Martial Arts Marketing Monthly Newsletter by United Professionals

United Professionals Monthly Newsletter for Martial Arts School Owners

January 2008, Issue 4

preview of low cost, highly effective website templates that will generate more interest in your business from a larger, diverse group of new customers

Class Mgmt for January

Mat Chats, Drills for Skills and more

Black Belt Excellence

Worksheets and Posters

NEW Student/Parent Folder

NEW!! All the work is done for you! 24 pages BIG. Publisher format so you can customize it for your school.

Motivational E-mails

for your students. Share some great motivational stories and lessons with your students on a weekly basis.

This is all about Business

Topics to share with your staff at those important Monday Meetings.

The Numbers are in for November

Compare the progress of your schools with other UP member schools.

Success Stories

Hear directly from UP school owners as they share their recent victories. Learn how they did it!

Instructors Corner

Instructor Training Tips

UP Coming Events

2008 Instructor College
Doug Bertrand's School
Vancouver, Washington
February 8th and 9th, 2008

NEW Valentines Day Ad Cards

Hello,

During our conference in New Orleans a few weeks ago there was a lot of talk about setting new goals for '08 and New Years resolutions. I thought I share a insightful article I read recently that I feel will be helpful and something you might pass on to your adult class as a motivational Mat Chat.

Don't "Should" On Yourself!

The best New Year's resolution I ever made - and the only one I ever kept - was to never make another New Year's resolution.

I am dismayed by the number of people who doggedly, stubbornly make their resolutions every year - often the same ones they made the year before. Within weeks, or even days, these resolutions fall by the wayside, trampled into the dust by existing habits and ways of thinking and acting.

Predictably, this perceived failure to execute becomes a blunt instrument for self-flagellation, evidence of a lack of commitment, general bad-personhood, and overall unworthiness.

Talk about setting yourself up for failure!

Establishing new habits is hard. Evidence suggests that it takes at least three weeks - that's a full 21 days! - of consistent action to create a new habit; eliminating an old habit is even more difficult. And most of us make resolutions based on what we believe we should do (or should not do), rather than what we really want to do (or not do). Furthermore, we state our resolutions in fuzzy terms: Eat less. Exercise more. Be more organized. While these are certainly virtuous and valuable objectives, there is no way to measure your achievement. What's "less"? What's "more"?

The start of a new year is an obvious choice for self-evaluation, setting goals, and making plans. By applying a little creativity and thought, we can set ourselves up for accomplishment and achievement instead of disappointment and discouragement.

First, take a few moments to frame your thoughts as desires and goals. You don't really want to eat less and exercise more; you want to look and feel better and live a healthy, active life. You don't really want to be more organized; you want to navigate easily through your daily tasks. When you use positive, active terms to describe your desired outcome, you advance along the path to success. Contrast this to how you feel when you tell yourself you're an over-indulgent couch potato living amidst clutter!

Once you have your aspirations stated in words that excite you instead of depressing you, you're ready to describe how your achievements will look and feel, and what specific steps you will take to get there. For instance, you may choose to take a vegetarian cooking class to learn ways of including vegetarian meals into your weekly menu; you might finally break down and get the puppy your kids have been clamoring for so you can take daily walks with the puppy and the kids; you might consult with a professional organizer to create systems that work for you instead of making you feel straitjacketed with rules and regulations.

The challenge I offer you, then, is to throw out all your old New Year's resolutions and craft exciting, positive lifestyle goals with clearly defined, creative, and fun steps to a measurable result.

"Now there are more overweight people in American than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means you've met your New Year's resolution." -- Jay Leno, American writer, actor, and humorist.

By Grace Judson

2008 Instructor College

Doug Bertrand's School in Vancouver, Washington
February 8th and 9th, 2008

This college will have two floors going on at the same time so we can accommodate first time instructors and veterans. This program for new instructor and those that haven't been to a college will be dedicated to performance on the floor, instilling protocol, one word commands, formations, the teaching platform and floor management.

The second floor is dedicated for those instructors that have been to a college and are looking to elevate their skills. We will do in-depth studies on teaching benefits, designing drills for skills, qualities of a champion, mechanics of basics to bring out the best in students, time management, training your junior instructors, conducting events, preframing upgrades, stripe testing and graduations.

The following Master Black Belt Instructors will be helping with the college.

Doug Bertrand - Mr. Bertrand has two schools, 700 students and truly understand how to bring out the very best in students.

Aaron Reis - Mr. Reis has a great school in St. George Utah. He has a unique ability to form a connection with students so they learn easily and feel part of the team.

Eddie Diaz - Mr. Diaz has been part of the Instructor College of years and his classes are always a favorite part of the college.

Master Diego Perez

Greg Silva

The number of Master Black Belt Instructors will increase if the attendance demands it.

This will be a two day event 9am - 4pm each day.
Investment is $299 per person
You can register your entire staff for $995

Please call Jeannie to register 877-787-4542 ext. 714 or simply return this e-mail with the name of each person attending from your school. You can make three easy payments directly from your ASF account.

