Patrick

Congrats mazzybear. Patrick

Welcome aboard, shotocalm. Glad to have you. Patrick

Yep, the Dolphins had us excited for all of one week. Heh. Still optimistic, of course. Patrick

Thank you for the replies, all. For the record, I did want to say that I didn't/won't vote as it doesn't really apply to me. Patrick

Hey all, The age of a black belt is a constant topic here. We have a popular thread titled "10 year old Black Belts!," and it got me to thinking. How many of you have actually seen, in person, a 10 year old full black belt? Not a junior black belt. Not a kids super dragon club black belt. A full black belt in their organization. On a 10 year old (or younger). Let's go ahead and say 12 or younger. Not heard about one online. Not supposedly seen one in a YouTube video. Not heard about one from a friend. Actually seen one, in person, with your own eyes where you were 100% sure that the kid was both 12 years or younger and that they had a full black belt. Not just thinking to yourself "oh, they look young. Wait, is that black cloth around their waist?! They must be a full black belt!" Vote yes only if you can satisfy that criteria fully. Vote no if you can't. It's often talked about, but I thought it would be interested to find out how many of you have actually seen it first hand. Vote in the poll. Thanks, Patrick

Thank you for understanding, mal103. Patrick

Hey Bob, Thank you for the reply. No worries. I'm sure 39 year olds are probably happy to still be lumped into "kids." The 70% figure was those who "never or rarely" use a phone book. So you would probably be in the 30% then. But this was 4 years ago, so it'll be interesting to see how much it has changed when people are asked that question again. Glad that you enjoyed Clients From Hell. Good luck with your organization. Patrick

Welcome aboard, dead pool. Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The October selection is... Spartacus Maximus. Congratulations! Thank you for all of your great contributions to our community. Sincerely, Patrick

Congrats kanie1972. Welcome to KF. Patrick

Hey Bob, Thank you for the reply. I just wanted to mention that I said most, not all. Most of your new students should be under 40, right? Unless your program is targeting older adults. Let me share some numbers with you. Back in 2010, Harris Interactive conducted a survey. They found that 70% of U.S. adults "rarely or never" used the phone book. That's not just young people, but all ages. And that was back in 2010 - the number can only be higher now. More recently - February of 2013 - a website called RingCentral surveyed 1,800 U.S. adults aged 18 to 65. Their survey showed that 70% of people older than 40 still used a physical phone book, but 63 percent of people under 40 never did. Over the last 18+ months, this number probably didn't go down. This is just to say that if a martial arts school expects people to find them through the phone book, they'll be missing a lot of potential people. Maybe those numbers will be helpful in convincing people in your organization, maybe not. Maybe you should share this website with them http://clientsfromhell.net/. It might break the tension... or offend them. Some of it is a little smug from the designer, some of it is a little inside baseball, but there are some stories of unreasonable clients that might be applicable. Like these: http://clientsfromhell.net/post/98548378950/i-designed-some-coins-for-a-client-who-specified http://clientsfromhell.net/post/96873041649/black-is-the-new-black http://clientsfromhell.net/post/96703139549/after-sending-five-different-layouts-of-a-clients I get this, and it makes sense with some things. But it's a difficult measure when you are talking about change. Because you are profitable until you aren't, and when you get there, it's too late. Blockbuster is an easy example of this. They had a ton of revenue ($6 billion in 2004)... until they didn't (2010, negative $1.1 billion). 6 years isn't even a long time, really. Netflix offered themselves to Blockbuster multiple times in the early 2000s for as little as $50 million. To put this into context, Blockbuster actually offered to buy Circuit City for a billion in 2008 (later that year, Circuit City went bankrupt!). Blockbuster was too stuck on the way it was, and the way it had worked before. By the time they wanted to change, it was too late. Now that's a big dramatic story and martial arts schools are different than Blockbuster video. But this happens all the time to businesses in all industries, and I know you treat your dojo as a business. To me, it sounds like you want a website, but are hamstrung by politics and in-fighting. So I guess I'm talking more to the other members of your organization than to you. Hopefully they'll break that monotony at some point. If it helps, tell them they should think of a website as something that changes and updates over time. Not as something that is done once and fixed. It's more about getting it out there and iterating, far more than it is about developing the one perfect website. Thanks, Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Unfortunately, we removed a couple of posts from this thread in error. These posts are included below. I apologize for the error. Sincerely, Patrick I'm a little confused by this line, true Krav Maga has some karate influences and has incorporated many others over the years, but it originated from the boxing and wrestling experience of imi lichtenfield.

