Every so often, I read some of the training and marketing materials that one of the many martial arts business consultants have developed. Usually, they are well-designed and would be beneficial for someone who had little or no business background. However, they all seem to say the same thing: high-pressure sales techniques to mom and dad about their wonderful, exceptional child. Most of these sales techniques will not attract a lot of professional adults who will stay with you for several years.
The Baby Boomers
So how do you tap into the adult Baby Boomers’ market? Some of the things you can’t do are play games, make false claims or be mystical. A professional adult is generally not going to buy into false hype.
You have to have a product that appeals to a more mature adult market. The exact same curriculum and teaching methods used for eight-year-olds is not going to be suitable for 38-year-olds.
You also need a professional sales approach. The hardcore, used-car salesman approach may sell some people. But often, when someone feels that they were pressured into committing to a long-term deal after only being with you a couple of weeks, from the start you have damaged your relationship with that person
Adults aren’t going to care about belts. The Black Belt Club may be great for kids, but the 45-year-old, female, corporate vice-president isn’t going to be motivated by the rank advancement. She will likely be motivated by the new knowledge that will be offered her when she reaches the next rank, but the chance to tell her friends that she’s a green belt really isn’t a factor. This is not to say that adults don’t want a ranking system, it’s just that using the belt as a carrot may backfire.
Long-Term Benefits
When I decided that I wanted to become a full-time martial arts instructor, I didn’t really want to teach children, so I set out to do things a little differently. I intentionally marketed my school to adults. I try to appeal to people that are interested in health and longevity.
All of us are asked the question, “Why should I take classes here?” I try to avoid saying much of anything about other schools or styles. I try and stick to discussing what long-term martial arts training can do for them. I don’t want to convince them that I can make them a “killer” in six months. If a person walks in because they really want self-defense skills and you tell them they can learn how to defend themselves in two weeks, why would they take classes for more any longer than that? I stress that the training will address the elements of conditioning in a way that nothing else does.
It’s imperative that you communicate the health benefits and the need to take the time to take care of your health. I constantly preach that if you don’t take the time to take care of your health, you will eventually take the time for the hospital stay.
This makes sense because many adults realize that hospitals are not filled with victims of random assaults, they are filled with victims of self-abuse. What I mean by self-abuse is a lack of disciplined health habits. A failure to follow a regime of proper diet and exercise leads to increased incidence of any health disorder you can name from heart disease to diabetes to cancer.
I always say, “If you can’t defend yourself from yourself, don’t worry about the boogeyman in the bushes.” If you aren’t doing the things to take care of yourself with decent health habits, you will be the one that “injures” yourself.
My average student is interested in what the training does for his or her physical and mental well-being, with the side benefit being they can more effectively defend themselves. Therefore, it is vitally important that you fully articulate the health benefits of martial arts training when you sell to adults.
You have to have an adult-oriented outlook on martial arts training if you want to have adults in your class.
Self-Defense Sales
Adults may mention self-defense when they first come in, but if they are still with you five years later, they aren’t talking or even thinking about self-defense skills.
If your best sales approach is centered on how your style is the most effective method of self-defense, you may find it hard to attract adults who stay with you for extended periods of time. (See the sidebar, “Master Gary’s Definition of ‘Being in Shape.’”)
Realistically, we all know that the odds of an adult in a relatively affluent area becoming a victim of a random violent crime are extremely low. Intelligent adults understand that if they try to avoid trouble, they will most likely never need to defend themselves.
Many adults will start training because they want self-defense skill, but they will either leave when they have learned a few techniques or their mindset will change. After all, how many of us are guilty of communicating that you can learn how to defend yourself in a very short time? If you offer quickie women’s self-defense seminars or two-week certifications for “reality” training, what are you saying about the need for internalization of the skills through years of practice? Most adults understand the difference between knowing how to defend yourself and actually being able to defend yourself.
These short-term self-defense programs are like going to a weekend basketball camp and then thinking you can play with the pros in the NBA. I know how to play basketball, but if my life depended on my basketball skills, I would be in deep trouble. Adults will stay with you because they realize it takes a long time to actually develop self-defense skill -- and they know the importance of not letting those skills rust away from lack of practice. Or, they may stay with you because they enjoy the benefits they see and feel every day.
Gaining Respect
You cannot sell or teach the adult market the same way as children. Children are immediately impressed with the fact that you’re an adult, you’re bigger than they are and you have a black belt. To impress the 50-year-old CEO takes a little more. Your adults may be older than you and if you’re a smaller person like me, they will probably be bigger than you. If they stay around long enough, they may gain a similar rank to you. You may even have to live with the fact that some of your senior people could take you in a fight.
Children aren’t that hard to outsmart. A school full of professional adults is not only difficult to outsmart, you shouldn’t even try to. You will probably have students who are brighter and more sophisticated than you are.
Therefore, with adults, you have to gain their respect in very different ways. If you want to earn their respect, you must treat them with respect. Your environment must be professional. Professional adults expect to be treated like the customers they are. They expect the classes to start and finish on time and to have professional physical surroundings. Does your office look like their office? Or does it look like a flea market?
Teenage instructors often teach a significant amount of martial arts classes. Professional adults will generally do better learning from people like themselves. A guy that’s used to managing a multimillion-dollar-a-year business may not enjoy taking commands from someone younger than his son.
Journey versus Destination-Oriented Training
Adult martial arts training needs to be about the journey, not the destination.
My most senior student, Mike, is also an avid mountain climber. He has the same outlook on reaching the top of the mountain as he does towards martial arts. He climbs these 20,000-foot mountains with a group of people. Sometimes these groups have to come back down without reaching the summit for any variety of reasons, weather being the most likely. When this happens, most of the other climbers will be upset about not reaching the summit, complaining that they wasted three weeks and didn’t “get” anything for it. Mike’s outlook is that he likes to climb mountains; he enjoys the experience of being on the mountain. He certainly would have liked to have made it to the summit, but his time wasn’t wasted because he didn’t.
This type of attitude is why he has been with me for over 16 years. People with his outlook make great long-term students; you just have to be able to sell to this type of person, and operate an environment that supports your retention of these types of people.
While not every student that leaves is a failure on your part, some are. I contend that about one-third of your students will stay with you almost no matter what you do. Then there’s another third that’s going to leave no matter what you do. It’s the third that can be influenced either positively or negatively that are the challenge to keep. If you are truly turning over 100% of your student body every year, then you need to discover what you’re doing that drives students away.
Older Adult Curriculum
I started offering a comprehensive internal-training program several years ago. Our art always included a significant amount of internal training, such as tai-chi, pa-kua and hsing-i. But a student also had to take all the kung-fu forms in the curriculum. When I established an internal arts-only program, providing an opportunity for people to come in and learn tai-chi without having to take the other kung-fu styles, I started to attract an even older crowd.
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Originally Posted by Shaolin Wookie
. Lots of students forget their material when they "test up", or it gets warped through lack of reptition. Ironically, "testing up" or upgrading in belt status often results in a marked "downgrading" in the former belt's form quality (at least, in the external program). I'm not trying to collect more forms (there aren't a lot in SPM), I just want to get instruction in their centerline and one-inch theories (and they're experts at infighting and drilling infighting--something we don't really get a lot of in CSC arts). As for my CSC material, it's just going to be a lot of reps for at least six months...minimum...(and my greatest revelations happen in personal practice). So I'm thinking I'll drop one of the programs and go study SPM for a while in tandem with CSC (it was the other school I was considering before joining the Do). No "grass is greener" stuff. Master Reid's grass is the "greenest." And it's schedule works perfectly for cross-training.
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