Written by two karate types, it talks about establishing a school and all the things needed. You can find more info on the book at: http://www.tuttlepublishing.com/title.cgi?title_id=2475
[Andrew] The yellow pages come through sometimes also [in addition to fliers].
[Craig] At least have a one line entry in the Yellow pages to maintain some kind of consistent advertising.
[Bob J] ...One of our instructors is in radio marketing. His opinion is that the yellow pages are for people who are looking for something they already know they want. It is the internet that will catch people who are trying to decide....
[Bob J] We made very handsome posters (one of our instructors is a
commercial artist) with tear-off tabs at the bottom with our phone
number and web address. I found the tabs get torn off faster when I
tear off two of them before I put the poster up.
[Craig] Fliers seem to work better (than ads) in
small towns especially college towns.
[Scott] I tend to put flyers up in community places (libraries, delis, my
workplace, etc.) where I think a wide variety of people will see them. I
think our programs appeal to a wide range of people, and I haven't found
any good way of telling who will be interested. I don't even have a good
idea of who will stick around for more than one class.
Many people don't realize ... that we are a non-profit organization
with volunteer instructors. I write this in on the flyers I put up,
and I also mention it when I talk to people on the phone or in
person.
One thing to think about is whether you want the CC class joining with your
regular classes or not. If the CC class is separate from your regular
classes, be aware that you will need lots of help. It is one thing to
teach one or two beginners in a class of experienced students. It is quite
a different matter to teach 10-20 brand-new students with no experience.
We found it was very useful to have several regular students come and help
with the community college class. This helps with everything from extra
people helping the new students with Ki tests to having someone who can do
a basic attack.
We also found that the classes ended up with about half the number of
students that started, which is actually a higher retention rate than we
have in our normal classes. Some of the students did continue on with Ki
and aikido training, either through the CC program or by joining the
regular classes.
I developed a two-hour class, one hour on Tuesday at noon, the second
hour on Thursday at noon. On the first day I taught four basic
principles and their application to office work. On the second day, I
taught ki breathing exercise.
Interestingly enough, the classes were almost entirely composed of
women in support positions. I got very few men, and no one - NO ONE
- in management positions.
The classes were well received, but no one ever came down to the dojo
to continue training. Some people to this day tell me they still do
their breathing exercise, though.
Some of you might try something like this at your work place. If it
doesn't increase your dojo membership, at least it will spread Ki
principles, which is what our teaching is all about. I still have a
class outline, and if you want one, I will send it to you if you
contact me off list.
[Bengt] On the corporate thing, I found myself bloodied against fear
of liability at my work place. People wanted it - management didn't.
And no manangers participated.
[Craig] I agree on Newspaper ads, you need deep pockets to make those
work because you need to be in the paper everyday not just on a hit or
miss basis. Fliers seem to work better in small towns especially
college towns. At least have a one line entry in the Yellow pages to
maintain some kind of consistent advertising. Larger ads, it's
unclear, the cost can be quite high in larger cities.
It all comes down to having something consistently out there all the
time with sufficient visibility.
[Jake] The most successful aikido school here in St. Louis is one
... that offers themselves up as self-defense specialists. They
advertise heavily on radio and TV, cashing in upon people's fear and
insecurities. .... They are, however, a very big school with 4 or
more times the number of members of any of the other aikido schools
here in town.
I don't think Ki society can (or should) try to compete for that
market.
[Ted E] A few months ago I listed our dojo in a free "clubs" listing in the
local newspaper. Recently the paper did a Friday section article on
us, so hopefully we'll get more students. I'm a big one for free
listings, since we don't have an advertising budget and can get
small, free listings as a non-profit organization.
[Craig] All I know is that the owner of the karate school that I run
the Houston Ki Society program out of keeps remarking that a large
percentage of the prospective students we get comment on having seen
us through the website and yet he doesn't seem to get anyone through
his website.
