How To REALLY connect to prospects in Martial Arts.

This blog post is a bit of a rant. 

The Problems:

No one's talking about video in the MA world!?

Ma Supershow. Nada. Some schools are using it well. Most aren’t. Hyper is crushing it with video. Come on guys seriously I love this industry but I will blatantly say that a lot of this industry is stuck.

The entire business world is using video like CRAZY and only pockets of MA people are.

You have a camera in your pocket!!!

Ok is no longer good enough.

Branding is an extension of your culture. Marketing is an extension of your brand.

Everything you do says something about you. This idea that direct response can’t afford to use good design and good branding is the silliest thing ever.

Direct response of any sort doesn’t have to be ugly.
The content you put out is part of your brand.

Oversaturation.

Everyone has cameras, Everyone has canva and photoshop.

Facebook has so much content daily it’s hard to get anything seen.

In 2008 we built 10,000 fans on Facebook, everything you posted was seen.so posting 3 -5 times a day was good Now you need to be savvier about it. You need to be putting out well thought out content that is relevant to your market.

The Solution:

Small Window, You better jump fast yo.

Peaking interest is what people need to be doing not these videos where you do a FB live to show your class. Who tells you to do these things? People who don't have any other way to leverage video. That's who. People who just don't know. Or worse. Those stupid meme's that do NOT work anymore. I don't care what some guru said they get better likes or traction on their meme's it's probably because their video efforts suck even worse. If you know even a fraction of the stuff an entrepreneur using video knows you will see how they crush for every sector of business. 

So What peaks interest. 

Passioned Positioning

EMOTION. Point Blank. 

Emotion, Connection, Quality, Entertainment, Inspiration and Education.

You need to stand out. There are 20,000 martial arts schools in the country. What makes you different. Put your culture and story on display in an emotionally engaging story telling way.

Do less. Do better.

Spend some time developing your videos. Don't just be lazy making anything. Less is more with the saturation amount of media being dumped on FB every day. FB will show what's relevant. So make it relevant. 

Here is an exercise. 

Write down 1 story a week either something that someone said in your school that has inspired others, or the transformation someone has gone through.

Make it emotional. Look for the emotion in the things you do. The stuff that inspires you and the stuff that inspires your current members. And build stories from there.

Measure 10 times cut once.

Have other people tell your story. It’s a great way if you don’t want to be on camera to still show your culture without being like 

“hey, here's my school come into it, see this is where we train… you should be here too… no”

Don’t Be Lazy.

The problem with everyone having cameras is it’s easy to make any type of videos to add to the noise. When the telephoto lenses came out people got lazy with movie making. Don’t get lazy. Just because you have the tool to make the video doesn’t mean you should be half ass about it.

I am a martial Artist. We are Martial artists.

Look at the end of the day martial arts is unlike any fitness gym. It changes the person from the inside out. This is the most powerful thing you can have in a business. YET it’s marketed often half ass, not serious, or on the cheap to get by. This has GOT to stop. 

One of the reasons it is like this is because the people teaching this stuff do not focus their own business on the important stuff. They focus on churning. Look at anyone who is your teacher, check out their school if their school doesn't look great, and wonderfully done, like Greg Horton, Zulfi Ahmed, Brannon Beliso, Melody Schuman, or John Cassidy well then gauge what you hear from them of that. 

Yes, I do not own a school. I never will. That's not what I do. I build brands and build media for marketing. And we do that really great. All of our stuff is IMPECCABLE.

Because I spend the time to speak to my customers and worry mostly about what I am not saying in my branding and what they are thinking from me not saying it. 

Your brand is the first connection and often the last contact a prospect has with your business. You better put your ALL into it. Or you can't expect others to spend their money with you if you aren't going to take it seriously. 

Martial arts is commercial and mainstream now and we need to start acting like leaders. It’s no longer acceptable in my opinion to get by with your marketing.