The Martial- Art

of Selling

™

By: Michael Dolpies

Thanks for investing in the martial-art of selling “magic intro” program! I trust that you’ll gain much success in your day to day selling adventures by simply applying some of the easy and powerful methods that you’re going to un-cover in this entire program.

Before we go any further allow me to make my attorney happy.

Copyright © 2006 by Michael Dolpies

ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Published by:Michael Dolpies / Ocean View Martial-Arts, LLC932 Johnston St., Suite 1Philadelphia, PA 19148

P-267.992.2970F-215.494.5516www.martial-art-of-selling.comMichaelDolpies@milehighkarate.com

DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES:

While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, neither the Author nor the Publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional.

This entire program including: Audio, Video, Consulting, and Written works is not intended for use as a source of legal or accounting advise. The Author wants to stress that the information contained herein may be subject to verifying state and/or local laws or regulations. All users are advised to retain competent counsel to determine what state and/or local laws or regulations may apply to the users’ particular business.

The purchaser of this entire program assumes responsibility for the use of these materials and information. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, both federal and state and local, governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising and all other aspects of doing business in the United States or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader. The Author and Publisher assume no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials

Welcome to the Martial-Art of selling

This manual is designed to be a guide and foundation for your success in selling martial-arts. The material presented will be in scenario form and will guide you through the basic steps for: answering the phone for a variety of inquires, dealing with walk-in prospects, and leading each from prospect to student. My goal is to make it as easy as possible to enroll a student into your school the first time they come and take one of your intro classes. There are many factors that lead to having a high closing ratio of Intro Lessons taught to Enrollments and my goal is to help you get a 90 to 100% “closing ratio.” You’ll see how easy it is to deal with objections without using fancy “sales shinanagans” or “verbal Ju-Jit-Su.” You’ll learn how to position yourself as an expert and trusted advisor by asking carefully crafted, benefit oriented questions that build trust with your prospects and help lead them to joining your school the first time they come in. We will make it easier and enable more people to step out onto the floor where you can begin to inspire them to earn their Black Belt!

“In Selling, the little things are what count! Little subtleties and simple strategies performed just a little bit better, make the difference between hundreds, thousands, and millions.”

You are going to become a “master” at the little things that make big differences. This program that you’ve invested in is going to pay you back many, many times over the years. I am excited for you and wish you continued success and prosperity with the greatest business in the world…You deserve to be appreciated, and you deserve to give yourself and your family everything you so choose. Since you chose professional martial-arts school operations as your career and life you have the power to make a difference!

Believe me, I’ve done my share of business ventures, I briefly worked in the most cut throat toughest sales job of all, real estate. I’ve interviewed thousands of parents over the years about their careers and businesses and I know that what we’ve got can’t be beat! So make the most of it and appreciate every moment that you’ve got as a school owner, because so many others out there admire and envy what you do even if you don’t believe it!

Before We Dive In…….

Keep in mind a couple of things- This manual is totally “front-end” oriented by that I mean we are only talking about that one lesson – the one shot to get someone started in your program. What you do after you apply this material will determine how long someone stays in your school. You don’t make big money in martial-arts by just getting someone going on a short term basis. The long term sale takes place out on the floor! The first enrollment is merely a middle ground between your marketing and your black belt club.

Hot products and services are easy to sell while mediocre products and services are tough to sell! It’s really that simple. So with this manual you will refine your already “hot” and beneficial intro lesson ( I assume it’s already pretty good, because you’ve invested your hard earned dollars in this manual, so obviously you care!) by learning exactly what to say at a specific time in your presentation you will dramatically increase the buying temperature of the prospect.

This manual will cover a simple and practical no B.S. phone process that will have 95% of your callers making an appointment. We will also cover some basic marketing strategies designed to help you “position” yourself as the expert in your area when it comes to martial-arts. We are not only going to learn what to say, but also when and how to say it so that we touch the emotions of your prospect. Not only emotions however, we’ll tie it all in to logic so that your prospect will easily justify the investment in your school.

Keep This In Mind! Since many smart martial-arts schools have joined the higher than $120 monthly tuition club. It becomes fairly obvious that with a higher price point we need to sharpen our entire sales process; from marketing, to staff sales ability, to our own sales skills. As we raise our tuition the need to get better at selling is greater than ever.

But the good news is… It’s not about becoming a “super sales master” or going through the tons of books available on the subject of sales (like I did). While it is important for your own knowledge to read, attend seminars, and listen to audios you don’t have to do all that to close over 90% of the prospects who come in your door. Really all you need to do is take everything you’re going to learn in this program and apply it in your school.

This manual will take years off your learning curve by giving you hidden and practical secrets that took me years to develop. This manual is all you’ll ever need to close that coveted 90% or more of your prospects. It will walk you through the process: from answering the phone call, to getting the appointment, and enrolling them on their first visit.

Why should you listen to me? For one, I love to sell and I do it everyday, just like you. I sell to my staff, my suppliers, my students, and most importantly, I sell knee to knee, nose to nose, every day to prospects and parents who are skeptical and nervous about buying anything because so many other sales people and companies are after their money. Besides selling martial-arts, I sell a $1000.00 per month consulting program over the phone to individuals all over the country. I’ve sold real estate to first home buyers that are “scared to death” about making a decision. I am mastering the game of selling!

Because I’ve been there before, I know what you, as a program director or owner, go through everyday. As an owner, you have the pressure of the bills, the pay roll, the rent, the mortgage etc. You can’t let that show or your prospect will pick up on it. As a program director, you get the pressure from the boss to produce, commissions to be earned, and monthly enrollment targets to hit. This manual will be an invaluable tool for both you the owner and you the program or sales director.

In my experience, I have completed well over 1,000 enrollment conferences, answered the phone thousands of times, listened to hundreds of sales tapes and read numerous sales books since I was nineteen years old. I participated in group consultations, workshops, and with participants from all over the country.

In this manual I’m going to tell it like it is, that may not always be what you want to hear, but never the less it’s what will work for you regardless of your style or martial-arts background. This is also going to work for you no matter what level your present sales ability. This is the first time ever that someone dare give away all their insider secrets to benefit the entire industry. The package you invested in is truly revolutionary and I wish you the best of luck in learning, applying, and reaping the rewards.

SECTION 1

The Only Thing You Really Need To Know About Enrolling a Prospect On Day One!

Pretty gutsy of me to give you this right away especially when I gave you a money back guarantee! However, I know you are of high integrity and will find the remaining content highly valuable! So, here it is:

The key to getting a prospect to enroll on day one is to have a highly qualified prospect in front of you. And if this prospect actually sought you out because of your “expert status” than you’re on third base before you even get up to bat! The key is to spend a high percentage of your time creating that expert image and then marketing to highly qualified prospects. Then you will have a high closing percentage.

So let’s talk about expert status real quick.It’s mainly about doing the kind of marketing that makes prospects feel as though they’re privileged to be able to deal with you. This comes from being an information marketer. The good news is you really don’t have to bust your hump to create this perception.

Make sure that any marketing material you put your name on is content rich with the desired outcomes and benefits your prospects are seeking. When you get a prospect into your marketing funnel and they’ve expressed an interest in a particular benefit or outcome, be sure to give them real information on this subject and tie it all into your school being the ultimate way that they will realize the results they’re after for themselves or their kids.

Obviously there’s a whole other course that could discuss the countless ways to do this, so feel free to contact me with any questions on becoming an “info marketer in your community”

Remember, the sales process that we are discussing is simply a middle ground between your marketing efforts and your black belt or final product and outcome for your client. So let’s now proceed to the all important phone call that comes into your school hopefully a few times per day.

“If you don’t have a system for selling, then you’re at the mercy of the prospect’s system for buying.” -Dan Kennedy

Every aspect of your school should have and be a sales process. Breakthrough number 1 is just realizing this fact. Part of the value of this program is to drive this point home. Since this manual teaches a process, it needs to be treated that way… planned, practiced, crafted because selling is too important to be left to chance. This program provides you with actual methods and scripts to follow. The main focus here is to get the first enrollment. But these strategies apply to every sale you ever make in your school be it; retention, classroom gear, or renewal.

As you read on you may be anxious for the “magic intro” but the fact is, everything leads up to the ability to perform the “magic intro.” Think of your sales process to be like a chain which is only as strong as its weakest link. This also goes for your staff. If your staff plays any role in this process, which I’m sure they do, they must also be trained properly with these concepts or it will sabotage all your efforts to create and keep this sales process and ultimately affect your bank account. The beauty of this manual is that while you’re developing your own sales skills, you DO NOT need to write a new phone script or introduction process for your staff, you merely need to turn this manual over to your staff and have them go through it with you. Remember that practice will build confidence and habit which is how you are going to mold this manual into $$$.

SECTION 2 $1,000,000.00 Telephone Skills

“When a prospect calls you they’re extremely open and just about ready to join your school as long as you don’t talk them out of it.”

In this section we’re obviously going to drill down on a specific script that you will use to answer your phone at all times. Some of you may already have one, and that’s great, therefore this section will serve as a back to basics/enhancement of your current structure.

The value of a script can’t be stressed enough and many other “experts” will certainly tell you the same thing. There are plenty of canned phone scripts available to anyone running a martial-arts school. I am, of course, an advocate of mastering a pre-planned phone script and following it to the tee every single time. But this course as promised is not just the same crap that’s already available to you.

What I will tell you is the same thing I drilled into my staff for many years which is of equal value to the planned script. And that is the importance of what I call the “human element of the phone call.”

Let’s talk about the first phase of the human element.The argument can be raised to never answer the phone live at all and have it always go to voicemail and then later be retrieved by you or your program director for follow up. Over the years I’ve tried this strategy for different hours of the day and weekends. The phone was only answered live during operational hours 1pm – 8:30pm or so. 10am -2pm on Saturdays. What I found was a happy “grey area” between being a “phone slave” (answering it all the time at all different hours, no matter what I was doing) and answering the phone live during designated hours of the day, but also being very specific about return call policy and sticking to it.

What eventually worked the best was to delegate the phone to competent staff members who could be trusted and who also had the capability to book as many qualified appointments as I could, following the same system. A monetary incentive also benefited the cause, as clients signed up after the intro lessons, a portion of the fees would go back to the staff member who set the qualified appointment. Once I had the staff members trained, the phone could be answered live from 9am-9pm during the week, Saturday and until about 5pm, and limited hours on Sunday with the about two key staff members happily wanting to take the calls and delivering the same amount of service to the caller as if they received the call sitting in the school’s office without interruption (obviously the way to do that is with call forwarding).

80% of martial-arts school’s phones will go unanswered over 50% of the time. I have experienced this first hand while I was working on a project that involved phone calls to Martial-arts schools all over the country. More than half the calls went to voice mail during “normal operating hours.” I doubled my enrollments in the first

month simply by answering the phone more. The incentive you can give your staff to answer the phone in the manner we’re going to explore will be well worth it.

So if you haven’t figured it out just yet, part of the human element is just to answer the phone or have someone competent who will. It should be on your list of priorities if most of your enrollments come via phone inquiries.

Now, let’s explore the next phase of the “human element.”It simply has to do with you taking a prospect’s call and communicating to that prospect that you’re doing more than just reading lines off of a sales script. It’s about vocal variety, pitch, tone, empathy, understanding, rapport building, and most importantly listening and customizing the script to each caller.

What’s important is you customize the script to the CALLER and not to give the same exact pitch to everyone. We gotta get this down to where the same type of caller will be given the same treatment and sequence of the script by EVERY TRAINED MEMBER OF YOUR STAFF. The caller wants to feel special and wants to feel confident that they’re speaking with an expert on the other end of the line who knows what they’re talking about and is paying attention to them and their needs.

More detailed keys for “human element.” You can’t go wrong by coming off a little curious and low key-By this I mean when you ask a caller a pre-arranged question it’s gonna sound like it’s the first time you asked that question of a caller. “So tell me…..Mrs. Jones……how long… uh.., have you and your husband be thinking about getting Billy into our martial-arts program?”

It’s totally ok to put a few “uhs” and other what are called vocalized pauses, “ums,” This certainly is the way most people talk, not too many vocalized pauses obviously because too many, (as in every other word) could be a distraction from the message and will cause your message to be un-clear.

If you must take a detour, it’s ok, the human element allows for flexibility-Let’s say you and your caller begin talking about martial-arts benefits and an important benefit to this particular caller happens to be physical fitness. If you ask a question such as “well Mr. Jones what other physical activities is Billy involved in?” and he says “baseball and soccer.” It’s a good idea to take a little detour down the path of baseball and soccer for example. “Is Billy involved in both right now?” if yes “what kind of schedule do you keep with those sports?” “Do you feel that you could fit another 90 minutes in during the week to enhance Billy’s physical fitness even further?” Mr. Jones…I would estimate that a large part of our students are also involved in sports,…many parents feel as though our martial-arts program is a great way to enhance focus, sportsmanship, and many other physical skills, do you have similar goals for Billy?”

One main focus of this phase of the “human element” is to use the caller’s name and names as many times as possible without over doing it. It’s totally ok to have a “conversation” with this person about what they are interested in. With the steps you will learn, there is no need to rush the prospect off the phone before the prospect asks about price. You will see how I’ve virtually eliminated price conversation and confrontation over the phone.

I would bet that a call that is answered live by a qualified individual the first time is more likely to make an appointment and more likely to turn into an enrollment. The danger in our business with allowing the voicemail to pick up the call is that the caller, more often than not, is already dialing another number to a different school by the time that beep rolls around! What if they were responding to an ad or finally getting around to calling after passing by several times? The goal is to capture that momentum and profit from it right away. The longer the lag time between their initial motivation and you getting back to them the less likely they are to become a student.

I’m not a fan of feeling like, I’m a “slave” to the phone, but I do believe that taking a prospect’s call is important to the enrollment process. You have to figure out what works for you.

TELEPHONE ANSWERING PROCEDUREFor most schools the majority of their enrollments have their seeds in a phone call, which of course was generated by some form of marketing. So how well you do on the phone will determine the quality and show ratio of your prospects. But no need to worry I’m going to give you a million dollar telephone procedure to follow.

Before we jump into the cold lake of answering the telephone there are a few basics that you need understand. 1) The person who asks the better questions controls the conversation. In essence, questions are the answers.2) The phone will ring 2 dozen times during the course of the day. You may get calls from telemarketers, people dialing the wrong number and many more. Keep in mind that these calls are of no value. But make sure you are always ready for the call from a prospect. Let your voice mail get it only if you’re out of breath or will not be able to pay absolute attention to your caller. Be clear on your voice mail about when you will get back with them. Don’t tell them on your message that you return a calls within’ the hour if you’re not going to back to them for three days. I once called a school in my area that said “all calls will be returned within two hours.” I still haven’t heard from the guy!!3) You will get calls from parents with concerns and questions. When dealing with these calls always be polite and courteous. Leave the client feeling happy that they called you, and end your conversation with “Is that all you needed today?” I’ll give you a quick example:

Scenario formats to follow:PD = Program DirectorC = CallerWI = Walk In

What you’ll want to look for is the little subtle approaches that make this truly unique.

PD: ABC Karate, how may I help you?C: I’m trying to find out what time the orange belt class is for my son?PD: OK, who am I speaking with?C: This is_____PD: Hi _____ how are you?C: I’m good.PD: OK his class is at __________ Will you be coming in tonight?C: Yes.PD: Great we will see you then. Is that all you needed?

4) Sometimes a customer will call with a valid concern about student motivation or something along those lines. If you can handle it, handle it, if not put someone on who can or take a message and have someone get back to them ASAP.5) Smoke Screen Call: This is when someone calls and asks an off the cuff question like, “where are you located?” You would respond by saying: what is it that you are inquiring about? And they’ll just tell you and you can go into a normal presentation.

We will explore many situations, but let’s start off with a call for an 8-year-old boy from his mom. We will also run through some basic ways to overcome objections

and set the first lesson, which is the only reason for even picking-up the phone. But if you stick to the procedure you won’t be getting any objections. Remember: when you are involved in marketing making the phone ring costs time and money! Proceed with caution!

