Episode 947 - Conversations on Opening a School
In this episode join Andrew as he sits down with past guests Nick Taber and Gregory Williams to discuss all three of their newly opened/opening schools.
Conversations on Opening a School - Episode 947
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Andrew Adams, Nick Taber, and Gregory Williams discuss the process of opening a new martial arts school. They share their personal experiences and motivations for starting their own schools, as well as the challenges they faced. In this conversation, Andrew, Greg, and Nick discuss the challenges of starting a martial arts school and share their experiences and insights. They cover topics such as insurance and liability, marketing and getting students, finding a location and the importance of community engagement. The hosts also mention the importance of teaching and how it can enhance their own martial arts journey. They also mention the Whistlekick Alliance program as a resource for martial arts school owners. Overall, they emphasize the need for careful planning, active promotion, and a strong connection with the local community.
TAKEAWAYS
Opening a martial arts school requires careful consideration of factors such as location, insurance, and financial arrangements.
Finding the right space for the school can be challenging, with factors like cost, availability, and suitability playing a role.
Insurance is an important aspect to consider, as it can significantly impact the financial viability of the school.
Deciding between a brick-and-mortar space and renting a facility depends on factors such as financial resources, long-term goals, and the local market.
Teaching martial arts not only benefits students but also enhances the instructor's own martial arts journey.
Consider insurance and liability protection for your martial arts school
Word of mouth and social media can be effective marketing strategies
Engage with the local community to promote your school
Joining programs like Whistlekick Alliance can provide support and resources
Maintain open communication and availability for your students
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:59 Opening a Martial Arts School
08:10 Finding the Right Location
13:58 Dealing with Insurance Challenges
19:58 The Benefits of Teaching Martial Arts
26:49 Effective Marketing Strategies
29:48 The Importance of Community Engagement
35:47 Joining Programs for Support
39:48 Maintaining Open CommunicationAfter listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
To contact Sensei Nick Taber: www.taberfitness.com
To contact Sensei Greg Williams: mountainforestkarate@icloud.com
To contact Sensei Andrew Adams: andrew@whistlekick.com
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Show Transcript
Andrew Adams (01:10.323)
Hello, welcome. You are listening or perhaps watching Whistlekick martial arts radio as our normal host Jeremy says calls me his oft co -host. Today I'm the host. I've taken over Jeremy's spot and I am joined by good friend and past guests of the show, Nick Taber and Greg Williams. Nick, how are you doing today?
Nick (01:32.573)
Fantastic my friend, how are
Andrew Adams (01:35.121)
I'm doing great. Greg, how about yourself?
Gregory Williams (01:37.965)
Living the dream my
Andrew Adams (01:39.845)
Awesome. So we here are gonna discuss opening a new school. But before we get to the discussion, I want to make sure that all of you guys out there listening and watching know that this episode has its own website, has its own page on whistlekickmarshallartsradio .com. In fact, every episode we do has its own page. There you can find the show notes for the episode. You can find the transcripts. You can find
kind of a little breakdown of what the episode is about and kind of some of stuff we get into. Sometimes there's more pictures and you can find an interview with Nick Tabor. Nick, do you remember your episode number?
Nick (02:32.649)
You gonna splice in the prices failure sound right there
Andrew Adams (02:36.403)
So close.
Gregory Williams (02:41.244)
Hello.
Nick (02:43.015)
Ha!
Andrew Adams (02:43.209)
Greg, how about yourself? Do you remember yours?
Gregory Williams (02:45.851)
I do not remember.
Andrew Adams (02:47.209)
8 56 8 56 you guys were 50 apart. so you, know, you can go to whistle kick martial arts radio .com, check out their episodes, listen to their interviews. you can also go to whistlekick .com to find out all of the things that we do. We don't just produce this podcast. We produce equipment. We produce sparring gear. We produce books. We produce training programs. You can see all of the events that we run and we host.
There's so much stuff on whistlekick .com. And if you use the code podcast one five, you can actually save yourself 15 % on just about anything in the store.
What else? What am I missing? You can also join our Patreon, P -A -T -R -E -O -N slash Whistlekick, and help support the show. For as little as $2 a month, you'll actually get free stuff, which is pretty cool. You get to know who the upcoming guests are and all kinds of stuff. And it goes up from there. So, all right, guys, we are here to have some discussions on opening a new school. So all three of us.
as of this recording are in the process or have just barely started our own school. And I thought this would be a great topic for us to chat about kind of how we got there, what made us decide to do that, what we have, any hurdles we've run into getting where we want to go and what the future kind of might look for us. So, Nick, why don't we start with you? What first, what made you decide?
