:eek: 
you want a 6 figure income? Then don’t bother with Kungfu. lol
go out and get a degree as a dental surgeon, cha ching! there is your 6 figure income buddy!
all that aside, read about marketing vs merchandising, a few courses in business management and advertising won’t hurt and finally, the gold standard is “you gotta spend money to make money”. In other words, ain’t no one gonna give you high fees for learning in yoru cruddy garage or some dump hole of a building with no showers, or dirty showers.
Make a busines plan, get the loan and stick to the plan. If you don’t know what a business plan is or how to use it to get your grub stake from a bank, then get to a college and learn these things.
Royal, you have revealed that you are more interested in making a bunch of money than making kungfu in your self…maybe it’s time to reconsider your path and be honest with yourself?
Royal, you have revealed that you are more interested in making a bunch of money than making kungfu in your self…maybe it’s time to reconsider your path and be honest with yourself?
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Haven’t reveled anything here. And how do you know what my personal Kung Fu goals are anyway? Obviously I’d love to run a school someday, I loved teaching when I did it more than anyother thing I have ever done. Is there something wrong with trying to come up with a way to make a respectable income doing it?
My back is healed now, Job and family are starting to fall in line, oppertunity is about to knock. It’s getting close to game time again, I won’t be on the sidelines much longer.
nobody is lsitening, but aftershcool program is very profitable. its hard to setup, but you can make big bucks off of it. 80 dollars a week for a kid is nice. msot daycares charge more. get ten kids, 800 dollars a week. offer homework help, snack and a class near the end. if the kids like it they will sign up for a month which is another whatever a month you charge. i have seen schools make big moeny alone.
try to get in with the school system and offer an afterschool type program too. doesnt necessarly have to be after school. a local tkd school that makes 500k a year has one. the guys do it at 6-7 at night at the school gym.
whoever mentioned the contract, that is a good idea form a business point of view. the local tkd school that makes 500k a year has his people sign up for 2 years. and guess what his school is huge.
also be very confident in what you teach, go to tournaments and have your students win.
I’m pretty sure LKFMDC is running a six-figure school. Why not just use his model?
You only need to pull in about $8,000 a month. At $100/month, you only need 80 students. Get 20 or 30 more to cover expenses, and bada bing. Instant Corvette.
We have close to 100 students year round. 30 or so kids, about 20 old ****s in Taiji, and 50 or so regular kung fu students. We only charge $50/month, but that means my Sifu pulls in $60,000 before expenses. And we’re only open after 5:30 every night. We have plenty of calls from stay-at-home moms, students, and night-shifters who want to take day-classes, but we can’t accomodate.
We also teach PE classes at a couple of private schools, which brings in extra money.
Private lessons.
It can be done, but you’d have to work it. It just ain’t gonna fall into your lap.
I don’t believe there are 6 figure schools.
try to get in with the school system and offer an afterschool type program too. doesnt necessarly have to be after school. a local tkd school that makes 500k a year has one. the guys do it at 6-7 at night at the school gym.
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This is how I started out originally. Before I blew my back out it was doing rather well. My plan was to teach the class and use the $$ to fund the start up of a comercial location. Then build the comercial location into something I could support mysef with.
I don’t believe there are 6 figure schools
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Any big TKD school is pulling at least that much. I did all the figuring when I was going to open a comercial location before.
I’d have to see proof of that. Most of the big TKD schools I know still have instructors, including owners that work day jobs.
Not in Chicago they don’t. The “instructors” maybe, but owners do nothing but run the schools buissness ends, and very often hardly even teach.
I should probably interview Dino Spencer of Iron Fist, I hear he’s dong VERY well with his school.
I see, I’ve never seen a school like that, atleast not around here, although they could exist.
I know with some organizations, the people or persons at the top make pretty good money but a single school?
With all the external marketing aside, the number1 problem you have to deal with in a big school is any “percieved indifference” of the instructor on the part of the student. This happens a lot when the instructor, or more likely a junior instructor, is perceived as just going through the motions and treating the student like cattle. Nobody likes that.
The more retention the less you have to collect on long term contracts.
Also, cashing out the student and haveing a detailed budget goes a long way too.
