Info for Martial Arts School Owners and Instructors

The Martial Arts Teachers’ Association (MATA) is a professional organization that helps martial arts school owners and instructors improve their teaching skills and grow their schools with proven marketing, management, and curriculum design.

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Martial Arts You Can Master Faster!

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Get Certified as a Martial Arts Instructor Online

MATA Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course

Module 21-The Proper Use of Student Instructors

by Scot Conway, Esquire

The $25,000 Volunteers

Excerpt from the Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course:

Using upper ranks to teach classes has been a long-standing martial arts tradition. But, is it legal?

A California instructor had his black belts teaching under-rank classes at his studio. In exchange, he no longer charged them tuition.

This continued until one fateful day when the owner and a black belt student had a disagreement.

The vindictive student contacted the California Labor Board and reported that his instructor had been employing assistants by requiring that they teach classes each week.

This can constitute an Employer – Worker relationship. The only thing missing was payment for the workers and the taxes the government would collect if they were being paid.

The State of California investigators concluded that the owner, over the years, had a total of 25 black belts teach classes.

They defined them as uncompensated employees, which is illegal under the laws of California, and fined the instructor $1,000 per incident.

The final bill: $25,000 for the volunteers.

Lesson: Know your state laws regarding utilizing assistant instructors.

NOTE: If you’d like a free review of your website, just respond to this email asking for one. Be sure to include your website address and the best email to send the review to.

Last week, I talked about the three groups of prospects that are visiting your website. That really resonated with people because interest in our websites spiked.

In SEO language, these are micro-moments. Essentially, a micro-moment boils down to the reason a visitor is on your site.

He or she is:
1. Just starting to look for a school and doing research.
2. Ready to join a school but undecided which one.
3. Ready to join your school.

Your site should speak to each of these visitors in a language they are looking for.

One of the elements of our EmpowerKickboxing.com website that visitors liked was the tone of the site. It’s easy to understand and fun.

The line that got the most response was, Everyone from Bruce Lee to Mr. Miyagi said the secret to success is to “Focus on what works and discard the rest.” Who are we to argue with those guys?

That line communicates that we are fun and don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’re not intimidating.

Also, our PROPRIETARY slogan, “Martial Arts You Can Master Faster!™” tells visitors exactly what they want to see because most websites convey a message that is, “Martial Arts You Can’t Master for Decades.”

Even the old adage that, Martial Arts is a Way of Life can be a turn off to many people. Maybe I’m happy with my life and just want to learn martial arts. Maybe I’m a Christian and want my kids to be raised with that as their foundation, not obscure mystical Asian traditions.

Indoctrination into a “new life” is a huge red flag that seems more cultish than recreational.

Martial arts school websites seem to fall into three categories.
1. The wix.com type DIY site that looks like a wix.com DIY site.
2. The pre-designed site that looks more like a template than an organic representation of the people in the school. Prospects can see stock shots a mile away and it’s a turn-off. It reeks of commercialism/higher tuition.
3. The site that is a tributary history lesson on the style and the instructor. Boring.

The website that you want is one that visitors think, “Wow! This makes total sense! They’re talking to me!”

Where are you in the spectrum of your online presence?

  1. Do you have your Google My Business claimed and optimized?
  2. Do you have your YouTube channel optimized?
  3. Is your school in the all-important Google 3-pack on searches?
  4. Is your site due for an upgrade?

Remember, if you’d like a free review of your website, just respond to this email asking for one. Be sure to include your website address and the best email to send the review to.

Offline Marketing & Sales

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