Basic Objectives- Get an appointment, get their name, address, and phone #, get name of child, give your name, instructions and directions, build rapport so when the person hangs up with you he/she feels good and looks forward to meeting you!

SAMPLE CALL – BROKEN DOWN

Ring, Ring

Don’t give your name right away…PD: It’s a great day at ABC Karate, how may I help you? (no name, you’ll see why…)C: Yes, I’d like some information on your classes.

The Who…PD: Ok, and who do you have in mind? Yourself, or a ChildC: My son, he’s 8.

Now the name…PD: 8, that’s a good age for karate, My Name is ____ ____, may I ask, who I am speaking with? (very softly and gently)C: My name is_______ (You want to get names so you can build rapport, then make sure you use the names, don’t forget them, write them down)PD: And what is your boy’s name? C: _______

Building Credibility…PD: Many people come to us a result of a referral, did someone refer you? (we ask this to pre-frame referrals and to see if we have a highly qualified lead, but let’s pretend that they were not referred)C: No

Find the Benefits for this customer…

PD: Well how did you hear about us?C: I’ve been driving by your school and my son keeps asking me to call.PD: I See. What made you interested in martial-arts, besides your son’s enthusiasm? A lot of parents call us looking for discipline, confidence, focus, self-control, fitness, self-defense. What were you looking for? (Do this and you will bring up the answers that you are looking for, remember in most cases the prospect has no clue about the benefits of martial-arts) (Now you’re going to get one of two responses.)C: Well, He has been bugging me? (in that case you say)PD: OK, DID YOU feel as if it would be good for him in some way? (You have to say this to establish some value for the parent; I underlined “did you” because those are the words you have to emphasize) C: Well you know discipline, confidence, activity, etc. (This is the second and usual response, most parents want something.)PD: OK, that’s why a lot of parents get their kids involved to help with (benefit), and we have a few different strategies to help accomplish____ how long have you been thinking about it?C: For a couple of months.PD: OK, a couple of months, so I guess you finally got around to calling huh? Well what I will do is make arrangements for your child to do our introductory lesson. What this will do is give him a chance to get acquainted with our program, and it will give you a chance to watch too, this way you can see how it will be good for his (insert benefit).

This is where we introduce the “alternate of choice” portion of the close…

I have some time on ___ or ___ what day is better? C: ______________

Again, the “alternate of choice”…PD: I can do 6pm, or 7 (always give yourself an hour to do a lesson and an enrollment, just in case you encounter some obstacles, but as you know 47 minutes is about all it takes)C: 6 is OK.PD: Well _________, I’m going to put you in for _____. And what I am going to do is call you to confirm the lesson between 10 and 11, may I please have a day or cell number so I can confirm? (it’s very important

to call the same day, try it an you’ll see (also recommended by Tommy Lee)C: 555-1212

Get a backup number if available…PD: Is there one other number just as a backup?C: Sure that’s 555-1111

Get the address…PD: What is your exact mailing address? (you will not have a problem, getting the address, but this is where you ask, no where else, you want the address so you can hopefully send your prospect something of value that will aid in the sales process and make them want to come in (Do this if you have sufficient time before the lesson.) Plus if they don’t show you’ve got their info to mail to them forever!)C: My address is 333 East 1st St, 19100PD: Ok I got you down for ____ at ___ do you know where we are located? (give location by answering the question yourself anyway)C: Well yeah, I know that’s where you are.

Make the first lesson a HUGE event!...PD: Now since this is his first lesson this is a big deal for _(child’s name)_ it’s important that (other parent) comes too (say opposite of who you are talking to) so __ can see what he’ll be doing. What is (other parent’s) name for reference? At this point the caller will give you the name or say that they are single. (or question why ___ needs to come) If they are single no big deal, than it will usually be up to the one calling. Or maybe they’re separated, but will both be involved. In that case it’s still important to have them both there. However they may question due to schedule conflicts “he’s working at that time.” In that case you should reschedule for a time when they can both come. If the caller is fine with that and understands, then reschedule it, if not you may end up seeing just one parent. It’s no problem to enroll a student when only one parent is their as long as the other one is pre framed properly. In my experience I’d rather have both. So do what you can to get both. I have found that emphasizing the first lesson as being a big deal for all to watch usually works good and many parents have re-arranged their schedules to make it work.

C: My husband’s name is __________PD: Great ___ I’ll see you and ____at___ have your son wear some loose fitting clothes and ask for me ___ when you come in. Just one more thing, if you have a pen handy I’d like to give you some important details; (at this point you will tell them to write down the time and date of the appointment, and where you are located.)

Ending the Call… (Here’s how you get rid of having to give price to the caller, this is valuable…)Ok I look forward to meeting everyone!Also at this time , Mrs.________, I will answer any more of your questions in person, I look forward to meeting you!

SIDE NOTES:*Personal experience: I enrolled a student and the grandmom who came along for the ride ended up paying. She paid because the mom didn’t bring any money with her. But the reason why grandmom came was because on the phone call I emphasized what a big deal the first lesson is. By doing that I forced the single mom to think of someone else to bring. What I also derive from this experience is maybe I could find a subtle way to make sure someone comes in with money! I guess some people always have their credit cards and check books and some don’t.

**The FREE Lesson: I am sure many of you promote your FREE trial lesson, but I don’t like to use those words unless the cost question arises early. I have found there’s really no need to blab about your special FREE trial course, it sounds canned for the most part and it takes the caller focus away from building rapport and trust with the person answering the phone. Remember the last thing you say is that you will answer any more questions that they may have in person. This lets the caller hang up feeling confident that when they meet you you’ll give them all the info they need. We will talk about telephone objections in the next section….

*** Conversational flow: The flow of the conversation is unpredictable, but the idea is for you to maintain control by asking questions. You must sound conversational, remember “Planned but not Canned.”

**** Customers want to see what it is about: Most callers will make the appointment without further conversation, while some will raise objections. Most objections will occur as you’re going for the appointment. This is simply a time objection so it should be easy to overcome if you get it. By giving the “alternate of choice” of days and times, you’ll most likely walk away with an appointment.

Pop Quiz, before we cover a few objections. Why do we not want to get into price over the phone? Answer: For one, we can’t really sell our product over the phone; we’re not in mail order! And two, fundamentally, if you give a price without establishing value you will kill the sale. How do we as school owners and program directors establish value? With our intro lesson, that’s where most of the sale takes place. You’re not trying to hide anything, there’s just no value! But anyway let’s go over some simple objections before you go for the appointment. These should be rare if you follow the steps and voice inflections outlined.

You go for appointment and the caller says: C: Well I really was calling to get pricesPD: I see... that’s no big deal the first lesson we will do to let you check it out will be Free and it gives you a chance to see how good this will be for him. What day was good for you? _____ or _____

At this point the caller will make an appointment or ask:C: How much is it after that?I recommend telling them the monthly tuition breakdown of your most basic program and then building up the intro lesson once again, while going for the close.PD: What day is good for you ___ or ____

The second objection you will get to the appointment has to do with schedule, either their schedule or the spouse’s. In either case since they called you they should want to make an appointment.C: Well, I need to check my schedule/ spouse’s schedule to see what is good and I’ll call you back.PD: That’s no problem, however, my schedule book is right here and it usually fills up. I would like to put you in for a tentative time, and if there’s a problem, after you check ___’s schedule you can call me and

we will change the time and it really will be of no inconvenience to me. Was ___ or ___ good for your tentative time?C: Ok, let’s shoot for __________

If you’re getting more objections than just these two there’s something up early in your phone script. You’re not in control! GET CONTROL BACK!

Call to appointment ratio should be fairly high. However setting appointments doesn’t pay the bills enrollments do. Therefore a high show ratio is important, especially when you begin to apply what I will teach you about closing on day one.

NOTE: You must develop the habit of being gently persistent in setting an appointment. Sometimes it may take a couple closing attempts.“Mrs. Jones, I have my schedule book right here and I just would be happy to set some time aside just for you and your son and if there’s a problem you can feel free to call me and reschedule.”

A quick review of the sample call without the side notes:

Ring, Ring

PD: It’s a great day at ABC Karate, may I help you?C: Yes I’d like some information?PD: Great and who are you calling for?C: My sonPD: How old is your son?C: He’s 8PD: That’s a great age for karate, has he ever taken karate before?C: NoPD: My name is ___ ___ may I ask who I’m speaking with?C: _________PD: And your boy’s nameC: _________________PD: Many of our students were referred to us, did someone refer you?C: No.PD: Well how did you hear about us?C: I drove by your place.

PD: OK, What made you interested in martial arts, many parents are looking for Focus, Concentration, Self-Discipline, Self-Control, Confidence, Self-Esteem, Physical Fitness… what were you looking for?C: I want him to be more confident.PD: That’s wonderful and we have a few good strategies to build confidence focus and discipline. How long have you been thinking about it?C: Well a couple of months.PD: What I will do ___ is make arrangements for you to come in with ___ this way we can let him do a one on one lesson to help him get acquainted, during the lesson you’ll get a chance to see how this will build his confidence. It will also give us a chance to make sure he qualifies for our program. I have some time on ___ or ___ what is best for you? And then proceed to closing procedure above getting other parent or significant, verify date and time, highlight importance and get them excited to get there.

Keep in Mind: I believe that there is no one way that works every time for everybody. That’s why I gave you two versions. One is slightly different from the other, but both are effective in getting an appointment set. There are a couple more details about the phone that you should know.

Getting them to show up: Not all appointments will show up… we’ve all battled this problem for years. There does however, come a time when you begin to wonder whether it’s the people’s flakiness that gets in the way or was it you?

Arouse Their Curiosity: “I will show you how ___ will be more confident,” or “We have some great strategies for developing discipline, and during the first lesson I will give you a chance to see how that works.”

Build Rapport: Make them want to meet you. Give enough info, but not too much. Avoid price confusion by using my favorite gem, “and at that time I will answer any more of your questions in person.” Re-state the day and time of appointment and give your location. Ask them to promise to call you if they can’t make it. Ask them if they have a pencil handy to write down some important notes. Then give them the location and time of their appointment.

Basic Steps to Build Rapport:Build rapport by using the caller’s name.Sound interested, warm and friendly. And make sure it all starts when you actually answer the phone. 3 rings is the ideal number of rings a caller should hear before you answer. Think about it, answer on 1 ring and your too eager or 6 rings you don’t care. If you’ve gotta put them on hold no longer than 17 seconds.

Why Get The Address: Simply because not everyone shows, so obtaining the address will at least give you the opportunity to stay in contact with them via mail. Getting their email address is also a benefit.

Our industry has evolved enough to where many full time owners are ok with handling the phone, so many of the above was probably not new to you. My goal however was to point out some details that can improve your ratio.

Substitute for “alternate of choice” close used in previous call… The alternate of choice has been used in many selling situations so it might come off rehearsed. Below is a “suggestive close.” In many ways it seems similar, but the delivery is what makes it different, that’s why it’s important that you are suggestive in your delivery.

“Suggestive Close”: Another way to go for an appointment would be to say: “I have some time today or tomorrow. We have openings after school at 4:30? If they say no, you say ‘Well how about when you’re finished working I have time at 6:30, 7pm

SECTION 3

MORE CALLS

1. CALL FROM A CHILD

These calls occur less frequently, but sometimes can be of significant value.

PD: ABC Karate, may I help you?C: How much is Karate?

(The caller’s voice and phrases will always give them away)PD: Well who is interested?C: Me.PD: And how old are you?C: I’m 9.PD: My name is ______________ and yours is?C: _______________.PD: OK ___________ are your parents around?*******(If they are, you will introduce yourself then proceed to regular questions to try to schedule a first lesson. *If they are not around, you can ask the child in a very friendly manner for their parents name and number. You could even answer their question by telling them karate is FREE the first time)

2. RETURN CALL TO PARENT

PD: Hi may I speak with Mr. or Mrs. ______________?C: This is Mr. __________.PD: Hi Mr. ___________ . This is ________________ from ABC

Karate. The reason for my call is that your son, ___________ called earlier looking for some information and I told him I would get in touch with you. Were you aware he had called us?

C: No/Yes.PD: Were you aware of his interest in Martial Arts/ how long has been interested in Martial Arts?(Now follow the same SAMPLE CALL flow as if they were calling you, How old? Any experience? How they heard? etc.?)

3. COLD LEAD RETURN CALLThis call will vary slightly depending on where the lead came from. Now let’s look at a Birthday example. Your “promotional angle” is what will vary.

PD: Hi may I speak with Mr. or Mrs. ____________?C: This is Mr. ___________. PD: Hi my name is ______________. I’m calling from ABC Karate because I wanted to make sure that ________ had a good experience while he attended a birthday party/demo class/ summer camp class.Did she enjoy herself?C: It was nice, she had fun. PD: So everyone was happy with everything?C: Yes

Adding the “Everyone Else is Doing It”… with BenefitsPD: The other reason for my call is to let you know that many of the parents and kids that attended ____ are coming in for a special class where the children can get their first belt AND you can watch them perform. We have some parents and kids coming in later this week and next week when would be good for you?(At this point the caller will either make the appointment or object by saying this is not the right time because the child is involved with other programs. I found that one out of ten times it works if you say:PD: That’s great studies show that kid who are busy do better, because they learn to manage their time and develop better discipline. Again we’d love for you to get to see what this is all about so at least you’ll know if this is something worth considering in the future. Even if you’re not going to continue you can still come in and get his belt and take the lesson that’s really no problem. I’m sure all the other kids would love to see him there…go for close again (Then shut up!)

If they do not want to come in, THANK THEM FOR THEIR TIME AND LET THEM KNOW YOU’LL BE HAPPY TO HEAR FROM THEM IN THE FUTURE.

THE CLOSING ATTEMPT in the above example occurs WHEN YOU ASK FOR THE TIME TO BRING THE CHILD IN. When placing these calls, you must be VERY SENSITIVE to the fact that LIVE TELEMARKETING IS AN IRRITATING SITUATION FOR THE PERSON ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE. Your

call must be as little “SALESY” as possible. A great deal of your effort goes into parties, events, and community outreach programs. You CANNOT afford to have ONE PERSON get the impression that “ALL THEY WANTED WAS MY NUMBER SO THEY CAN HARASS ME.”

When making a follow up call you must remember that it most cases it is not a totally cold call. You may be following up on a Birthday party that they attended at your school. The questions are designed to establish a couple of minor yes’s in a row as in…. Did your kids have fun at the party? Did they enjoy the lesson? Did the kids talk about the party?

Follow up calls are also done on leads that have been collected from Seminars, and classes taught in the public as long as you collect the names and numbers.

4. $1,000,000 Gem!Let’s say you are hosting a “buddy day” or any other type of event which causes your students to bring friends. Two little secrets that will make the difference (Host Events and have them BRING FRIENDS) and cause you to enroll a higher percentage of these prospects. Two Musts…1) Always have a Pending Event- In the sales world the idea here is to always have something coming up… another reason for your prospects or clients to hang on and stay with you. What you need to do is promise your guest and their families an additional service that is compelling that causes them to come back to your school. Here’s just one example. What child doesn’t enjoy having their picture taken? Most do. So it’s as simple as taking an individual picture of all your guests doing something really cool (to them) in your school. The next event is… that all pictures will be ready on_____ day and they will also be able to do an actual lesson at that time.

2) The Follow-Up Phone Call- Many times when you have a boat load of prospects in your school because of an event, you’re usually left with the kids but no parents.

What many smart and top performing schools will do is have a leadership member or non-paid student coach place calls to all the parents during the event to let them know how good they are doing and how thankful and proud Master_____ is. At this point the leadership member will usually make a very subtle pitch to the parents about the upcoming event that the parents can take advantage. You must script this and rehearse it with your student for it to work to its potential.

