Hello,
I was reading a story recently about Thomas Edison. In addition to
inventing the incandescent light bulb and the movie camera, he also developed
the batteries that we use to start our cars. Towards the autumn of his
life, he worked in a modest building that resembled a barn. There, with
his son, Edison would often work late into the night, laboring on his
inventions. One evening, in an attempt to improve the retention of a
battery's charge, an unfortunate combination of chemicals caused his latest
experiment to burst into flames. The fire quickly spread through the old
wooden structure, and what began as a minor chemical combustion exploded
into a towering inferno.
Edison's son quickly evacuated the building. Using his smock to shield him
from the heat of the flames, he desperately called for his father for his
father might still be in the barn trying to save his life works. Running
around the barn it was on his second time that he saw his father, white hair
blackened with ash. He was watching intently as the flames devoured the
structure.
"Father!" cried Edison's son. "I was afraid you were still inside!"
Without taking his eyes off the flames, Edison said, with a sense of
urgency, ''Son, go get your mother!" "Why dad?"
With a twinkle in his eyes his father replied, "Because your mother is from
a small town and has never seen a fire like this before!"
When the flames died down, leaving only ash and a twisted frame, Edison said
to his son, "you know anyone with a tractor?'
"Yes, dad, but why?"
Edison answered, "Because it's time to rebuild, Boy, it's time to rebuild."
Now this is the same Edison after attempting to invent the light bulb 100
times and failed said, "I haven't failed; I simply learned one more way that
it doesn't work."
When I read this the other day I was thinking, "If we could develop this
attitude in our students, students would never quit." However our culture
right now and even things we do in our schools does not promote this
attitude. The great thing is that I believe we in the industry can make a
huge change in our society and the success of our students.
Edison never gave up even though he failed time after time.
Kids today play soccer without keeping score. Heaven forbid a child would
lose a game and get discouraged. Many martial arts schools do not want
their students to compete in fear they will lose or have a bad experience
and quit.
Many schools just promote inner school tournaments where everyone gets a
trophy. I'm sure that will bring out the very best in all the kids and
make them want to train extra hard.
Many schools refuse to fail a student on a stripe test for fear they will
quit. The only confidence they gain after that is that they are confident
they will get their next belt if they work for it or not.
What if we taught our students lessons like the one about Edison? What if
they were educated that not everything in life is given to you? What if we
taught kids about getting up more than they got knocked down? What if we
taught them that failure is just a learning experience and actually will
make them better at everything they do? What if we lead by example in the
way we hand out awards, belts and stripes?
I think we have a huge opportunity and responsibility to make a difference.
Am I saying all of a sudden going hardcore? Not at all. I have always
advocated building students from the inside out. I am simply saying we
have a responsibility to teach our students that failure is okay. We need to
teach them about people like Edison and Lincoln. We then must have them to
experience failure or competition through the events and lessons at our
school. Have them pick themselves up ready to continue and try again
because we have taught them that this is how champions do it.. Once we are
known for doing this for children you will have a line waiting to get into
your school.
Greg Silva
United Professionals Annual Super Event is scheduled for June 13th and 14th.
This year´s event will be open to all Instructors, Staff Members and Students as well.
We hold international events twice a year.
Our June event is for training certification and our December event is for business. Curriculum Training College 2008 - Super Event will be held at Baltimore Maryland´s Inner Harbor at the Marriott Inner Harbor hotel and the Convention Center. This is an amazing city with tons of things to do for families, kids and adults.
Click on the link for a short video on the area. www.baltimore.org/video/SEE.wmv
I realize that this is Father's Day weekend, however many schools on the east coast are within 3 - 5 hours driving distance and others that need to fly home can do so Saturday late afternoon and evening or Sunday morning. However, this is a fantastic city with great restaurants, (you need to be sure to check out Little Italy for great Italian food) and plenty to do, so you just might want to celebrate Father's Day right there. Since the Baltimore Orioles play right in the Harbor Area and are home playing Pittsburg, I am working on a United Professionals group ticket rate for clients wanting to catch a game for some extra fun. I will be sending you more details on the schedule of events in the next couple of days.
