MA Business Success 53: How to Turn Your Martial Arts School Into the Apple of Its Industry

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Graham: Well, what is culture, Phil? You know? There's going to be a few guys listening that are just going to be thinking, "Well, it doesn't really make sense. What do you do?" It's your values, what you stand for, the image of your business. You, as the owner, what you like to have as your...I guess, how your staff operate. If you're just a one-man band, what do you stand for? I guess, something that we've really identified with us is, you know, how we like to treat our guys. And, again, the saying, "When the boss is away, the mice will play." Or in this sort of case, if you are looking to step away from business, you want to make sure that your team operate at the same level of professionalism when you're there to when you're not there.

So what we've done is to really gonna break it down into a few little parts first and foremost. So what we've done is, we have a mission statement, a vision statement, we even have some values that we go with. Now, as you start to evolve in your company, your business, or what not, it's really just getting clarity. Clarity is a really important thing on having that sort of clear vision, that clear mission. And, again, what you really want your guys to treat each other like. So we have a bunch of different things there, but Phil I'm going to throw to you on some of our value system. What we stand for.

Phil: Yeah, I just want to mention before we go to values is that the culture is the environment that you're in. And what you need a good culture for is not just for the growth of your business and for your staff, it's also your culture is how we will hire people for our company. It's also how we fire people as well, you know, on our mission, vision values. On not upholding these particular things. And I guess what you want to try and do is, "What would be the difference between...?" I think we've said this before, like two restaurants side-by-side, and one is quiet and one is just humming. You know, the atmosphere is there, staff are running around. It's got a buzz about it. Like, what's the difference? And it is, exactly, it's that culture. It's how the staff have been trained. It's the level of ability and service that they have been taught. So that as soon as like, for example, a new member of staff come into that environment, they've got no choice but to fall in line. Do you know what I mean?

Graham: Yeah.

Phil: It's like power of association. Whereas if a new staff member came in to the quiet restaurant and everyone is twiddling their thumbs, they're on their phones, well they're just gonna start doing that. So culture is very important if you want to grow your business. But most importantly, don't just think of your culture as, "I'll do it when I've got staff." It's important that you start with your culture first. When you're starting doing your business plan, like we have in our online content area and our membership area, the business plan. It helps you with building your culture and your school at an early stage, if you're starting out.

Or if you're like us, you know, when we were four or five years in the business, that's when we actually re-launched our new culture. And I'll just point out as well, that a lot of people go, "Oh, here we go, values. Or here we go, mission statements." It's got to be done in the right way. Some big corporations will have mission statements and vision statements and again, once a month they might read it out as a speech and than that's it. Or once a year, they bring it to the table. Culture and how you uphold that has to be an integration weekly.

Graham: Couldn't agree more. Something that we really encourage our guys to do is to be a good finder, and that isn't an instruction or an instructor tip, it's about being a good finder every single day in the business. And a lot of the time there are businesses out there, and we're not just talking about martial arts schools, where other staff just pick on each other. They just trying to find, you know, Phil had 10 more minutes of lunchbreak than me. This, that, the other. It's kind of like, geez, you end up just eroding that enjoyment. So what you got to look at is, instead of looking for that negatives, get them looking for the positives, what they did really, really well.

Again, we have six different sort of values that are all around our office in our sort of main hub. And what it does, it just reminds our staff on a continual basis to be looking for that. So one of them I'm going to sort of just shout at you is supportive team. And really what that is, summarizing, distill down, is we've got your back. No matter, we'll step up, step up to the plate, help you out when things may be tough. You'd probably agree that we all have good days and we all have bad days. And, geez, if you know that your teammate's there to help you out no matter what, that's an amazing thing. And I know that, with us, we have a thing called appraise card.

And, guys, check it out on the online stuff, guys, in our members area. It's in there. It will show you. It talks all about that in there. So you can actually have a pretty good look. But from there, what it does is we basically get our guys to fill out these cards. And with the six values, tick maybe one of the things that they see, maybe a couple of of the things that they see staff doing well and write down the reason for it. So, for example, I'm going to throw it to Phil. I would go, right, supporting team and wow factor. Geez, Phil, I saw you step-up the other day and really help out in that kid in that class.

That was amazing to see, I was really impressed. Whatever that may be. And then what I would do is anonymously, and this is the fun part, anonymously put it somewhere that Phil's gonna pick up on it a little bit later in the day. For example, Chuck Norris keyboard or put it with his wallet or whatnot. So when Phil finishes class or finishes a task, he can come back to it, read it, and just think, "Wow! Geez, that was awesome. I did something good. I didn't do it for the sake of getting a card but it was noticed and that was pretty cool."

Phil: Yeah. I can't stress enough how that builds a strong culture and being a good finder, like Graham said, is like nitpicking at certain staff members. Or even top-down and down-up as well. There is nothing better than going, is going, these are the six things we're focusing on looking at. Like our values, wow factors, supportive team, income earning activities, cards and constant and neverending improvement. There's a few others there, but it's about using the same skills that we use as martial arts. Now, if you don't have these skills, you need to learn them. As if you're walking around like a super sensei saying, "Guard up, back heel up, lower stance."