What was the first impetus for, you know what, I'm gonna do this.
Nick (04:31.869)
Well, I mean, the first impetus for starting a martial arts school, I mean, in the recent time or in just starting in general. All right. So like in general, I mean, it was something I always do. reason. Okay. All right. So recently, I mean, it was, I, was doing work as a personal trainer in, in gyms and a lot of people were asking me, you know, like, you know, can you teach a little bit of
Andrew Adams (04:44.831)
Let's go with the recent.
Gregory Williams (04:59.207)
You froze.
Nick (05:02.557)
shoot. right. I'm back. All right. I'll start that part again. So the start of it was, you know, I've been working at a gym as a personal trainer for a while and the owner asked me like, can you teach a little self -defense class? And a lot of clientele were asking, you know, you've been really passionate and talking about your past as a martial artist. Can you teach some classes? And then it snowballed from
you know, where like, okay, like what's your uniform look like? Can I get one like this? And then, you know, dusting off the old system and the old katas. Cause I've been teaching for a while and I had put it aside because it was a little more lucrative just to do a side business as personal training. But then it's like, okay, this became a little more lucrative because people were asking for it. And it just kind of snowballed and came up from
Andrew Adams (05:59.485)
Gotcha. And Greg, how about yourself?
Gregory Williams (06:02.471)
Well, you I've been teaching karate for years now. I've been wanting to have my own dojo, but, just, know, the opportunity never really presented itself, mostly just because of where I lived and, and, and where my kids were in age. so, opening it now, my, my daughter just went off to college and, know, that starting to get that empty nest going on.
And now's the time, because I've moved to an area which has much less saturation. Where I was living before, there was close to 30 martial arts schools in a five mile radius. So not really, yes, yes, that's how many. And just one more would just be one more in a sea of
But where I'm living now, there's a smaller amount so I can feel like I can have a presence and be able to have my own voice. now seems like the time.
Andrew Adams (07:05.627)
Yeah, okay, interesting. And you had not had a school in the, an actual school in the past, but you've been teaching a long
Gregory Williams (07:14.931)
So yeah, I've never owned my own school. From the time I was 18 or 19 to the time I was 24, I was the head instructor of a martial arts school. Someone else owned it. I was there, you know, I was there, Riker to their Picard and you know, that kind of thing. But you know, was a school with 300 students. So it was a very large school. Had to do all the, you know, the program management, had to, you know, curriculum, all that.
but that's, that, that was, you know, been a long time since, since I've done a school that, that large in the meantime, I've been teaching it like camps and at my instructor school, on a weekly basis, whether that be weapons or, or karate, what have you. but yeah, it's, it's now time for me to, you know, open the gates and, and see where it goes.
Andrew Adams (08:10.319)
Awesome. And Nick, had you had your own school, like an actual dojo? And I know from your interview, which people should go and listen to, but you did a lot of private teaching where you would go around to your students' houses and teach. But had you in the past had a, this is a brick and mortar location where students come to
Nick (08:15.369)
I do.
Nick (08:21.49)
I did, yeah.
Nick (08:29.613)
that, yeah, that I never had. You know, I never had just cause space in this area in Fall River, Massachusetts. A lot of places did not want to rent to a martial arts studio. There's a lot of studios here now that are either it's like what I have now is a room inside of a gym that I can use that they're willing to go ahead and rent to me and do
Andrew Adams (08:54.301)
Mm -hmm.
Nick (08:55.111)
But brick and mortar, it's just not, they're like, otherwise, they're like, I'll get into it a little bit. But insurance and costs were way too high, you know, right off the Yeah.
Andrew Adams (09:06.833)
Yeah, yeah. I didn't mean
Gregory Williams (09:10.183)
And I actually have a question for Nick. Nick, why wouldn't they want to rent to a martial arts academy? it sound because you're loud or was it the word about, you
Nick (09:21.321)
Crown was one thing, like, I'll give you an example of a friend of mine who had it. There was a space that he wanted to put in the town of Tiburne and Rhode Island, and it's in between an insurance office and a convenience store. So number one, what the problem was, was that, you know, there was just the traffic that would come in and, you know, specifically would be a lot of permanent people in there instead of, you know, touch and go in the parking lots.