I also tested the approach below but I am more fond of simple non threatening methods!Call to lead who took classes in the public ( Day Care Classes, or Summer Camp programs)

What has been working for me!

Hi may I speak with __________. This is __________. I am calling from ABC Karate. ________ had done a class with us over the summer (or whenever) at ________ and we like to check up on ourselves to make sure the kids had a positive experience and had fun. Did ________ mention the class? As a matter of fact he did. Good and is he pretty active and involved in sports? Oh yea he’s really busy! Well that is great because many studies show that when kids are involved in a few things they learn time management, earn sharper listening skills, etc. Now what we were doing was making arrangements for some kids to come in and try a class for free to see how martial-arts can be of benefit to him and we have some time this week or next week what ever is good for you. (Proceed to wrap up the appointment)

*NOTE- I started doing it this way because the main objection I would get when calling would be that there is no time for it. So by bringing it out right away and complimenting them on it, they are less likely to object. Again not too salesy!

5. AFTER SCHOOL KARATE CALL…For those of you who offer an “after school pick up” program at your schools this should help a little. What I found in the beginning stages of promoting a program like this was the fact that it had a little bit of a buzz affect to it. However I had to sift through the leads and qualify them or switch them to my 2 day per week program. Which, by the way, is a much more profitable and a less stressful venture, but whatever makes you happy, right?

Anyway, I eventually came to the conclusion that if a parent called and really needed our after school karate program, I could virtually wrap it up over the phone and it was just a matter of them coming in and finishing the details. So I left this in for those of you that have this program.

PD: ABC Karate, may I help you?C: I’m calling to see how much your “after school” karate program costs.PD: I see, and who is for?C: It’s for my daughter, she’s 7.PD: That’s a good age for karate, has she ever taken karate before?C: No.PD: How did you hear about us?C: I saw the van. (We have vans at each pick up location with distinct identification that they belong to us…)PD: And what school does she attend?C: _______________ on ______________.PD: What did she do last year after school? (If prior to September)

What is she doing now after school? (If school year is already in progress)C: She went to _________________ Day Care.PD: How did she like that?C: It was good but she really wants karate.

FINISH WITH NORMAL APPOINTMENT CLOSING PROCEDURES. IF THE PRESENTATION IS DONE RIGHT AND THE LEAD IS QUALIFIED, YOU CAN INFORM THEM OF THE PRICE AND TELL THEM THE STEPS FOR REGISTRATION.

**** The most important factor when dealing with this call is to determine if After School Karate is even needed. If you go on and on about after school karate and the person does not work or need transportation after school, you will have a lot of no show appointments.

Some ways to tell if they qualify for it:1) If they went to an after school activity before2) If their parents are working3) If their school is in pick up range4) If they are currently being picked up by a relative/friend

**** With some experience you will be able to sense if the caller needs after school martial-arts or not. If you sense they don’t, you should change to another program and then close on the appointment.

6. CALL FOR 3 or 4 YEAR OLD STUDENTI left this in because when it came to the pre-school market I did not do one-on-one intros. The research was overwhelming that getting right into the class was better for our situation. I guess just the fact of having their parents witness them participating was enough to close the sale. The way it was set up was a 2 week trial program where they could come once or twice per week. What we would do was simply talk to them and convert or enroll them on their second or third visit while putting the money paid for the trial program toward the membership.

Same procedure as other calls but it will change slightly when you find out the age…

PD: OK, we have a class for that age… we call it our Little ___’s program. It’s a fun class that is age appropriate. How did you hear about us?C: From the area etc.PD: What made you interested in lessons?C: I want to get him involved with something.PD: Did you ever get a chance to stop in before?C: No.PD: Well, what I’d like to do is make arrangements for you to bring your son in to let him do one of our class to see if qualifies, is that ok?C: Good.PD: We have classes for his age on Monday, Wednesday, or Saturday. Which is best for you?C: Saturday.PD: Is this Saturday good or would next Saturday be better?C: This Saturday is fine.PD: Ok I’m going to put you in for this Saturday. What we’re going to do is allow him to do a few classes within a two week time period this will get him aquanted and give you a chance to see how we teach. The 2 week program is only $39 and it comes with a T-Shirt. My name is _______________ and you are.C: ___________________.PD: And your phone number?C: 215-555-1212PD: Ok I will see you this Saturday, thanks for your call.

7. INTERNAL SALES AND FOLLOW UP CALLS:Birthday Parties, Prospecting Calls, Service Calls to Existing Students

A) B-Day CallPD: Hi this is _________ calling from ABC KARATE.C: Hi!PD: Our records show that________’s Birthday coming up in 3 months is that

right?C: Yes!PD: Are you guys going to have some type of get together this year?C: Yes!PD: Did you guys do anything last year for his or her birthday?C: Yes!_______________PD: OK Cool! How would you like to have a party where you can have the school all to yourselves and have an unlimited number of friends attend, learn karate, play games, jump around in a Moon Bounce and we’ll clean up for you and send out the invitations for you. Do you think that would be fun and enjoyable for everyone?

B) Prospecting CallThis call would be for promoting new programs and products. The presentation will vary based on what you’re promoting. The key to this sale is that you are being suggestive and informative and inviting the client in to sample the new program.

****I’ve found that voice broadcasts work best for this purpose

C) Service CallA service call is meant to add value to the program. You are calling to check in and make sure that everything is going well. Here’s how it goes: PD: Hi, may I speak with_____?C: This is _______PD: This is _____ calling from ABC Karate do you have a minute?C: Yes sure.PD: I was just giving you a call to make sure that everything was going well with the classes and that everyone was happy.C: Yeah everything is going well ( Or NOT!)PD: Do you feel as though you are on track to ______’s next goal?C: YeahPD: Is there anything you’d like to discuss about your progress or the class?C: Yes or No – (discuss everything they want being extremely polite and courteous)PD: Great thanks for your time, have a good night. I really look forward to seeing you next class.(Now you can determine if that student is ready for an upgrade program)

The Walk-In…

The other type of inquiry you will get is the type who walks in to your school. These inquiries have two very different natures. The first type is the “by chance” walk-in. This is someone who was walking by your location and decided it was a good day to stop in and see what martial-arts is all about. Being in an inner-city shopping center with a good amount of walk-by traffic, I’ve dealt with my share of time wasters and comical stories starring these peculiar folks, but in the crowd of some of these strange folks there have been some great students over the years. That’s why every walk-in is at first, treated the same.

The other type of walk-in is the “seeker” who specifically came to see you. I believe these people are somewhat old-fashioned in a good way, as they made the time to stop by instead of just call. With these people you can sometimes do an intro lesson right then and there if they qualify. (Decision-makers must be present and you’ve got to lay down some ground work) If you don’t have the time, setting an appointment and making them feel good about stopping by will go along way with them.

Handle walk in visitors so they leave feeling their needs have been met, feel as though they got plenty of solid beneficial information, and feel as though they can’t wait to come back for their first intro lesson.

People who walk in to your school looking for information are very similar to the ones who call us looking for information. In most cases they are a motivated prospect who is choosing to act and just like the phone as long as you don’t talk them out of it they will show up to their scheduled time and enroll in your school after just one intro lesson.

IN PERSON IS BETTER?In person you now have the chance to employ body language, facial expressions, hand gestures, and most importantly eye contact. As long as you stick to a planned outline and make good use of the tools we’ve just listed, your odds are even better for securing a solid appointment and getting a new student.

A few rules…1) I shouldn’t have to tell you to have a clean and orderly environment. Or that your instructors on the floor should be mindful of walk-in prospects. These are fundamental sales rules that say you must always be in control.

2) The instructor should have a ready response to being told there’s a walk-in prospect or be able to spot one themselves. They should immediately realize they are being monitored by someone. They could switch into a high energy drill that the prospect could identify with. Often overlooked, this vital detail can kill a sale for no good reason except the prospect was exposed to something prematurely that they shouldn’t have seen until becoming a student. So be sure to have the instructor switch

modes when a walk-in is present. It’s not about hiding things, but usually the prospect either has some pre-disposed idea as to what’s supposed to be happening in a school or they have no clue whatsoever. Therefore, impressing someone by showing them something better than they expected is good, and creating a perfect spectacle for the one with a blank slate is ideal and more profitable.

3) There’s no need to “jump” all over the walk in visitor. If you followed the above rule you can give your prospect a few seconds to take it all in before you approach them and begin your script. As with the phone, we don’t want to answer it on the first ring!

4) You should always be prepared for a walk in visitor. Anyone who may have the remote chance of coming in contact with a visitor should know how to handle it. I remember before I got serious about having my school operate at peak performance just telling my assistant to just get names and numbers of any prospects while I was busy. This is not the best strategy… it’s much more efficient to invest in each person’s training so you can create more leverage for yourself.

The Goal here is to find out as much as possible about the prospect and to determine what sort of benefits they are looking for. You will then schedule a time in the very near future when the family can come in and do your intro program. At times, I would actually do the intro right then and there if I was able to confirm that all decision makers were present. Sometimes this paid off if I was sitting there due to an incomplete intro schedule or maybe because of a “no-show”. The other side to this coin has to do with rules and positioning.

Here’s what I mean by rules... If you run your school hands off or have a staff member in charge of intros you would want to have a very clear procedure that is followed every time by everyone. (That’s what it means to have a business.) So regardless of any current situation, all walk-ins get scheduled for another time to come back. I think this also gives whoever is doing the presentation time to mentally prepare. So if I was to pick a rule now the rule of scheduling all intros in advance would be the rule. (It is the rule!)

Here’s what I mean by positioning… The first time a client does business with you sets the tone. If you let them just walk in on you and demand and receive your undivided attention then you are giving them too much too soon. And if you take them right away you run the risk of being in need of them and not in demand. Whether this is true or not psychological principles are at work here. Let me give you an example…

This past Mother’s day my brother and I planned to take my mother, grandmother, father, my wife and daughter out to dinner. Since we are both extremely busy with

other endeavors we never planned ahead to secure a reservation at our first or second choice of restaurants. We couldn’t get a seat at these places we frequented on all other special times of the year. We called some other places as well, but no luck! Then my wife reminded me of a new place that was in a good location that she was interested in trying. So we called and got a table. I was happy, but I’ll admit I was questioning as to why this place was able to take us? Are they not good?Turned out that the food was excellent! And the reason why they took us was because they had seating for 300 while the other places only had seating for 50-100. We where there by 4pm which also made a difference, because as we were leaving the place began to get packed!Point of the story… they were able to take me immediately which made me a little nervous and very skeptical. People who you just take “right in”, whether they are new enrollments or renewal members, get a general feeling of uneasiness and may not value you as much. So you need to create some sort of minor hoop for them to jump through even if it’s making them pick a specific time.

Now let’s handle walk in prospects.We will cover a simple script that will get you solid appointments. We will also examine opportunities to employ body language, facial expressions, and other subtleties that communicate warmth and sincerity to the prospects. Remember it’s the little things that make a huge difference.

PD: How are you doing today? (Any polite greeting except “CAN I HELP YOU”)

WI: Fine! Thank you.PD: Is this your first time in? (Curious look on your face with eye contact)WI: Yes.PD: Who do you have in mind that is interested in martial-arts? (Say this slowly)WI: It’s for my daughter, she’s 6.PD: Do you live in the area? (Curious and casual)WI: Yes right down the street?PD: Has she ever taken karate before? (Assuming she hasn’t)WI: No.PD: What are you looking for her to get out of it? Many of our parents bring their kids in for focus or discipline or confidence, fitness, fun, what were you looking for? (with a wanting to know so I can help you look on your face, very easy going tone of voice, not too fast)WI: Build her confidence, give her an activity, etc.PD: Is she involved in any activities right now?WI: No.PD: My name is __________, may I ask your name?

WI: It’s ___________________ (Repeat the name ____, Nice to meet you _____, then shake hands)PD: And your little girls name?WI: __________PD: Well how we would let_____ start is with an introductory lesson 1-on-1 to give her a chance to get acquainted and give you a chance to see what she’ll be doing, and we also show you how it would help her with (insert Benefit). All I need to do for you ____ is pencil you in for a time. I can do tomorrow or would Friday be better?WI: Friday is good.PD: OK, what time is convenient for you? I can do 5:30 or would 6:30 be better?WI: 6:30 is good…PD: Great let me put you in for Friday at 6:30pm, I’m also going to write it on some of our literature. Now of course because this is ___ first lesson it’s very important that you and dad are both here to view and be involved in the lesson. Plus she’ll want to impress both of you. So what is dad’s name for reference? (Remember they’re making sure that the other parent is present for the benefit of the child not for your benefit, so that’s how your voice, tone, and body language must be.)WI: His name is ______PD: Great I’ll look forward to having all of you on Friday and I certainly look forward to working with (Child’s Name) * And while we are here for that next visit I will answer any more questions that you may have at that time. (* Remember this is the same as when you take a phone call, make sure you get all contact numbers and mailing address.)WI: Great I’ll see you then, thanks a lot!

NOTE: With this scenario I’ve made the assumption that you don’t have any fancy videos or audio brochures to give your prospects. These things are great sales tools and often used to aid and further the process. If you do have these your school at the time of this writing is doing well and is most likely in the ranks of high performing schools. The reason why most schools at the time of this writing do not employ such tools is do to their expense.

This system is not opposed to using such tools however the human element will always be present in our business. So developing sales skills is essential. And believe me with this approach you could well equip yourself and any other staff members with the sales ability to close.

*I’ve experienced that one person can make a decision and I’ve overcome many spouse objections. It’s my opinion that it is easier to deal with both parents if that’s how they make decisions.

COMMON OBJECTIONS & ANSWERS1) Don’t know my schedule… GO FOR TENTATIVE APPOINTMENT2) Need to talk to __________ before I can make a time… GO FOR TENTATIVE APPOINTMENT.3) Need to check with __________ to see if it’s OK... THE FIRST LESSON WILL GIVE EVERYONE WHO MAY BE

INVOLVED IN MAKING A DECISION A CHANCE TO SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO BRING______________ WITH YOU.

(IT’S IMPORTANT THAT ONCE YOU DEAL WITH AN OBJECTION YOU ASK FOR THE APPOINTMENT AGAIN)

*****Most objections will NOT arise if you are:1) Friendly2) Patient3) Enthusiastic4) Confident5) Looking the prospect in the eye6) Sticking to the correct presentation

7) Being Direct HOW THE WALK-IN PROCEDURE WILL VARYThe only thing that changes is the program that they are inquiring about… But the questions remain the same:

1) Is this your first time in?2) Who is interested?3) Do you live in the area?4) How did you hear about us?5) Did____________ ever take karate before?6) Do you know anyone that comes here?

7) Set a time and require all involved be present.

THE INRO LESSON: YOUR CHANCE TO CONVERT A PROSPECT INTO A MEMBER IN JUST 47 MINUTES, GOOD LUCK!If you took all the necessary steps starting with your first contact with the prospect, you won’t have to depend on luck.

The Shift In Thinking That The Martial-Arts Millionaire Has Already Made……

You do intros within the four walls of your place of business correct? The shift in thinking is that when a family comes into your school to take an intro course they are, 92% of the time, extremely qualified and extremely interested. (I leave 8% to those few people that really have nothing else to do.) So the shift is to first understand these concepts then to simply assume the sale. This is not a “cold call” you did not knock on their door, grab their kid and begin teaching him an intro lesson they came to you. So here’s the challenge... You’ve definitely heard of Kirby vacuum cleaners right? They don’t have the best rep but the facts are they still knock on doors cold, and sometimes just an hour or two later walk out having made a $3000 sale to a women who, just minutes before they came in, was cutting a coupon to get $1 off a box of Cheerios.

So you can certainly enroll upwards of 90% off the people who come to you for an intro. By getting more people to show using our proven phone and walk in techniques your numbers will go through the roof.

Share this thinking with all the top earners in your field and selling your program will be so easy you’ll wonder if it’s legal!

