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The first step to increasing your product sales is to logo everything in sight. Harely Davidson now makes more money selling t-shirts and jackets than they make selling motor-bikes. That’s the power of a recognizable logo and a good line of merchandise.
Disney, Warner Brothers and Coke-a-Cola make huge sums of money selling their logo merchandise. If it works for sugar water, it will work for us. Of course, you have to have an attractive logo that people won’t be embarrassed to wear. Be sure to read the report on how to create a good logo.
Logo-wear works on a number of levels:
- People like to show they are an accepted member of a group. The more prestigious and “cool” the group, the better. Given a choice, most people might prefer to show the world they belong to the Harvard Athletic Club than the South Emerald City Community College Athletic Club.
- Provided you do a good job, students and parents will be proud of their association with you and your school. When someone is proud of their association they typically want others to know.
- A “School Logo Only” policy helps to reduce the temptation for students to purchase items outside the school. When a student or parent buys product through the mail or at your local sports discount store this cuts you out of the profit loop.
Logo your uniforms, sparring equipment and t-shirts but don’t stop there. Logo hats, sweat shirts, pens and anything else you plan to sell or give away.
What Items Can You Sell in Your Pro-shop?
- Sparring equipment
- A full line of Logo t-shirts, tanks and sweats
- Caps, headbands and visors
- Polo style embroidered shirts
- Warm up suits
- Martial arts shoes
- Regular gi’s, colored gi’s and custom gi’s all screen printed with logo
- Black belt club specialty items
- Books and videos pursuant to your style
- Kicking and punching pads
Selling Training Aids
Training aids are not just for use in the school. Their purchase and use at home could be encouraged by you and all your staff since this not only helps profits but also aids in retention.
Few schools that I know of make much of an effort to sell training aids for use outside the school. This is usually simply because they have not created a system to do this.
If you enroll 20 students per month, let’s create a plan to sell 20 kicking shields to them. Kicking shields are used extensively in the school but do all of your young students have a kicking shield at home?No, but they have a baseball bat a ball and a glove. They have a soccer ball to play with. You can be sure mom or dad enjoys throwing or kicking the ball as well!
Think about it! What is the best way to show a parent that the child is really interested in martial arts?
What is the best way to get the parent emotionally bonded to their child’s success in his martial arts program? Get the parent involved. While you may not get every parent to enroll you can at least encourage the parents to buy a kicking shield and work out with their child on a weekend for ten or twenty minutes.
What if you had a five page booklet with photos of you showing the parent how to hold the target, what techniques to practice and how, plus tips on what to remind the child to focus on? What would that cost you to produce? With a digital camera, a computer and a printer, next to nothing but the time to put it together.
Heavy bags, blockers and focus mitts are also idea for encouraging practice at home and interaction with another member of the family. Each time a parent sees his child practicing at home it reinforces that child’s commitment to martial arts and re-enforces the parents resolve to continue investing in lessons.
Other training aids such as stretching machines are more adult in their appeal but should also be promoted for home use especially around Christmas time.