Grand Master Stephen Oliver is a 10th Degree Black Belt, Publisher of Martial Arts Professional, and founder of Martial Arts Wealth Mastery. This column grew out of a question from a school owner on a coaching call on September 16, 2026: “What was the name of that book?” The reading list below is the author’s own. No publisher or author paid for inclusion.
The short answer
The fastest way to build a successful martial arts school is to copy one that already works, then improve it. The books that taught me that are Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout, Influence and Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini, and Influencing with Integrity by Genie Z. Laborde. And I found most of them the same way: by reading the footnotes of the trainers everyone else was quoting.
Why I read the footnotes
Years ago I went through every sales training program Tony Robbins offered. Unlike most people in the room, I read the footnotes. I read the footnotes on everything. That’s not a virtue. It’s a habit, and it has paid me better than almost anything else I do.
What I found was that nearly everything Robbins was teaching came from two places. One was neuro-linguistic programming, NLP. Robbins trained in it, including with its co-founder John Grinder, before he built his seminar business. The other was the research of a psychologist named Robert Cialdini. So I stopped reading the popularizer and went back to the sources, and worked my way backwards from there.
Here’s why that matters to a school owner. Seminar material is the source material with the edges sanded off. When you go to the source, you get the reasoning, and when you have the reasoning you can adapt the idea to your own school instead of copying a script that was written for somebody else’s business.
What is modeling, and why does it work for martial arts schools?
The early NLP developers, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, built their whole approach on one premise: if somebody gets a result, and you model exactly what they do, you can get the same result. The example that gets worn out is baking a cake. Watch a great baker, measure the ingredients, the order, the temperature and the time, and you should be able to turn out the same cake again and again.
They applied that to therapists who got unusual results. They studied Fritz Perls, the Gestalt therapist; Virginia Satir, the family therapist; and Milton Erickson, the hypnotherapist. As I understand the lineage, most of the rapport material, the matching, mirroring and pacing, traces to what they saw Satir do. Embedded commands and much of the language-pattern work trace to Erickson.
Now apply the same premise to our business. If there are schools doing $150,000 a month and you’re doing $7,000 or $10,000, the question isn’t “what clever new thing should I invent?” It’s “what are they doing that I’m not?” Model that. Measure it. Then improve on it.
That is exactly what I did. I didn’t set out to be original. I looked at what Jhoon Rhee was doing in Washington, D.C., and said, “That works. I’m going to replicate it, and where I can get better at teaching, retention or marketing, I will.” I was not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When I opened in Denver, I shopped every martial arts school in town, and then launched with the Jhoon Rhee Institute’s D.C. price sheet anyway. It was more than double the next-highest school in the city. By my own count, within about eighteen months we had roughly half the market.
I watched talented instructors do the opposite, over and over: leave a system that worked, reinvent everything, and struggle. The ones who modeled first and innovated second almost always did better.
The reading list: five books every school owner should own
| Book | Author | First published | What it gives a school owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind | Al Ries and Jack Trout | 1981 (from a 1972 Advertising Age series) | Why you promote yourself as the category leader instead of comparing yourself with the school down the street. |
| Influence (textbook edition: Influence: Science and Practice) | Robert B. Cialdini | 1984; textbook edition 1985 | The research behind persuasion. The best single book I know on the psychology of sales and marketing. |
| Pre-Suasion | Robert B. Cialdini | 2016 | How to set up a persuasive environment before the conversation starts. Think lobby, first phone call, first class. |
| Influencing with Integrity | Genie Z. Laborde | 1983 | The most accessible book on NLP rapport skills. I used it to train staff. |
| Using Your Brain—for a Change | Richard Bandler | 1985 | A more readable Bandler than the early transcripts. |
Positioning, and the lesson from the personal computer
Positioning isn’t the greatest marketing book ever written, but it’s a good one, and its central idea has stayed with me for more than forty years. Position yourself as the market leader, and don’t bring anybody else up.
When IBM introduced its Personal Computer on August 12, 1981, most computer makers were arguing about memory, bits and bytes. IBM sold the value of having a PC. Apple sold something friendly and easy to use. Neither spent its energy comparing specifications with a rival, and both ended up dominant.
Martial arts schools do the opposite constantly. “No contracts.” “No gimmicks.” “Not like the other guys.” Every one of those lines tells a parent that other schools exist, and invites her to go compare. Most prospective students never shop between schools at all unless you send them to.
Cialdini, and why price shapes perceived value
Robert Cialdini is Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. Influence first appeared in 1984; the textbook edition carried the title Influence: Science and Practice. His later major book is Pre-Suasion.
One of the early stories in Influence is about a jewelry store owner who couldn’t move a batch of turquoise. She left a note telling an employee to mark everything “x ½.” The employee read it as “x 2,” and the pieces sold out at double the price. The way I summarize the lesson for school owners is this: when people have no other objective way to judge quality, they use price as the signal.