And then, know, repair costs and things that made a lot of, well, what if they break a wall? Well, we're not going to break down the wall. Trust me. You know, we're not going to do that. And there was a lot of a lot of things like, what are you going to do when in liability? What if something happens? And there are some laws in this area that make the landlords liable. And then it just also it skyrockets the cost.
Gregory Williams (10:16.307)
That's interesting.
Nick (10:17.733)
on the insurance there, on the insurance. like, there's a lot of schools that have opened in the past have done things and that's caused a lot of problems. And we're paying for that now. So we gotta get really creative.
Yeah, so.
Gregory Williams (10:34.853)
Apology for talking over you there, Andrew. I didn't mean to talk over
Andrew Adams (10:34.997)
Now.
No, no, no, that's fine. Totally fine. For me, so I had been training at a school locally here in Keene, New Hampshire, and I wasn't, I had become increasingly unhappy with my own progression, my own training. And I have been a teacher my whole life. Longtime listeners of the show will know that in my personal life, I teach music. And I've always been a teacher.
Nick (10:39.814)
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (11:08.067)
and I would often teach at the school that I was training at. but I really felt like there were some, missteps that my instructor had taken in the progression of, of, of the school, to help the students out. And so I had left and there is a, and we'll get into, well, the next thing we'll talk about is location, but basically someone in town said, I would really like a karate
at my location, is this something you could do? And so I said, you know what, I would love to, I love teaching, I love martial arts, I love teaching martial arts, it will help me grow. And because I thought about it for a long time, one of the reasons I'm becoming a teacher is to make myself better in so many ways. We all know
Gregory Williams (12:00.89)
Absolutely.
Andrew Adams (12:04.711)
teaching will make you a better martial artist. And so that's one of my reasons for doing so. So I'll talk about my location story next and then I'll pass it you, Greg, next. But for me, there is a martial arts school here in town that teaches Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and they have a separate class that teaches boxing. They have a separate class that teaches Muay Thai. They have a separate class that teaches
Nick (12:07.761)
Exactly.
Andrew Adams (12:34.663)
Judo, they have a separate class that teaches Taekwondo and they don't have a traditional karate program. And the owner of the business came to me and said, you know, I would love to have a traditional karate program. How can we make this work? and you know, he came to me a few months ago and they only have one, there's only one training space and all of the time slots from the afternoon to the evening are already filled with
martial arts that are already being taught, but he is expanding. He's getting more, a larger training area. And so once the expansion happens, he'll have three separate training spaces. So BJJ can be happening in this space. Judo could be happening in this space and karate could be happening in this third space. So there's going to be a lot more time slots.
I said, yeah, I would love to teach a traditional karate program, but we have to wait until the expansion happens. And so that was the plan. Now the plan has morphed a little bit, but I'll talk about that after, but that's how I found my location for where I was going to teach. Fortunately, he wants the program to be there. And so he's willing to give me some prime time spots.
And we're still working out what the financial arrangement is going to be, but I'm not going to have to pay rent. It's either going to be a split of the money coming in, or it's going to be, I'm actually an employee of his. He still owns the school, but I'm going to be teaching the traditional karate program and I will be a paid employee to teach those classes. So it's still.
my program, but he owns the space, if that makes sense. So that's
Nick (14:28.915)
Better.
Gregory Williams (14:30.833)
And you're using, it's under his name, it's the building, the facility, it's all under his name, which kind of makes sense. mean, it's, you know, under his umbrella, more or less.
Andrew Adams (14:44.466)
Exactly, exactly. even though he is not a karate person himself, but he owns the facility. So Greg, how about you? How did you go about finding your space for where you're going to be teaching?
Gregory Williams (14:57.107)
Well, actually, you know, well the space that I ended up I'm using now that is a space you actually I'll turn me on to which is a great space It's a nice old hardwood floor. I think what 30 40 people could be training in there if we really wanted to Yeah, but sir, but it's definitely a big enough space to grow
Andrew Adams (15:16.827)
It'd be tight, but doable.
Gregory Williams (15:23.971)
And that's at a local church in, in, in Peterborough. And I had been looking around for a spot. I checked out the rec center. I checked out a few things. I wasn't going to do a brick and mortar, not from the get -go. mean, if you, if you're starting out, you can go one, one of two ways and that's find a place that already has something and try to build from there. Or you could go, you know, spend a bunch of money and start up a brick and mortar.
and go that route, which is a lot riskier. And I think you need more than one person to really do that. It also depends on what you wanna do with your dojo. Do you really want to make this your full -time job, your career, and you need to get at that going right now? Maybe building a brick and mortar and hoisting a flag saying karate here or BJJ here.
and doing it that way or doing it the route that the three of us seem to be doing it is finding a space that's already existing, know, renting that space and, and building it out from
Andrew Adams (16:27.483)
Yeah.
