David Inman: Running a Top-Performing School

Let’s see, I’ve been doing martial arts for 27 years and the American Taekwondo Association, I’ve been the ATA the whole time I’ve been in martial arts. I’ve owned, you know, in the M and the H-A we do different things, mostly Taekwondo, but they’re really good about expanding it to different styles and different things for the Pro-Tech divisions. I’ve owned several schools. I was in Indiana for many years and I had three schools there. And then I had the opportunity to move to Las Vegas and had a partner in a few schools. out here and then now for the last almost two years, year and a half, I’ve been on my own with the location here in Las Vegas and we’re doing very well with that one. Fabulous. Now, ATA is by the way a fabulous organization and what I think a lot of people don’t realize, I’ve had close ties with a lot of the senior people at ATA, well hell with Master Bill Clark.

Since I was 15, I think. He and Jeff Smith have been good friends pretty much from inception. If you go and YouTube a bunch of Jeff Smith fights, Bill Clark was the chief referee for a bunch of them. But, you know, ATA is a fabulous organization, more of a martial arts association than a business organization. by design, would you agree with that assessment?

Yeah, I would agree with that. They have some great things that help support schools. Master Clark and Master Marshmallow and both of them have been very good on the aspect, helping schoolers build their schools. Master Clark is spectacular, as you know, and helping schools. There’s information there if people utilize it and use it. But, you know, in the organization part, they have a great system of the style and the techniques to follow and the forms and everything. So, more of a martial arts organization, but they do have some good business stuff to utilize. Oh, without a doubt, yeah. Sergio Orange-Melin is a great guy. He’s a friend of mine, as is Greg Moody. a whole bunch of the others. We’ve had a bunch of them that I’ve worked with in coaching or in Inner Circle. The nice thing that you have with ATA is you have a fabulous foundation and a fabulous martial arts organization, but also a foundation to build from on the business side.

As you well know, every organization is 80-20. and really is probably more like the top 5%, the top 15%, the top 80%. And most people can be given everything in the world and all the tools they need, but if they don’t have somebody there nagging them to do it every day, they just don’t do it. So the top 5% of ATA are some of the most successful schools in the world. And Serge certainly mentioned a couple of them there with Serge Rivenschmelling and Bill Clark leading that pack. Let’s go into some specifics here on your school. What does it look like now?

[04:35] How many active students, what kind of average gross are you doing?

On active students right now we’re at about 235, and our gross right now is approaching about 45,000, about 44,000 a month. We have one more day. So today, the last day of the month is today, and we’re going to go about 45,000 for this month. Beautiful. And you’re clearly in that range that we start out with on our inner circle group, which is $200 a month average revenue per student. And my mission is to get all of you guys up to $300 a month average revenue per student, which puts you in the $70,000 a month range. But $200 a month per student is probably trivial what the industry norm is. The first thing people should worry about that’s inaccurate is the industry norm and failure. So you never worry about what the norm is, you worry about what should be done.

How many new student months are you getting the last three or four months?

The last three or four months. This month here has been a great month of new students with the Kung Fu Panda following the steps that you and Toby have put in place was really good. This month we’re at, look at my board here, 37 new students this month for our basic program. And last month, I believe we were at 26 and the month before that wasn’t as good. We were at 17. 17?

Yes, sir. And would you say 15 to 25 is one of your norms?

For the year to date? Yes, sir. Excellent. And maybe you talked about the basic program. What is it you’re charging?

How are you structuring your basic program? Basic program, we’ve had some different things going on. But since we joined the Inner Circle program and with your guidance, we’ve made a lot of adjustments to the program. And it’s actually improved quite a bit. 45-minute class and incorporating a lot of different things. And we’ve really made the program a lot easier to be a part of with just a half an hour class and two days a week. And the basic program, and we’re charging about $160 a month on the basic program. And it’s just with the changes, I think we’ve really implemented in the last few months, it’s made the enrollment process a lot easier for the basic program. And it’s made our signups really increase also. What type of changes have you made?