This is it! This is when your sales presentation goes into full gear and you are very close to getting another happy family into your school. The phone call that the prospect placed to you and all the steps that you lead them through in sequential order all lead up to this point. The planning, the requiring of both parents to be present or the request of another decision maker has got you closer to the point where most objections are satisfied and no more will arise.

Now all you have to do is keep control and deliver a solid presentation. And here it is…

Now For The Magic Intro!

The family arrives a few minutes early for the pre-scheduled meeting, now we pick it up right here…

Every intro should be made to feel welcome the moment they set foot in your door. (They are very briefly a “walk in” until they announce that they are scheduled for an introductory lesson.)

If they previously phoned in, you should take them through an abbreviated walk-in process. (Basically introducing yourself)**Initial Tips** 1) Be happy!! Just think… this person has taken their time to visit you. Make it worth their while, plus, emotions are contagious; if your happy then they’ll be happy. Just don’t be overly anxious remember the positioning affect2) Try to avoid having them wait around, unless they show up early. If they show up early and you take them right away give them a good excuse why you’re able to see them immediately (not just because you weren’t busy… remember our positioning). I don’t believe they should have to wait around like being in a Doctor’s office, forever! You should come off as an organized and punctual individual. I’d like every appointment to show up on time and I stress that on the phone. If they are on time and you’re not, naturally they’ll have to wait, but be sure you’re apologetic and humorous about the delay.3) Introduce yourself very casually and non-abrasively to every person who is with them: mother, father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, step child, neighbor, well, you get the idea.**The most sensitive greeting is with the potential student, be careful!4) Be prepared. Have all your necessary forms and tools in reach. I like to have my guest questionnaire right out there on the table and I remember to put it there prior to them arriving.

The next step is to invite the prospect into your intro space for a, sort of, sit down interview. Ask more qualifying and benefit oriented questions. But First, I need to give you another $1,000,000 gem.

When you bring your prospect in to your private space (and by the way if you don’t have private space for intros you should have one built like, now!) everyone will sit

exactly where you want them to sit. This is your second test of your prospects’ willingness to follow directions. You will say for example, “Mrs. Jones you sit here, Mr. Jones you sit here, and Billy you sit here.” You will say it matter-of-factly and very friendly. But seating them where you want them is extremely important.

You should have a table so the prospect can fill out your membership application (which I have included for you later in this manual, which is a series of “yes” questions). The right thing to do is to put the more in charge parent next to the table, no offense guys, but the mom is usually the one who will fill out your application and then eventually your membership agreement. So now that your prospects are seated, you will tell them to make themselves comfy, remove all jackets and while that is being done, you will be standing up and put the next gem into play…

You will kindly and very casually explain your “membership application, and questionnaire.” You will inform them that it’s simply some basic questions about your program. You will tell them to go through it together. and now for the important gem…You will excuse yourself and let them relax, fill-out the questionnaire, and allow them to digest everything so far. This is a way to give them the space that their subconscious mind requires for them to make a decision. Many school owners and program directors miss this vital key point and wonder why the prospects “keep their guard up.”

You will give them about 6 minutes to fill out the questionnaire. Upon your return, you will then sit (for the first time) in your “assigned” seat. At this point you will begin your very friendly interview process that will uncover all the reasons why your prospect is interested in your program.

We’re gonna go through the questions that you need to ask and keep in mind that what we’ll be doing is using the example of a set of parents that will be enrolling their child.

A MUST: Enroll the whole family…You need to be enrolling families into your school! If you already have a solid system for enrolling families, great! But what research shows is that it is best to just enroll the individual that the prospect has inquired about first before you offer your family services. Remember the old sales rule, “if you confuse ‘em you loose ‘em.” One step at a time… and a process is necessary for family add-ons. (Covered in the bonus of this course)

AGAIN, RAPPORT BUILDING: The main objective of rapport building is to send a subconscious message to your prospect that you are just like him. This goes for kids and parents alike. Building rapport involves much more than complimenting or being able to converse with the prospect and child. Rapport shows understanding and interest. It shows a true concern. The biggest secret is to be genuinely interested in helping the other person. You must first make a friend before you make a sale!

The prospect must trust you before they do business with you. When you begin to ask questions in a relaxed, curious and interested manner you truly show the prospects that you care. Remember the prospect is coming to you with a need, a desire for gain, or a problem that needs fixing if you can deliver you will gain a student.

Also keep in mind that rapport building is not about “fluff talk”, not about the weather, nor their job. Establishing rapport in our business is easy because all you need to do is take an interest in the prospective student. So if you’re working with the parents of a prospective child enrollment you and the parents have the child’s best interest in common and that is enough for good rapport.

We will build rapport interview style with these simple questions:

So what made you guys interested in martial-arts for Billy?How long have you been thinking about this for him?

What made you interested at that time?Is that still what makes you interested now?What held you back from getting involved back then?And I am guessing that is OK Now.

What were you looking for _________, specifically to gain as a result of martial-arts?

(You can go further in detail by asking)- “How do you mean that exactly?”You can say- What would an improvement in ____ do for you and _______?

How is ___________ doing in school?What other activities is or has__________ been involved in?What sort of weekly schedule does the family keep? e.g. Balancing school work and other activities.

What would be some ideal times for you to bring ____ to his lessons? You want to know what they have in mind before you give them your schedule. Then at least you can prepare to sell them on making the program fit, or you can simply not mention the other available times.

It’s also a good idea to get the child involved with some questions, here are some simple ones...

“So _______, what kinds of things do you like to do? Do you have favorite sport? Do you like to read, draw or do you like doin’ a whole bunch of stuff?” (Speak in kids language)

Maybe the child will respond general or specifically it doesn’t really matter too much all you’re trying to do is get an idea of what makes him tick, so you can make him feel comfortable and also hit his hot buttons during the lesson.

If only one spouse is present make sure that the other is OK with it by asking a few questions... “I noticed that ____ is not here, is he on his way?” “Ok, so he won’t be making it then for today’s lesson? Is he OK with not seeing for himself before we get (child) started? “I bring this up because martial-arts will be great for (child’s name) and it is a big commitment to build a child’s (benefit) and I understand that, so that’s why we talked about having both of you here, Are you are OK to get started without ___ being here.

NOTE: I will try to beat the possible spouse objection very quickly and early on. If I don’t it will come back to haunt me. The other way you can beat it, if you need to, is before you “discuss” the program.

In many cases I was ready to pull out the presentation book with a mom who showed without the dad and said to her “maybe we should wait, are you sure you can go ahead and get started without him?” When she agrees she’s telling me that she wants to get going and is the decision maker. Keep in mind the loan spouse has to even qualify themselves for that pitch well in advanced. There will be occasions when you won’t enroll the prospect right away because you’ll realize that the parent you’re talking with is not capable of making a decision. (There are countless ways to spot one by the way)

I’m glad we got that out of the way now because it helps us move forward with our smooth presentation.

Sometimes if you pay attention, the person will hint at certain objections, so it is important that you listen attentively. An objection that you may get 1 in 25 times is the “shop around” but you can deal with it. Of course dealing with objections is better sooner than later. After you sense this you could easily ask the prospect if they’ve scheduled any other appointments with other schools. (It’s always a good idea to be last) You want to find out early on what is most important to them in selecting a school. For our sake since we are not the cheapest I would like the prospect to talk about quality and service issues over price. Then I could, if I have to, tell them we’re not the cheapest. But I could also tweak my intro to really hit those benefits hard so they are assured to get what they are searching for.

The sit down interview will only take about 10 minutes, so now you would have gotten’ a handle on your prospects wants, needs and problems. You must keep in mind that the direction of the conversation could go a few ways.

For example…Some parents have “pains” that they want cured… maybe focus, or defeating the bully. When you hear the signs of these pains I want you to remember this formula for sales success.

1) Un-cover Wound (pain)2) Talk about wound and where it stems from3) Pour a little “salt” on the wound (by talking a little bit about what happens when the problem is not solved and how it could be worse.)4) Begin to heal the wound (talk about the “strategies” the will cure this problem)5) Make your intro cure it or demonstrate very bluntly how your program will cure this wound in no time at all. You’ll learn how easy this is.

*The Keys to the sit down interviewBe relaxed and conversational. Keep in mind that some questions are situation questions and some are value questions, value as in what the prospect expects to get from martial-arts.Value Questions to ask:What are you looking for ________ to get from our program?How would that be an improvement? Or How would that help him?Can you tell me a little about ____? What does __ like to do?How does ___ get along with other kids?What made you come in now?Did ___ express any interest in this before? How long ago?Were you waiting to see if he was serious or did you just kinda put off for a while?I guess it’s real important that he has fun while doing this so he will look forward to it right?

Situation questions to ask:How is ____ doing in school?How long have you been thinking about letting him do this?What kind of weekly schedule does the family keep between work, school and other programs?So a class at ___ and a class at_____ would fit in?Does __ have any problem with kids picking on him?

Yes Questions, Pre-Lesson

Yes Questions are designed to get a “yes response.” The reason for doing this is that every Yes response puts the prospect in a positive frame of mind and brings you closer to turning the prospect into a student. Pre-Lesson:Do you place a high value on your child learning as much as they could?Are you looking for a program that is both mental and physical?Do you believe that regular exercise is important for your child?Do you want _______ to enjoy what they’re doing?And a couple of days per week would fit in fine? (This is of course after you ask about their schedule)(The bonus guest sheet will also be of immense value and contribution to the “yes momentum”)

**The above questions are designed to fish-out any possible objections, so listen carefully.

$$$Keep yes questions in mind when you’re setting appointments, answering the phone, handling walk-ins, or teaching a class.

After the interview and before you begin the “magic intro”You’ll want to instruct the child to take off their shoes. At this point you’ll walk out of the room for exactly 1 minute and then come back. When you get back you won’t sit down, but you’ll say to the family…

**Suggestive Close- “Alright Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I’m gonna get started with Billy and we’ll see how he does. If all goes well we’ll then talk about how he can get going, ok?” (It’s very important that you do this as you are walking over to start the lesson.)

THE ACTUAL LESSON

Now I will give you a basic formula for a “new comer” But more importantly you’ll now discover the little subtle techniques that will make your winning sales presentation. You are responsible for enthusiasm, excitement, holding their attention, and proper presentation of the material. In other words, “this is where the rubber meets the road.”

Keep in mind that I’m gonna leave in the basic “martial-art techniques” that I used in my intro. All you need to do is simply insert your style in place of mine. You need to realize that the “martial-arts element” can change it’s the sequence and how you present and tie in the benefits that must never change. The benefits and the presentation is what make the sale, not the martial-art moves. (If I offend you by saying this, you deserve it!)

Here we Go!Picture the child standing in front of you. He’s probably just standing there a bit nervous, maybe looking down or in different directions.

Step one and a major part of your presentation to the parents is to get his attention and get him to focus in on you. How you’ll get him to pay attention is to tell him these exact words.

“Before we start our lesson we’re going to set some goals. Now our school is all about goals; we have short term goals, daily goals, and goals that seem to be real far away. For example getting your black belt is a far away goal, for example you’re ____ years old right? (yes) so you would be ___ when you get your black belt. That’s a far away goal. A short goal would be to get your white belt that’s gonna happen in 3 more lessons. Which then brings us to our daily goals and that’s what we’re gonna focus on now. Here’s our daily goals; 1) we’re gonna have fun! 2) we’re gonna learn some things about martial-arts. And 3) We’re gonna get you ready for a group lesson because when you come in next time you’re gonna be with a group of beginner kids who all are just staring like you’re doing. So can we agree on those goals?” (yeah!)

“Yeah” is what you’ll most likely hear back from the child, now you’ve just went beautifully into your next life skill. So far you’ve taught the child about the priceless skill of setting goals before you’ve done a single technique at this point you’ve got the parents attention for your next life skill- Respect. Now back to the script…

“Billy I’m glad we can agree on our goals for today, now I want to share with a special way that we speak to each other in martial-arts school… We’re gonna answer questions in a very special way, and how we do that is by saying yes sir and no sir, if it was a girl teaching we’d say yes ma’am and no ma’am. And this is just one of the ways we develop respect for ourselves and others and you could do this other places not just karate school. So can we agree on our goals for today? (Yes Sir!)

Now you’ll move very quickly to your next high valuable life lesson, something you’ve heard of before, “the 4 rules of focus”

“Ok now that we’ve got our goals lined up we could move forward with our training, now one very important part of training is something we call focus. Let me hear you say focus... (focus) Now focus means that you’re able to apply yourself to your goals, but there’s 4 secrets to focus that only martial-arts students no about and here they are. The first one is to focus your eyes... and that means that when ever you’re learning something the first thing you need to do is look at what your doing, for example who are you learning form today? (you) right, so who do you look at? (you) And now most importantly when you’re looking at someone what part of their body do you want to look? Some students will know, some won’tRight! The eyes, are where we need to look at people when we’re talking to them, and do you know why we have to look at people in the eyes? (Because it shows we’re listening?)Well yeah it shows that and it also shows two other very important things... Respect and Confidence! Respect means you treat others well and make them feel good and confidence means that you feel good about and believe in yourself and that’s real important.” You just wowed the parents and you’ve only been going for 5 minutes!

“The next rule of focus is to focus your ears and that’s pretty simple it means we listen in real good and really pay attention to what someone is saying. That makes sense right?” (Yes Sir!)

After that, Focus rule number 3 is our mind, we focus our mind by thinking of only one thing at a time and usually we can get more accomplished this way. So when you’re doing your homework you wouldn’t have the television on would you?” (No Sir!)

“And the last rule of focus is our body... Now we’ve got a real special way of standing in martial-arts and it’s all about having self-control and discipline. And we

call it out Attention stance, (Now you will adjust the child to attention stance and then sort of display him in his well discipline, self-controled posture to his parents. This is priceless!

Next you will have the child repeat the 4 rules of focus and remind him that you’ll be talking about them and using them throughout the lesson.

You just introduced several key benefits in about 7 minutes. You showed your prospect a result right away by having their child say yes sir and focus on you. Now you have their attention the rest of the lesson is to get the child excited and motivated to continue, and showcase more of your benefits.

Then you get into your physical techniquesLike I said I was going to share the ones I used, but as a stating point, take some simple techniques for your first belt level. (I’m also sure you’ve already got this figured out)

1) The first physical technique I taught was a simple outside block using a cut in half pool noodle. I used the noodle because it was non-threatening and easy for a child to identify with. I had the child use both arms for their block and made sure they got the gist of the move, but also had fun. With this and any other technique like this you’ll want to be as animated as possible. The student should be made to smile and feel like they know what they’re doing.2) The simple reverse punch was next on my list the emphasis here was on focusing in the middle of the x-ray target I used. The x-ray is valuable because as many of you know it make a lot of noise and is easy for a beginner. You could doctor it up a little by taping the edges with colored tape. What you need to know about teaching a prospect to punch is the benefit to punching. The average prospect will associate punching in a negative way. Therefore it’s important you put a positive spin on the technique and here’s how. I will tell the student that they are going to learn how to punch. I will ask them “Now why do learn to punch in martial-arts?” they will respond with something like “defend ourselves” to that I say “maybe and their some other ways to defend ourselves. But the main reason we’ll learn to punch is to develop our focus even sharper.” And then you explain zeroing in on a target using eyes, body and mind with complete focus. This now takes a potential technique which really has no benefit and spins it into one that does. As you could imagine the parents are now more thrilled.

After the punch I will take a break and recap a little and then talk more about the focusing of the eyes as it relates to other areas of life, school, home etc. I will tie that into the fact that martial-arts could be used immediately by the child to do better in all aspects of life and then give some example. You’ll hear them on the audio portion of this package. This would be the time I will also touch very briefly the subject of self-defense and bullies. If they were coming to me with the pain of being bullied I’d really hit hard on this.

