​How Much Time Do You Have to Commit to Progress?

Your day, like most school owners, is divided into 3 main sections.  You have the job, the business and the busy.
 
The job is teaching martial arts.  It’s the reason you got into the business in the first place.  You have a passion for the martial arts. You love to train and you love passing on your knowledge.  In fact, it’s sometimes difficult to separate what you enjoy doing and the job you have.  I know many school owners that love it so much they probably would do it for free.  In fact, I know school owners that do that right now.   The teaching may happen an hour in the morning and then from 5 - 9 at night.  So for somewhere around four to five hours a day you are working at your job.  
 
The next is the business.  Working on the business is the planning and execution of creating conversations and turning those conversations into new students that pay you.  By conversations I mean you are either advertising your school or getting ready to have a conversation with a prospect and then turn that into an appointment and trial class and then present your programs.  It could also be actively marketing, canvassing for prospects, running a promotional booth, doing a school talk, running a mass intro, asking for referrals and even doing outgoing calls.
 
Next we have the busy.   The busy is cleaning the school, making flyers, going to the store for supplies, repairs and the rest of the things that take up hours of the day.  
 
What  I find is the many owners love the job, dislike the business and avoid the business by doing the busy.   Some owners actually “suffer” through the business.  
 
However you don’t have to suffer and dread this time.  You can get leverage on yourself when you do this simple exercise.   Take the money you make and divide it by the time you spend on the business.
 
Example: Your school grosses $20,000 a month

You teach 4 hours a day and are busy 2 and a half hours a day, leaving about an hour and a half really spent on the business.

So 1.5 hours a day, 6 days a week is 9 hours.   There are 4 weeks a month so you work on the business 36 hours a month.

36 into $20,000 is $555 dollars per hour for the work hours you put in.   Now if you only spent an extra hour a day on the business you should make $555 a day more,  times 24 work days.  That’s a $13,333 a month increase.
 
So getting back to the lead question:  How much time do you have to commit to progress?  I am sure most of us can add an hour a day.  Spend less on the busy through some delegation, maybe arrive a few minutes early and take a short lunch.    As we can see, it’s not the hours in the day but dedicating the hours to the most productive segment.
 
Greg Silva
United Professionals