ALL PRINTED CARDS ARE 20% OFF
We are introducing new designs every month and to help kickstart your summer marketing efforts, we have discounted printed orders 20%. Simply use Coupon Code SAVEMONEY in the checkout when prompted! This coupon will expire March 2nd.
Martial Arts Websites!
See completed sites: www.pmaredmountain.com, www.tgkarate.com, www.longviewkungfu.com or www.rivertonkarate.com
United Professionals clients now 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.
Each website will be customizable in several ways. Here are a few examples:
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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! |
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A dynamic photo gallery and calendar of events will be included which you can modify yourself |
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Your site will be submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN which account for 95% of all Internet traffic |
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These websites are designed to be a POWERFUL enhancement to your existing marketing efforts - VIP cards, Ad Cards, Local newspaper and Magazine advertising, Window Banners!
Below are examples of the current designs now available |
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Contact Renee at 877.389.4085 for more information! |
MARCH
MARKETING -
KUNG FU PANDA One of the expected top movies of the summer is Kung Fu Panda. If you
market this movie properly it has the potential of insuring you a lot of
enrollments for the summer months.
 We suggest going to the link http://www.kungfupanda.com/ and click on group
sales. They have a section for martial arts schools.
Our graphic department has designed a special invitation to pick up tickets
at your school for a private showing of Kung Fu Panda. Depending on your
goals you can give each student several for them to give to their friends.
Also have movie theaters hand them out for you. Place them in businesses
like ad cards, insert them in Kono magazine, give them out at schools, day
cares etc. The cards will have a place for people to put their information.
On the back of the invitation will be information on your summer program.
I have also put on the FREE DOWNLOAD section of the UP website, tickets you
can give for entry into the movie. I thought this was the most economical way
for you to do this. This way you order the invitations to pick up Free
Tickets at your school. You do this massively by ordering 5000 of these
from UP. You then have created a way to drive traffic to your school. You
print the actual ticket to attend the movie since you will need only a
couple of hundred.
At the theater you should do three things.
1. Have a booth
2. Do a
demonstration
3. Do a demo for your private showing and talk about your
summer program and or camps.
This is a win - win marketing idea in that your students have a great time.
(improved retention) The movie will excite friends. (makes enrolling for
summer easier) You get leads from your booth. You get exposure from the
demonstration.
I know this is 4 months away but get on it before another school in town
gets to the theaters before you.
SUCCESS STORIES - This is a must read! Learn how others have succeeded with creative marketing and planning!
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The school energy is awesome here. The floor is packed literally every night. We are averaging about 140 people through our doors between 4 pm to 7 pm every night. The energy is at an all time high. Strong, consistent marketing, outstanding service and pride in our product continues to be our primary focus.
Last month it started off slower than expected and the stats made me realize we needed more and we busted butt on 65-70 hour week each week on additional marketing and working the VIP contest to get to the national average. We finished well with 23 new (12 which were adults) and did 15 upgrades. This month so far in 7 days, we have exceeded our weekly finance goal, have enrolled 7 new and have upgraded 2. Remainder of the week looks like this; 4 more intro appointments, 2 more upgrade evaluations set and an adult workshop Saturday for realtors. Oh speaking of special events last Saturday we had 75 girl scouts here for safety day and patch award.
The energy is so high and I could go on. I will update you later on three big events we have this month.
Shihan John Geyston, Chief Master Instructor
John Geyston's Premier Martial Arts |
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Hello Sir,
Very exciting month so far for us. We have enrolled 13 new students this month so far and have done 3.
Zach Siokos |
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Hello Sir,
We enrolled 33 new in January and 6 so far this month.
Tom Whitaker |
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We had a banner month in January with well over 50 new sign ups, this month we are up to 14 new sign ups and have 8 intros schedule between today and Friday. We are also planning special events, seminars, special Valentine Krav class, upgrade events, Women Self Protection seminars, etc. every weekend to keep our momentum strong.
Melissa Escaro, LSW
Program Director |
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