Andrew Adams (16:31.433)
Yeah. And, and I would say, like, when I say brick and mortar, I don't mean you build the space and you own the building. I was thinking more you're like, you're renting a space that will be yours 24 hours a day. As opposed to I'm right. mean, essentially Greg and I Greg, I know the situation you're in because listeners might not know this, but I'm, training under you. So I'm learning karate now from you. are my teacher. and so I know that space.
Gregory Williams (16:39.496)
No, no.
Andrew Adams (17:00.425)
you rent it per hour. And so you have it for that hour or that two hours or whatever, as opposed to one of the things I wanted to look into would have been great, would be if I could find a place in Keene that I could just rent and it'd be my space 24 hours a day. But the reality is that rent is going to be very, very high, which is why I started looking at other alternatives, whether and I know a lot of schools have done this, whether it's at a local
Elks Lodge or the Eagles Club or VFW or whatever, and just rent a space for an hour or two or whatever and you pay that way. So I get that. Nick, how did you go about your, you worked at the gym that you're teaching
Nick (17:45.449)
I have, I've been working at the gym for about eight years and the agreement with the owner was always, when you get people, whether you have one or whether you have a thousand, whatever it is, it's just 30 % of any income coming in. Flat out. Yeah, flat out. the protection also is one of the hurdles I ran into was
Andrew Adams (18:04.488)
nice.
Nick (18:12.957)
I don't want to jump into this one, but it was like the insurance alone was a really big deal because I'm independent contract under body natural fitness environment, Barrington, Rhode Island. But if I solely teach martial arts on and, know, solely do I. OK. So so at Barrington, Rhode Island, where I teach there, I'm solely.
Gregory Williams (18:30.867)
I hope you said Barrington, it all went downhill.
Nick (18:41.929)
under you know under them doing the independent contract thing so if i teach personal train and teach which is like 90 martial arts 10 personal training my insurance is only 230 a year if i do 100 martial arts the insurance is 800 a
So yeah, so a conceivable difference that would have to be like holding one or two students at a time, which I obviously don't want to do, but holding one or two students at a point, or, you know, as it bobs and flows with the way of school and everything else.
Gregory Williams (19:07.78)
Interesting.
Nick (19:28.905)
You know as you guys know that does happen, you know, I could still hold the profit there easily versus, know, okay I have to hold a dozen to two dozen students to even even tread water You know, which we all you know, we only have so much time a day too You know, so like that that's that was one of the biggest hurdles immediately once I said I'm gonna do this And I said, why don't we try this but luckily we got a good insurance guy helping us
Andrew Adams (19:58.065)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. And for me, if I'm going to be teaching at this other location where he's already teaching martial art, he already has the insurance. So I'm coming in and not having to worry about that because I will, for all intents and purposes, be an employee of his working for him.
Nick (20:12.51)
Fantastic.
Nick (20:17.213)
Yeah,
Andrew Adams (20:19.229)
Greg, is that something you've had to deal with?
Gregory Williams (20:23.044)
You kind of cut out there from my side. What would I have to deal
Andrew Adams (20:26.995)
So like insurance wise, because if I'm to be teaching at this other person's school, I'm an employee of his. I don't have to worry about that. Have you looked into that? Like, that an issue that you've had to deal with in New Hampshire?
Gregory Williams (20:39.891)
So that is where I'm, that's the stage I'm at right now is I'm looking at what do I need to do to make sure that I'm protected, my business is protected and my students are protected. obviously starting an LLC, limited liability company, so to protect yourself from your personal investments. But that is a question I have is, do I need to have a...
Insurance I know that like the AAU provides insurance for he's nodding over there for you know Sports academies, so there's that option so I'm actually here to learn about this so you know anything you guys can Let me know that would be
Nick (21:23.337)
Yeah, I can jump in on that with so many things. I've been teaching, when I first started teaching on my own, was 2004. And I had a instance with a student and it ended up going to court. I ended up winning the whole thing by the grace of God. I ended up winning it all.
but the lawyer was saying like, need to get insurance and it's something that I don't want to drudge up right now. But it was a very easy misunderstanding in the long run. But for anyone with the way everything is now, especially with the way social media is, and if anybody come out, I would say definitely to have that it's an investment in case something happens.
or in case somebody does say something or whatever may happen, not to be doom and gloom, but it is good to have that safeguard.
