Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 22 | Issue 3

EDITORIAL
Summer Student
Retention Strategies
by Master Toby Milroy
I’ve been tremendously “lucky” in my career in the Martial Arts. Early on, in fact, even
before opening a school, I learned all the “Dogma”; the current ‘Beliefs’ about how the
Martial Arts Business was supposed to “be”.
I learned that Summertime always sucked.
I learned that most elementary schools wouldn’t allow Martial
Arts schools to do ‘anything’ with them.
I learned that as long as you have good quality classes, marketing
will take care of itself.
I learned that your ‘area’ determines how much you can
charge, and how financially stable your school will be.
I learned that if you really love what you do,
people will simply ‘feel’ your passion, and will just
enroll because they like you so much.
I learned that people are ‘too busy’ to commit to
a regular class schedule of 2 or 3 times a week.
I learned that people won’t sign agreements/
contracts for Martial Arts.
I learned that certain ‘styles’ of Martial Arts made
the school more or less ‘successful’.
Then, after months of struggling,
I was LUCKY enough to learn
that ALL OF THESE Beliefs Were
TOTAL “BS”. Please forgive my
language, and directness, but for
me, this realization was a GAME
CHANGER for my business,
career, and personal life!
ALL the “Dogma”, the
limiting beliefs I’d heard,
preached as ‘gospel’, and
simply ‘how things are’, were
simply WRONG. After that ‘lesson’,
I was finally able to BREAK
these limiting beliefs and start building REAL, SUBSTANTIAL businesses
but ONLY AFTER I reset the way I ‘thought’ about them.
After PROVING this, year after year, with (literally) many HUN-
DREDS of schools all across the world;
I’m often asked:
Why do some school owners fear the dreaded “Summer Slowdown”,
while others see virtually NO DISRUPTION, NO Additional
Cancellations, NO Vacation “Holds”, and actually generate MORE
Revenue and MORE Leads than most other months of the year?
Well, it’s tough for me to condense all that in the 500ish
words that will fit in this column, but here are some IMPOR-
TANT components:
First: You have to ‘dig in’ and ‘work the problem’. You do NOT
have to suffer in the summer. You do NOT have to have high drop
outs, you do NOT have to have a loss in recurring revenue because
students are on ‘hold’. ALL these problems ARE solvable.
Next: Your “membership” structure is critical. If your programs
are ‘month to month’, or have no real ‘goal’ focused programming,
you’re setting yourself up for a difficult summer season.
Using solid ‘outcome’ based ‘programs’ in your school helps
set appropriate expectations and behaviors for your students.
People don’t ‘expect’ to put their mortgage on ‘hold’ when they
go on vacation for 2 months, and if your program is structured
properly, they won’t expect, nor WANT to put their Martial Arts
program on ‘hold’ either.
We just conducted about an hour-long webinar on this topic a
few days ago, filled with strategies and tactics to help you transform
the summer slowdown into a summer jump start!
I’d be happy to give you ABSOLUTELY FREE access to it - simply
visit: TryAtlasSoftware.com/summer
MASTER TOBY MILROY is a 5th degree black belt. Known as “The Master Systemizer,” Master Toby Milroy
has positively influenced more martial arts schools than anyone in our industry. He has built a successful multi-school
organization, led the national trade association for the martial arts industry, and coached some of the most successful
martial arts school operators in the world.
6 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 3