We shortened the class times. We eliminated a lot of the stuff that they need to do in the class. Curriculum-wise, we’ve made it easier. The enrollment process, especially with our sales conference this last month in Colorado, I improved the sales process. follow up and the intro process of getting the people, when you get them in the door and then the enrollment process, we made the basic program easier to get enrolled in. Okay. Which supplements the upgrade from that point on. You mentioned the sales training we did, which now for all the peak performers by the way is going to be a modular initial training. Right now all of the mp3s and the videos are available for all the people former inner circle members How valuable was that I mean we spent a lot of time from lead process all the way through the Few steps past the renewal how valuable is that and what were some of the ideas you picked up?

[08:23] You know I think was extremely valuable I you know but you know for doing this for so many years you hear a bunch of, you know, everybody thinks that, oh, I don’t need to go anywhere because I already know everything or I’ve heard it before, I’ve heard it before. But I think every time that you go to something, you find something different. And every time you go to a business seminar, you’re going to hear something a little bit different that adds a little bit to your business. But on that last business sales training I did, that we did with you, I’ve got more than just a little bit. I made a lot of changes to our enrollment procedure and seeing the steps that go into the enrollment and seeing what a lot of the other people are doing.

And then the idea is you gave me also on changing my PowerPoint presentation. Before we were doing, I was doing really well. I believe when we did the percentages, I was about 83% on my initial enrollment. And then after coming back though, with the rest of the month, I ended up, I believe my percentage is a little over 90, so like 90.7% for the rest of the… Wow…the intro to basic enrollment. So from intro to basic, and in basic, are you doing a six month or a 12 month contract?

12 months. 12 months, sir. 12 months. Yes. And that’s a little unusual among the ATA schools too. A lot of them start with kind of a shorter enrollment to begin with. How quickly are you going into the upgrade then from the enrollment?

Just a quick note, I was the same way before the joining your program. We were with a short, basic program. That’s really helped going with the 12-month program. In the upgrade program process, I still need a lot of improvement on that, but we’re trying to within the first two months of their program, trying to get them to upgrade into either the Master Club or leadership program. One of the things I will say that I really like about the way that the Inner Circle program and what you’re doing with NAMA is that the upgrade process, compared to a lot of things where I used to do was give them an invitation and then in front of everybody, then I’d talk to the parents and try to get them to upgrade. Now we have an application. It’s more like they’re getting accepted into the program.

It’s a lot more valuable and we’re telling them upfront about that. It’s eliminated a lot of the angry parents about, oh, I didn’t know we had to pay more for another program. I didn’t know there was another program. I thought this is it. It just makes everybody a lot happier because they know upfront and they feel like they have to actually qualify for the program and be accepted into the program. It’s a much different mentality if I’m trying to fight to get into Harvard than if somebody is showing up at my doorstep trying to sell me a continuing education program. That’s the mindset that we put people in for the upgrade if done properly is here’s a program that you need to qualify for. Here are the steps to qualify for it. We’re going to do an evaluation process to see if you qualify for it.

If you qualify for it, we’ll sit down and cover the tuition options and work out the budgets. I mean, people really have to put their thinking cap on and put themselves in the mindset of that, Harvard or Stanford or University of Chicago admissions director, not think of yourself like somebody who’s peddling encyclopedias or fitness training door to door. And so many of us, when we think of sales, we think of used car salesman rather than thinking of being the admissions director. Yes, sir. Absolutely. One of the things that’s probably useful for you, David, or for our listeners, is you’re in a little different situation than some of the others. You have come into the inner circle group as already a many year school owner, a successful school owner with a fabulous foundation from ATA and Sergio Varnes-Mellon and Bill Clark and many of your other associates, why would you move into a program like this already having access to so many resources and so much background and knowledge?

[12:49] Most people in your situation, as you said, already kind of think they know it all and they think there’s nothing else to learn. What would you think is different than that?