Gregory Williams (22:23.171)
That's interesting. One of the other things I was thinking about too is just from a business standpoint Obviously if you have an LLC There's that there's that gap between you and your personal but what you can also do is you can actually set up a trust to own the LLC and make yourself or whoever your partners are as members of that trust and that puts another layer of Division there at least legally. I mean that doesn't stop me from needing to get
you some sort of liability insurance as well but but there's something i was thinking about and i don't know if you guys have heard of that before at all
Andrew Adams (23:04.153)
I don't know. I don't have much insight on that. But Nick, if you do, by all means.
Nick (23:07.571)
Yeah. I do. mean, it's still like a most people would sign, you know, as a new pay or a new student contract. I mean, would have a liability waiver. But a lot of people would say, I mean, it started in the personal training world. There were somebodies doing that and they're signing and they go ahead. But what happened? Well, I didn't read the whole thing. And if a lawyer looks at it and goes, yeah, that
could be misconstrued or the language isn't quite right. It could then fall and it could be the liability waiver is null and void. Where you could do that. It does really become beneficial to at least spend some time, sit with a lawyer and review your student contracts. Just to say, look on the outside is anything there not
you know, what am I missing? And when I was teaching originally, there was a student who he injured himself and he did it and he was fine in the long run, but his parents went under, you know, extreme financial hardship immediately and decided that they wanted to try to.
And, but I showed the liability waiver, but the reason being that it didn't go much further than that was because I was teaching out of their house. So when I would just said that they're like, well, no, you brought this person in, you brought them in. it's assumed liability now around here. don't know about nationally or anywhere else, but those liability laws and those assumed protections have been done away.
So at least if you have that liability behind you, it doesn't go further like anything like with car insurance. If you get into an accident, hey, this is my fault. You have collision in liability or whatever it is. I'm not an expert on that. But at least it doesn't go past that. You got the insurance up to a certain point. My insurance.
Andrew Adams (24:59.271)
Yeah, and
Andrew Adams (25:24.221)
Yeah, and I
And I think for the audience, think it's important to understand that your state may very well be different. The laws that you need, like neither of us are lawyers. So I highly encourage you look if this is something you're going to start doing for yourself. Look into it and know what you're getting into ahead of time. Don't like we're not experts on this. So please, please, please don't take everything we say as gospel.
Nick (25:34.697)
Exactly. Yeah.
Nick (25:53.949)
Yeah, I would say, know, just to repeat what I said too, it would be beneficial to sit with a lawyer and just say, look, here's everything I wrote up. Where do I need to go? Like, you know, there was a guy that I knew from college who he just like, he was like, I need some practice with this. So he didn't charge me an arm and a leg, but you know, was just, it was enough to be able to say, okay, good. Now I feel good about going forward.
Andrew Adams (26:05.745)
Yep.
Andrew Adams (26:21.191)
Yeah. All right. Moving on to the next thing, the next topic that I was thinking of talking about is students. Like, how are you like, we're all starting out brand new. Where are we going? Like, what are our plans to get students and getting them in the door? Because without those students, I'm just a crazy person talking to four walls, you know? So Greg, well, I'll throw it over to you, Greg. What are you?
either planning to do or what are you doing to try and get students.
Gregory Williams (26:54.419)
So I haven't started promoting yet. I have a couple of camps that I'm going to be doing so I wanted to make sure I got through those camps. That's just in the next couple weeks. And after that, I was going to start with word of mouth. So I know a lot of people in the town who know a lot of people. So I don't know a lot of people, but I know people who know people. So I was going to have them, you know, reach out to their little communities and see if I can get a few students from there and hopefully build a like a little grassroots.
Hey, know, there's a cool little karate place down here. You should try it out. If that doesn't work or I'm not seeing the results I want, then I'll think about more traditional methods of promoting marketing. From my standpoint, I'm not building this dojo at the moment to be my primary business. This is something I'm gonna do because I love it and something I wanna start small and grow.
at a reasonable rate, whatever that reasonable rate is, I'll have to figure out yet. So starting grassroots first is what I want to do. That may not be what other people need to do. I don't know, what's Nick doing? What are you doing?