Well, I put a lot of work into our website and made sure it's listed
in the common aikido dojo search locators. I continue to tinker with
it (new image on front page) so it changes. His site was put up
quickly by a student over a year ago and has not been touched since.
A website can be good tool, but you need to do a good job on it and
maintain it or it can hurt you I think as people might judge you by
the site. [Craig's Web tips are below.]
We need it because we are not in a college town nor where there is a
lot of walk-by traffic.
[Bob J] Craig's post about the web site bears consideration. One of our
instructors is in radio marketing. His opinion is that the yellow
pages are for people who are looking for something they already know
they want. It is the internet that will catch people who are trying
to decide, and should be considered to be your major marketing tool
these days.
I put Tai Chi into my keyword list because I get more that a few calls
asking about that. Several of us have Karate in our list because
people want to try aikido, but karate is the only martial art they
know the name of. If you want to see a really creative list of
keywords, look at the list on the Oregon Department of Corrections
home page: http://www.doc.state.or.us/welcome.shtml
One other note about your web site. Check the download time. If it
takes more than 30 seconds, chances are you are losing customers. My
Salem Dojo web page is about 35K, is almost all text, and downloads
very quickly. http://www.oregonki.org/salem.html
[Craig]
Craig's Web Tips:
The important thing about a website is not only creating it, but
promoting it. Sites like http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
help you find out how you can get your site recognized by internet
searchers. I put up a site for a karate friend and he said that
people could find his site, but couldn't find his teacher's school
site. The only difference was that I listed his site with several
search engines, whereas the creator of the school site didn't
apparently list with anyone.
Another way to promote your site (for free) is to list with a webring
like http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=kiaikidowebring
for Ki- Aikido websites, but that would be tooting my own horn. ;)
[Eri] Some free(?) search engines I've heard about:
[Craig] Not to be underestimated.
Despite that we still have some real gaps in the types of people that we
would like to get to attend such as people in ages 18 to 30 and more women.
We certainly aren't having any trouble attracting young people to our
children's classes.
[Andrew] Kashiwaya Sensei made a very important observation when teach
us some years ago. He said, "Aikido is about relationships." This
statement really rang my bell.
The instructor must maintain eye contact (Tohei Sensei's soft eyes). Also
the instructor can only teach what is there. Meaning that you have to make
sure that each student has at least some level of understanding before you
go on to another thing. Also, do not talk too much. My Teacher, Tsubaki
Sensei has told us over and over, "If you have something to say (as a
teacher) then cut it down at least to one third!" Finally, only bring up
one or maybe two points at any one time. Not many people can take in more
than that without being a little overwhelmed.
[Craig] Tsubaki is a very wise man.
[Eri] My first experience with a class was horrible, because everyone
was advanced and they were bumping into me as I tried (and failed) to
follow along with the various exercises and taiso, and so on. I
didn't come back for a year. George Simcox's class, however, was very
different -- the new people were encouraged, helped, and not forced to
do anything they didn't know how to do. I stayed.
[Craig] I think it's pretty important not to throw people into classes
where they are the only beginner if at all possible.
I know I started in a class where there were 10 beginners and 2 or 3
more advanced. We were all struggling together and it was a lot of
fun to have every Wednesday night to look forward to. After a month or
so, Wednesday wasn't enough and I added Tuesday. Then a few months
later I started going Thursday and Saturday too. Those were a bit
more intimidating as Saturday was just open practice at the time (no
structure) and Thursday night was supposed to be advanced (I don't
remember how I wormed into that one as a no-kyu, probably begged ;)).
As to retention rates, out of that set of beginners, I am in the only
still practicing as far as I know. The others lasted a few months to
several years. I think those that make the transition into other
classes are more likely to continue.
