Master the Art of Continuing Education & Earn Your “Black Belt” in Business - Rob Colasanti
Posted by Member Solutions on Thu, Jan 05, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
An excerpt from “The Martial Arts Business Bible” written by Rob Colasanti
For approximately fourteen years, I spoke to school operators of every style, all over the
world, day in and day out. In the process, I learned that there are clear-cut reasons why some schools flourish and other schools flop.
Let me tell you ... success or failure in the martial arts business is NO accident.
What I’ve found is that certain instructors struggle because they have no continuing education program in place for themselves or their staffs. They don’t take personal development seriously at all. Or, frankly, they’re too cheap to invest in the very things that will help them make a whole lot more money and help a whole lot more students. I’ve never understood this mentality.
Others, who have spent good money on all kinds of products and services that will help them grow their schools, don’t use them. They’re members of information websites that they never visit. They’ve got a shelf full of books that they’ve never read. Or, they have a stack of unopened boxes on the floor in their office from a menagerie of martial arts information providers. Only when they eventually take the time to multiply each box by a hundred or two hundred bucks and do the math in their head do they suddenly WAKE UP and frantically cancel their memberships.
The bottom line is that they are not growing themselves, and this causes their schools not to grow, either.
Look at it this way. Most martial artists wouldn’t climb into the ring for a bout against a formidable opponent unless they trained really hard for it first, right? Yet, when it comes to business this same principle usually gets thrown right out the window.
For example, instructors try to teach Leadership Team members how to be effective leaders when they themselves have never studied leadership. I’ve spoken with countless Program Directors whose job it was to sell memberships every day, yet they never had a day of sales training in their lives. Or, they thought they could sell because they used to work in the stereo department at Best Buy when they were a teenager.
The same scenario often applies to marketing, teaching preschoolers, working with ADHD children, managing a staff, and every facet of operating a small business. How much can you, as a school owner, really expect to accomplish with no prior experience or study in any of the areas that will determine your success as a school owner?
Your best shot at making your school work is when you’re a true black belt in martial arts and a true “black belt” in business — combined. Get the idea?
So regardless of what level your school is at now, its continued growth will be proportionate to your willingness to further your own education in the key areas of your business.
If you do not attend seminars, study selling, understand marketing, tweak your curriculum to boost retention, develop your leadership skills, network, or align with quality mentors, then you will invariably have a much harder time achieving your goals.
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Rob Colasanti is the former president of NAPMA and Martial Arts Professional Magazine. He is the author of the book, What I’ve Learned and its 2011, updated version, The Martial Arts Business Bible. Rob recently hit three separate Amazon.com best-seller lists with his new book, The Definitive Guide to Burning Fat and Building Muscle, reaching as high as #85 overall on the Amazon.com Top 100 list. Rob can be reached at RobColasanti.com. 
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