Mr. Bertrand's school is minutes from the Portland Oregon airport making it very easy to get to.

Some local hotels - The Hilton is very nice and affordable

Red Lion Hotel Vancouver - www.redlion.rdln.com
100 Columbia Street, Vancouver - (360) 694-8341

Heathman Lodge - www.heathmanlodge.com
7801 NE Greenwood Dr, Vancouver - (360) 254-3100

Hilton Vancouver Washington - www.hilton.com
301 W. 6th Street, Vancouver - (360) 993-4500

Martial Arts Websites!

Get a sneak peak at our latest project! United Professionals clients will soon have available to them low cost, highly effective website templates that will generate more interest in your business from a larger, diverse group of new customers.

Here's how they'll do it:

•	By presenting a contemporary image that will connect with more prospects
•	By highlighting the wide range of classes, services and events that would motivate someone to join a martial arts program
•	By making sure that each website is Google friendly, highly sticky (engaging) and designed to collect leads

Each website will be customizable in several ways. Here are a few examples:

•	You choose the programs to be highlighted - We provide you with the website content for your programs! (Birthday Parties, Kid Safe Workshop, After School Program, Summer Programs, etc.) These pages will be designed to generate interest in the program which will produce LEADS and TELEPHONE CALLS!
•	A dynamic photo gallery and calendar of events will be included which you can modify yourself
•	Your site will be submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN which account for 95% of all Internet traffic

Learn more about Martial Arts Website Marketing

Contact Renee at 877.389.4085 for more information!

JANUARY MARKETING - Be consistent and relentless with your marketing for at least 240 new students in '08

All these ideas are detailed on the web site. You can also call Kelly at 877-787-4542 ext 713 for additional ideas.

VIP Invites - Done daily

Registration Boxes - Monday and Wednesday 10 am - 12 noon
Perfect Attendance Parties - first Friday of the month
Ad Cards - Tuesday and Thursday 10 am - 12 noon
Out Calls - Daily 4 - 7 pm
Power Appointments - Every time someone shows some interest while you do VIP's
Banners - Change the theme monthly
Buddy Days - Friday and Saturday the week of stripe tests
Ad Ons - After you make an appointment ask them to bring a friend
Mass Intros - School talks, scout groups, sports teams, kids who came to birthday parties. Done EVERY Saturday

Plus a few extras for those school owners looking for more than 20 new students a month.

School Talks - As often as you can. Best done Thursday or Fridays in order to pack the mass intro
Promo Booths - Weekends
Direct Mail VIP Letters - At least 100 a week
Clipper Mag - Dominate the page. Realize moms use Clipper Magazine for Bargains --- Advertise for classes and your pro shop.
Extra Events - Earn extra income the third Saturday of the month
White Belt Buddy Bash - All new white belts bring friends the last Friday of the month
Birthday Parties - Saturday afternoons. One a week will bring 60 prospects a month to your school.
Parent Nights Out - Second Friday of the month. Great way to get more names and numbers while offering a great service.

SUCCESS STORIES - This is a must read! Learn how others have succeeded with creative marketing and planning!

•

Mr. Silva,

OK. I just got two more 6 month Paid in Fulls!

Here's where I stand so far this month:

10 new (4 paid in fulls)
3 renewals (2 paid in full)
6 upgrades (3 paid in full)

Total gross so far is $26792. I am $1600 away from breaking my highest gross which was last month. My goal going into Nov and December was to prove to myself that I could have the highest gross of the year even though each month only presented three weeks of business. I was in Orlando with my family for Thanksgiving and we are off next week for Christmas; not to mention I was in Knoxville last week too. The other thing that makes this so sweet is to accomplish my goal during the two months when everyone else says that business is slow and people are spending money on other things.

I have a few intros and upgrades left this week. The email I sent out about the "last week of the year special" was the catalyst for the two paid in fulls I just got by the way.

Thanks for the inspiration and patience with me. I was a smoldering fire that just needed a good poke in the *!$# to ignite!

I fully expect to hit a gross of $35,000 by April 1. My active count is 199. I need 1 more to hit 200 for 2007! Expect 300 by the end of 2008!

With much gratitude,
Bill Storm

•

Hey Mr. Silva – This is Patrick Head from Gracie Barra

I'm sorry for taking so long to write back but business is hectic here with all the Christmas Marketing.

First of all I would like to thank you for the "Gift Certificate" idea. When we distributed them to our students and the prospects on our mailing list we intended to see results in January. However, we are on our way to signing up an additional 15 students this month from Gift Certificates alone in a month that is usually slow for us.

THANK YOU! I am convinced that January will be strong for us as well.

United Professionals, Inc. - Martial Arts Instructor Training
A Martial Arts School Management, Consulting & Tuition Billing Company
5030 Champion Blvd. G6 #213, Boca Raton, FL 33496 USA / Tel: 877.787.4542 (Toll Free U.S. & Canada