I think the biggest thing that made me join the program was, you know, I think by doing it so long that we do get in that rut, and I just needed a little kick in the ass to kickstart what needed to be what I know that I could do. And by surrounding myself with people that are doing the numbers that are more than what I’m doing and then hearing, and then talking to you and my goals were increased by a little bit each month and you’re, the big hairy audacious goals, as you said, you know, just like, okay, why am I not thinking that way?

Why am I not just going for the big goals instead of trying to increase by a couple thousand each month?

I like that concept and it’s really helped to re-motivate me and stay on task by setting the goals and achieving. We had some big goals this month and on new members and we’ve really gone above and beyond what our goals are. It’s because of the program where I just walk into the month with, okay, we’re just going to do the same thing as last month, try to do it a little bit better. This month we’re going to go up. above and beyond and we’re gonna do more than we did twice as much as we did last month. Those goals have really helped accelerate our progress to where we really wanna be. And we’re now targeting to hit that 70 to 100,000 dollar a month and we wanna build up to get to that where we really should be.

Yeah, well as you know, my mission for the Inner Circle is then we’ll take this as a single school operator for the time. Of course, we have a bunch of multi-school guys, or soon to be multi-school guys as well. But my mission is for every one of the Inner Circle to have a million dollar a year gross. More importantly is to be in the top 1% or better of the income bracket in the United States, which is $350,000 a year. And as you well know, we have a lot of people who come in to the Inner Circle where they’re growing and the mission is to get them to net, 350 a year. And it’s a completely different mindset. I love the BHAG thing, big, hairy, audacious goals. I stole that from Jim Collins. I think it was in the book, Good to Great.

He talks about companies that they studied. One of the big things that made them take a leap was big, hairy, audacious goals. The incremental goals are not very empowering. Huge goals are very empowering. You can get out of bed in the morning, be excited about it, go to work, and rather than working on making a 1% or 2% incremental growth, if you’re focused on doubling, that’s exciting, right?

[16:00] Yes, sir. If I could real quick on those goals, part of our billing company, member solutions are part of that when they had a contest this month on a number of contracts and new people. And that was one of our goals. We just wanted to be at the top of that contest. And right now, all those schools that are in the program, we’re number one in the contest as of the last eight of the month. So if you set those goals and you stick with it, they can definitely be accomplished. And there’s a lot of schools in there that are a lot bigger than we are, and we’re beating them all. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that’s phenomenal. And as you know, I mean, we’ve been very supportive of the billing companies. I was actually ESE’s first client.

I met Joe Gallia way back when he was program director for Joyce Santa Maria. And Joyce was one of the later ESE board of directors members. I was one of the founding members of that group. And I’ve never had anything good but good to say about either EFC or Member Solutions and several of the others. Now, there have been a couple that have had some miserable implosions recently. But I do think it’s very valuable. You have to have all of your billing on. I mean, I’ve seen that a lot recently, too. A lot of these guys are trying to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, so they’re using just collecting. a check across the desk in-house rather than at least using software to automate it or using a billing company to have life, you know, means following up on it.

Well, what’s your perspective on that? Oh my gosh, I couldn’t imagine doing in-house billing. And you know, even some people, you know, do the, that I’ve talked to or doing, well, we can do, you know, EFTs, you know, in-house and, you know, set up through our bank. And, you know, it’s just, it’s just another aspect of the business. Why bother taking the time away from what’s really important which is creating new sales, creating upgrades, and building your business. Let somebody else take care of something that can be taken care of. It’s like having another employee that you don’t have to manage and deal with. And by having them take care of it’s like cleaning your own bathrooms or cleaning the school. You don’t need to do it, so why do it when somebody else can do it better than…

Then you can do it. Well, and to, you know, since I have an academic background in economics and an MBA, the economists call it opportunity costs. And what happens when you try to save money, and all those examples you gave are excellent examples, changing your own oil, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning your house, handling your own billing, handling your own accounting, I mean, you can go through the list. But anything that in a business side that you can outsource to somebody who will do it better than you will and in almost all cases, cheaper than your alternative opportunities. The best example I have of that, by the way, is I was talking to a coaching client who has been a few years ago now and who was very proud, I swear to God, said this to me in the same sentence, said, is I can’t figure out why I’m plateaued at 12,000 a month.