Thank you for the submission, Bob. Patrick

Hey Bob, Thank you for the reply. Obviously, any business and any martial arts school is free not to have a website. Just like they are free not to have any number of things. I said that in my first post, no worries. I'm not trying to encroach upon your right not to have a website, but I do think that if a school owner reads your post and thinks "Bob doesn't have a website, so I don't need one," that is a risky thing to do. There are a couple of other thoughts I had, from your reply. In your school, I'm sure you have many things that were made after 1980. Carpet, training equipment, etc. Maybe you could have done with carpet made before 1980, training equipment made before 1980, etc., but I am guessing you haven't. Why not? One of the reasons is because these things changed or became available in a new form. The same is true for how word of mouth marketing works. When people talk about word of mouth marketing today, most of the discussion relates to the internet because that is where most word of mouth marketing happens. Even offline word of mouth marketing often involves telling someone a website to go to. So when you say that you rely heavily on word of mouth, and yet you don't have a website, those two statements are a tad contradictory in this day and age. You are undermining the value of word of mouth marketing by making it harder for people to share your school when someone asks for a recommendation. Generationally, this will vary, of course. But I am guessing that most of your new students are probably under 40. I think Danielle did a good job of explaining this. The number of small businesses that don't have websites will only continue to drop and those businesses will be more likely to disappear because they aren't where people look. I can't tell you when the last time I opened a phone book was. And I'm not being facetious. I really can't. When a student enters your school, I think they should have some input into what they are taught. I don't think they should be able to tell you exactly what you should teach them and exactly how you should teach it, just because they are paying you. You are the expert, and they are paying you for your expertise. If they did that, what would you do? I imagine you'd tell them no, and they would leave. And if they found a teacher that did let them demand they teach them only what they wanted, exactly how they wanted, I bet that teacher wouldn't be a good teacher. They would only be in it for a quick buck. In other words, they would be a hack. That is the equivalent of what you are saying here, when applied to the martial arts. You should have input, but you are paying a professional to make decisions. If you take that away from them, I have no doubt you can still find someone who will make you a website because, frankly, most people advertising website design aren't good. But if you do that, you'll more likely end up with a hack. Again, your school, your choice, no problem. Totally cool. This is just some stuff for you (and others) to keep in mind. Use it however. Thanks, Patrick

Welcome to KF, dead pool. Patrick

Thank you for the submission, Bob. Patrick

The lighting and sound in that video make it looks like you broke into some martial arts museum/tomb (with carpeting, of course) to examine an ancient, tattered gi worn by a historical figure. Patrick

Thank you again for the article, Bob. When you say that having a website doesn't mean you provide effective martial arts teaching, that is true. But it is also true that refusing to have a website doesn't mean that you do. Plenty of people - and even though I'm not a martial artist, I've certainly been exposed to this - trade on an idea of secrecy and mysticism to bring people to their style. "We don't have a website, we aren't meant for everyone to know about us - our principles are closely held." Stuff like that. I know you aren't doing that personally, but it's something you've heard from other arts before, I'm sure. It reminds me of a comment someone made to me on another forum many, many years ago. We were talking about forum design and they said something like "I don't care if I have an ugly forum as long as the content is good!" Well, yeah, content is important. But those are two separate, independent things. It's kind of like "If you were a real club, you wouldn't need one." It's not a real answer. Why be defensive? Why not have both? If you want more people to come to your school, you should have a website. If you want to limit how people come to you, as in you want to control your growth, that's fine and your choice. But if you have a general goal of bringing more people to your school and art, then you should have a website. For what the average schools needs, you can pay a talented designer to develop an impressive WordPress powered website for between $2,500 and $4,000. If you can't budget for that amount, then you can't be all that serious about bringing new people in. Along with a domain name ($10 a year) and web hosting (varies, but Pagely will keep WordPress up to date and do a bunch of other things for $24 a month), those are your core costs. WordPress will work great for most people and it takes care of a lot of things that will make your life a lot easier. Even if you don't spend any money on internet marketing beyond simply having a website, you'll get those costs back in return. Having a website isn't just about bringing in the people who visit your website, but also not losing the people who discover you don't have one. When I am looking for a service and I find they don't have a website... it makes me a little uncomfortable. When you talk about disagreements within the Hombu hierarchy delaying or preventing a website, I have a really simple answer for that. The Hombu hierarchy should not really be involved in those decisions. Just like you wouldn't want a web designer to tell you how to teach the martial arts, you shouldn't tell a talented web designer how to use typography or colors. That is their job and area of expertise and why you are paying them. If a school owner does not want to have a website, that's totally cool. If you are content as you are, OK. No one has to have one. But most schools who do that will be harming themselves in a major way. And when you talk about older, more obscure martial art styles, I think when you don't work to bring new people into the fold, you increase the chances that interest in your art will simply die out. If you want to spread your message, you have to bring it to the people in the medium they use. Patrick

Thank you for the submission, Bob. Patrick

Thank you for the submission, Bob. Patrick

Thank you for the submission, ps1. Patrick

Hope you and your family have a great time. Obviously I haven't been to the tournament, but I also haven't been to the Mall of America. Patrick

Welcome back, Laurie. Patrick

Thank you for the submission, Bob. Patrick

The Dolphins have us all excited. We'll see how that ends up...