Nick (28:08.749)
My thing is similar to you, Greg, with word of mouth. Right now, one of my students in the town that the town that Jim is in, his mother is the town nurse. So I've been begging her and I specialize a lot in teaching people with disabilities. And I said, can you please do this, like printing up things down at the local staples? I said, if you don't mind, if you hear something.
Can you please do it?" And she's like, yeah, sure, no problem. Let's go. Let's do it. That's great. And she's like, clearly. And then the other person who I'm teaching as well, his mom is, I think, a secretary at the police station. So I said, if somebody gets arrested, if you don't mind sending, I'm kidding. by the way, as part of your recidivist program, why don't you try to join Taper Fitness Academy?
but I kid, I kid. But, also with that, I've been working with a friend of mine who I hired him to for the next six months for 20 % of incoming income to help me out on social media. And he understands that with TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, you know, how to be able to send that out there. So I'm like, okay, good. You, you know, if you can help me out, that would be awesome. And let's see how far we can
The third factor that I want to do is in the town of Barrington, Rhode Island. I'm planning on going to as many town meetings as I possibly can and just let people know I'm there face to face and see if they have any questions.
Andrew Adams (29:48.505)
That's interesting.
Gregory Williams (29:48.881)
That's a pretty good point. You can always reach out to your local town and they have like, you know, they'll put you in touch with like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, business administrations and things like that to make sure that you're part of that. And, that's a good way to network.
Andrew Adams (30:05.159)
Yeah, absolutely. Keen has a great young business.
business, what is it? It's the Hannah Grimes Center for Business Entrepreneurship or something, something downtown, but it's, you know, or even just going to the Chamber of Commerce and getting connected with who's in your town is great. For me, you know, I've been, anyone that's met me knows that I'm a very social
Gregory Williams (30:34.066)
Never noticed.
Andrew Adams (30:35.465)
So.
I know, right? So I make friends really easily. And so, you know, I've been living in Keene now for, coming up on seven years. And so my wife and I have made a lot of friends in town. And so, you know, starting out, you know, I mentioned earlier that I'm not going to get like a quote unquote prime time teaching spot until this expansion happens at the school, which is not going to be for a few months.
And if I sat on my butt from now until then, and then I get a prime time teaching spot, I have no students. And so I realized, you know, pretty early on, you know, when I sat down, I had a meeting with him and I said, all right, well, I need to start working now on getting students so that, so that when we open the expansion or when he opens the expansion, I will already hopefully have some students.
So what he agreed to do is let me use his facility right now, anytime that there's not class happening. And so what I've done is I just like you, Greg, I'm going word of mouth. posted on Facebook and I thought long and hard about what I was going to post about, you know, I'm now going to be teaching karate in Keene, New Hampshire.
At first I started typing out, you know, I went and I picked out three times throughout the week that I'm going to be teaching class. One of those times is one particular morning day from like eight to nine in the morning. One day is from three to four in the afternoon and one, there is one evening class I'm able to get at seven 15. So at first I list, I was going to list the days that I'm going to be teaching these classes.
Andrew Adams (32:34.375)
But then I thought, you know what? I'm just going to say that I've got classes available morning, afternoon, and evening. And you've got to contact me for info, for details, because I don't want that passive engagement. I don't want someone to just read everything and get all the answers they want. then, yeah, maybe they're looking for reason not to go. that doesn't work for me. I'm going to leave. Instead, if someone reads that and is interested,
Gregory Williams (33:01.392)
Alright.
Andrew Adams (33:04.563)
well, you know what? I might be interested. wonder what is, I have a morning free, wonder what his morning classes are. And so then they're going to message me, which gets them directly in touch with me. So now I have a direct one -on -one conversation with them and I can tell them, are you interested? Like class is going to be mornings is going to be this day, but I get that one -on -one interaction. get their name. I know how to contact them. And it's not.
Gregory Williams (33:19.931)
The other thing too is
Andrew Adams (33:31.529)
Passive engagement. I'm getting very active engagement because of that or I would say I'm getting I haven't gotten a lot yet because I only posted it like three days ago as of this recording In fact funny story the only actual engagement I got was one woman woman posted all she commented on the Facebook post was where? Question mark because I didn't put where classes are gonna have me happening either because again, I want that that active engagement
So now right away, I should have just not done anything because I put very clearly in the post, if you're interested, please send me a private message. Well, she didn't even follow the directions, but I figured, okay, this is my first person. I'm all excited. All right. So I messaged her and I said, Hey, person's name. this is Andrew. just posted about teaching karate and key. And I understand you might be interested. And her first message back within 15 seconds was I was.