However, there’s one bright shining light on the horizon here as I now have a bunch of personal training clients who are paying me $80 an hour. And it was the classic experience of not understanding value per hour and opportunity cost. I said, well, easy to understand why I can’t. Why you’re not plateaued. He said, what do you mean?

I said, well, take $80, multiply it times 40 hours a week, multiply it times four weeks a year, four weeks a month. What do you come out with?

Well, he valued his time at $80 an hour. For you to be a million dollar a year school means you have to have at least, let’s say, $80,000 a month, means you have to have $20,000 a week, means that your personal time has to be worth $500 an hour. So if you can pay somebody else $1,000 for something that would have taken you five hours a month, you’re way further ahead. And you will be a million dollar a year school because you understand that. Yes, sir. Absolutely. I think anybody who’s on billing right now is just missing the boat totally. Absolutely. It doesn’t need to be done. But let’s go. Let’s go back, something we glazed over. On your upgrade program that you’re targeting in two months, what are you charging?

[20:46] On the up program, our leadership program is $257, and Master Club is a fallback if they can’t budget or do the leadership program at $207. $207. And you’re gradually ratcheting that up, I know. Is there a down payment associated with those programs?

Yes, sir. It’s $297 for the Master Club and $597 for the leadership program. Yeah, well a lot of people are afraid to do that for some reason. What would you tell them about asking for a down payment?

I think if you… Because I was exactly the same way. No down payment, just get them in the program very easily. I think if you have everything in the sales process like we talked about at the bootcamp is if you have everything in advance to eliminate the objections and to build the value in the program, and the program has to be three, four, five times more valuable to them in their mind than what the cost is of the program. I think if you have that in advance, that the program is more valuable, then it really eliminates a lot of the objections of the financial ejections, whether it’s the down payment or the monthly tuition, I really feel that it eliminates those. And then for the people that really want to do the program and they can’t do the down payment, then work with them on the down payment.

If you can do half this month and half next month, then work with them on that and help the people get in the program. But really, we’ve had a couple objections on the down payment and just mostly not because they think it’s, you know, they shouldn’t be paying a down payment, but just mostly because, you know, they can’t do all of it at once. Yeah, and I define that differently. I think it’s a big difference between somebody saying, you know, do I have to do that or I’m not willing to do that or why are you going to make me do that versus somebody saying, well, you know, it’s $9.97 down. I really can’t do that right now. What do you mean?

Well, it’s been kind of a tight month. We had some car expenses. We’ve already paid for the vacation. They can’t give you anything more than $497. OK. When can you do the rest?

See, I mean, if they want to, but you’re having to work with them on the budget, that’s a wonderful thing. If they don’t want to and they’re giving you pushback, that just means you haven’t prepped them properly before you got to that point. And so I think many times people don’t understand the difference. And again, if you’re asking for a down payment, and half of them can do it with no problem, and half of them need to split it up, you’re still way further ahead than if you weren’t, you know, if you were doing half as much down, or if you weren’t doing a down payment, and people miss that as well. We have a new member in the peak reformers, and he was doing first month free start billing at the second month and just putting them on a contract.

We had him put in a down payment in the first month. He added $5,000 to his gross just in down payments that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. And doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you add $60,000 a year to your school net on top of where you were already at, it’s a huge deal, right?

