Tae Kwon Do at Asian Arts Center featured on WDTN’s Living Dayton with Zuri Hall
Call (937)395-0333 for more info or visit www.aacdayton.com
The Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School was founded by Matt Pasquinilli in 2000 and serves children and adults in the Miami Valley area around Dayton, Kettering, Centerville, Beavercreek, Bellbrook, Spring Valley, Fairborn, Belmont, Springboro, and nearby communities.
Dayton, Ohio – The best martial arts school in the Miami Valley has just opened it’s second location. Near I75, the Dayton Mall, Yankee Trace, and a short drive from Springboro, the Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School now has a branch at 661 Lyon’s Road across from Sam’s Club and around the corner from J. Alexanders, The Chop House, Carver’s Steak House, and Champs American Grill.
www.aacdayton.com for more info
In their fantastic book, “The Go Giver”, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, the authors define your worth in the world of work with this question, “How much more can you give in value than you can take in payment?” Answer this question well, and you will be on your way to operating a highly successful martial arts school.
Value added services are complimentary offerings that add to the core value of your programs. Teaching great classes in a clean and modern facility is a great start, but if you want to increase the value you represent to your students, then you are going to have to come up with some extras that don’t necessarily cost you money, and more importantly, leverage the relationship you already have with your students.
Here is a list of questions you can ask yourself to get started on some value added service ideas. While you go over this list, remember the platinum rule, “Treat your customers the way they want to be treated.”
There are countless questions that you can ask. Asking is the starting point, and if you don’t look for value added services that you can offer to your members for free and that are of great interest to them, then your school will never be as good as it can be. After the questions are answered, get to work immediately on creating something and implementing it in through your operating plan.
Here are some examples of value added services that we have created and use with great success. It is only a starting point, and you should always be asking these questions and adding or refreshing your list of offerings
There are a lot more and many are proprietary. The best ones are those that you will come up with on your own after talking to your parents and thinking about what they need and want. Grab a pencil and a piece of paper and take a few minutes to work on your business.
Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non-profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. www.aacdayton.com
Learn more about “The Go-Giver” here: www.thegogiver.com
by Matt Pasquinilli and Dennis Schaefer
Whether you hire instructors from within your student body, hire Black Belts from outside your school, or train them from scratch solely for the purpose of teaching like you do, you must have a system for training them to be effective and professional employees. There are specific attributes that we look for in an instructor candidate. These attributes are usually predictors of future success. Few people ever earn a Black Belt and even fewer become good instructors. Hiring the right people and training them to teach allows you to start with a person most likely to become a great instructor.
Tip 34 – Hiring Instructors
Hire the right person and teach them how to teach martial arts. The attributes that we look for in a great instructor are kindness, compassion, energy, excitement, and great communication skills. While we do have some Black Belts who also possess these attributes, our success has come from finding a fun, mature, professional person with an open mind who is looking for a meaningful job with good pay and decent benefits. Write a list of attributes that you think would help a person be successful as a martial arts instructor and then start looking for that person. Ask the professional people that you already know if they know of someone who might fit your description, and then set up an interview.
Tip 35 – Meeting with Your Instructors
Organize short, weekly meetings for your instructors. The weekly meetings allow you to pass on information and find out what issues your instructors might be struggling with. It also keeps everyone on the same page as far as curriculum and teaching. During our weekly meetings, we are often brainstorming ways to handle problems that might be happening in class. It gives everyone a sense of ownership and support. Ideas and solutions flow freely and everyone leaves feeling like they are ready for a new week of teaching.
Tip 36 – Training Sessions
Plan monthly training sessions for your instructors. Monthly training should be hands on with a lot of role playing. These training sessions are usually two or three hours long. All of our staff members are required to attend and are paid for their time. Each month we introduce or reintroduce one or two new drills to keep classes fresh and exciting. Our role playing focuses on behavior issues that might happen in class or cover brief, “mat chats” where instructors develop short, 30 second scripts to talk to students about the tenets of our training and how it can be used at home, work, or school.
Tip 37 – Lead by Example
Teaching by example is mandatory and requires that instructors practice martial arts and the martial arts spirit each day, know the curriculum, and constantly monitor and evaluate their behavior. This includes you, the school owner and head instructor.
Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. Dennis Schaefer is a professional martial arts instructor and author living in Oakwood, Ohio. www.aacdayton.com, www.aacdayton.ning.com
by Dennis Schaefer
At our martial arts school every day presents a new opportunity for customer service. With our student population approaching 300 students and our parent population approaching 600- assuming most students have at least 2 adults involved most of the time- my job as school manager keeps me hopping.
Our philosophy involves parent investment and participation in assuring that their children/students are practicing the behavior and habits that true martial artists practice at home and school as well as here at the dojang. My communication with parent begins the first day the student comes to try class and continues as long as the student continues to study. That initial meeting also begins the process of customer service that keeps our retention rate at about 80%.
In that first parent conference, I give the parent a chance to speak first, to tell me how they heard about our school and what prompted them to give us a try. That way I can immediately respond to their needs by addressing how our school can meet them, rather than throwing out a bunch of information that may or may not be important to them. It personalizes the process from the beginning and starts the vital parent investment.
I do try to narrow the conversation to avoid comparisons to other schools or martial arts programs. It is much safer to explain our expertise than to get into judgments about other schools or programs. I prefer to let our school’s success – enrollment numbers and retention rate-speak for itself.
Parents are invited to take a tour of our school, to see what’s happening in other classrooms, then to watch their child’s class. Watching is encouraged, once again to start the process of investment in the program.
Our instructors are trained to spend the valuable time immediately before and after class to chat with the parents about their student’s progress and possible challenges. This includes their performance at home and school. It is also an excellent time to work with individual students on their forms. We try to maximize the number of times we recognize individual students by name.
Customer service continues with a space on each student’s test form for parent comments on both what we are doing right and areas they feel could be improved. We also do a yearly survey of parent’s satisfaction.
Communication is facilitated by a monthly online newsletter and a number of bulletin boards throughout the school. We have designated employees who handle questions on specific topics such as fees, schedules and student progress.
Each potential student who starts our 2 week free trial receives a hand written post card in the mail with an individualized message, welcoming them back. We also try to recognize birthdays. Students who have been missing from class for more than a couple of weeks receive a phone call or e-mail to check up on their status.
Keeping our facilities clean and comfortable, equipment repaired and up-to-date and staff well trained are also a vital part of our customer service mission.
There is no substitute for immediate and continuing communication with both parent and student. The sooner they realize the benefits on both levels, the more likely that you will continue a long and fruitful relationship.
Dennis Shaefer is the Operations Manager at the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. www.aacdaton.com
by Matt Pasquinilli and Dennis Shaefer
Finding a location will require a lot of research. We have known many business owners, both in our industry and other industries, who don’t do any research. Instead, they drive by an empty storefront or commercial building and fall in love with the idea of having their business there. They call a broker, sign on the line, and only realize months later that it is not ideal for their type of business or the customers they want to serve. While you might be fortunate and find a great location that happens to be near your house or on the driving route to your current day job, if you don’t do some research and take the following tips into account, you might be making success in your business an impossible or needlessly difficult task.
Tip 8 – Target Demographics
You should identify the market you want to serve and study the demographic makeup of that area. Consider household income, number of children per household, nature of surrounding businesses, average real estate prices and turnover rates, existing recreational facilities, recent trends in population and business, etc. This information can be obtained on-line from the US Census Bureau and other more specific sources. This will help you to map the prime spots for your first location.
Tip 9 – Careful Consideration of Real Estate
Consider the fact that commercial real estate lease rates can be affected by a number of influences. Sometimes a “deal” isn’t really a deal at all. Remember that you will be serving families with children and most classes will be held after work hours. What happens to the neighborhood after dark? Will parking be a problem? Is there room for growth?
Tip 10 – Do Your Research
Talk to neighboring business owners and tenants who lease from the same landlord you are considering. Shop around for the best commercial realtor. Some landlords are willing to let you do your own renovation if the space isn’t ideal for your purpose. You can negotiate several free months of rent in exchange for doing the work yourself. Be sure to check local zoning regulations first.
Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio. Dennis Shaefer is a profesional martial artist living in Oakwood, Ohio.