But I asked you very direct question and you seemed like a scammer. And she blocked me.
Nick (34:36.073)
Ooooo
Nick (34:40.275)
Yeah.
Gregory Williams (34:40.337)
That is a concern, guess, nowadays, is worrying about being concerned. I mean, every time I get a phone call, I automatically think it's a scam to begin with,
Andrew Adams (34:48.807)
Yeah, so fortunately, my wife went on the post and commented like, Andrew is a great teacher. And a couple other of actually my drum students who know me are in that group as well and said, Andrew is a great person. Like blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I don't think anyone will have that issue now, but it was just kind of a funny little story. Like, she thought I was a scammer just because I didn't immediately give her what she was looking for.
Nick (34:49.584)
Red.
Andrew Adams (35:18.671)
Anyway, so I mean, that's what I'm doing to try and get students and, know, hopefully I can build up, get a few students here or there so that when the expansion happens, they'll be able to just move into a regular, you know, regular evening time slot. then growing, going forward, you know, my, don't anticipate this is going to be my full -time gig. You know, I'm not going to be teaching martial arts full -time. At least I don't envision that happening.
But you know it is going to be a little bit of income coming in But I want the school to continue to grow and do well Have any of you guys thought about maybe a year down the road of depending on how things go? Yeah, there are lots of programs that martial arts schools can get into to quote grow your numbers fast or whatever Have you thought about or looked into any of those things?
Nick (36:09.437)
You just wait and see.
Gregory Williams (36:13.939)
If you want to grow your numbers, you got to teach kids. mean, that's where, know, if you want to, especially if you want to have a, that be your full -time job, are, that's your, that's your source of income. And if you're going to teach kids, I think a great way to do that is to go to your local schools and see if there's a program that you can offer for free and, you know, use that as a, you know, Hey, if you like this, you know, I do teach karate.
and here is where it is, and use that a little bit of self -promotion. That's definitely a way to get students and get engagement with the local community as well.
Nick (36:55.443)
Yeah. I'm on a similar, I'm on a similar boat with that. Actually I'm on, I'm working with just ways that I could, you know, teach some programs and teach something and also getting on Tik Tok, getting on any of social media, at least know that I'm a genuine person. You know, I have the scammer thing as well, you know, that I get to like, you know, you teach karate really? Yes, I did. You know, yes. and
Andrew Adams (36:56.716)
Nick, how about yourself?
Nick (37:23.877)
Just trying to do that and then just say, here's something at least we can do on a like if for free or on a donation basis, you know, something, you know, and I, I've always had with my past teachers, they'll always said, you know, something is better than nothing. You know, if you have one student right now, you could teach and get a little money. That's better than just sitting there and waiting for them to come in. So let's do as much as you can. And I had a friend of mine who
All of us know who taught me that said if you want to teach however many hours you want to teach, if you teach four or five hours a week, you should be spending the rest of the time promoting and letting people know you're there and doing what we do. And there's also my own podcast that I do as well to try to keep that going. So hopefully there's many different avenues of marketing.
Andrew Adams (38:15.291)
Mm -hmm.
Andrew Adams (38:20.583)
Yeah, I think the important thing to recognize is
There are multiple ways of doing this, right? The marketing, whether it's word of mouth. Well, that word of mouth can be you talk to your wife and your wife talks to all of her friends and you talk to your friends. Then there's social media, word of mouth. know, there are and then even in social media, there's lots of different ways to go in it, right? Going to schools, going around, talking to people there, all of that stuff. None of this is the right answer. They're all different ways.
There are martial arts programs out there to help promote you. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Whistlekick Alliance. That's one of the things that Whistlekick has really worked really hard on doing is creating a program to help martial arts school owners not just be able to promote their school, but to give them tools that they can use as their school grows. And so I definitely wanted to throw that out there.
Is there anything that you guys envision? You know, I'm thinking of wrapping up here a little bit, but I want to make sure that if there's anything that we've missed, anything that you envision stumbling blocks you've had getting to where you are now with the school or anything like that. Like mine was the, I'm a scammer, obviously. But Nick, what about you? Anything come up, any trials and tribulations, like funny little anecdotes that may have happened?