[24:08] Yes, sir. Absolutely. It’s something that really helped our bottom line a lot. It really increased by perception and our instructor’s perception of the value of the program also. Because when you’re doing all the effort and you sign somebody up in the upgrade program and you don’t really get any more money until the next month when they’re doing their billing check, you want to sign people up to get an upgrade, but when you’re actually adding money to this month’s bottom line and it helps you increase your goal towards this month, then it really helps you motivate you to get people to upgrade to the program. Exactly. It’s so important long term as well. As you know, we just did that little study with our inner circle group. and found that the ones that had upgraded, I forget what the percentages we came up with, but it was something like one quarter, one percent a month dropping out, and the percentage that didn’t upgrade, it was like five or six percent a month on average dropping out.

Yes, sir. And you know, that was, that really, really, it really caught my attention in that meeting, and that, you know, something I’d never really thought of until that meeting, you know, I’ve been doing it for this long. I have never really thought about that. It really helped me want to get more people to upgrade also because knowing that really sitting back and realizing, yes, people that do upgrade to the leadership program or the, you know, whatever your highest program is, that they don’t quit, that they’re the ones that stick around there with you for forever, for the longest amount of time out of anybody in this school. Oh, that’s right. And that really motivates them also. to help them want to get people to upgrade in the program, because knowing that the people are going to stick around.

And you can’t help people achieve their goals and what they want if they’re not going to stick around in the program. Yeah, and see, that’s what I think a lot of school owners miss, that they’re afraid to ask, and then they doom their students to drop out at Greenbelt. And as martial artists, again, our mission should be for all of them to be a Black. And I don’t mean by giving them a piece of cloth. I mean for them to train four years, six years, eight years, 10 years, and have a life-changing experience. And I’ve never met somebody who got to Greenville and dropped out who had had a life-changing experience for martial arts. It’s the ones who truly make this a lifestyle. Wouldn’t you agree with that?

Oh, absolutely. I agree 100%. Yes, sir. David, let’s step back. Go ahead. I’m sorry. No, go ahead, sir. We keep talking at once and I don’t mean to do that. Go ahead, finish your thought. I was just agreeing with you that the biggest reason that everybody should be in this business is to help people. And if you really truly believe in what we do in this business and it is going to change people’s lives and really benefit them, every instructor should want the people to Stay in the program as long as possible. And the only way you’re gonna be able to help them achieve what they want and build their confidence in discipline is by having them stick with you for three or four years. And that’s when it’s really gonna make a difference in their lives.

By not having to go into a longer program, you’re not gonna be able to achieve that. Absolutely. Well, see, what I think the renewal process is all about them thinking about really doing this on a long-term basis. as opposed to them thinking about this just kind of being a monthly or a periodic commitment to a recreational activity. And the reason why Harvard has a 97% graduation rate is people had to work to get in, and they were thinking about it for a long time, and they went with the expectation of getting their bachelor’s degree. We don’t have that luxury with people coming in. Oftentimes, we’re thinking of this as an alternative to soccer, an alternative to you know, the Zumba class at the gym. But if we force them to in those first two or three months to really change their mindset and qualify for and set that long-term objective to graduate, then that’s the only time we can get the benefits that we really promise them to get.

[28:38] Yes, sir, I agree, 100%. David, let’s step back. First of all, you’ve had very good marketing results. And I guess what I mean by that is you have a very tight ratio of intro to enrollment, but you’ve also had enough people coming in the front doors to end up with, for instance, this month, 37 enrollments, and an average around 15 to 20 enrollments all year. What is it you’re doing other than the movie promotion to fill the school?

What are some of the things you’re doing in the community?

What are some of the things you’re doing internally to accomplish that?

We’re doing, we’re really strong on our website, on the web, on the internet. You know, average things like flyers and referrals, you know, those bring in a couple people a month, you know, little things here and there. But besides the biggest thing we did this month was the web promotion. We had the website, it was by this, Third biggest one and then the second biggest thing that we had this month is right at the end of the school is the demos in the schools and We do the demos in the schools have the kids come in for a pizza party and then we have an enrollment special at that party and that was the Second biggest thing that we did for the month. So number one, we’re going to come to a panther number two was a pizza party from the schools and number three this month on the was the internet by internet, there’s at least four or five different components to that, right?