3) Next I will get into some pretty simple kicking. Before we get into it remember, same rules apply. Relate it to a benefit. Here’s how… Let’s say I’m teaching a simple front kick. I will of course emphasize the focus and concentration required to aim and maintain balance. But a little something I picked up from Master Jeff Smith was this... I will very tactfully, after the child has done a couple of kicks ask him “how high do you think you can kick?” What I will then do is use my hand to ask him to give me an idea. I simply take my hand and hold up at a few different heights. (This is real important to do, so the child doesn’t jump the gun and begin kicking without you.) I will be very modest and not go over the kid’s chin. Out of all the heights, the child will usually pick the middle level. Then I will let him kick that level. The next part relates benefits and really gets the parents excited… I then go above a few notches and the child then realizes he can kick higher than he thought. This now leads into a very important brief lesson on self-confidence and not under-estimating yourself. As you could imagine the parents are proud of their son and are totally relating that my program will bring out the best in him.4) The final physical part of this sales presentation is designed to heighten three elements… Emotions, excitement, and benefits. Let me explain how you could do that very easily.What we’re going to do is tie everything in together, physical fun, and mental benefits. We’re gonna bring all the elements in to both sides to get the parents on the edge of their seats and get the student excited. You simply do a fun combination of all your physical movements… I would do the block punch and kick together. Then finish with a boxing technique, ducking under the noodle. If the child was physically capable of doing it well I would also throw in a “jump over the noodle” Remember you must adapt to fit your comfort zone and style.

**The thing to drive home about and intro is that it is not designed to teach it’s designed to sell!

Here’s a recap of the physical movements. Think about how dry they really are and how much value I added with the words I used.

Warm-up1) Teach and explain stance, hands, feet, etc.2) Basic block in air, then on noodle.3) Punch on target paper. Explain straight and whole body into it.4) Snap kick on target paper.5) Combination: block, punch and kick on targets. Do a few, then teach yelling.6) Sometimes out-to-in kick.7) Switch feet with a yell.8) Duck & Jump one at a time, then both together.

When you are done physically, here’s how you seal the deal!

First With The Child

Now we get some “yes sir!” momentum with the child

Have the child sit in a disciplined manner, then ask the child if they have any questions. When they answer, No, you then use this as an opportunity to teach them to answer “No Sir” and Yes Sir” after this you can begin with your “Yes” Questions 1) Did you like what we did today? Did you have fun? “Yes Sir” Good than we reached one of our goals!2)Now ______, next time we have a class for you _____ or ____ you’ll be with a group of kids that are beginners just like you, are you ok with that? “Yes Sir”3) So you’ll be meeting some new friends is that cool? “Yes Sir”4) Karate is fun but it is not easy, it’s challenging and just like anything else you’ve got to give it time… do you think you’re up to the challenge? “Yes Sir”5) Karate is also a commitment, that means that we’re gonna stay with it.. Mom and Dad are gonna be committed by bringing you to class, maybe they’ll even get out there with you, who knows. Anyway an example of being committed would be earning your black belt because that takes some time, like we said you’ll be about 12 when you get it. But here’s how you can be committed each week… Do you like to watch TV? Or play video games? “Yes Sir” Well when it’s time for karate class do you think that you should stop what you’re doing and get ready for class? “Yes Sir”6) So you can handle that? “Yes Sir”7) Do you think if you practice something you’ll get good at it? “Yes Sir” You’re allowed to practice, maybe with mom or dad. Now, one important rule for karate is that we would never play fight or practice on anyone else like in school or at home. Do you understand that rule? “Yes Sir”8) Well great now that we’ve got everything clear we can pencil you in for your first group lesson that’d be cool right? “Yes Sir”

Once you finish the dialog with the child you will then bow him out.

The next step is literally worth thousands upon thousands.

You instruct the child to have a seat and then you get out of there! You don’t sit down or chat about anything. You simply say “alright he did really well, give me second I’m gonna check on a few things and I’ll be right back.”

Here’s the fundamental reason why you leave…

A conversation will take place in your absence that will never take place in your presence.

The other main reason for excusing yourself is…

The prospects need time to sub-consciously absorb everything that you’ve presented to them so far. In essence this is their time to “think about it.”

Now you can wrap things up and get a new student.

Next you will re-enter your intro space and sit down in posture that says... ”If you guys are ready I’m ready to get you going.” Most of the times I’d like to go in and give the prospect a chance to speak first, I don’t want to come off that I really know what the heck I’m doing here. Maybe you can compare me to the TV detective Colombo. I like to be very relaxed. After giving the parents a chance to speak it doesn’t matter whether they speak first or don’t because my next few questions, which are all “Yes questions” are all the same anyway.

Post Lesson- (To Parents)

How did you feel he did, do you think he did OK?Do you think I did a good job working with him?Do you feel as though a program like ours would aid in ________’s personal developmentCould you see how this could help him with (benefits)?Does it seem like something he’d enjoy?Do you all feel comfortable with what I was teaching him?He’s gonna start in a beginner class, with kids and families that are all beginners just like he is. Is that ok?The next group class for _________ will be _________ at 6pm or ________ at 6pm which day would you prefer?Good I’ll put you in for that day, is it cool if I see what uniform would fit him?

Next, I will go get the child a uniform and have him try it on. I will actually begin presenting my 12 month program while I’m letting the child try on the uniform.It’s very subtle and non-threatening…

As you’re helping put on the uniform here’s what you say…

Now as I was saying he’s gonna be going in to the beginner class with families and children that are his same level. He’ll be in that class for about 3 months it’s our orientation level, so he’s gonna get all his basics down real well, and in your manual you’ll see what he’ll be learning, anyway. The next level after that is level one with ___ and ____ belts. After that level 2 will be ___, ___ and ___ belts. (as you refer to your curriculum poster) now Mrs. Jones that’ll take him about 12 months. To get to level 3 and after that he’ll make it to advanced level where he’ll be approaching his black belt by the time he’s ____, is that ok with you? Yes

Now of course like we were saying that’s a nice commitment and is gonna take some effort on everyone’s part, we’re not quite yet gonna commit to Black Belt because we need to qualify _____ for more advanced training to Black Belt, does that make sense? Yes

So what we’re gonna do is let you all start on our beginner program which will allow him to train 2 days per week as we discussed, so we can then begin to qualify him for more advanced training is that cool? Yes.

Now the way our beginner program works is simple, it’s a 12 month course designed to get him used to our training, is that ok with you? Yes.

I ask this is because every now and then a small percentage of parents get hung up on that commitment, so I’m glad you guys see the value. And what we need from you, as parents, is some participation…Stay involved, heck some parents actually do the training with their kids, so if you’re into that that’s cool we’ll talk about that next time... But can you guys be involved and really show him a ton of support, because he’s always gonna need you. Every now and then you’re gonna have to re-motivate him and that’s common are you guys cool with that? Of course.

You know how kids are, there maybe some times when he doesn’t feel like coming to class, so recognize that’s perfectly healthy. But as long as we communicate properly and have his best interest in mind we can always get him through any ups and downs, does that make sense? Yes

I want to bring out that topic, because it’s probably one of the biggest problems any school faces, people don’t want to feel stuck or mislead. And believe me the moment you say 12 month program every single prospect is thinking “oh no, commitment.”

So by doing it the way I just laid out you answer their problem in your presentation and destroy it.

Here’s what happens next…

Good so we’re all on the same page, let me just real quickly go over the beginner program…

Now keep in mind that this is just designed to get him going. We will be watching him over the next couple of weeks to see how he’s doing. We’ll be looking for good attitude, motivation, and enthusiasm, when he shows all those things he’ll qualify for black belt training. So the goal of the beginner course is to get him ready and get everyone to make a further commitment to his achieving black belt is that cool? Yes

And when he’s ready for that we’ll all know, but just keep in mind there’ll be some more benefits and more stuff involved for him once he make that commitment, so the tuition is structured accordingly. But let me go over the beginner, basic program…

Then you simply present you tuition options. I’m not gonna go word for word with that right here because everyone’s tuition is different. But keep in mind a few basics...

Don’t confuse your prospects! If you confuse ‘em you loose ‘em! Present a simple monthly option with the first “initial investment” (not down payment) taking care of the monthly tuition and the beginner enrollment fee. Let them know that they’ll give you the initial investment now and starting in 30 days the next tuition will come up.

After they agree you’ll take their payment. If it’s a check or cash you’ll get it out of site A.S.A.P. If it’s a card you’ll have them sign the slip and get that out if site A.S.A.P

Now you’ll fill out their “contract” all you say this to set this up is..

Ok, Now I’m just gonna take a few minutes to fill out your “paper work”

Have the contract in reach at all times but out of site. Begin to fill it out by simply copying off the guest sheet they filled out in the beginning. At this time you can now have your “small talk” about jobs, houses, sports, whatever. By doing so you’ll ease their mind. Think about it... First, you’ll be distracting them from watching your every move, but they’ll figure that this paperwork is no big deal if you can carry on a conversation while doing it. Make sure you know your form cold and also be sure to know all your numbers. If you look confused about your own paper work you’ll kill the sale. Some school owners always ask me about how to present the E.F.T., which is definitely the way you want your tuition set up. So here you go.

As you get to the “financial part” of your contract first confirm a “tuition date” for them (not billing date). Do this by saying… (using the alternate of choice)

Now since today’s the 9th, we could have your tuition go through each month on the 10 or we could do the 15th which is better for you?

They pick then you say…

And the way we do the tuition since we’re pretty busy, and have a good amount of students and would rather focus on teaching we simply let our “outside service” collect the tuition for us. And they really make everyone’s life a lot easier. And what they’ll do is simply charge it to the card you’ve given me on that day each month.

It’s that simple. If they give you a check, just replace the words. If they gave you cash just tell then the same thing, just give them a choice between credit card and check.

Now all you need is their signature to officially wrap things up. But wait you need a strategy here too!

We always want our day one enrollments to feel absolutely comfortable about what they’re doing. So once we finish filling out the form we simply go over it with them.

There’s no need to point out everything. We just re-emphasize that this is a beginner 12 month program designed to get them to the next level. We’ll point what the numbers mean to them. “hey this is your tuition, here’s what you gave today, and as you can see I’ve got you down for the 15 th of each month. (Now you sign your name and say) Just go ahead an ‘authorize/ok/put your name’ where I made the check mark.”

It’s really that simple!!

Ah! but some of you are worried about them looking over the whole contract and getting scared about signing it. No worries; here’s what you do...

If you do get one of these types, who by the way are just trying to look like they are more sophisticated than they are. As they are reading every detail you just keep on very innocently with your small talk. (If you read “The Closer’s” you’ll recognize this) What this does is sort of puts them on overload without them realizing it. They’ll get frustrated, but not at you, and simply sign their name.

A few other strategies for the paperwork.

While you’re filling it out you can also give them some stuff to look at… maybe their new attendance card or the full schedule. You can certainly allow the student to go watch a class (that won’t scare him away), but keep him from distracting the parents. I don’t like to get rid of the child to quickly because every now and then the parents who are scared to make a decision will keep getting re-assurance from the child.

After the paperwork is complete, it’s a good idea to invest a few more minutes with the prospect. Not over selling but simply giving them the comfort of not being rushed out. Once everyone is comfortable get up and open the door for them, walk them out and tell them that you’ll see them at their next lesson.

Once they’re out the door, get into the habit of sending them a personal hand written thank you note. Drop that sucker in the mail as soon as you leave the school for the evening. When this note arrives your new student will just get further confirmation that you are for real. One more step to take is to pencil them in for their first lesson in your book and call them to confirm just like you confirmed their intro appointment.

A couple more things about the enrollment before we wrap up…

Sometimes both parents will not make it to the intro. And this basically goes 2 ways. 1) You un-cover early on that this person is capable of going forward without the other. This is pretty easy to spot. So in this case you just go right ahead as planned.2) You realize that this person is not capable of going forward with the other parent. This is also easy to spot, they’re not so sure of themselves, they give you clues that they are not “the boss.” In this case you simply re-position as to inform them that you will explain everything next time.

Sometime they really don’t have their credit card or check book, but they do have some cash just not enough for them to give you the entire initial investment. So you get a deposit. $50 or $100, whatever. Just remember if I give you an alternate of choice asking you to “choose your deposit” $50 or $100, I’d better be happy with the $50. Over the years I’ve also put off the contract with a small deposit. With a larger deposit (more than half) I’ll go ahead and do it.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE JUST COMPLETED THE FIRST PART OF YOUR SALES AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP.

**FIRST STEP, ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Yes I’m serious.The enrollment fits perfectly in the middle of good marketing and a fine tuned renewal and upgrade process. It is in essence the middle step of your over all school success. It’s definitely an important step that’s why I’m glad I had the opportunity to share my knowledge with you. What you’ll find in the next sections are some pretty straight forward and basic concepts that any sales person should be aware of.

TRADITIONAL STEPS IN THE SELLING PROCESSAND HOW THEY APPLY TO

“The Martial-Art of Selling”

Below you’ll find the “basic” steps of every selling process. With each step I’ve done my best to give you examples to learn from. Some steps are only dealt with in few sentences while others take up a couple pages. As you read you’ll notice that overcoming objections is a step in the process of “traditional” selling. I’ve simply left it in the sequence where I originally learned. If I re-wrote the sales rule book today, I would bring the process to just 4 steps. These to be outlined more in “The Martial-Art of Selling, Volume 2.”

My 4 Steps

1) Find qualified interested prospects, who want to do business with you.2) Make a solid presentation that answers all objections, and arouses buying emotions.3) Close the sale.4) Follow up, service, and wow the client so they will give you more money, forever and ever!

I advise you to build on the above premises, but you’ll certainly gain much knowledge from learning about the traditional process. Think of it as a bonus!

Here it is… Sales 101

1) Prospecting- The process of generating leads through manual labor without putting up a whole lot of cash. We also call this “grass roots marketing.” Referrals- Other people are doing your prospecting for you. You can also ask for referrals. When it comes to referrals in general you need to remember 2 things: Give compelling reasons for your current students to refer their friends to your school and reward them publicly.Joint Ventures- Classroom speeches and teaching at schools for a gym class or an after school or summer camp program. Many of your current students are already in a position to get you a foot in the door. Use their influence, but first find out which students have it. Be aware and keep your eyes open for ways to get leads. Keep track and follow up on the names, addresses and phone numbers that you get. Always position your request for information as a simple permission slip.

*When searching for leads remember that at the very least getting the name, address and phone number is acceptable.

** Sales success is determined by your ability to initiate new contacts. The Key word being Initiate... While the other steps in the cycle are important, prospecting is the most important.

A successful school does three things very well; marketing, selling, and teaching. In that order you can not have it any other way. If you do not market you have no sales, if you do not sell, you have no teaching. Prospecting is a marketing function. If you are an owner you’re responsible for both marketing and prospecting. There are two kinds of each, Paid and unpaid. Paid prospecting or marketing involves spending money to get leads. Examples of this are newspaper, direct mail, radio, internet, and television. Unpaid requires time and labor. Examples of these would be; school talks, demos, classes taught at other facilities, and birthday parties. Most of these unpaid, labor intensive prospecting activities will involve you walking away with a stack of names, addresses and phone numbers. The work is not done until you contact all of the people whose info you acquired.

It is absolutely essential that you discipline yourself to make time to follow up. No B.S. excuses! If you do not follow up all of your effort will have been futile. Keep in mild one more thing; if you did a great job it will be easier to call and get an appointment. When setting up an

unpaid prospecting event always try to work in getting some form of permission slip signed. As stated earlier, at the very least you want a name to follow up on.

Other examples- Go through the appointment book, call old students and try to get ‘em back, ask for referrals. Making good use of your time will virtually guarantee you a steady stream of prospects. Prospecting requires constant attention and discipline. When you do it properly and often enough you can actually track your results to the activities you engaged in prior to the sale. Then you can say with pride: “I made that happen.” Prospecting can be summed up as making things happen!

2) Making the initial contact- This is when you encounter a prospect for the first time on the phone, walking in your front door or at some social event. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This also applies to your first face-to-face meeting which is, in most cases your intro.