Nick (39:48.243)
Yeah. I think what always happens is, you know, you're constantly having to market yourself and that could be, you know, a little exhausting. So you want to keep the students as much as you possibly can. And you run into like one of the phrases I like to call the blue belt blues, which is not a hundred percent me. That's more Kelly Thomas, where people go further enough and then they get disinterested and move on.
but you do just try to get them and do the best possible. think I would say a last bit of advice is to try to do as much as you can to be open to the community and realize that your responsibility is not just from when class begins to when class ends. The responsibility is to be there as much as you possibly can for any student.
Andrew Adams (40:39.043)
Good
Nick (40:43.613)
through the years, every student has had my personal cell phone number and I said, if you need me, call me anytime. And, you know, my original sensei has always done, did the same thing and said, here we go. If you know, someday I might need you, you know, I might need you to do that. So at least it's a big open process, you know, that's my
Andrew Adams (41:06.067)
Greg, anything from you that you can think of?
Gregory Williams (41:09.171)
No, not yet. I'm sure it's gonna happen soon. Obviously. I'm I'm right at the cusp of this this is all starting now I Think you know, I the hardest part so far has been just setting up a you know a company you know what? There was the big stumbling block. You know what this something lock was finding a name you know, I thought it's gonna be easy to find a name and Every time I came up with a good
there was another Karate studio out there that had it or there's another similar name somewhere. And I've always been the kind of person that I don't want it to be my name on it. I don't want it to be Greg Williams, there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously people do that all the time. I have good friends that put their name on it, but I wanted it to have, I don't
maybe a life of its own, even if I'm not the instructor someday, maybe I passed it on and I wanted it to be its own thing. And it was a stumbling block finding the name. So that was my biggest hurdle thus far. I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come, but
Nick (42:09.449)
All right. Keep thinking.
Andrew Adams (42:23.911)
All right, so before we wrap up, let's Greg, I'll have you finish up here. How can people get in touch with you? Do you want to say the name of your school? Did you come up with a good one? But how can be if people are interested? Tell us a little bit about like where you are, you know, what what you're what you're what you're offering and how people can get in touch with
Gregory Williams (42:36.537)
You
Gregory Williams (42:47.315)
Sure, the name of the school is Mountain Forest Karate. I live in the White Mountains. I study small forest karate. Kind of made sense. You can reach me at mountainforestkarate at iCloud .com and I'm teaching traditional martial arts in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
Andrew Adams (43:08.604)
Awesome. Nick.
Nick (43:10.447)
You can reach me, you can go on the website taberfitness .com, T -A -B -E -R fitness .com. My contact information is there as well as any social media
Andrew Adams (43:24.809)
And where is your school located?
Nick (43:27.529)
Barrington, Rhode Island and also any place in multiple places in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Andrew Adams (43:33.703)
Awesome. And I'm teaching in Keene, New Hampshire. I don't have a name for what I'm doing, but I'm teaching my classes at Elements MMA. Most listeners know how to get in touch with me. I'm andrewatwhistlekick .com. And right now, like I said, teaching a morning class, an afternoon class, and one evening class, and then once the expansion happens in a few months.
Hopefully I'll be getting on like a two night a week regular sort of rotation. Anything else guys before we wrap
Andrew Adams (44:14.705)
No, I'm seeing nothing. All right, so to the audience, thank you so much for joining us. Keep tabs on what these guys are doing. I think you're going to see some good things coming from these guys and from their schools. I'm really excited to see how they both grow. I know both of them will be presenting at Marshall Summit this year in Keene, New Hampshire. you can always, if you're interested in chatting with them, you can do it directly.
Gregory Williams (44:16.903)
We got nothing.
Andrew Adams (44:42.089)
If you're interested in information on Marshall Summit, can go to marshallsummit .com. Whistlekick .com is where you can go to find all of our stuff, whether you want to buy a cool Whistlekick t -shirt like this, or maybe a hat or a hoodie. Training programs, we have a great program on stretching, which by the way, the stretching program is completely free. That's right. It costs $0. You can go Whistlekick .com, put it in your cart.
for nothing and it will just be emailed to you and it's a great training program.
Andrew Adams (45:19.057)
Sparring gear all kinds of stuff and whistle kick martial arts radio commons where you can go to find out all the information on some of the stuff we talked about all of the these guys contact information will be listed there as well, so guys Thanks so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you both soon some of you sooner than others for sure and Until next time train hard smile and have a great
Gregory Williams (45:45.939)
Thanks, Andrew.
Nick (45:47.079)
Thank you, sir.