it a go. They're not going to be better than me straight off the bat. They're going to be eighty percent. They're going to be worse than me. But I'm going to bring them up to my level and then guess what, bang. They're going to have their flavour, they're going to have their way of doing things. And you know the greatest form of appreciation from an instructor is to see his students be better than you.

 

Graham :
Hey guys, true story here. My little boy he's eight years old he trains, trains at one of our other schools, and he said to me one day the instructor there who obviously we developed, he turned around and goes, dad that instructor's better than you are. Better than you. And I just went, hi five man he is. Perfect. And that was great going like ... you know I think I taught him a technique he used. No no no no, the other instructor taught me this way, it was correct, but he said it was a better way of doing it. I was like, man that is cool when your own son thinks that the new instructors or the developing instructors are better than you are. So that just shows the confidence we have in our team that they can do it and execute it extremely well. So, it's definitely worth it.

 

Phil:
Yeah, cool guys. Well look we're going to wrap up this pod cast now. We've got a shout out now for one of our sponsors Harper. Graham you've been dealing with Rowland and Jason for a fair bit, what's going on?

 

Graham :
We've been involving the guys for nearly five years now in different ways.

 

 

And the programme that we use is the Hyper Pro School. And really there's so many great material in there that we use to add value into our school. By from a black belt perspective, the Hyper Pro Training which really works on that tricky, that athleticism.

 

 

So if your a tournament based school a really great way to add some great flavour in there so you an elite sort of player in that realm or you've got a great add value to into your inspiring programme which the Hyper fight club. Again it's something that we love. We get our teeth into it. Our team love it.

 

 

So guys, I highly recommend you go and check them out. They're really exciting with content curriculum. Check it out team, so that's the hyper. So go an Google them guys. Get onto the website. There's an area there that if you decide that it's the right fit for you, check it out, log in, punch in the code. Punch in Tima, T. I. M. A. Where you've got this section there and it will give you a hundred dollar discount on their premium package. Which is the Hyper Pro School. Highly recommended. Cause we've used it forever. It's made some great significant add value to our schools. So guys, you know I can't say it enough. Check it out. Check out the guys and the rest is history.

 

Phil:
Awesome. And for all the pod cast listeners and viewers out there who are loving what we've got to say and what we've got to offer, we've got a really cool deal for you. It's called, try fly for five. Which means you get to try our complete martial arts business solution for five dollars for five days. Normally it's ninety nine dollars for the month but you get it five dollars for five days. And it gives you a real peak underneath the bonnet. Check out anything and everything you can under there. Really we created this online platform for you to be able to build, grow and monetize your business and your school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


[00:12:07]
So get in there. Shoot over to my website tima.com[inaudible 00:11:44] Scroll down. Look for the ninety nine dollar a month package. In the promo code type in try five, that's T. R. Y. And the number five. Try5. And your going to get five days of access just for five dollars so you've got no excuses to start building your business. Well that's another wrap for us here at Tima. Can't wait to hear from you guys. Any questions that you have send them through at our email, We'd love to hear from you guys. Have a fantastic week.

 

[00:12:14]

Graham :

 

Guys, just a quick one. If you love my intro better than Phil's get me at And I'll make sure that I intro it next time as well too.

 

Phil:
We'll do some out takes for the next video.

 

Graham :
All right guys, take care.

 

Why not grab some free Martial Arts Business training or check out our programs below!

Some of what you'll find...

  • Free Resources and Courses
  • Affordable Trainings
  • World Class Coaching Program
  • Marketing Services to Dominate 
Grow My School >>>
Close

50% Complete

Apply now to see if working with TIMA is a right fit for you