3) Qualifying the prospect and the decision maker- Don’t waste time. Probe with questions to avoid the “I have to talk to __________ before I join.” You’ll do your qualifying before you get the intro, so you’ll stress that both parents or anyone involved will be required to be present. Money or lack of it is also a qualifier. You want to talk to people that are in a position to afford your program.

4) Finding out the needs of your prospect and matching them with the benefits you offer- Questions such as, “what makes you interested and what are you looking for_________ to get out of this?” Uncovering motivations and desires will give you the ammunition to hit the emotional hot buttons of your prospects.

5) Making your presentation- Presenting without doing even 1 of the previous steps is worthless. For your first sale your presentation is your intro, remember it’s designed to sell, not just teach. After the first sale you are really presenting with each lesson to give your students compelling reasons to want to join your renewal program.

Overcoming Objections is technically considered a “step” in the Selling Process, so I’ve left in some facts about objections. Not that you’ll ever need it. Pay special attention to the part about “price objection”

Remember our goal is to make such a great presentation that objections never come up. I trust that if you stick to this template that will be the case.But here’s some ammunition in case you need it. Also keep in mind that because I used to have to overcome all these objections, I began to tweak and perfect my selling process. So in a way, getting all these nagging objections and becoming frustrated was an intricate part of the development if this program.

6) Over coming objections- With the right words and techniques you could increase your closing percentage and your enrollments. Now let’s look at some common objections in the martial-arts. We will deal with objections to the initial enrollment, which has been the focus of this manual.

A) “I need to talk to my wife/ husband”- This could be dealt with early on by requiring all to be present. You could build up the prospect’s image by thanking them ahead of time for being able to make a decision. This also is an indication that the 1 parent is not yet confident enough to make the decision. Do what is possible and make sure trust and confidence has been established. These prospects are simply fearful of getting criticism from the other spouse.

A simple approach – Now I realize that ________ is not here, is _____ OK with this for (student)? (If yes, remember that so you can use it later. If the answer is not yes, you will need to address it then and reschedule or not present the price until both are present.)

B) “I want to think it over” This is a knee jerk reaction to putting any decision off. Think about it for a second… how many times have you used the excuse yourself? Remember when they say this they are, in their minds, not ready to buy. There’s nothing to think about, but they believe

that this is a great way to get rid of you. There are many ways to deal with it. First the Tom Hopkins way: “That’s fine______, obviously you wouldn’t take the time to think it over if you weren’t seriously interested would you?” They’ll respond, of course not. Then you say. “I’m sorry but just to clarify my thinking what is it exactly that you want to think about?” Brief pause then right away you will go into an is it this or is it that routine. Is it me, did I do an OK job teaching?” “Of course” they’ll respond. Then you say. “Is it the school?, Do you think ________ will learn ________ from our classes?” “Yeah I guess so.” They will say. Then you ask: “Well is it _____ are you not sure that _____ _______ will like it?”

By going through this little routine you will uncover what the real objection is and then you can close on the objection.

Or how about my way; That’s fine ____ this is an important decision, any decision regarding the education of your child is important isn’t it? And obviously this is one of those decisions, because if it wasn’t there’d be no reason to think about right? I’ve been doing this for quite some time now and over the years I have come to realize that when parents take time out of their busy schedule to come into my school and let their son try a lesson, especially when they know that he’s going to get excited about it, I really feel that there’s a need for the program to help him with his confidence and self-esteem. And if I don’t do everything I could to help you make the best decision for him, then well I’ll feel bad about that. Is there anything I haven’t covered? Like the investment amount… Is that stopping you from making a decision now? (Well, we have to go home and see if it fits into the budget.) I can appreciate that. I know that our program is an investment and if you’re wondering how you can fit it in is it fair to say that you’re very interested in joining the program? (yes) If it were me and I were faced with a tough decision of investing in my daughter but being forced to cut back on something I would probably get rid of my $150 per month cable bill, is that the kind of budgeting your going to do? (No, not that detailed it’s not that bad) Ok good, so it’s just a matter of fitting it in then, what will factor in? _________, ________, and ____________Do you agree that out of all those investments and expenses that an investment in your child’s confidence and self-esteem would be the most valuable? Yeah, I guess you’re right!

C) “Other activities and school will interfere”- Make the schedule fit. The only way to save this one is to ask specific questions that lead the prospect into telling you exactly what kind of schedule they have. Explore all possible days and times. Make your beginner schedule friendly and easy to accept.

D) “Money”- The prospect could be thinking “you’re not getting my big stack of money for your little stack of benefits.” Remember that money objections come in many forms. If the prospect says “It costs too much” they are telling you that you haven’t given them enough value. They’d rather keep their money than enjoy your service. It is up to you to establish value from the start. How valuable and worth it are you? And do you believe and have enthusiasm in what you’re selling? If you can’t answer those questions more learning should be your #1 priority. The money objection also comes in: bringing enough money… so, take a deposit. Or not having any cash right now… accept their credit card. “That seems high!” is another way that you could encounter this objection. The cost objection may come out when a prospect first inquires. This is sometimes a “knee Jerk” response. However, there are a couple of ways to deal with it.

1) Repeat or rephrase back to them… “It costs too much, how do you mean that? Then they will answer. You could also say “Compared to what?” and if they compare it to something you’ll be able to point out how are program is not really like other activities. Reinforce the benefits of self-defense, goal setting, attitude and being future focused. Or, “Well many of our best students felt that way at first but what they found after getting started was, it is worth every penny.

2) The price sometimes comes up when you are trying to schedule an appointment. The rule of price is that you never give a price without establishing value. A technique that could be used, if for whatever reason your carefully crafted presentation of questions goes a muck or the “And I’ll be answering all the rest of your questions in person” doesn’t work you simply inform tham that your first lesson is really no charge but it’s designed to get you acquainted with the program.

***Remember even if you’ve had the old $19.95 for 2 lessons deal since the Reagan administration, you could still position it that way if you don’t yet feel comfortable. I just would rather have a 12 month enrollment in less than an hour than have to worry about twenty bucks!

3) Maybe they’re responding to a free ad when they ask you the price you can tell them it’s Free. And if they decide it’s not for them it’s still free.

4) “Then what are you looking for?” response. A prospect might still object to your price after you done your best to establish value and give reasons that justify it. At this point you should find out what the prospect is looking for.

“Let me ask you. When you say the price is high, do you mean that you are looking for the lowest possible price for a program regardless of it’s quality and what it can or can’t offer your son or is it important to you that your son gets the best program there is that gives you the benefits that you are looking for? When it comes to martial-arts the curriculum that is taught and the service you receive from one school to another maybe as different as night and day. Martial-Arts cannot be compared like gasoline or a gallon of milk. Do you Agree? Since low prices are often associated with low quality is it safe to say that you’re looking for the lowest fair price based on how your son feels and what he is getting and not necessary the cheapest school? Well if you give us a try for the next month and you attend classes regularly I will guarantee that you will find the price more than fair, which we found is really what you’re looking for isn’t it?”

5) To a qualified prospect a money objection could simply mean that you have not justified the value of your lessons. If you are getting more than 20% of prospects saying your price is too high you need to figure out how to add value to your presentation by demonstrating what martial-arts will do for them. Remember, no one wants to pay money! But, they will if you show them they are better off investing the money with you!

6) Some people really can’t afford your program. Sometimes your time will be wasted. It’s up to us to “fish in the right water” for

qualified prospects. However, I will still give you a come back for “I can’t afford it.”

“Mr. Prospect if that was not a problem would you go ahead? He will say yes or no. If he says yes you could say: “Well what could you afford?” and He’ll say $__ and then what you do is sell the difference not the entire amount. You could also let him know that the investment involved will not go down, so now is a good time.

If you’re getting price objections there are probably just two basic problems that you have.

1) Through your marketing or lack of marketing you’re attracting the wrong clients. Marketing to the right prospects is crucial. You need to target prospects who are genuinely interested in the development of their child.

Many of you think it comes down to money, it really doesn’t! It comes down to the desire or want that the prospect has for your lessons.

Think about this…In my school over the years there have been plenty of “single moms” who were earning 25k per year who qualified for subsidized housing, because in Philly, it’s tough to get by on 25k per year when you have two kids. Anyway, these clients gladly invested close to or more than $200 per month for our lessons, because they wanted it for their children. They were sold on the fact that our program will help give their children a better life. I’ve also been their when the guy who had his own biz earning 100k per year was told what the price of the lessons out of sequence (before doing an intro) and said it was too much. So you can’t use the excuse of where your school’s located or who your clients are, that’s BS!

Just make the mental shift that you need to during the marketing and the sales process, that’s it! And you know after that you must deliver the goods!

And for the other reason you are getting the price objection…

2) You’re not presenting enough value or not giving or obtaining enough information to get the prospects to logically justify giving you their discretionary dollar. In most cases the only reason why someone shouldn’t enroll is because they really can’t afford your program. By that I mean they will be taking food out of their mouths if they give you $159.00 per month. (I’ve had some in my school, not many, but some.) We really don’t want to be in front of those prospects anyway. You must however develop your system so well and make your presentation so tight that you enroll all those who can afford your program.

When money is not the issue be careful not to let these other deterrents prohibit someone from enrolling…

Value- For whatever reason the just couldn’t justify your price.

Schedule- Have your upfront schedule and beginner schedule be very convenient, work out solutions and present them if you must.

Spouse- You will always have both decision makers or you will not present. On some occasions I simply finished the lesson and never sat back down with the lone parent because I was able to sense that they were incapable of making a decision on their own. It’s as simple as politely informing them that you must meet both parents before you could get the child started, then you just go ahead and schedule them in for the first group lesson and tell the parent you look forward to meeting their spouse.

They want to THINK about it- You can beat this by establishing early on that they have been thinking about it for a while. You may also want to consider a “today only special” to get them over the edge. I feel as though a “today only special” is for rookies!

Objection Summary- Being Proactive is the best way to beat objections! Ask the right questions in a relaxed, curious, helpful manner and you’ll deal with almost all objections ahead of time. No answer works every time. Your job is to use questions to dissect the objection. The best advice I could give you if you’re serious about doing well, is to study as many books as you can on the subject of sales if you aren’t getting the hang of this.

7) Closing the sale- You must now ask for the order. If you can’t close, you’re just a conversationalist. Closing actually starts before the lesson begins by taking complete control and sticking to your plan.

8) Follow Up- You must call and check in with your customers. Remind them of the first class, call them after a couple of weeks, and call them when they miss. If they get the impression that all you cared about was the first sale you will lose their business, their referrals and eventually your business. Step 8 is the difference between making a sale and building a sales career.

Rejection- If you want to do well don’t avoid No! Everything you do to avoid the possibility of being told no is a waste of time. Be direct and cordial and bring objections out by asking questions that uncover buying motives or resistance.

Pricing- In a good sales presentation the price should have a place. Discussing price out of place will kill the sale. In martial-arts price should only be about 5% of the presentation. With a higher ticket price comes the need to market and sell more effectively. In our business we are fortunate enough not to be a commodity. In fact the other martial-arts schools are barely your competitors, unless their marketing leaves you in the dust. In each of our market areas there are certainly plenty of prospects to choose from, however the number still has a limit. Competing on price with another school is the most brain dead and useless strategy you can employ, so be at the premium end of the price scale if you’re confident in your marketing and sales abilities.

MYTHS ABOUT SELLING

1) Sales = a lot of talking. Wrong! Sales is listening and matching the prospects needs with your service.

2) Get the sale and get out of there. Wrong again. That’s what creates buyer’s remorse. Let the prospect get up first; just don’t get ridiculous.

3) Good sales people are Naturals. Nope, Sales is a learned skill.

SOME HELPFUL SECRETS

1) Be patient and enthusiastic, emotions are contagious.

2) Go the extra mile, it will pay off.3) Do not fear rejection! Rejection is not personal; it’s the prospect’s way of refusing your offer. 4) Good sales people hear no more than yes because they’re constantly asking for sales.5) Always give an alternate of choice whenever you can.6) Confirm all your appointments at least one day in advance if the appointment was made one or two weeks prior. Call the morning of for all others. Call and reschedule the “no shows”.7) Read books, listen to audio’s and learn as much as you can. I recommend Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, Dan Kennedy just to name a few outside the industry.

This is the biggest secret to success in anything. You must take the time and commit yourself to constant learning and improvement. Remember how much time you spend learning new things that can help you become better and more successful is an exact measurement of how serious you are. Not taking the time to learn and grow is like sitting on the train tracks and staring at the light that is bearing down on you as it closes in and is ready to run you over. Choosing not to learn (and it is a choice) is like giving up. What you learn equals what you earn. This manual is only the beginning of your training! Now Enjoy the Bonus sections I’ve put into the program.

The Mental and Emotional Game Of Selling Martial-Arts

Every word we speak on the phone, in the intro, or while teaching class triggers an emotional response from our prospect or students. We paint pictures with our words. What picture are you painting?

Begin to watch and be mindful of your sales vocabulary. Begin building a vocabulary if “buy words.” Words that a friendly and non-threatening…

Why make an appointment when you can arrange a visit.

Why fill out the contract when you could get started on the paperwork.

Don’t take a down payment when you could be given an initial investment.

Why tell the new student to sign here when all they have to do is authorize or ok the agreement.

Bonus Articles

The Martial-Art Of Selling

The “Good Night Kiss” Close

By: Michael Dolpies

Many people I talk to, who know that my business ultimately comes down to one-on-one, face-to-face selling, often ask me… “Mike what are some of the tricks and techniques you pull at the end of the sale to get someone to buy?” Among novice sales professionals this is always a common theme. They want to know which trump card and what magic words they can say at the end of their presentation to help seal the deal.

The reality is that there are no fireworks or fancy footwork that will get you a sale during the close. To drive this point home for all of you owners, program directors, and instructors, I’m going to steal a page from one of my favorite sales trainers, Mr. Ben Gay III. Ben Gay is world famous among sales pro’s for turning the book, “The Closers,” into the all time best selling book on closing the sale. This book has been named the “Original Sales Closer’s Bible.” If you’ve never read or heard Mr. Gay’s work I highly recommend you check him out. Anyway on with this month’s lesson…

The “Good Night Kiss Close” actually is written about in the book “The Closers Part 2.” You have to imagine for a second the typical awkward, clumsy, fumbling, teenage boy asking his father for tips on securing a good night kiss on his first date with a special girl.

The typical teenage boy wants to show up late, honk the horn, and not go in to meet the girl’s parents to establish some rapport. He’ll let her open her own car door throughout the evening. He’ll take her to the local hang out and pal around with his buddies having spit contests and sneaking beers while his date is forced to mingle with other teens that she doesn’t know. He’ll then leave late as to ruin any chances of her getting home when her father requested. He’ll pull up to the house and follow behind her. It’s at this very moment that he wants to know what slick moves he can pull to get his “good night kiss.”

No lips should meet and no sale should take place! What the father must explain to his son is how to make a good presentation. Show up on time, meeting the parents, holding the doors, and paying close attention to her all night. The father needs to explain to the boy about the power of asking questions and listening intently. Then, when he gets her home a few minutes early the kiss will be the natural conclusion to a wonderful evening!

The fact is that with a good presentation, interview process, and intro lesson, a new enrollment will be the natural conclusion to a wonderful sales situation. Getting a new student will be a well deserved reward for a caring, honest, detail-oriented program director that cares about the student benefiting and knows that getting paid is the logical byproduct of that.

When you do everything right form the word go, your prospect will buy you first. They will trust you and become your friend. They will be open to your advice and recommendations. The most powerful effect you will have on a parent prospect is the magic between you and their child, never forget that!

A good program director can almost get to the point of being invited over for dinner. In future columns we’ll discuss some specifics. But until then be cordial, polite, and ask plenty of questions. Listen intently and put on your very best show. When you do all of this the sales will flow like water in a stream.

So now you know! There’s no fancy techniques needed to get a student or close a sale, it’s the just the logical conclusion to a great presentation. Just like the “good night kiss” is a logical conclusion to a wonderful evening. Maybe I’ve succeeded this month in helping you personally and professionally!

