Almost all martial arts school owners are disappointed with their agencies or have a horror story to share. Here’s how I see both sides of the story

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The flawed martial arts agency model of overpromising.
• The unrealistic "microwave expectations" about martial arts marketing.
• The power of the marketing-to-mats feedback loop.
• The strategic mindset shift from focusing on cost to focusing on return.
• The advantage of an "open book" martial arts marketing approach.
• And more.

TRANSCRIPTION

I want to talk about everything that, in my opinion, is wrong with martial arts marketing.

This is coming from two sides, from both sides: the agency model, the delivery, the expectations that get promised in the market space, and then on the flip side, how it's perceived and the expectations from martial arts school owners of what it is and what it's not.

And then there's the inevitable hamster wheel of disappointment that it just never seems to escape.

So, who has not had a bad experience with an agency?

Everybody talks about how their agency sucks and they're terrible.

Is this true?

Yes and no.

I feel it's on both sides.

Now, in my last videos and a few things that I've distributed, I've mentioned my dislike for the traditional agency model.

And I'll tell you a little story.

Here's where this started.

This is now going back. Oh, it's got to be at least five or six years ago.

I always feel like I get timelines wrong.

Behind-the-scenes of 15 cash-boosting martial arts marketing strategies inside Martial Arts Media™’s Partners community, and how you can get access.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Timetable efficiency that actually simplifies martial arts marketing.
• The secret to using AI that goes far beyond simple social media posts.
• A simple conversation framework designed to dramatically increase your sales.
• How a single, non-marketing element of your school can make all your marketing and sales easier.
• A powerful campaign that can generate a massive cash injection for your school in just a few days.

TRANSCRIPTION

I just finished uploading a video for our private clients in our Partners group and I thought, "Hang on, maybe this will be useful for you to check out."

So, for a little bit of context, if you've been following me for a while, you know I talk about Partners, our community where we help martial arts school owners grow with their marketing.

If this is your first time tuning into the podcast, I've been working with martial arts school owners for just over 13 years.

I've helped more than 400 martial arts schools generate more than 25,000 trials.

And so, we've got a lot of resources, tools, and strategies that have worked and been refined over the years.

So, I was going through our members' portal.

The goal was to do a bit of pruning, see what's been working well, who's watched which resources, and also plan for a few sessions coming up next month.

Now, as it stands right now, there are 139 courses and playbooks, but those are layered with multiple sessions inside those 139 sessions.

I was going through and I found 15 sessions from about the last year that are just real moneymakers.

If you implement those, they're going to bring massive results to your martial arts school.

And so, I wanted to bring them to life in case some of our members missed them or they weren't on the live calls.

I just did a quick video breaking them down, what they are useful for, and where they can be used.

And I thought, "Well, hang on, why don't I just share this with you?"

So, depending on where you're watching this video, if you go to martialartsmedia.com/159, that's the number 159, it'll take you to this episode, and I'm going to include that video breakdown about Partners in that video.

Why most martial arts school owners are struggling with Facebook ads, the influence of AI, and how to take back control of your results.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• What’s really changed with Facebook ads for martial arts schools
• The downside and power of AI
• The agency trap that keeps school owners stuck and returning to zero
• A 5-step framework to improve your ads from offer to follow-up
• The pitfall of not aligning your martial arts marketing strategy
• And more

*Bring 50 Enrollments Into Your Martial Arts School Every 90 Days Need help growing your martial arts school? Watch Training + Take The Assessment

TRANSCRIPTION

Do Facebook ads still work for martial arts schools?

Or has that ship now sailed?

Maybe, maybe not.

Well, I want to dive into what I see is working, what's not, and the challenges that are coming up in the market space right now.

It's not necessarily just ads; it's market sophistication and a whole lot more.

So, let's jump in.

First up, do Facebook ads still work?

100% yes.

Where's the problem there?

Why are costs going through the roof?

Why are results tapering down?

Why is it harder to get hold of people when you get leads?

And then when you get leads, why is it even harder for them to show up?

The truth of the matter is, market sophistication has evolved.

And as times change, we have to level up.

So, there are a few things that I see are making a big impact in the market space right now.

First up, let's talk about the big one: AI.

AI is magic.

How Australian Martial Arts Academy's head instructor turned chronic fatigue into a leadership edge - driving growth and retention at a top-tier school.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Belt-By-Belt Recovery Story That Changed Mark’s Life (And His Students')
• Walking Away From Medicine To Pursue The Martial Path Full-Time
• The Hidden Energy Technique That Helps You Show Up Big—Even When You’re Running On Empty
• How Teaching On Crutches Inspired A Wave Of Black Belts To Keep Going
• The Sales Strategy That Works As Well In A Kids Class As It Does On The Phone
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Apply Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

George: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another episode of the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So, today I'm speaking with Mark Loughran from the Australian Martial Arts Academy.

So, episode 156—155—I’d been chatting to Hakan, Hakan Manav, and Mark’s name dropped in there quite a few times. So I thought I’d bring the man on himself to have a chat about 18 years in martial arts.

