MA Business Success 82: Staff Training

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Graham M. :
Good day, everyone. Welcome to the martial arts business success podcast. We're at episode 82. We've got Graham and Phil. We've got some killer information that we want to share with you today. Phil, what are we going to open up with today?

Phil Britten:
We had a little bit of response back from some of the opportunities that we've had and been talking about. I really wanted to get this out straight off the bat because one of our frustrations and a lot of school learners who we've worked with have the frustration of CRMs, attendance tracking. How do we do all that type of stuff? Well, we've been listening not only to other people but ourselves as well and our staff. We've created a brand new software, a CRM package called the Complete ... Sorry. What is it called?

Graham M. :
Martial Arts Business Software.

Phil Britten:
Yeah. So many different names going on. It's awesome. Martial Arts Business Software is an awesome package that's really it's built from martial artists for martial artists. Really, guys, the basic level that we're giving it out absolutely for free for you to try out and check out and see what you think about it. I suggest if you're interested in learning more about this software package please reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll be glad to share the landing page with you before it actually gets officially launched.

Graham M. :
Hey, guys. I know that I've said this on a couple of podcasts, but again I can't urge you enough to go and check out the boys from Hyper because their programmes that we're running I'm glad to say there's a bunch of great schools here in Australia that are running it really well and globally. The guys are now in Mexico. Geez they've got it in the UK, Europe, America. It's everywhere. So it's great to be part of a movement especially for youth and trying to give them that identity because I know that that teen market can often be a challenge. This programme really plugs in well to all schools. Team, if what I'm saying to you sort of interests you and you want to find out more, go across, have a look at the link that we've got posted for you. It's a great way to check out what the guys do from both a business owner but also a student perspective. Get in there. There's plenty of details plus also a discount code which is TIMA T-I-M-A. Put it in there guys and you get $100 discount, every single month subscription that you guys are there so can't recommend it enough.

Phil Britten:
All right. Well, let's get cracking. We got 2017 staff training. Graham, I know yesterday we had what we call an all in staff meeting, brain training.

Graham M. :
Yep.

Phil Britten:
What are we talking about with this sort of staff training 2017?

Graham M. :
Look, it's aligning with new staff because I know with a big organisation as we are we have plenty of staff that we deal with and they don't always get a chance to come together. This was a great chance to really set out what is coming up for this year. We didn't do it week one of the year because there's still people elsewhere. We made sure that we start this at this time of the year simply because we want to make sure that all people are on board. They're all present. They're ready to rock and roll.

So the very first thing we're talking about with these guys is setting expectations. Now, what is that? What you got to look back on is review the year gone by and have a look at how your team performed both internally, externally to your business, how they performed socially. At the end of the day, I'm sure you guys are going to appreciate a martial artist often just starts teaching because they love teaching but then they become a bit of a superstar almost like a celebrity profile to these students. If you've got staff that are out and about and doing things that don't align with your company values or your school values doesn't really work.

What we look to do is all the way at TIMA great employees and great people, but we never just expect the same standard from the year previous. We look to always improve. That's what we communicated through our meeting yesterday. Expectations. Social media, what is the ... it's things we never had to talk about five years ago ... but what is the image and the presence you want to put online. What about dealing with when all your students want to be your friends? How do you keep your personal and professional life separate or do you mix it but then choose your battles or choose what you post on there? What were some of the other things that we covered with the guys?

Phil Britten:
I guess just behaviour and how they behave both on the floor here and their relationship with students and other instructors, but also at external events as well. Whether they are representing us at a [inaudible 00:04:23] School event or maybe they're just at someone's house that is a friend of a student and they're there representing us because maybe they've got one of our shirts on. What Graham's getting at is we sort of have this celebrity status as martial arts instructors especially within your own community. Like Graham and I can't really walk down the street around Perth because Perth's quite small without someone seeing us. So we've got to be careful not to pick our nose, sneeze on someone or anything like, we have to be really, really careful with what we do. We can still be ourselves, but we're just not going to be out there promoting things that aren't us or also don't align with the values of who we are as a person and who we're representing as a business.

Graham M. :
I guess also to couple with that, we talk a lot about inspiring guys, but the vision we have as an organisation has never changed. Our goal is to make as much impact on our community and help people be the best version of themselves. We're in the business of changing people's lives. That's what we do. That's our catchphrase. That's what we do. But our expectation as the world grows and changes and we're dealing with different day to day challenges, we've got to make sure that we inspire our staff to stay focused on that vision, that mission that we're on, but also what's expected on them as they move up the food chain. What happens when they have staff that they have to manage? How do they expect? When it comes from the senior directors, the upper management team, they're able to then use that expectations to be able to remind their staff if they step out of line. Hey, guys, remember that staff meeting? We talked about these expectations. This is what I want. It allows them to really kind of realign and bring their staff back on the same page if they step off.

To be honest with you most of our guys are red hot. It's just the guys who are newer to the team may not necessarily know what to expect or what is expected of them. That's something that was really, really clear and involved. I think we had probably about a six or seven page document that we went through about these expectations and everybody was on the same page. They understood what we're talking about. Then again we got them to sign that. That was a great starting point for this.