[Randy B] ...We have had our best year ever in bringing people into
the dojo, particularly with an offer of a free introductory class
noted in our yellow pages ad.... Despite the
initial success [from the yellow page ads] we have had difficulty
keeping beginners for over a month. We are pretty sure that this has
been due in large part to the fact that we just invite them into a
regular "general" class where they may feel out of their depths or
frustrated. The intro and intro-plus approaches as outlined by Andrew
may be the answer to this problem.
[Andrew] This is a really good topic. We have adopted a method from
the Northwest Ki Federation (Tabata Sensei's dojo) that uses a four
week Introductory course to bring in new students. Over the last 24
months we have brought in almost 200 students. There is always a high
attrition in our line of work and the percentage is about the same for
us (before Intro and after Intro). I saw how Maui Ki-Aikido was
getting so many new students into their Intro Class and Curtis Sensei
told me he got the idea from the Oregon group.
Tsubaki Sensei, being a professor emeritus, is very into syllabus so he had
me write one for this four week class. We modify it regularly and rotate
Instructors. Maybe the best thing we do is to include as many Instructors
and higher ranking students as possible. Trying to achieve a high beginner
to experienced combination as possible. This is because it is very
difficult for two brand new students to work together effectively. We do
let them work together also, however we try to place a beginner to advanced
pair as much as possible.
The class is one night a week from 6:30 to 8:30 (we rotate the night each
time (M,T,W,Th). Each week we focus on one basic principle, one point,
relax completely, keep weight underside and extend Ki. Then we proceed to
give the students a view of Shin shin Toistu Aikido that is a broad view to
show how we begin and show what we are doing as we advance. They only do
one or two techniques and work on rolling and 3 or 4 hitori waza.
We charge $30 for the Intro-class and then we offer a special deal where if
they wish to continue we charge them $100 for the next 3 months, give them a
dojo T-shirt, and a dojo manual. Our regular fees are $50 per month. For
the first three weeks of this 3 month period, we do what is called an Intro
Plus class on the same night as the Intro Class. This is to help in the
transition to the other basic classes. During the Intro Class they can only
attend that night plus the Ki Class night. After they join, they can go all
four nights of the week and so we focus on Oneness Rhythm and the basics,
with more technique, we taught in the Intro Class.
We do not allow a new student to begin in a regular class unless they have
training in Ki Society before.
[Scott] One thing that helps our beginning classes a lot is the number
of blackbelts we have that regularly attend class. There are always
at least two blackbelts and sometimes there are three or four.
This gives us a lot of options for working with beginners. There is always
someone available to teach an introductory class if we have a brand-new
person. If not (or if we have more than two black belts in class), then we
have someone who can work with the newer (but not completely new) students
as a side-class. Typically we do this for aikido classes (rather than ki
classes). These sessions mostly focus on rolling, but we sometimes cover
the basic warm-up exercises as well.
On other nights, everyone will stay in class together. In those cases, we
try to split up and work with as many of the people in class as possible.
That way everyone gets a wide exposure to different people. We all have
our different strengths and splitting up gives all of us (beginners and
advanced students alike) a chance to learn from different people.
[Diana] Just a note....we gear all our regularly scheduled (open)
classes to fundamentals, with the intent of each individual class
being geared toward those who come to it...so on some days, it may be
quite advanced, and on others be almost introductory. This helps
advanced students to hone their teaching skills as well as to work
more on fundamentals, while giving beginning students the opportunity
to work at the level that is best for them and be exposed to all
levels of training at the same time.
Some days we break the class into two sections where we start with
the fundamentals for everyone, then move the more advanced students
into broader application faster.
We do have advanced aikido classes for students above a certain
level, and additional extra mat time as advanced students move into
test preparation modes.
[Andrew] Our society is based on money. So, I had to,.... move some
minds to this point of view, because some members in our group wanted
to have a free intro class. This is not how we think subconsciously.
What we have to "Give" has value. So, in our society, we associate
that value (at least indirectly but mostly very directly) with money.