He’s also one of the head instructors at the Australian Martial Arts Academy, and one of our featured speakers at the Partners Intensive that’s coming up in June, depending on when you listen to this.

But with that said, welcome to the call, Mark.

Mark: Thank you very much. Great to be here.

George: Good stuff.

We've only just recently met as well. So I'm going to take this as a blank canvas and a conversation just to tap into your genius, the things that you do. So if we had to start from the beginning, who's Mark, how did you get into the industry? Let's go from there.

Mark: Yeah, that's a really interesting story, actually. My journey into the martial arts industry started as a recovery piece. Flashback to 2005, I was graduating high school.

So, that makes me feel like I’m starting to get old now, everyone I’m teaching was born after that year. Flashback to that time, I graduated high school and got presented with a couple of opportunities.

One was from my parents. They said, “If you want to go further and study at university, you can do that,” because my dad worked as a Deputy Vice Chancellor at James Cook Uni. I grew up in Townsville, in Far North Queensland.

And they said, “If you want to go to university here, go for it. Stay at home, it’s free, all good.”

And they said, but if you want to go away, pay for it yourself. And that was the deal. My brother had the same deal.

He was a couple of years older than me. And he got himself a full scholarship to Melbourne uni. And he was like, Townsville was too hot.

I did the exact same thing, except I went to UNSW. So I've got a scholarship to study medicine at UNSW and went down there, started that journey and ended up getting really sick towards the end of my first year with glandular fever.

And there was a whole piece of trying to identify what was going on there, because I was really sick for quite a long time. I ended up with chronic fatigue syndrome, which I still have now, 19 years on.

And I still battle that every single day. My sort of path into martial arts started about a year after I got really sick with that. I ended up bed-bound for one to two years.

Part of my recovery, actually, I should backtrack a little bit. I was doing high-level athletics at a national level at that time as well. I used to play A-grade tennis and represented Queensland in different sports when I was in high school.

I was always an athletic person. And then, for someone to go from that to completely bed-bound, it was a big change and a big struggle. So part of my recovery...

Following up on Episode 155, Hakan Manav shares martial arts staff development strategies to build a high-performing team - giving you the freedom to scale and grow.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How to transition from solo instructor to building a scalable team

• The first hire that can make or break your martial arts school's growth

• Why letting go is essential for business expansion and instructor success

• A proven framework for training and promoting instructors from within

• How to turn parents and adult students into valuable team members

• And more

INVITATION: If you’d like more info about working with me in and Hakan in Partners Mentor, Just message me ‘Mentor’ on Facebook and I’ll send the details over in a doc (no sales call required) Send Message On Personal Profile >

TRANSCRIPTION

George: Hey there, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So, this week I've got Hakan back on the call. Good day Hakan.

Hakan: Hey George.

George: In the previous episode 155 and you can check that out if you haven't, martialartsmedia.com/155. We spoke about the four obstacles that Hakan and his family overcame over the last 43 years to build their 1800 student strong academy.

And so this week we thought we would dive deeper into these obstacles. Thanks for jumping on again, Hakan.

Hakan: Pleasure to be here. Thank you

George: We spoke a little bit about the product. We spoke about staff development, personal leadership. Let's loop into staff development for this call. Let's just dive a bit deeper and look at the things to watch out for.

Why should we even be doing it? Which direction to take when scaling your school?

Hakan: Absolutely. Once the product is nailed and you've got a great thing people are coming back for in terms of the actual martial art that you're teaching. The next step we want to think about is how we can deliver this at scale. For a number of reasons?

First of all, we love what we do. But there are days that we might feel ill or we might want to go on holiday, or we're going to be away for various reasons. So you need the classes to be running at the same acceptable standard.

So we've got those obvious reasons, but I want to touch on a personal experience that we went through as an academy. I'm going to say about 25 years ago now.

Hakan Manav reveals how they solved 4 growth obstacles martial arts school owners face and built a thriving, full‑time operation with 4 locations, a 30 staff, and 1,800 students.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Explore the hidden product tweak that keeps students smiling and sparks unstoppable growth

• Uncover a fresh staff-training approach that secretly sculpts high-performing instructors

• Follow a surprising systems shortcut that quietly streamlines every corner of the academy

• Experience the leadership shift that frees you from day-to-day tasks and ignites team synergy

• A glimpse into the Manav’s families path to a 1,800-student academy by overcoming 4 key obstacles

• And more

FREE: Swipe the exact plan I use to fill martial arts schools with 200+ students within 7 months (And make sure your students are an incredible fit > Learn More

TRANSCRIPTION

GEORGE: Hey there, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast episode. Today I've got a guest with me and I was just looking through, I actually googled it, when the last time he was on the podcast and it goes back to episode 14, November the 1st, 2016.Nine years ago. Cool, welcome back Hakan.

HAKAN: Thank you George, happy to be here.

GEORGE: Awesome. So I'm trying to think when we had that podcast, I was probably, I saw you do a demonstration at Weimar and that's probably a couple of years before that. And you already had your DVDs. I think we still got your DVD box of your program.

HAKAN: We're telling our age, aren't we?