If you knew nothing about cars and stood between a Mercedes SL and a Mazda Miata, both small, sporty convertibles, you’d assume the one that costs several times as much must be the better car. A parent who knows nothing about martial arts reads your tuition the same way. That breaks down only when you’ve turned yourself into a commodity, and comparing yourself with other schools is how you do it.
NLP: skip the originals, start with Laborde
A school owner in our group asked about Bandler and Grinder. My honest advice: their original books are the last place to start. The early material is written almost like magic, with titles like Frogs into Princes (1979), and it’s hard going.
The book I used to train staff was Influencing with Integrity by Genie Z. Laborde. It’s about the matching, mirroring and pacing side of NLP: building rapport quickly and honestly, which is most of what a front-desk person or an intro instructor needs. Her follow-up is 90 Days to Communication Excellence. Some of Bandler’s later solo work, such as Using Your Brain—for a Change, is also far more readable than the early transcripts.
What I took from NLP certification, and what I didn’t
I went through NLP certification training with NLP Comprehensive in Colorado, the organization Steve and Connirae Andreas founded in 1979. It wasn’t a perfect fit. The room was mostly therapists, and the tone was a long way from the go-for-it style of martial arts or a Tony Robbins event. They found me an odd addition to their program, and I found some of the exercises a little airy for my taste.
But a lot of the core material is good, and much of it holds up. The way NLP describes the difference between subjective and objective experience, and the way it teaches influence and rapport, are very useful for anyone who teaches or sells. Along with cognitive behavioral therapy, it’s one of the two outside disciplines I’ve found most practical for our work. Where it drifts into the pursuit of magic, I leave it alone.
What a school owner should take from this
- Find someone getting the result you want, and model them before you innovate. Improve on what works; don’t discard it.
- Read the source, not the summary. When a trainer’s idea helps you, follow the footnote.
- Stop marketing against competitors. Position yourself as the leader and talk about the value of what you teach.
- Price is a message. A price that is only a little higher than the school down the street tells a parent nothing.
- Train your staff in rapport. Start with Laborde, not with the 1970s transcripts.
What to do this week
- Order Influence and Positioning. Read one chapter a day.
- Write down three schools or businesses getting the result you want. List exactly what they do that you don’t.
- Pull every comparison line (“no contracts,” “not like other schools”) off your website and ads.
- Give your front-desk staff one rapport skill to practise on every inquiry call this week.
Frequently asked questions
What books should a martial arts school owner read?
Start with Influence and Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout, and Influencing with Integrity by Genie Z. Laborde. Together they cover persuasion, market positioning and rapport, the three skills behind enrollment and retention.
What is modeling in business?
Modeling means studying someone who already gets the result you want and reproducing exactly what they do, then improving on it. The idea comes from the early NLP developers, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who studied Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson.
Who is Robert Cialdini?
Robert B. Cialdini is Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and the author of Influence, first published in 1984, and Pre-Suasion, published in 2016.
Does a higher price make a martial arts school look better?
When parents have no other objective way to judge quality, price works as a signal of value. That’s why a school priced only slightly above its competitors gains nothing, and why comparing yourself with other schools tends to turn you into a commodity.
Should a martial arts school compare itself with competitors in its marketing?
No. Most prospects never compare schools unless your marketing tells them to. Position your school as the leader and talk about the value of training, not about what other schools do.
Is NLP useful for martial arts instructors?
The rapport side of NLP, matching, mirroring and pacing, is useful for intro instructors and front-desk staff. The most practical starting book is Influencing with Integrity by Genie Z. Laborde, rather than the early Bandler and Grinder transcripts.
Sources
- Arizona State University, W. P. Carey School of Business: Regents Professor Emeritus Robert Cialdini elected to the National Academy of Sciences
- Influence at Work (Cialdini’s firm): the turquoise jewelry story
- Al Ries: Positioning
- IBM: The IBM Personal Computer
- NLP Comprehensive: About NLP Comprehensive
What this article does not establish: the Denver market-share figure and the account of Tony Robbins’ source material are the author’s own recollection and reading, not independently verified figures.
Grand Master Stephen Oliver, MBA, is a 10th Degree Black Belt and the Founder and CEO of Mile High Karate and Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, one of the martial arts industry’s leading coaching and consulting organizations for professional martial arts school owners, BJJ academies, and MMA gyms. A martial arts school owner since 1975 and business coach since 1985, Oliver has spent more than five decades building, operating, and advising successful martial arts schools. He also serves as CEO and Chairman of NAPMA (the National Association of Professional Martial Artists) and Publisher of Martial Arts Professional magazine. A Georgetown University cum laude graduate, he earned his Executive MBA through the Executive Program at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. He was promoted to 10th Degree Black Belt in April 2026 and inducted into the Official Taekwondo Hall of Fame in August 2026. Learn more at MartialArtsWealth.com and StephenCOliver.com.
Related reading: Positioning Your Martial Arts School · Tony Robbins: Leadership from Inside Out · Jhoon Rhee: The Way of Truth, Beauty, Love and Profits · You Were Charging More in 1970