Emphasis to every Intro class that you are not-for-profit and that you
are all volunteers, giving your time because you deeply feel it can be
helpful to anybody.
[Eri] Feeling like a welcome guest in an established family (also) has
its big bonus points.
[Nigel] We have
had some reasonable success at the Hill End Dojo and keeping students
after they walk through the door in the last year or so and maybe we
have a formula that looks like it is starting to work. ... We
have class sizes of 15-25 students, training 3 times per week.
We developed a policy of developing a structured program for the
beginners for their first 25 lessons to 5th kyu grading. The students
are split off from the rest of the class after warming up and are
taught by one of the Dan grades. However, we try to keep it so that
they see predominantly one person all the time, with a second senior
student as back-up.
After we kept a group of students together with this program, we then
developed a specific program for 4th and 5th kyu students, again with
their own instructor and preferably the one that taught them from the
beginning of their training. From 3rd kyu, they fall into
the "seniors" class.
We have kept a good group of students together this way and they are
now starting to grade into 3rd kyu. The three main keys were:
...Our mock tests are actually "tests." If a student does well, he or
she is allowed to test -- but we already know if they're going to pass
the "real" test. We like to keep the attitude at our mock tests very
light & informal, but the requirements for "passing" are fairly
demanding. We make sure that students who do the mock tests finish
with a good feeling and get plenty of positive feedback. This way,
they know they can pass the actual test -- which is usually more formal
but no longer as scary as it might have been.
You know what though? We still only keep about ten percent of the
students, like most dojos -- but we can feel good about the sincerity of
our teaching (and retention) efforts.
[Scott] Many people don't realize this last point, that we are a
non-profit organization with volunteer instructors. I write this in
on the flyers I put up, and I also mention it when I talk to people on
the phone or in person.
[Andrew] You cannot really choose who comes into the dojo.
How(attitude, posture, experienced to beginner ratios in the intro
class) and what you teach will naturally weed out who really does not
want to be there.
There is a high attrition. We have brought in about 200 new students the
last two years and with strict adherence to the syllabus, one basic
principle a week, and the experienced to beginner ratio we went from; 8 kids
and 15 adults to 15 kids and 40 adults. The attrition rate is just plain
high.
[Sharon]
"at what point should we be concerned about getting too big?"
I say, Never! The dojo size will ebb and flow, and even if it gets
"too big", it can quickly become too small, especially if you get
complacent and end your recruitment efforts.
In the event it really does get too big, you could consider
instituting additional classes taught by the senior students at other
days/times. That way, different students might find different days to
be most convenient, and you might end up with smaller classes instead
of fewer, bigger ones.
I would also argue that having some large classes is not all
that bad. Small classes are good for personal attention (some of the
best classes I've taken/taught had only one student), but bigger
classes provide more diversity of nages/ukes for each person to
experience. They also add a certain vitality that smaller groups
don't generate as easily. It's nice to mix it up a little. (By big,
I mean 15-25 people. Even huge classes, like 100, are good to
experience once in a while, like at special seminars, but I wouldn't
want to do it regularly. That would truly be too big.)
[Jake] I don't think Ki society can (or should) try to compete for
[the fearful, insecure, wants self-defense] market.
Posters and Fliers
[Andrew] We only use fliers posted by members all over town. It is
the most effective way in our market. We do have a yellow pages also.YMCA Outreach
[Jake] St Louis Ki Society is near a major university (Washington
University) and for a long time had a program where we offered aikido
through the campus YMCA program. The students were allowed to come
to two of our regular basic classes per week during the semester.