Michael Dolpies, of Philadelphia personally handled 90% of all the sales in his school for 8 years. He developed an intro presentation that enrolled 93% of prospects in just 47 minutes. He can be reached through his website www.martial-art-of-selling.com

The Martial-Art Of Selling

The Yes Momentum

By: Michael Dolpies

Before we dive deep into exploring the theory of the “yes momentum” what I will quickly do is sum it up for you. The basic rule that governs this theory is the old sales gem that says… Why tell something, when you can ask it? When trying to gain yes momentum that one statement is gospel. Naturally the questions you ask will be the ones that your prospect can answer yes to. So why is it so important to gain the yes momentum and how can you do it? Well, buckle up because we’re going to take a ride in the yes mobile!

Fist off, never forget it, yes is the single most powerful word a salesperson can hear. Yes has to come before you get paid, there’s just no way around it. Yes is what puts your prospect in a positive frame of mind. The little yes leads to the big yes and the sub total of all the yes’s that you get lead to you ringing the register on a yes decision to join your school.

During my intro process my guest will say the word “yes” no less than 25 times. They will say it out loud to answer one of my pre-arranged questions. They will say it to themselves mentally while filling out a special questionnaire that encourages them to circle a “yes” response. My goal is to also have them say “yes” inside there own heads as I demonstrate how they will achieve the benefits that they are searching for. All this establishes a great momentum as you finish up and begin your closing sequence. Let’s explore…

How to get Yesses.If you are working with a child make sure that you get several yeses out of them. Do this by making sure that they answer you “yes sir” or “”yes ma’am” throughout your entire intro. When you finish with the child ask them a series of questions that encourage them to practice their “yes sirs” “Sally did you have fun?” Yes Sir!” “Karate is something new, and with new things come new challenges, can you handle that?” “Yes Sir!” “Martial-arts is a commitment which means that we are going to come two days per week even if we are busy playing with our friends or watching TV, are you willing to be committed?” “Yes Sir!”

When it’s time to talk to the parents get yes’s by asking a set of pre-planned questions… here are some ideas for you... “Mrs. Jones, did I do a good job with Sally?” “Oh Yes!” “Do you feel that our program will be a good thing for her?” “Yes!” “Can I see if I have a uniform that will fit her?” “Yes.” “She’ll be starting in a beginner class is that OK for you?” “Yes.” And so on, and so on… I’m positive that you can come up with some great ideas! When you do share them with me, I always love to hear how others are doing. In the mean time let’s recap…

The yes momentum will carry you a long way so always let it work in your favor. Remember a series of small commitments and positive affirmations will lead to the big decision taking care of itself. Compare it to hitting the total button. Last but not least, try this homework assignment. Rephrase anything that you now say in statement form and turn it into a question. Remember why tell when you can ask!

Michael Dolpies, 26 of Philadelphia personally handled 90% of all the sales in his school for 8 years. He developed an intro presentation that enrolled 93% of prospects in just 47 minutes. He can be reached through his website www.martial-art-of-selling.com

The Martial-Art Of Selling

Controlled and Planned Sales Success

By: Michael Dolpies

Feelings of control, be it your business life, your finances, or your personal life, create a certain amount of happiness. I don’t care whether you label yourself the proverbial “control freak” or not, control of your life is a must if you are to be happy and keep your sanity.

Control therefore must be applied to all the selling situations of your school operations. Control of the sales process comes from careful planning and careful implementation of a winning sales plan and formula. Let’s learn more shall we…

We will again use my favorite sales example, the intro process, to set a foundation for the carefully planned and “in control” selling situation. Your intro is like a movie where you are the producer, director, writer, and star. You know the outcome; you’ve mastered your lines, your cues, and your body language. Your prospect is there co-starring with you and responding exactly the way you want to your every move. As the director you call the shots and you determine the way the scene ends by your carefully planned and well orchestrated performance, when the movie ends you get the standing ovation! Here’s how...

When I teach an introductory lesson/enrollment conference I always spend forty-seven minutes with my prospect. My staff can pin point almost to the exact second what I will be doing at the ten minute, twenty minute and forty-nine minute mark. With slight modifications for age brackets each lesson is practically identical. Every question is the same. Every response to topics that can throw me off course is the same. Every facial expression, body posture, planned humor, and times when I excuse myself to let the prospects be by themselves is exactly the same. Here’re some real life examples…

When a prospect comes in to their prearranged time to meet with me it always starts the same way... a polite, but not overly anxious greeting to everyone in their party. (No need to come on too strong with hugs and high fives.) I always want whom ever I’m getting ready to deal with to get the feeling that although I am appreciative of their coming in they should be happy that I am willing to give them my time.

The next part of the plan is to bring them into my intro room and seat them exactly where I want them. No getting up until I say so. Now for some alone time while I let them fill out my guest questionnaire. Now I’m back after about six minutes ready to ask them some benefit oriented questions to make sure that I can serve them in the best way possible.

Then comes the lesson designed to show benefits and gets some positive emotions going. Remember the lesson is exactly the same every time, but my role calls for me to make it look like it’s not boring to me. After the lesson comes some more alone time so they can digest everything they’ve just experienced and ask their child how much fun they had. Now I’m back after about four minutes ready to get some solid “yes” answers and wrap up their enrollment.

It’s that simple. The key is to discipline yourself to stick to your winning presentation. The fact is your prospect is generally the same every time. (A parent or individual seeking a benefit) There’s no need to reinvent your intro process everyday. Now that you understand the importance of planning and controlling the sales situation go to work on your script and stick to a winning formula.

Michael Dolpies, 26 of Philadelphia personally handled 90% of all the sales in his school for 8 years. He developed an intro presentation that enrolled 93% of prospects

in just 47 minutes. He can be reached through his website www.martial-art-of-selling.com

Why do intros?

To do an intro before the prospect enrolls or to do an intro after he has enrolled? This is a question that at times has been raised in our industry. Some feel as though the intro is not absolutely necessary and still others depend on the intro lesson to facilitate their sales process. I have done it both ways in the past, and I am a big fan of doing the intro lesson before the family enrolls as a way to stack the odds in my favor. The only time I would not do an intro prior is when I personally felt it was not needed to produce a sale. For example, if a friend of the family comes in waiving $100 bills in my face asking, “Where do I sign to get my granddaughter started?” You can rest assured I will do the intro after I take their money and tell them where to “ok the agreement.” However if everyone came in waiving $100 bills in our faces we probably be a lot less cranky and there would be no need for this article. So let’s dig into why we do intros prior to enrollment. We do intros for four reasons…

1) To get the student mentally prepared for their first group lesson- When most of your prospects, will say parents of children for simplicities sake, bring their kids in for your lessons they may quit possibly be feeling a little anxiety. In most cases they know absolutely nothing about martial-arts except what they read or see or hear in the media. The child maybe excited but at the same time nervous. The intro serves to alleviate his fears while making him feel confident about what he’ll be learning.

The intro must give the child a sense of “ok I can do this, this is fun.” The parent must see the same things from the intro. Getting them mentally prepared involves you keeping it as simple as possible. Remember this sales saying...”if you confuse ‘em you loose ‘em.” When it comes to this first step of mental preparation, building their confidence is the key. You also want to show the parents how his confidence was enhanced in this brief time you’ve spent with them. Use the word “confidence” explain to the child what it means and have the child exude confidence by making him stand tall and proud with the words you are using and the simple, fun techniques that you are teaching him.

The other golden nugget in preparing a child for the “next” group session is the word next. You want to explain to the parents and the child that one of today’s goals is to get him ready for his next group session, which in its rawest form is assuming the sale! Your job is then to paint your family into the picture of how exciting and beneficial the group sessions are going to be. When you finish with your intro you then congratulate the child and the family by saying, “Well he’s now ready to do his first class!”

2) To showcase the benefits of your program - All of your prospects come to you for different reasons. Some want confidence; others want discipline, others focus and fitness for their child, while some want self-defense. Many are happy to get the myriad of benefits that our programs offer. The point is that none of them “just want to learn martial-arts.” It’s the old why do you buy a drill scenario? You buy a drill because you want a whole. Personally I drive and will continue to drive luxury SUV’s. I’m too young for a mini-van, but I have a fifteen-month old and one on the way. I want the space and the look, not just four-wheel drive! Your intro should show off the benefits and especially make certain to highlight the benefits that the prospect wants.

Your intro must show an obvious connection between the benefits the prospects wants and your ability to deliver those benefits. It is also the intro’s job to show the prospect additional benefits that they might not have been aware of or even expected. Quick example, many parents comment at the end of the intro about how they did not even realize that my program was going to make their child more respectful to teachers, parents, and other children.

The easiest way to showcase benefits is to talk specifically and directly bout each one. Another example, let’s say that a parent is looking for confidence and self-

defense. You could teach the child how to stand up straight, speak clearly and assertively, look you in the eye and answer an enjoyable, enthusiastic “yes sir and no sir.” You can explain to the parent that many of your families find that the increased confidence actually makes the bullying situations gradually disappear. What you just did was teach confidence and self-defense while adding respect, and focus through eye contact and answering with “yes sir and no sir.” The best way to showcase your benefits is to use the benefit words during the lesson, while linking them directly to your program. If during your intro lesson and you’re not using words like confidence, respect, focus, self-discipline, commitment, black belt, and concentration you are truly missing the boat!

3) To elicit emotional responses form your prospects - You want to raise the positive emotions of the parents and the child.

Success author and motivation trainer Lee Milteer says, “Information does not move people, emotion does.” It is your job to tie in emotion with the valuable information you are giving. You want your prospect to be moved. You want them to take action. When it comes to emotions you will get them going by using benefit words like we just learned, so as you can see it all works together. You also raise emotions through involvement. You should ask the parents and students questions during the lesson that elicit positive responses. If you do it well you will feel the emotion in their voices. I love when moms and dads sit on the edge of their chairs and say enthusiastically, “this is great, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!” Laughter is another way to get the emotions up; you don’t have to be a comedian to find some humor in a first martial-arts lesson! The easiest way to work humor in is with the natural challenge that the first lessons provides. If the child messes up, laugh about it and point out how in a month they’ll have that kick or block perfect. When positive emotions permeate your entire intro lesson you will be on your way to easier enrollments.

4) To enroll a new student and get the standing ovation –

When you do a great intro the final step is almost so easy I wonder sometimes if it’s legal. Most prospects will be eager to get going at this point. Because you’ve done such a good job and have done all of the heavy lifting up-front all you have to do is present your program in a clear and direct manner, ask them for a check or credit card and fill out your paper work. Then take some time now to see to it that your prospect walks away not just a new student, but an informed and educated one. Make sure they know what to expect in up-coming visits and see to it that they leave feeling that there’s really nothing else they need to know accept when to come back. At this point you’ll walk them to the door and they’ll give you what Tom Hopkins calls the standing ovation to a sales person…They’ll reach out to shake your hand and they’ll say “Thank you!”

Pro-Active Selling

Most of you are familiar with Stephen Covey’s book 7Habits Of Highly Effective People. If it has been a while or you’ve forgotten what habit number one is, I’ll take this opportunity to remind you. Be proactive is habit number one. In our business and personal lives we prevent problems and crisis by being proactive. As martial-artists we have the discipline to act and not just be acted upon. In this article we’re going to learn how the first habit can help us with the most important function of our school… the enrollment of new members. I’ll quickly defend my opinion that new members are most important with one simple statement: Without new students you’ve got nobody to retain!

So let’s apply this habit so we can up our closing percentage and enroll more of the prospects that we get in front of us.

Let’s start with a question...What stands in the way of you enrolling more of the people who come in your door? Objections that you can’t overcome! Nothing else, unless your intro stinks, but we’ll assume it’s good for argument sake. If you didn’t get objections you’d enroll everyone wouldn’t you?

Sales 101 says that objections are good. Now if you feel that objections are not good I agree, I hate to get objections… which is the exact reason I do my intros and enrollment conferences the way I do, and I will briefly share them with you. And FYI my system enrolls a prospect a high percentage (over 90%) of the time after just one intro class.

Objections are questions and they indicate interest (Sales 101 again) but wouldn’t you agree with this? If you ask the possible objection in the form of a question and the prospect answers it, that’s like them answering their own objection isn’t that nice! What a change for the better that would be.

So here’s what you do. Take all the objections you get. Schedule, Spouse, Commitment (which in its ugliest form is, “Do I have to sign a contract?”), and the one you hate the most...”We’ll think it over.” And what you want to do is phrase each objection in the form of a question that the prospect can answer. For example “what kind of schedule do you and your husband keep, as far as work and stuff goes?” And don’t forget the little guy, “So is Joey involved in any sports at the present time?” Here’s the bottom line with this example you must get their schedule before you give them yours, you must find out how long they’ve been “thinking about” it before they can tell you they want to think about it. If the other spouse isn’t present you should make sure that you’re dealing with the decision maker, in this situation I ask flat out before I begin my intro, “if all goes well today and you can see that this will be a good program for Joey are you ok to go ahead without your husband?” Than I know whether I want to present a price or invite them back to a group class where I can “meet the other parent”

As you begin to control the conversation with good questions designed to bring any possible objections out the objections will begin to disappear when you’re closing the sale. Notice I didn’t put it cost too much up there. Sales 101 again says, never give a price until you establish value. You establish value during the intro. If you’re getting this one go to work on your intro then find better prospects.

Be proactive during your enrollments by asking questions instead of waiting for objections. As Dr. Covey would say “be proactive rather than reactive.”

Next time we’ll get into more details of questioning and leading during the intro process. Until then feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions, comments, or controversy. I’d be happy to help.

Copywriting 101 for Martial-Arts Schools

Sales letters can be used for getting new members and communicating to current students about your Black Belt, Master’s Club or leadership programs. How you communicate in print with your customers will go a long way in helping your relationship to blossom. In this bonus section we are going to talk about using sales letters as tools to convert your current 12 month members to longer term programs. The reason why we’re going to emphasize mailing sales letters to our existing members is known as “receptivity of market.” This rule basically says that if your reader is interested in the product or service being sold in the sales letter the more likely they will be to read the entire letter.

Think about a subject that you’re currently involved in, for example marketing your school. How much would you be willing to read about it? As much as you can. Sales letters can be used to communicate to perspective students, however, a prospect actually reading your entire letter has much to do with the list you’re mailing to.

There are 2 kinds of lists: Compiled and Response

Compiled- an example would be a list of families who are in a 7 mile radius of your school who earn $85,000 or more, own their home, and have children from ages 5-

12. This is a good start for marketing, but one important component it leaves out is if the prospect has the slightest interest in what you’re selling. It is possible that they could care less about childhood development or fitness.

Response- This is a list of the same demographic most likely. This list however, may have purchased a childhood development product, or may subscribe to parent education magazines, or maybe send their children to private school. This list would be more likely to spend the time reading about the subjects that interest them. That leads me to the justification of sending sales letters to your clients.

They’re highly responsive to anything you send them because they’ve already bought your service. We just don’t get any more responsive than that, don’t you agree? Unless they’re on the verge of quitting or mad at you that week, they will read your letter.

I emphasize sending letters to your current 12 month students to inform them, persuade them, and motivate them to come to you and ask about your black belt club/master club/leadership program. This will take a lot of run around work out of your day once you begin sending your letters out on a regular basis.

Your sales letters will be designed to educate, inform, and motivate. Every letter you send conveys the values of your school. For example, if your school is a “black belt school” than your ultimate program will be your black belt club or ultimate black belt club.

You will communicate congruency through your letters. Your letters give the same message that you give each class about being a black belt and get through to those parents who are not always there to get the message. You should now begin to see the benefit of good in-print communication that gets read by your student or their families

Now we’re going to discuss approach and frequency-

Approach- This refers to how you are going to get your letters opened. If you didn’t already realize this, not all the mail you send gets opened! Now with your own students the chances of you getting a piece opened that has your school’s return address on the envelope are greater than if you mail to a cold list of prospects who don’t know you. This all relates to “A-pile, B-pile, and Junk” mail. Let me explain, and for those of you who know what this is it will be a review.

