Why My Martial Arts School Doesn't Have a Website

[DWx]

Bob, how do you communicate with current students and parents?

Just a consideration but along a slightly different line of thinking, a website can be a great tool for keeping in touch with existing students and offering up supplementary teachings in the form of videos, pictures articles etc. Also seems as good a place as any to send out any news or an events calendar.

[Patrick]

Hey Bob,

Thank you for the reply.

And, no, lol, my new students aren't all under 40; age ranges varies.

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.

Also, I depend on the phonebook a lot...let my fingers do the walking often.

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.

Our biggest problem is whenever the company we have hired brings us a draft, we'll sit there, looking it over, then many in the room will nitpick the newest draft to death until I'm ready to jump out of the nearest window.

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 will get a website for my dojo if the P&L, Profit/Loss Statement, shows me that I can't do without a website. According to my accountant, my P&L shows me that I'm quite financially solvent without a website.

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

[sensei8]

Bob, how do you communicate with current students and parents?

Just a consideration but along a slightly different line of thinking, a website can be a great tool for keeping in touch with existing students and offering up supplementary teachings in the form of videos, pictures articles etc. Also seems as good a place as any to send out any news or an events calendar.

To the bold type above...

Well, at my dojo/retail store...I speak to them face to face. I've an open-door policy!! I have a very large bulletin board hung up in the lobby with latest news, information, and the like that's dojo related.

At the Hombu, well...I do the very same thing, for in-house students and parents. The Hombu sends out monthly newsletters to all affiliated Shindokan dojo's. Quarterly conference calls to those aforementioned dojo's.

You know, things like that.

[sensei8]

Hey Bob,

Thank you for the reply.

And, no, lol, my new students aren't all under 40; age ranges varies.

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.

LOL!! And you're right, most of my new students are under 40. When I replied, my pea-brain thought that you were inferring that my dojo was a "for kids only" dojo. Again, LOL...my bad, sorry for that. **Bag over my face**

Also, I depend on the phonebook a lot...let my fingers do the walking often.

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.

Very interesting stats!! Good to see that I'm not the only one who still uses the phone book; 70% puts a smile on my old tattered face. I will share these stats with the interested parties when I'm at the Hombu next week.

Our biggest problem is whenever the company we have hired brings us a draft, we'll sit there, looking it over, then many in the room will nitpick the newest draft to death until I'm ready to jump out of the nearest window.

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 just wanted to know...just how did they bug the Hombu's conference room?? Those provided links of yours made me laugh AND they made me cry because the thickheadness shown in these links is EXACTLY what I deal with each and every time we confer over this very subject. If one looks hard enough, one could see where I've been hitting my head on the conference table in frustration.

I WILL share these links with interested parties when I'm at the Hombu next week. However, I don't expect them to have an "Aha" moment. Great MAists, each of them, but more stubborn than a pin full of pigs.

I will get a website for my dojo if the P&L, Profit/Loss Statement, shows me that I can't do without a website. According to my accountant, my P&L shows me that I'm quite financially solvent without a website.

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.

That's a good analogy, through and through. I sincerely believe that the biggest reason for these once retail giants to fail was that they couldn't support their infrastructure any longer!! I believe they wanted to change, but they couldn't change because their failing infrastructure was already crumbling right from under their feet. All of the change in the world wasn't going to save them. Same thing for Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery; there infrastructure failed as well!!

With those giants, they tried to get bigger, and by acquiring others into their P&L, they couldn't support them. Hollywood Video's biggest boo boo in business was when they tried to lie to consumers and tell them that there's no more "late fees", when in reality, all Hollywood Video "changed" was the name to disguise the late fees. Losing consumer trust, and with Netflix and Red Box taking big chunks out of Hollywood's revenue, the infrastructure was even more weakened; failure was eminent.

My grace is that I'm not one of the retail giants, and yet, I remain solvent because I live within my means. I'm not trying to be bigger than my britches than Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, or Circuit City. No. I'm a small dojo/retail business that is content with being the little guy who CAN support his own infrastructure quite comfort.

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.

Yes, I would like to have a website; it seems to be the rage of the page. Yes, again, the Hombu is "hamstrung by politics and in-fighting", but imho, I believe that it's more in-fighting than anything else, as we've talked about..."Clients From Hell", and for me, it's hierarchy from hell.