There’s putting your website on all of your average tries, you know, drive them from offline to online. But there’s also search engine optimization, pay-per-click on Google, pay-per-click on Bing and Yahoo, pay-per-click on Facebook, banners. We’re doing a lot of work experimenting now with Groupon and similar. What did you do online that was successful?

You know, still working on all that so you don’t get good at it. It’s learning as you go thing. But with our website, we have the search engine optimization and then Google AdWords. We’re working on that. We’ve had pretty good results with our Google AdWords accounts. And then with the Cape Boxing program, the Groupon has been great with that program also. So you have done Groupon with the cardio program?

Yes, sir. With that, yeah, through the I Love Cape Boxing program with Mike Perrella. Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, Mike’s a great guy. And he’s certainly got a lot of this stuff figured out. We spent a lot of time with the Inner Circle on the website. And one of the things you know that we’re that we’re doing, it’ll be recorded for everybody who misses it live, is we’re doing a series of webinars on how to use Facebook, how to use Twitter, how to use search engine optimization, Google AdWords, Facebook, et cetera. What was the content we covered at the Inner Circle meeting useful for you on tuning into Week?

I mean, we had one of the Inner Circle members who’s doing 150 intros a month from just online. sources. Yes, sir. I thought I was doing okay with that until I went to that meeting. Then I realized that I need improvement on that area. Even my Google AdWords, I thought was pretty good going into that meeting. Joe’s numbers were dwarfed mine dramatically. I definitely need some improvement on that. Just a little part we did on the AdWords was really good and you know the analytics was very good and then the future webinar that you talked about and you know with going on the search engine and you know Google AdWords and everything is going to be, I’m really looking forward to seeing that and helping me understand how to do that and you know utilize those tools better.

[32:45] Yeah, and you mentioned Joe. I just talked to him on Tuesday. He has doubled his results since that meeting. And so he was already doing pretty well. And then we beat him up pretty hard on his website and some of the stuff he was doing. And by the way, he was already in the top 5% of anybody doing that stuff. But we really, really, would you say we went through with the fine tooth comb on his deal?

Absolutely, yes. His numbers were much better than mine, but if he’s doubled that, that is very, very impressive. I’m looking forward to hearing what he’s doing. Yeah, he came back and made some huge leaps on his implementation, and of course he’s gearing up for school number two. Now, with the inner circle, there’s two key components. Obviously, you’re getting a ton of information, but… What we have found is schools that are getting a ton of information on DVD, CD, and so forth, many of them just don’t know where to start or it just doesn’t click form or they think that there’s one or two things that they don’t understand, so therefore they don’t implement. And what we’re doing with peak form is in our circle is the one-on-one coaching process as well as the mastermind process. What have you found most valuable and why?

Well, I can tell you that, you know, I’m sure like 95% of the other martial arts school owners, I’ve got a pile of junk around here that I haven’t even got to myself, that I keep saying, oh, I need to listen to that. And nothing beats one-on-one, you know, coaching and being part of a group where you hear other people you know, just like the meeting in Denver, even the kickboxing program, I can’t remember his name off the top of my head. John Harvey. Yes, sir. Yeah. Hearing the things that he’s doing in his kickboxing program just made me totally think different about ours. And everybody has something different that I think you can take away and benefit your business from the group. And being part of that group is, I think, like I heard you say there, rising tide.

You know, raises all ships. And I think being part of that, you’re just, you know, you got to, your boat needs to rise. And then having the coaching, hearing somebody, you know, tell you that, okay, your goals that you have just, you know, you need to do better than that. Your goals need to be bigger and your number needs to be bigger. And it’s so much better than just having stuff sitting on your desk that you know you need to look at that you think you’ll get to tomorrow and then the next day, the next day, and you never do it. Yeah, yeah. And so much of knowledge is hollow, right?

