Let's Get Awkward...

In your academy, you have two main areas of responsibility.

Everything that happens ON the mat
Everything that happens OFF the mat

In our gym, my husband and I have a line of demarcation that begins at the edge of the mat. He handles everything on the mat and I am in charge of everything off the mat. If you’re a ‘one man show,’ the buck stops with you in both areas, but it’s important to understand that BOTH areas of responsibility demand equal attention and training.

Most people get into the business of owning a martial arts academy because they LOVE being on the mat. Almost nobody says, “I really love setting appointments, signing people up for things, clerical work, and follow up… so I think I’ll open a martial arts gym.”

It’s EASY to get owners to start having instructor meetings for their coaching staff because they usually LOVE training! It’s fun to spend extra time rolling or sparring with other coaches. Jiu Jitsu guys go to seminar after seminar with BJJ superstars or watch youtube videos all day to improve their game & get better. Then, they bring that info back to the academy so they can work on different techniques together.

But very few martial arts business owners elect to watch videos on how to get better at setting appointments, and even less of them are scheduling weekly or even monthly training sessions to work on this other area of responsibility on their business.

But ultimately, BOTH of these skills, BOTH of these areas of responsibility require equal training and attention in order for your academy to grow. If you only work on your skills on the mat, you’ll have great martial arts, but nobody will ever know about it and you won’t have many new members. If you only work on appointment setting and sales, but your martial arts training is garbage, you’ll sign up a ton of people, but nobody is going to stay & your academy won’t grow.

These two areas HAVE TO work and improve together, at the same rate, in order to have a successful academy.

So how do you do it?

First, continue to have instructor meetings where you’re working on technique to make sure the “ON” the mat stuff is solid. But, you can’t stop there.

If you want your sales & appointment setter team to crush it, you MUST set up weekly, or at minimum, monthly trainings that focus solely on improving your appointment setting and sales skills. If you personally aren’t very good at appointment setting or sales, no worries! Set up a time for all of you to watch training videos like the Accelerator training courses together! But just like you dedicate your time to get better at jiu jitsu, it’s absolutely critical that you work with your team to improve your skills OFF the mat.

As with any technique or new combination, you don’t get better just because you saw it once on youtube. You have to practice and implement. When you’re working to improve your appointment setting and sales skills, after you watch the videos, you have to practice & implement.

The NUMBER ONE method I use when training our staff is role playing. And yes, this ALWAYS feels awkward! Most people skip this part of any training because it feels really weird. And people hate feeling weird, especially in front of other people!

But if you truly want to improve, you cannot be afraid to be awkward or uncomfortable. You have to be open to trying to new things and practicing together.

When you’re staff role plays the appointment setting process and the sales process, a few things happen.

First, your staff will learn better because they are absorbing the material using all three learning styles, Visual, Auditory (hearing), and Doing (bodily kinesthetic). Most people in martial arts are very physical learners. We learn things best by physically doing something ourselves. When you role play the appointment setting process, it takes the visual and auditory instruction that you got from the video and forces you to apply it physically with another person. You’re committing it to memory in a way that will have a much longer lasting impact than simply watching or listening to someone else talk about it.

Plus, we all get better with practice. No one is an expert on their first day. The only way to get better at setting appointments is to learn the best way to do it, and then practice doing it correctly over and over again.

I like to have my team practice in pairs, then switch partners until they have worked with everyone. Just like when you’re repping technique, every single person will bring something slightly different to the experience. After each team member has worked with everyone else, I will pick two people to role play the appointment setting process in front of the rest of the team. Then I will pick two more people, until everyone has had a turn to be in front of the group.

I KNOW that this can make people uncomfortable, but it’s so important that I do it every single time. One of the most important benefits of this activity is the team bonding. When everybody feels awkward, nobody is awkward. This exercise becomes a shared experience that brings the team closer. Everybody will critique, jump in, help out, and bond over working together towards a common goal.

If you’re serious about growing your school, you have to commit to learning, repping, and drilling the appointment setter and sales systems as much if not more than you rep your techniques on the mat. And don’t be afraid to ‘get awkward!’ Build your team, share your goals, work together, and I guarantee you’ll see REAL results.