Inevitably, a few of them would stay on as regular students. I
thought this was a pretty successful program as it kept a new flow of
students coming in each semester. Community College Outreach
[Scott] A couple of our dojos have done some classes through local community
colleges. I taught a couple of sessions for one of those classes, and I
have a couple of suggestions for making it work.Corporate Outreach
[Bob J] A few years ago I tried something called Relaxation in the
Office. Office work is stressful, and I thought people would like to
learn how to take their work every day with a little less stress.Traditional Advertising
[Andrew] Newspaper ads have never worked for us. Websites & Web Tips
[Maj] We get quite a lot of contacts through our website. (Sweden)
[Ted E] We didn't seem to get anyone through our website until about 3
years ago. Of course internet usage exploded about then. Several
people now have said they discovered us while doing research into the
dojo that they wanted to attend. This is our only steady means of
advertising, since we don't advertise in the local yellow pages.
[Danny] Below are the keywords for my 'aikido in brisbane' webpage (http://all.at/aikido or http://www.geocities.com/danielajames/aikido)
- I developed them after running some free (cripple ware) web position
software (web position gold) which is supposed to improve you site on
search engines .. lo and behold it did I actually started getting
hits. Having said that this will probably ensure that my page slips
further in obscurity if they are universally adopted by others in the
aiki community..such is life.
Other tips were to
<head>
<title>Aikido in Brisbane and Australia</title>
<META NAME="keywords" content="aikido brisbane, aikido australia,
yuishinkai aikido, aikido queensland, AIKIDO AUSTRALIA, YUISHINKAI AIKIDO,
AIKIDO QUEENSLAND, Aikido Australia,griffith aikido, sandgate aikido,
goldcoast aikido, coorparoo aikido, gentle aikido, Yuishinkai Aikido,
Aikido, martial arts, ki no kenkyukai, koretoshi, maruyama, tohei ,
o'sensei, ki, chi, internal arts, bokken, jujutsu, ki society, shin shin
toitsu, karate, tai chi, budo">
<META NAME="description" content="Aikido Brisbane, Aikido Queensland and
Aikido Australia web sites listed here. Weblinks of dojos and styles of the
martial art aikido. It includes Ki society, shin shin toitsu headed by
koichi tohei">
</head>Word of Mouth
[Eri] What got me into the Ki Society was word-of-mouth. (I think it
also got a friend of mine into local aikido too (no local Ki Societies).)Good Voice Mail
[Randy B] We have also instituted a pretty good voice mail system
for all of our telephone inquiries and try to get back to any callers
within 24 hours of their call. The message on the phone that a caller
hears was written to match our yellow pages ad and was recorded by a
member with acting and voice lessons so that it comes across clear and
tries to impart real enthusiasm. We then track every call and try to
get a demographic breakdown so we can see the type of person calling
and who actually shows up. Calgary Ki Society now has about 2 years of
this data on hand.Teaching Style
(See also Introductory Courses)Introductory Courses (and Beginners' Classes)
(See also Teaching Style.)
There are other things we did and I am more than happy to discuss
other aspects of the dojo operation which in the end help to develop
a feel of a community rather than a gym. To keep some students
training, this is very important.On Testing
[JCS] The attrition rate is pretty high in martial arts, especially in
Aikido[...]. Do you have students perform in front of their peers on
a regular basis (not in a testing environment, but during a normal
class)? Some folks have fears concerning public performance and this
gets them used to doing Aikido while others are watching.Other Thoughts
[Craig] From advertisers, I have always heard that too much free sends
the unintended message that this thing is of less value. Like you
say, this is a capitalist society.Different Target Audience?
[Jake] As implied before, college students are good, since Ki aikido has a
certain intellectual bent to it. We have found lately that we seem
to be accumulating older hard-style practitioners who are tired of
getting beat up. They seem to like the relaxation aspects of things,
while still finding martial effectiveness. Maybe you could hang out
at tae kwon do schools and talk to the older, tired-looking folks you
find there. :-)Have a Committee
[Randy B] All of the information about promoting Ki Scoiety has
been very timely for us at Calgary Ki Society. We recently set up a
committee to examine how we market ourselves. We have had our best
year ever in bringing people into the dojo, particularly with an offer
of a free introductory class noted in our yellow pages ad.
General Information & Articles