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Holiday Parties and Camps Insurance

by | Offline Marketing & Sales

Setting Expectations for Martial Arts Students Upfront

Authority is highly influenced by emotion.

While your staff and students may intellectually understand that you are the boss and master instructor, they have to feel it, not think it.

It’s the emotional connection that anchors your authority on a deep level.

If there is one powerful moment in your role as a professional martial arts instructor, it’s in the enrollment conference.

While the parents may see you as the master black belt, they usually don’t have an authoritative reverence at this early stage.

The enrollment conference is a seminal moment for you to establish your authority and gain the respect and gratitude of the family you’re dealing with.

Presenting the programs and their cost to parents can be tense at times. Some parents want to negotiate. Others might object to the agreement. Some want a safety net in case their child wants to quit.

While it’s important that you are prepared to overcome any objections, it’s when the bottom line is signed and the initial investment is completed that you have a critical window to demonstrate your authority.

Many owners complete the transaction and gush with statements like, “Awesome. It’s great to have you on board. Johnny, you did an awesome job tonight. High five! Thanks Mrs. Jones it’s great to have Johnny as part of our family. Let me know if I can help with anything.”

Barf.

Who has the role of authority here? Mrs. Jones and her credit card. That was a missed opportunity.

Let’s try again. You would adjust this script to the age and circumstance, but here is an authority template for the enrollment conference.

Mom has just enrolled Johnny into the program.

You, “Johnny. You want to learn Empower Kickboxing, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. I want you to understand that your mom just enrolled you into a six month program. You are going to learn a lot of great skills and lessons. It’s going to be fun and sometimes it’s going to be hard. That’s the good part because that means you’re learning. So you have to pay attention and practice at home 20-minutes a day when you don’t have class.

Are you going to work hard and practice?”

“Yes sir.”

“I’m glad. Your classes are Monday and Wednesday at 5pm. When are your classes?”

“Monday and Wednesday at 5pm.”

“Good. You’re a smart guy. That means that you have to be ready to come to class by 4:30 on Monday and Wednesdays so that you’re not late. Will you do that?”

“Yes sir.”

“No matter what you are doing, you will be ready by 4:30, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. The first lesson is integrity. Integrity means that you do what you say you are going to do. You keep your promises. You promise to work hard and be ready for class, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“No matter what you’re doing. Right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Great. We’re going to be so proud of you. Your mom just enrolled you, so please turn to her and say, ‘Thank you mom.”

“Thank you mom.”

“Alright. When someone does something good for you, you always say thank you. That’s called gratitude. What’s it called?”

“Gratitude.”

“Correct. So you’ve learned two important lessons today. Integrity and gratitude. What does integrity mean?

“Keeping your promises.”

“Yes. What does gratitude mean?”

“Saying thank you.”

“You got it! You are going to do great, I can tell already.”

“Remember, your class is…”

“Monday and Wednesday at 5pm.”

“When will you be ready to come to class?”

“4:30pm.”

“You have a good head on your shoulders Johnny. You’re going to be good at this.”

“Because you’ve showed your mom gratitude and you’re going to keep your promises, here is a school t-shirt for you to wear. Every time you put it on, I want you to think of integrity and gratitude. Will you do that?”

“Yes sir.”

“I just gave you a shirt. How do you show gratitude?”

“Thank you sir.”

As taught in the MATA Certification program, it’s also a good idea to let mom know that it’s important that she control what Johnny is doing around 4:30 which is the agreed upon to be ready for class.

If Johnny is playing with his friends or deep in a video game, it’s going to be harder to get him to get ready than if he is cleaning his bedroom or something he’d like to leave to go to class.

Keep in mind that mom is watching this happen before her eyes. What have you done to establish your authority?

  1. You’ve provided her with a language pattern that both her and Johnny understand. This is huge.
  2. You’ve given mom the “integrity” framework to deal with any reluctance to go to class.
  3. You’ve provided her with a strategy to engage Johnny in less fun activities so that going to class is an easy decision.
  4. You’ve laid out when Johnny should get ready for class without complaint.
  5. Before her eyes, you taught her son important lessons with real world examples. No doubt, your authority sky-rocketed in her eyes and in her heart.

Look for places where you can make these kinds of strong emotional connections.

Demonstrate true authority and leadership. That will last much longer than a trite, shallow compliments like “Awesome! Good job.”

This will help your students to understand how and why they are training with the best school.

With the holidays two different things come to mind for me, first of all you could have kids out of school coming in and spending time in your martial arts facility with some special holiday day camps or special programs. You want to make sure that you communicated to your insurance agent that you have a martial arts day camp or a week long camp going on while the kids are out of school and make sure that any new students are in your student count so that you’re covered.

Read more: New Year Insurance Checklist

Whenever you’re doing an event or any kind of special anything, it’s a good idea to give your agent a call just to make sure you’re covered. That’s unless you did it the previous year and it’s already included in there. It’s a great opportunity for you to get new members to your ongoing classes to advertise – ‘hey! The kids are out of school these two weeks, we’re offering these three or four day camps, let your kids come and spend the day with us and try out our programs or learn from other kids that are there.’ It’s a great opportunity for the school to make more revenue, but anytime you do something that’s special that’s with folks who are not your normal members, you want to make sure that you’ve communicated that to your insurance agent.

If you’re just going to have a Christmas party for your own members, this is not something that you need to worry about communicating to your agent, because those are your regular members coming in. If, however, you were planning to serve any kind of alcoholic beverages then you’d want to communicate with your agent and make sure you have coverage for host liquor on your policy.

As the weather starts to get bad in some parts of the country around winter time and you have snow and ice, you will want to make sure that’s been cleared off your sidewalks and out of your parking lot. Make the extra phone call to you landlord if necessary because you don’t want your members tripping and falling.

Most martial arts schools and studios are required to provide their landlord with a certificate of insurance, so that they’re responsible for their own members walking on those sidewalks. You may not be responsible for clearing the ice and snow yourself, which means it’s probably up to the landlord.

On a Commercial General Liability Policy tailored for your martial arts school or your martial arts studio, your coverage is much, much broader than what would be provided under Public Liability that your landlord may have for people coming and going from a facility. That’s just with the understanding that your landlord hasn’t required you, as part of signing the lease to provide proof of your insurance for him.

If you are new to the business and your landlord hasn’t required you to get the insurance, or you don’t have any insurance, the limit to that Public Liability Insurance is probably ‘slipping and falling on the premises’, ‘tripping over the door entry’, ‘a hole in the parking lot’, etc. It’s not going to have any coverage for you professionally as a martial artist in what you’re teaching your students.

It wouldn’t have any coverage for the personal injury that your students could claim, or any advertising injury that your students could claim, or any sexual abuse or molestation that your students can claim. It’s not a good idea at all to rely on the public liability insurance of a landlord.

Some General Liability policies will have host liquor included. This means you’re serving it at a party or someone’s bringing their own, but you’re not selling it. What you have to do is make sure your General Liability Policy includes host liquor. This is why it’s worth a phone call before the Christmas party to your insurance agent, if you haven’t already checked on that before, because it’s not a given that it will be on there.

Please check out our insurance page at http://www.sportsfitness.com/mata and visit Sports and Fitness Insurance Corporation.

Offline Marketing & Sales

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