I mean, how many times do we listen to a CD in the car, this one included, and you listen to it once, you listen to it twice, you don’t sit down and take notes, you don’t sit down and put together an action plan. And then I don’t know how many times a year later I pulled out the same CD, listened to it, there’s nothing on it that’s new, nothing on it I don’t know, but a whole bunch of stuff that I haven’t done. Oh, absolutely. And without having somebody tell you to do it’s hard to make yourself just do it. There’s not too many self-motivators that will do that stuff. And we get lazy. I’m a procrastinator. My son for Father’s Day got me assured that says I put the pro in procrastination. So without having somebody get on you to do it’s really easy not to do it.

[36:17] So I think you know having all this stuff is wonderful, you know, and that everybody wants stuff But having somebody call you and tell you to do it is so much different. It’s so much more valuable Well in your case you and I have been working on a one-on-one of course I’m always kind gentle and work on making sure that there’s nothing blunt or direct, right?

Yes, sir. Absolutely. I was just being sarcastic. That’s what we need. People forget that Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods both always had coaches. If you look at Muhammad Ali with Angelo Dundee, and even if you look at Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson’s career imploded when he lost his coach. His sub-mixed ending never really recovered from that. Being in business is exactly the same. Being a teacher is exactly the same. I know you haven’t in 27 years. I started Mars Arts in 1969, but I didn’t master it by getting a DVD and watching it. I didn’t master sparring by getting a CD and listening to the principles. I did it by somebody watching me in live practice and having ongoing personal instruction and critique. This really is no different. Yes, sir. And it’s so funny in the martial arts, we all look for the best instructor to help us improve our martial arts skills.

But nobody wants to look for the best person to help improve our business. Nobody wants the instructor to do that. And it’s so surprising because we know that the people that are good in martial arts, we know what got us there. It was to be training with the best instructors and the best people that teach us. what we need to know, but nobody wants to do that in business. And it just faces me that nobody wants to do that. Well, the top 5% do. Yes, sir. And it’s really no different than if you had a student who wanted to go train for a week with everybody in your city and think that they were going to master something. And as we talked about at the seminar, so many people right now are, they take a little bit from [inaudible] They’re stuck at 10,000 a month or stuck at 20,000 a month or have flat-toed in our in our making growth Yes, sir.

That’s a that’s a great analogy to look at it that way. I mean that’s I think that’s so true. You know, I was just at The ATA World Championships last weekend and a number of people I talked to they’re doing the exact same thing that you just talked about is it’s a majority of them are doing that and it’s just the top ones that Talk to you that are not doing that that are focused on one thing and focus on one area, you know, one coach to help them guide them where they want to be. And that’s the top people that are doing that. Yeah, and it’s important to be selective in choosing that person. Obviously, you’ve got to have somebody who’s been there, done that, and has also coached a whole bunch of other people on to success.

When you talk to your peers about your current pricing, I’m sure a lot of them tell you, tell you’re crazy and that you can’t charge that much especially in some places that have been as blighted as Las Vegas last couple of years. How do you respond to them?

[40:07] You know, I learned a long time ago to stop trying to convince my peers. You know, I tried that for a long time and you know, I just tell them and you know, and then you know, they say their comments and I just you know, hey, that’s what we charge and you know, that’s it works. And in this industry, if you try to convince your peers doing this or doing that, then it’s such a challenge. Especially the people that go hang out at tournaments and they try to convince everybody to do this and do that, and they surround themselves with the lower people or people that are not doing well, and that’s the people they hang out with all the time. and that’s why they’re not doing well. But you know, the people that want to do well and have that desire to do better than I have no problem helping them or spending time with them, it’s just the ones that just sit there and want to bitch and moan and not do anything that I don’t understand why people just spend their time with those people all the time.

That’s just ridiculous. I coined that. Lee Miltier and I were joking a couple years ago and I coined my phrase of masterminding with failures. You know, there’s the whole mastermind principle, but the mastermind principle is only as good as the peers you hang out with, right?