GEORGE: And I guess it's funny how like our journey together, work together. I also looked into Stripe and you've also the longest standing client that I've worked with in regards to marketing and Facebook ads.

And just the other day we got talking about helping more school owners and we decided to do a joint venture together in what we call Partners Mentor. And we'll probably talk a little bit about that, but there's a few things that we want to discuss in the industry, particularly where people are getting stuck, things that we are seeing.

There's a lot of our conversations on messenger back and forth and planning and doing some marketing and me getting feedback from what you're seeing on the mats, hands-on, me looking at what am I seeing around the industry, what's coming from different school owners around the globe, what people are facing.

And I think a good thing for us to be in this episode, one of a few, would be to, yeah, just have a bird's eye overview of looking where things are at in the industry, what are you seeing, where people are getting stuck, what's coming up and so forth. But before we get into that for those listening and they haven't met you, just give us a bit of a roundup.

After 13 years and working with 400+ martial arts school owners, I share my refined vision from helping school owners break the 100 student barrier, to 300, to $1M revenue per year.

• The three-part framework to attract, convert, and retain students for long-term growth
• Why most martial arts school owners struggle with marketing—and how to fix it
• A new lead follow-up engine that automates engagement and increases conversions
• The one overlooked strategy that can increase school revenue by 20-30%
• How to scale without burnout while maintaining a balanced personal and professional life
• And more

INVITATION: If you’d like more info about working with me in Partners, Just message me ‘Partners’ on Facebook and I’ll send the details over in a doc (no sales call required)

Send Message

TRANSCRIPTION

Today I want to take you through my plan to help 100 martial arts school owners scale from 100 to 300 students and help 10 martial arts school owners scale to 1 million dollars in annual revenue. I'm going to go through the whole plan. I'm going to take you through this google doc and I'm probably going to go a little off script just to give you a bit more context around how the story evolved, what got me here, what brought on this plan and all the rest.

So, I'll start at the semi-beginning. 13 years ago I discovered martial arts at my five-year-old's first martial arts class. I'd never been to a martial arts class, and didn't know much about it.

I saw the movies. All that I thought is, you know, for me as a first-time parent, what a great activity this looked like for my child to get into. And I was watching this class and to me the only words I could find to describe it was personal development in the physical form.

I was seeing these kids stand six feet tall, disciplined, confident, and I thought wow these kids are learning like life-changing skills and it's all disguised as fun and they don't even know it. And that moment in hindsight was a life-changing impact for me which brought me to this life-changing journey. So I started helping the school where my son was training with lead generation.

This came about completely not on purpose. I actually bumped into one of the instructors at a kid's playground where my child was playing and got talking to the instructor and learned what they were doing. And this was the first time I sort of got some insight just on how the business was running etc.

And my marketing brain kind of just triggered a few ideas and I thought look I know a few things that could definitely help you guys. I'd love to come and share what it is. And so at this time in my life I was deep into the trenches of online marketing.

I was doing Google ads. I was mainly running online affiliate type products. Doing Google ads to landing pages and emails and I'd gotten a little bit of success.

My biggest aha moment was being in Australia at the time and selling to someone in the United States that I've never met and they bought my product and I said oh wow this the possibilities of this are endless. I know it's common now but at that time it wasn't that common. Anyway, the school was already successful.

In this Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast I took Michele Ciampa from Shotokan Karate Club Tasmania through The Price Amplifier which boosted his student value by 52%.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How a simple, weekly social media post became the primary driver of student enrollment for a growing martial arts club.
• A surprising shift in pricing structure that could more than double annual revenue per student.
• Why leading enrollment conversations with value—not price—could be the key to better engagement and commitment.
• A new approach that slashes the number of students needed to meet financial goals while still enhancing the club’s impact.
• A strategic plan to engage new age groups, adding depth and variety to the dojo’s community.

FREE: Swipe the exact plan I use to fill martial arts schools with 200+ students within 7 months (And make sure your students are an incredible fit > Learn More

TRANSCRIPTION

GEORGE: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today we're doing something new.

We're going to go with a full-on coaching call and do something a bit different and see if we can create some value, create a bit of conversation and really help one of our guests go to their next level, which we're going to discover what that is. And so somebody that I've known for quite a while, Michele Ciampa.

MICHELE: Hello.

GEORGE: Did I pronounce it correctly?

MICHELE: Yes, that's correct.

GEORGE: Michele Ciampa from Tasmania Shotokan Karate Club in Tasmania. So welcome! How are you doing, Michele?

MICHELE: Good. Yourself?

GEORGE: Good, good, good.

Cool. So if you mind just giving us a bit of a background. Yeah, just a brief overview about your karate club, who you teach, how long you've been going for, etc.

MICHELE: Absolutely. Okay. So I started teaching in 2019, just in a small community hall at first.

And then we had some renovations going on with that. So I had to find another location. So I found a place in a dance studio for a little while, and then I was back to the community hall.

And then just last year in October, I decided I'll just gamble everything and take a jump. And I opened in the main street of lovely Bernie here in Tasmania.

GEORGE: Congratulations!