Phil Britten:
Sort of like a commitment statement. We're saying I commit to upholding these standards.

Graham M. :
Yep.

Phil Britten:
For 2017 and we'll probably do it again in 2018.

Graham M. :
Definitely.

Phil Britten:
The year that was. We're going to get better. We're going to realign our values, realign our expectations and standards. Then we're going to get every single employee to sign that I'm committing to this level of standard.

Graham M. :
We've spoken about it tonnes of times both at public events where we spoke on stage but also on these podcasts the values that we have in our school and in our organisation here and [inaudible 00:07:02] is one that we have out of our six constant and never any improvement. Basically that's what we're showing you guys that we do. We will constantly look at ways to better serve our clients, better serve the staff, better ways to serve you as an individual and to do that you've obviously got to look back at yourself and go geez how can I improve myself so I'm not just doing the same stuff as I did last year. It's really important to get that sort of expectation as you pointed out that sort of commitment that goes with it, too.

Phil Britten:
I think I don't know if we've spoken about it before, but while we're onto the staff training and setting the expectation for 2017 maybe just to give the viewers and the listeners here a little bit of an outline of what our meetings look like throughout the year. What two weekly meeting do we have? What three monthly or six monthly or 12 monthly meetings do we have? Graham, do you want to just run them through?

Graham M. :
Yeah. Okay. Have we got time?

Phil Britten:
Yeah. Just really quick.

Graham M. :
We have weekly meetings, individual branch meetings. The guys are basically taking and we start I guess really at the top, we have a weekly managers meeting which aligns from us. We speak to the managers and then they have their weekly meetings with their teams. It all sort of flows downhill, weekly meetings. Then obviously what we're looking at doing is once a month we're having a team build all in sort of training. That's where all the full time staff come to one location and there's some brain training as well as physical training. What that physical training does though it trains them in aspects of their job role. Some are in admin, some are behind the scenes, some are front of house leading the entire floor. We want to make sure we give them specific tips to be able to implement throughout that month.

Then what we'll look at doing is once a quarter we'll actually bring the entire again staff team together and do an up school day. That is about for us in our system we have different levels of progression in that rank. For example, I'm a level one in administration, a level two in administration, level three what does that entail. Level one reception. Two and three. The idea we do a four hour lockdown once a quarter. It gives the guys a chance to be signed off on. Phil, you're in a sellers role. You're a level one now. To get to level two you need to be able to be competent at doing this, this, this, this, this, this. We provide that training because people need to grow not only as a martial artist but in their job role. If you don't have something in place for them to do that, they get stagnant. That's once a quarter. Obviously we do that four times a year. Then there's going to be times throughout the year we'll do team building activities and exercises together.

Phil Britten:
Not to mention we require all our staff to train twice a week with us physically on martial arts skills. That's Mondays and Wednesdays for two hours a pop as well. We require a high standard and one of our slogans is our instructors have to train harder than our students.

Graham M. :
Yeah.

Phil Britten:
Our instructors have to be well versed and well educated in the goings on of the martial arts business.

Graham M. :
I guess one final sort of thing that we do and this is something that if you've ever listened on a side note to any of Phil's sort of podcast, video blogs and all the rest of it, a very inspiring person and we both do that on a regular basis to our team. I know it's a segue, but I highly recommend you guys jumping across, having a look at some of the stuff the Phil does. It's brilliant. It's things that we do like that on a regular basis that brain trains our staff and gets them inspired.

For example, on my way to work this morning I'm listening to a podcast in my car. I'm like awesome. I can actually share this podcast or this audio book with my team. What we do is I have a subscription to Audible, Audible.com. It's a great place where I listen to heaps of wicked books. I get on there and if I find one that's a gem I will share that with my team. That's something that allows them if it's of interest to them, don't force it on them, but if they find it resonates they download it, listen in their car and it keeps them inspired. It keeps them motivated. Keeps them training in a way that normally most people just rock to the radio whereas we tend to turn our cars into universities all day long. That's another little sort of tip for today. Audible or even better go across check out his stuff. It's inspiring and empowering and really that's what you got to do not just teach good martial arts and teach good systems. You got to get your team motivated to follow you. That's what good leadership's all about.

Phil Britten:
Absolutely. Guys, all right before we sign out I just want to let you know that all the things that we talk about, all the structure, all the systems, all the programmes, anything and everything that we've used to create our businesses are all on our online programme for you to access. It's normally $99 a month, well it still is, but for podcast listeners and viewers we're going to let you have a look underneath the bonnet, check out behind the curtain so you get to try five days for $5. All you need to do go to our website. TIMA.com.au, go to the course, that's the $99 one, enter the coupon code TRY5 T-R-Y the number five and you're going to get five days access. I would definitely recommend you go try it out. If it's not for you, you can unsubscribe and that's all good. If it is for you, you can continue on.

There's lots of other stuff that we do like monthly members' webinars as well. Not only do you just get access to the online content, but you get access to us on a monthly basis literally in your corner helping you, guide you with the particular topics as well. Go check it out, guys. I can't wait to share some more content to you on the next podcast. Have a fantastic week and we'll see you on the flip side.