A-pile- Personal letters and invitations from friends and family. Anything that looks like it’s from one individual to another. If you sent your student a letter that was hand-addressed, with a live stamp it would get into the A-pile.

B-pile- Non-personal commercial mail from someone you don’t know. Bills, advertisements, that may have some interest to the recipient, an example of this

would be my wife getting diaper and other baby type coupons in the mail for our new born. If you send your student a letter in an oversized colorful envelope using mailing labels and a postage meter it would probably end up in this pile.

Junk Mail- This type of mail is un-solicited commercial mail. This type of mail has but seconds to either stay alive or enter the trash can. If you called getmembers and had them send 5,000 post cards to homes in your area you would be sending this type of mail.

The approach you take plays a major role in the receptivity of your communication. Remember the idea is for them to open it and read it. So let’s talk about some of the approaches that you can use to ensure the success of your Black Belt Club campaigns.

You are mailing to non black belt club members, here are the rules.MAKE IT PERSONAL - example, if you mail merge and address “Dear Mrs. Jones”The envelope should be a plain white standard with hand addressed and hand written or stamped return address. You will use a live stamp. Why bother? Congruency, if you’re trying to make Mrs. Jones feel that she was the only one who got the letter you’d be foolish to do a mail merge then use labels for the outside of the envelope. Do you see the in congruency that this creates? But many make this mistake! So to recap... A plain white envelope, hand addressed with a live stamp gives the feeling like they got the only one. This technique is pure sneak up, and will almost guarantee your letter gets opened.

Unnecessary work-I returned from vacation in San Diego to find my staff and a couple of students busy hand addressing oversized brown envelopes, you know the kind that will fit an 8.5” by 11” piece of paper in it without needing to fold it. I laughed at them and told them that they were working un-necessarily hard, hand addressing these envelopes that were guaranteed to quite possibly be the biggest in the mail that day as well as be the only brown oversized piece of mail received. The point is this. Another way to get your Black Belt Club sales letters opened is to put them in very unique looking envelopes that demand a “what’s this” response. MY staff could have gotten away with using a label and saved themselves the agony of hand addressing the envelopes. Needless to say they never made this mistake again. So the lesson here is that you can use a series of different envelopes to carry your pieces. Our approaches consist of about 5 different types.

Now you’ve gotta get the letter read.

I’ll cover some basic copywriting skills that will give you a foundation for writing a letter that communicates effectively and sells your ideas and programs to your student.

1) What is your objective? The goal of all your letters is to persuade your students to invest in your long- term black belt or master club program. In the best case

scenario they fill out the attached application and hand it in to you during one of their classes. Worst case scenario your student gets your letter, reads it and begins to understand and be persuaded that joining the black belt program will be in their best interest. Like I said before a major benefit of your letters is to have your student already convinced about your program so when you ask them to enroll they will not be taken off guard by your request. Knowing your outcome and goals in advance before you sit down and write any letter is crucial to the letter’s success. Think about it this way – some of your letters can be on the lighter side. (Study the enclosed samples and you’ll see what I’m talking about.) While some can be very direct and to the point.2) Write like you would speak. Your letter should be no different from you standing in front of a group and talking up the benefits of your black belt program. Of course spelling is important, but don’t edit for grammar. (just don’t speak like a toddler.) Use contractions and combination words to move your letter along, i.e. “There’s gonna be times when Joey’s self-esteem goes through the roof ‘cause he’s feelin’ great about his training!”3) Talk to your client- Don’t get too sophisticated on them, no need to pontificate your views on them. Just talk to ‘em like they’re used to being talked to. If you speak to them in words or tones that they don’t relate to they’ll turn you off. Know your clientele. Their interests outside of your school. For example, my school is in the inner city so all parents can relate to keeping there teenagers away from drugs and teaching them how to deal with peer pressure. Don’t be anyone else when you write, be yourself! But hone your skills.4) The slippery slide- Famous mail-order guru, Joe Sugarman, used this term to relate what happened when a reader began to get into his copy. They couldn’t stop reading it… it was almost as if his reader had began to fall down a slippery slide. You accomplish this by taking your copy one step at a time. First your headline which will get your reader into your piece after that first sentence can’t disappoint. Each paragraph must lead the reader into the next paragraph. Finally everything must lead to the reader taking action.5) Play to their emotions... Fear, Greed, The need to be accepted, liked, and loved. Your copy should speak emotional benefits not features of your program. If you do mention a feature be sure to link it back to a benefit. Speak to them in terms of what they’re going to get out of what they’re reading.6) Story telling- We all can relate and we all love being told good stories. When we were little kids we loved for our parents to read us a bed time story. So tell good stories of past successes of your students. Be entertaining, but beneficially clear about why this story is now relevant to your reader.7) Sub-Heads- Break up your copy with sub headlines that act just like you main headline. The idea here is to get the scanner type reader who may not have time to look over your whole piece. I heard it said before that a scanner should be able to get your message without having to read you entire letter and still be convinced.

Here’s one example of a successful piece that may surprise you..

Dear Friend,

As you can see once again I’ve done something interesting to start our conversation. My goal: Never, ever, ever bore you. I mean you take the time to read my letters you might as well enjoy them!

This time I’ve attached a picture of me standing next to some old-fashioned bicycles. I was walking down the street in the Coronado section of San Diego with my wife, Jamie and my daughter, Julia. Julia was five months at the time so she wasn’t exactly walking she was being pushed. (In her stroller of course!)

Have you ever heard of Coronado? I didn’t until I was there. It’s kinda like an island separated from down town San Diego and it’s quite beautiful if you ask me. The hotel we stayed at was awesome too.. “Hotel Del Coronado”, built in 1887, right on the Pacific. They told us that some of our U.S. Presidents have roomed there; I didn’t see any during my stay. But if you plan on going to San Diego this hotel’s the only way to do it. Anyway back to the bikes.

These bikes were pretty old-fashioned looking! If you look closely at the picture you’ll notice the one that got my attention. The one with the big wheel in front and the high seat that we’ve all seen in old comedy shows from the black and white television days. You know the bike that every idiot trying to make you laugh falls off of. These bikes were for sale to us innocent tourist… And of course that one in particular had a price tag of $1800! Almost as much as the investment in martial-arts lessons for the whole year!

Anyway if you want to know more about my San Diego trip (or any other of my trips for that matter) just asked me when you see me. Or better yet give me some good travel recommendations!

(Western sunsets are really nice!)

To the point… The old-fashioned bikes got my attention because over the years so many parents have thanked my karate school for helping them teach their sons and daughters good old-fashioned values!

Good Old-fashioned Values like; Courage, because earning a black belt will require your child to not be afraid of challenge! Discipline, also known as the fountain of greatness because with the discipline learned in martial-arts your child will become unstoppable! Focus, your child will learn how to put their minds to something and give it 100%. Confidence and Self-Esteem, as your child gets closer to Black Belt they will get their feeling of value and self-worth from themselves and not be dependent on the judgments of others. Self-Defense, they will be able to protect themselves and others from physical, spiritual and mental harm. Fitness, as they get close to black belt they will be in tip top shape. And there’s a whole lot more..

But probably the most important factor that will determine your child reaching black belt and beyond is the goal-setting principles taught only in our Black Belt Club. You know by now that you have to help your child set goals in our program and the goal that you have to set for your child is Black Belt. I would like to be able to invite you and your child into our Black Belt program real soon, so keep up the good work.

In the meantime let me know if you have any questions. I’ll answer one for you right now! No I did not by the $1800 bike with the big wheel! But seriously, if you feel that earning Black Belt will be a great accomplishment for your child take a couple of minutes to review and complete the enclosed Black Belt Club qualification application. After it’s complete you can turn it in at your next class. We will then review it and let you know if Black Belt training is right for your child. If you have any questions feel free to write them on the application as well.

Dedicated to your child’s excellence,

Mr. Michael Dolpies215-334-9000sphillykarate@yahoo.com

PS: To find out if you and your child can qualify for black belt training and the Black Belt Club you must take a couple of minutes and complete the Black Belt Qualification Application. After it is complete you can drop it off when you attend your next class.

PPS: Here’s a picture of the hotel.

BONUS SECTION  Special Event and Referral Generating Ideas We’ve all heard it said before…”Referrals are easy to sign up...Word of mouth is the best form of advertising.” Most of you wish that you could get more referrals than you’re currently getting. Many of us get them because one of our current students is extremely satisfied with our program. The point is this... if you’re any good you should get some referrals without doing anything at all. Granted, not doing anything at all will still yield some, but not enough to make you rich! So if you already get some referrals without any effort, imagine what happens when you start actually doing things to produce them? Yes! Referrals are easy to close and easy to please and there are some folks in our industry that have it down to science. I will not attempt to copy their ideas or criticize them. The fact is we must do what works! I know that many schools have adopted a “Referral only” membership policy. What they are attempting to do is position their school kind of like a lodge or secret society.

I say if it works, use it in combination with all of your other marketing and sales efforts. So now let’s make a list of some basic ideas that you can run with, some will be general and others a little more specific. The point is this… You must actively promote yourself and your school as a place where clients are expected to refer! 1) The Endorsed Mailing- an endorsed mailing is one of the most powerful

uses of direct mail. The endorsed mailing creates a curiosity effect for the recipient that compels them to open and read the mail. Here’s how it would work, there are 2 ways to use it.

The first way is to mail it to someone’s circle of influence. Meaning all of your students have a circle of influence…Friends, colleagues, golfin’ buddies, neighbors, you name it. What we do is identify which circle of influence closely matches the profile of your students. Then you must get your clients’ permission and inform them of the program. They should be rewarded (not bribed) for helping you. You must do your best to customize the mailing as best you can as you don’t want the recipient to be “on to you right away” it must really be genuine and really come from that person. It will have their return address and if you could spend the time to refer to something that only your client and the recipient would know than you’re really on to something. Here’s an endorsed mailing example, but you must customize it to fit your situation. Dear _________,  I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about a

great thing that I’ve been doing for Joey! Three months ago I enrolled him in Martial-Arts lessons at XYZ Karate, you know that place in the plaza. Well much to my surprise and excitement, he loves it!  Joey has a lot of fun when he’s in class, but the good thing for parents is that they teach the kids all these valuable character building skills that we try to teach them anyway. You know, discipline (So we don’t have to tell them 10 times to do things) and confidence (How to speak up for themselves). And, there’s more! Joey’s made new friends and he gets a great workout every time he goes. 

All the instructors are really nice and they are definitely good role models for young people. It has been a good experience so far. XYZ Karate has this great referral program! You can give them a call and mention my name, and since I am member you will get V.I.P. treatment! Their number is 215-555-1234, give them a call and tell them that I recommended you! Your Friend, Joey’s Dad P.S. Our whole family is really happy about everything. See ya in church! Then you could follow up about 2 weeks latter actually introducing yourself. If you do this with anywhere from 2 to 10 of all of your happiest clients’ friends, that’s a lot of letters to go out! If you do it on regular disciplined basis then, you should easily get a couple more students each month from this one source. Do the math! 2)      Student Birthday Parties-You’ve heard it before so I’m not going to give you step be step instructions on how to do one! Let’s just talk about how to maximize the thing. a)      Promote them to your members. Make sure that everyone is aware that you do parties. Send a letter or brochure 2 to 3 months in advance of the students’ birthdays. Follow it up with a phone call.b)    Have students who have already had parties do your selling for you.c)   Charge for it. What is free has no value! Either charge for your space and your time or, charge for a fully catered event where they just show up.d)    Collect names with a permission slip plus send out invitations for your client (don’t be flakey about this).e)    Have fun and teach a benefit oriented lessons.f)    Most parents will not stay, so make sure you tell them that the thing ends at least 20 minutes before it really does so you can have the kids showcase the benefits they just learned.g)    Take a cool picture of all guests and invite them back to “pick up the picture and do a lesson”.h)    Confirm the time of them picking it up with a phone call. Special Events This list could get long but, I’m gonna narrow it down for you and preface it with this…

 All special events are designed for 3 reasons…1) To keep your current students from getting bored so they don’t quit on

you!!! You must always have an answer to the question: What’s New?2) To get new students from referral created by the event. 3) To facilitate the renewal and upgrade process.

  Now that you’re clear on that you can focus! You must create much desire and excitement for your event. Your students must feel compelled to refer and bring their friends. Promote in class with flyers. Use direct mail, e-mail, phone calls, voice broadcasts, leadership team, etc. Each event should have a limit on attendance and deadlines for signing up.  Permission slips with names addresses and phone numbers and emails must be collected! If you could get parents there great! Have a leader or high ranking student call all the parents while the children are at the event with a personal message from you, the chief instructor. “This is ___from XYZ Karate, I just wanted to tell you what a good job ___was doing at our back to school party. He’s gonna get a Free photo with Master ___ so I just wanted you to know you could pick it up on ___ or ___ when should we have it ready? Also at that time ___ is allowed to take a complimentary lesson with his friend Joey who as you know is already a student here. Great see you soon!” Every Event Follows The Above Premise! All you do is change the theme and the reason for it. So here’re some excuses and ideas for events that will fill your calendar. Buddy NightMovie NightNinja Lock In/Sleepover (not a big fan)Parents Night Out1 Week of Summer Camp (summer games trips etc, be ready to work!)Spring Fair/Open HouseBack to School Fair/Open HouseOwner’s BirthdayStaff’s BirthdayAnniversaryVideo Game CompetitionMaster’s Night (Advanced training and a chance for students to teach friends)Summer Picnic (outdoors)

Summer Day Trip (Water Park etc. You need plenty of parents for this one)Inner School TournamentsPadded Weapons TrainingParent Coaching- (Objective being to get parents training)Self-defense and Safety DayDefeat the Bully workshop

Here’s an example of the different Yes Questions that you could use.

Membership Application & QuestionaireParent’s Name(s) _________________________________________________________Address_______________________________________________________Phila. PA., 19________

Home Phone_______________________________ Mobile Phone______________________________

Student’s Name(s)_______________________________________________________________________

Date of Birth _______________ Age_________

Please answer the following Questions Honestly:

Do you feel that our program will be a positive experience for your child? Yes ( ) No ( )

When did you first become interested in getting your child into our program? ____________________________________

Do you value educational programs for your child/children? Yes ( ) No ( )

Are you interested in your child/children having fun while learning? Yes ( ) No ( )

Whose idea was our martial-arts program? Yours ( ) Child ( ) Both ( )

Can your child benefit from getting regular exersice? Yes ( ) No ( )Our program requires your involvement in order for your child/children to be successful, do you consider yourself/selves involved parents? Yes ( ) No ( )

Are you willing to dedicate yourself to your child’s success by being aware of your child’s progress? Yes ( ) No ( )

In which ways would you like your child benefit from our program?

( ) Increased Confidence ( ) Better Focus ( ) Improved Self-Esteem

( ) Athletic Ability ( ) Self-Defense ( ) Respect-self/others

( )Discipline- doing more on their own ( ) Self Motivation

( ) Self-Control ( ) Social Skills ( ) Fun ( ) Fitness

( ) Concentration ( ) Balance ( ) Goal-Setting

( ) Leadership ability ( ) Self-Belief ( ) Better Grades

Can you invest one to three hours per week to help your child attain your desired results? Yes ( ) No ( )Are you willing to have patience in getting the results you want? Yes ( ) No ( )Has your child expressed an interest in martial-arts in the past? Yes ( ) No ( )

Do you support your child’s positive interests? Yes ( ) No ( )

Are you willing to only render positive feedback to your child about their progress? Yes ( ) No ( )

Do you encourage your child to set future goals for themselves? Yes ( ) No ( )Would you be interested in actively participating with your child?

Yes ( ) No ( )

Do you encourage your child to follow through on goals they set for themselves? Yes ( ) No ( )

What is most important to you and your child at this time?