What matters is how much you take home. Period. You could have a school that grosses $120,000, but after expenses, you walk away with $20,000. Or you could have a school that grosses $65,000 and you walk away with $40,000.
Personally, it’s not a business I would choose as it is a very, very mature market with a target audience largely incapable of esponding to strategic differentiation outside of:
Sporting school
Daycare center
psuedo-mystical arm-waving center
To each thier own.
I’d suggest getting a part-time job at The Degerberg Academy in Chicago and see how they run thier show. Running a money making school is not for the lazy or feint of heart. To do it right is non-stop hard work.
Agreed.
The classes and the management, advertizement, recruiting students, paying rent, bills, salary, scheduling, etc all take up your time.
And we only have 24 hours a day.
You have a school.
psuedo-mystical arm-waving center
ooooo, that sounds kinda neat, where do i sign up and do I have to bring my own bong?
I’d suggest getting a part-time job at The Degerberg Academy in Chicago
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Now THERE is a useful idea!! Thanks, I never thought of doing that, but I think you are on to something there. That is still a couple of years away, I have to get into regular training again first.
Sifu Abel, your comment about student retention are right on the $$. When I taught for Champion Youth Outreach, I set attendance records. One session, I had attendance of 100% for the entire session. I think I was, and still am the only one to EVER do that. Even got noticed by the founder from California for that one!!.
I can tell you, the fastest way to lose a student is to forget to make them feel you are paying attention to them. I used to actually alot 10-15 minutes between classes just to socialize with students, and parents when I ran the Royal Dragon Kid’s Kung Fu club. I had Theresa oganise cook outs, and grill outs in the parks after class, recognised birthdays, and celebrated things like rank advncements wiht cake, cookies and such, as well as different social functions such as going to the Pan Ams run by Ralph Peluso to spectate (In prep for entering students in that comp, never happened due to my back though 
)
The year I set the attendance record at Champion Youth was the same year (different session though) that all my students shut out first place in the forms divisions (as in no other locations took first in any division because MY students occupied LL those positions, in ALL age groups). We also took most of the first, and second place trophies in point sparring that year. This was done with mostly Chung moo quan training, supplemented by a foudation in master John Tsai’s system. I basically taught CMQ, only the way Tsai’s school taught his stuff.
I did this without ever competeing in my life. Yes, I know it was only points sparring, and forms, but I have a knack for seeng whats needed to succeed, and then figuring out how to give that to my students. I also did it with little to no rank what so ever, against teachers with 10-15 and as much as 20 years in the arts. So I think I could cover most of the schools progams. Don’t know how I’d fair with the hard core competitive stuff though, it’s a different game all together. I might have to hire Seven Star to run that for me. 
Here is how to do it: learn from his Holiness Olaf Simon
http://www.bullshido.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&file=viewreview&id=16
Another way is to use the WT model. A breakaway guy from WT in Europe has 30,000 schools.
30,000x1,000 a month = 30,000,000 a month.
There seems to be alot of great ideas here guys, keep them comming!!
I also like the day care plan. I bet from like 3:30 to 6:00 I could make enough to pay all the bills, and then from 6:00-9:00 I could run the rest of the programs.
Any school owners have any luck with Cardio Kix classes? My thought would be to just Nix those, as your students would get all the same bennifits from the standard Martial arts program.
If they want Cardio-kick, give it to them. You’re trying to make money here. That means offering the product that your customers want, not what you think you want to offer the customers.
If you want to teach the old way, that’s admirable, and it’s the way I would do it. But that’s not your stated goal. Your stated goal is to pull alot of money. That means approaching this whole thing like a business. Do whatever it takes.
Stop thinking about them like they’re students. Think of them as customers. If they want belts, SELL them belts. If they want monthly lessons, SELL them a contract. If they want Pit Fighting lessons, SELL them very expensive lessons. If they want new age foo-foo, SELL it. SELL, SELL, SELL!
Forget about anything that dosen’t directly contribute to getting the money from thier wallets into your pocket. I’m telling you, get thier bank account # and have them sign a year-long contract.
Originally posted by Samurai Jack
Forget about anything that dosen’t directly contribute to getting the money from thier wallets into your pocket. I’m telling you, get thier bank account # and have them sign a year-long contract.
You just made my nipples hard.