Your two paragraphs above are sweet to my sweet tooth because if I can't get to them and our Legal Team can't get to them, then possibly, YOU and many KF members CAN...it's something to hope for. But, knowing them as well as I do, they are the horse that I can't lead to water...while they're standing right next to the biggest water deposit known to man, woman, and child. Lord help me!!

As with me, the Kyuodan Dojo is content with NOT having a website and the like...for now. I'll keep an eye open and an ear turned and an open mind on this, and if appropriate, then it's possible that I might change my mind.

[sensei8]

You ever get a thought in your head, and you can't type as fast as the thought comes into your head? Well, and this has nothing to do with anything, and please forgive me my ranting on myself, but, when I read the post right above this one, I have no grammatical flow; it's disjointed. That destroys the meaning I might've been trying to make.

So, to all who read my posts, and if you ever encounter a passage that doesn't quite make any sense, then, please, forgive me for my mistakes with the written pen...or keyboard, as it is in this case.

[Patrick]

Hey Bob,

Thank you for the reply.

LOL!! And you're right, most of my new students are under 40. When I replied, my pea-brain thought that you were inferring that my dojo was a "for kids only" dojo. Again, LOL...my bad, sorry for that. **Bag over my face**

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

[sensei8]

Patrick,

LOL...Yes, I, too, would love to lumped in with the kids. No discerning intent was meant to all.

Oh...I see...well, the 30% is a small number, and I'm glad I'm part of it. I can't remember the last time I looked up a phone number on the internet.

And thanks, I'll need all of the luck I can get with the Hombu in this regards. Oh well!!

[Rateh]

For reference, I am 30 and every time a phone book gets delivered to my door it goes right in the trash. I do, however, use the internet to look up phone numbers every single time I need one. In fact, just last weekend I spent time online finding a doctor in my area that was covered by my insurance. Never once did it cross my mind to open a phone book. That seems an awful lot harder than going to my insurances website and doing a search for doctors in my area.

Also, the internet gives you the ability to find out real information outside of regular business hours. Because you don't need to call or stop by to get the information.

My parents are 52 and 55 years old, and they to use only the internet, and don't even own a phone book.

Just a thought from a somewhat "young" person.

[sensei8]

For reference, I am 30 and every time a phone book gets delivered to my door it goes right in the trash. I do, however, use the internet to look up phone numbers every single time I need one. In fact, just last weekend I spent time online finding a doctor in my area that was covered by my insurance. Never once did it cross my mind to open a phone book. That seems an awful lot harder than going to my insurances website and doing a search for doctors in my area.

Also, the internet gives you the ability to find out real information outside of regular business hours. Because you don't need to call or stop by to get the information.

My parents are 52 and 55 years old, and they to use only the internet, and don't even own a phone book.

Just a thought from a somewhat "young" person.

Solid post!!

You and your parents are part of that 70% that DON'T use the phone book, and I accept that, and I accept the fact that I'm very far behind the times.

[AmbientFire]

First time poster, long time lurker. I was thinking about the different reasons to have a website and a fairly altruistic (or whatever you want to call it) reason comes to mind.

I get that Mr. Sensei8 is a serious practitioner and instructor and that is something that should perhaps be shared for the sake of prospective students. "Proof is on the floor!" Is a healthy sentiment that I share, but guess what? Not all dojo do.

I know I personally want all potential students to be able to engage in serious martial arts, but how can they do that if all they see and hear is McDojo?

It was remarked that a real dojo doesn't need a website - well, perhaps a real student-to-be does. Students have to find you, and you can't afford to underestimate how incredibly hard it is for the uninitiated to distinguish between serious arts and quick money grabs. You can obviously afford it financially right now, but that's not the issue I'm addressing.

It was also mentioned that a website isn't proof of good martial arts - all the more reason for serious martial artists to get on the ole internet and show the world what good martial arts look like. The bigger you make the presence of real martial arts, the harder it becomes for McDojo to sell their snake oil.

Yes, you are running a business. But you are also teaching a living, breathing, thinking and feeling human being. That may not sound savvy, but it is worth a whole lot in my estimation.