This and that, telling them what they're doing wrong too much, then that's not what the type of environment or culture you want to your students, your clients. But it's also the same as you want for your staff. You want to be going, "Awesome work. Well done with your guard. If you just lift your heel up, that's going to be 10 times better. Go and show me." So, you know, we do that feedback sandwich or the praise correct praise technique we've mentioned before. But then make sure that they're really, really walking away from that experience with the instructor, it's a good experience and they've picked up something good, and it also improves something that needs improving. And then also repeat that something is good again.

Graham: Guys, what I'm going to do now is rather than just talk about our values, I'm going to sort of explain how it's really affected our clients and really affected how we operate as a business. And I know we talk a lot about supporting each other, but more so championing each other. So being that person behind them that is that third-party praise. So, for example, we have a lot of our team that will, you know, be in a class, the instruction will be doing it, and I'll be cruising around, maybe chatting to parents. So the instructor's taken the class and other instructors are cruising around, and they'll talk about how good the other instructor is.

How great it is, how dynamic they are as a person. And, geez, what it does, it really just changes the energy. Plus, when you have a new person walk into your school and they see the energy that the team has together. Man, it's addictive. They really do want to stick around, and it makes a major difference in the fact that when you've got your team working hard, you've got a great culture behind the scenes, it really resonates front of house, which is really what it's all about.

Phil: Something that we do and try to do is… And if you have staff meetings, you know, I would say every business needs staff meetings. We have a lot because we have a lot of staff, and we have different levels. So our branch managers have meetings with their lower staff. We have staff with our managers, so manager staffs. And then we have other meetings that we do as well. But something that really worked well, I remember, when we were, you know, in staff meetings with our lower instructors and, you know, is pattern interrupts. You know you should, again, these are the things you do in class to engagement from your students, why aren't you doing it with your staff?

So, for example, I don't know if you've ever being in one of those meetings, which is just like really hard to deal with. You know, like, the morale is down, we're just going through stats. It's very sort of theory based and you can just tell the vibe of the meeting is just not great. So it's like, right, bang. Pattern interrupt, stand up. Let's go, game of sevens or down on the dojo floor. Get the hacky sacky, Frisbee. Let's play dodgeball, let's throw the ball. Whatever. Whatever it is to get the snap out of that morale of that meeting, and it's just two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. Get up, bang, and then back in the meeting.

And let me tell you, the difference, the way that meeting then is carried on and finishes on, what a high. And then in saying that is that when you end the meeting, don't just end the meeting on, "Okay guys, get back to work." You've got to end it in a way that's fun, where it's all hands in and hey team raise or high-fives or maybe going around the group saying, "What did you like about today's meeting?" Or something amazing that happened in their life or in floor. You just got to make sure that the culture of your business, not just front of house but the back of house is one that your instructors want to live in. It's a lifestyle.

Graham: I was just smiling to myself, thinking about the enjoyment we had. And if you guys were a fly on the wall, watching our entire team and sometimes we have 15 of the guys in a meeting playing hacky sack on the dojo floor for five minutes. Man, it's like...You know, people would walk in and think, "Man, are you guys being serious?" But that change of pace, that little bit of pattern interrupt, makes a major difference in how you operate. And I know that that's just one thing from the meeting, but we do a lot of team building activities with our guys that are completely separate to their normal workday. We've done archery with them, we've done go-karting, we've done, you know, food challenges.

This, that, and the other, because we're really big on making sure our guys support each other. And with three different locations, what can happen is you become very siloed. That is that dojo versus that dojo versus that dojo. Even though the same company, it's really important for the guys to communicate, get together, because they don't get to spend every single waking moment of the day together when they're at separate locations. So team building is vitally important on, just again, building that great culture, that connection, that relationship. And if you've got that going on, you'll have a strong team right to the end.

Phil: Look, I just want to finish with, if you've got an amazing culture in your business, then your staff are going to want to come to work. And when your staff are in that mindset of, "I can't wait for Monday," rather than going, "Oh, Monday, work," so they can't wait to come to work, they can't wait to train, and they can't wait to go to meetings, they can't wait to be in the team environment, that's a good culture. And then that rolls on into your classroom, it rolls in on the external, and then people walk in your school and go, "Wow! There's just something about your business," and it comes down to your culture.

So, again, I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. With some really great strategies about building a great culture within your business, the back-end and then that flowing onto the front end, as well. I just want to have a shout out to all the people out there who have been giving us some comments and leaving reviews on iTunes. If you love what we do, if you wanted to see more of it, what would help us out is you guys leave some reviews, leave us some comments.

If you have any question or topics you'd like us to cover, please give us a shout out. And last but not least, I just want to let you know that we're doing some really, really great recording coming up. And we're uploading some great new content to our members area, and I really want to give you guys a bit of a snapshot coming soon. So very, very shortly what we're doing, sending out some videos, snapshot videos of what the back-end of our members area looks like. So stay tuned, and I'll see you on the flipside, guys. Have a great week.

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