And what most of us do is mastermind with other broke people and then think that we’re going to make some headway by listening to their ideas. I troll around a couple like the martial arts business discussion boards. It’s the same thing, a whole bunch of broke people arguing the right way to do something. The leaders on the deal are doing 10,000 or 12,000 a month, and it’s a sure way to also be broke. I want to thank you for a couple referrals from your Little Rock event. Sue spoke highly of your conversation with her and there was a couple of others that you spoke to as well that I’ve heard back from so We always appreciate the kudos Absolutely on when we talked I feel you know 100% that when you know just like our you know our I think I think you are the NABBA and anything else is just like our martial arts school, you know if you if you’re giving a good service, then you want to tell people about it.

Just like people want to tell people about our school. If they’re really enjoying the training and everything going on in school. I’ve been thoroughly impressed with what you and Toby have provided me through NAPMA and the Inner Circle and the coaching that we’ve gotten. I want to tell everybody about it. I think it’s a great program and I think more people should definitely be involved with it and take advantage of the the coaching and the benefits they can get from the program. I appreciate that. If somebody already has a fairly successful school, I’ve talked to several in the range at one end of $24,000, another at $70,000. They both said the same thing to me. They said, you’re crazy for asking me to pay that much. How would you respond to them about return on investment or something like that?

And one of them, you know, was it was literally 1% of his growth, and he still thought it was. crazy. Yes sir. Well I can say before the program even though I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve heard stuff from some of the best people, when we first started the program I was in a 1,200 square foot location and we were doing probably mid to low 20s and we had about 130 students. And since the Since I joined the program, we, you know, in the same shopping center, we’ve been trying to negotiate with the bad economy. We were in a, you know, lease, you know, bad lease, but we got to move within the same shopping center after we’ve already, you know, one of the things I was wanting to do is for a while, and in the very first meeting, you said, you know, get another 30, you know, 30 students paying students, and then try to do the move.

[44:19] And then we did that, and then we moved to location, you know, 3,500 square feet. And now, you know, we’re at 230 students and doing, you know, over $40,000 a month. So we’ve increased our, you know, our gross by $20,000 a month, you know, being part of the program. So, you know, paying 1% of that or, you know, we’re half of whatever percent that is, and now off the top of my head, is just a little drop in the bucket for the results that we get. Yeah, it’s almost a 20 to 1 return on investment and… If I got the numbers right, you’ve had a 250% increase in your gross revenue with almost no increase in your expenses and a 200% increase in your active student body. Yes, sir. Yeah, we’ve hired no more instructors. We’ve actually lowered our rent, not raised our rent.

And we have no more. Our expenses are not any higher than what we had before, but we’re just making more money. Yeah, maybe a little bit more marketing. Probably not. Well, today we have chewed up a bunch of your time and I think we’re going to have to wrap it up here. Any last couple words of wisdom on what you would tell, let’s take a school owner that was in your spot, a school owner who’s in the mid-20s, 100 to 200 students, what should they do immediately to have the kind of dramatic Again, 250% increase in your growth, 200% increase in your student count. The improvements that you’ve had. I think they need to set some big, hairy audacious goals and go for it. And find, whether it’s you or anybody, find a reputable mentor that can hold them accountable to what they say they’re going to do.

I don’t think there’s anything in life, in business that that will exceed having somebody hold you accountable and having a mentor hold you accountable to your goals and to what you need to accomplish in your business and life. Fantastic. Well, excellent advice, and we thank you, David, for being so open and so sharing with everybody. And of course, I’m a big fan of ATA’s organization, but certainly our mutual friends at the top. My mission is for you to be a million dollar a year school and to have about half of that or more as net profits. So I think we’re going to be there next year, don’t you?

Yes, sir, I do. And I’m looking forward to the future success. OK. Thank you very much. And hopefully you stay indoors and stay in the air conditioning there in near 110 degree heat. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. And you have a wonderful day. Thank you. You too.