I can pretty much judge the success of a school within about five minutes during “prime time” by observing its pulse. What do I mean by the pulse of a school? Well, let me share a story to illustrate. In the mid 1980’s I traveled to New York to visit a school run by a ...

When I started in martial arts over 41 years ago, I never would have imagined martial arts would become my profession rather than just my passionate hobby. When I founded Mile High Karate in 1983, it was an alternative to using my degree in International Economics to landing a job in banking or working for ...

Call-Out: “Beginning in 1983 in Denver, I made an effort to emulate IBM’s approach. My ads always touted the benefits of martial arts instruction, explained the benefits of our approach, and never mentioned that anyone else taught this stuff but us.” Years ago, I read a really interesting book called Positioning: the Battle for your ...

Martial Arts Business Masters Reconnect Recently I sat down with my old friend Andrew Wood, who made a surprise guest appearance at this year’s NAPMA convention. Andrew was a true pioneer in the martial arts business, writing the book that changed the life of many instructors: How to Make $100,000 or More Teaching Martial Arts. ...

The legendary martial artist, movie and TV star and founder of the World Combat League and th Kick-Start Program shares the secret of this success. In part 2 of his interview with Stephen Oliver, Chuck Norris discusses his early martial arts training. As with many martial arts great of his decade, Chuck was first exposed ...

At last year’s Extreme Success Academy, Pat Burleson was presented with the 2009 NAPMA Lifetime Achievement Award for his pioneering contributions to the martial arts professional school instruction industry. Grand Master Burleson created many of the business systems that are now standard in the model used by most schools. He studied under Grand Master Jhoon ...

Gee – in our industry it seems like everyone has popped up to offer advice – how do you tell fact from fantasy? Value from Fraud? Unfortunately in our industry most of the really successful people are spending their time growing their staff, students, schools, and especially their net profit not sharing their secrets with you. I ...

Ranulfo Gonzalez is a multi-style 4th-, 5th- and 6th-Degree Black Belt and ultimate martial arts enthusiast and long-time instructor and Mile High Karate chief instructor and corporate trainer. In this interview, he shares with you what he has learned about the extraordinary benefits of utilizing sales, market-ing and other business systems to operate a school. ...