Not quite 5-months in, and the Playbook has seen some incredible growth. Far more and far faster then I had hoped for (good problems)

1200+ members in, and it’s still growing fast.

This has meant some pivots, some adjustments, and a lot of listening to what everyone struggles with and needs.

And after a bunch of requests for strategy calls, and a bunch of one-on-one calls, I think it’s time I listen and go with it.

The truth is, doing things 1-on-1 is really the best way to get results by far. We can customize things to your exact situation and troubleshoot accordingly. It gives an accountability piece to it as well that providing information alone just doesn’t do.

So I am revamping the membership tiers, and opening a very limited number of spaces in the new Advisory level VIP tier. This tier is bi-weekly 1-on-1 calls so that we can grow your kids program to 200+ kids!

First few spaces will be only $297, and if what we do doesn’t get you at least the 2 new members you need to cover that… well, something went very, very wrong and if you followed my advice I owe you a refund. It will go to $397 fairly soon, so get in early as one of the first movers!

Want to see if it’s right for you? Book a free strategy call here: https://app.calendarbridge.com/book/fQB4gaf

Summer is a really, really important time for growth. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

But summer is when a lot of parents decide what their child will be doing in September. So if we wait until September… well, they may have already signed up somewhere else.

Martial arts tends to do trickle in registration, but a lot of parents are used to registering for things in advance (team sports, swimming lessons, etc.), and with September being one of the most important sign up periods for kids programs, we need to be ahead of things.

The summer marketing plan I’ve been posting about is a great starting point, and if you want to work through it, book a free call with the link on the side bar 🙂

The other thing to do in the summer is to start planning and refining existing programs. For kids programs… if you aren’t running birthday parties or are only getting a couple parties a month, this is the time to look at those.

Birthday parties are one of the few times people pay to bring you leads. They are absolutely huge for growing kids programs. The full scripts and plans we use are all in the classroom. Typically parties drop off during the summer months, so a launch or re-launch of your birthday party package in September is a great time to revitalize it. Again, book that call, we run nearly 200 parties a year, we’ve made every mistake and have a solid system that works.

But the biggest thing for Summer… don’t take the foot off the gas. Summer is what makes September set us up for the whole year.

For more on how to crush the summer months, join our free community here: https://www.skool.com/kids-jiu-jitsu-playbook

n martial arts, we all know to hit combos. One thing sets up the next, and then the next until the thing we want lands.

Same thing happens in marketing and sales. We stack different pieces to get to the end result.

So what does a stack look like?

Our current one we are launching for June:

• Bingo Battle event -> generate referrals & reviews
• Referral contest -> win prizes if a friend or family member signs up
• Train for the Summer special -> make it easier to sign up and take away the summer objections of going to be gone for several weeks.
• Tent at local festivals -> Feed more leads into our system and build more awareness
• Birthday parties, parents nights, kids graduation -> again, more leads & referrals
• Paid ads -> generate more leads
• Last week we had a whole bunch of moms on the floor for Mothers day -> leads for the women’s class
• July / August attendance based contest to help with summer pauses and drop off.
• Big community BBQ at the end of the summer to help bring everyone back

Over the summer months, we pull in a ton of leads and will get a lot of people on train the summer promotions. All those leads will lead straight into our back-to-school drive in a few months. With all the summer camp attendees that are non-members added to that list as well.

Marketing results rarely happen early. July and August comes from what we do now, in May and early June. What happens in September comes largely from what we do over the summer.

If you want help building a layered growth plan, join our group for free and book a free strategy call!

Summer can be a rough time for martial arts schools. So here are some ideas to minimize the summer dip.

Summer camps -> Obvious answer. Summer camps can turn July / August into your highest grossing months. It’s not too late to get some camps up and running, but if you don’t have them planned out time is running really short.

Even if you are not running summer camps in your school, they are getting run in other places, and those places are often looking for new things to do.  Going into other summer camps as a guest can be a great way to get exposure and introduce people to your school.  

Specialty Classes -> Summer is a fun time, and classes should turn up that dial to compete.  One way to help keep the interest high when you are competing against all of the other summer things is to run some specialty classes or work shops over the summer (and announce them before the summer)

The classes should suit your gyms culture, be fun, and be something they wouldn’t normally get to do.

This could be things like:

• “Stick it out this summer” – stick fighting classes
• Pro-wrestling style moves
• Extra competition classes
• Kids MMA classes
• Leadership training
• Classes where you cover techniques not allowed in rolling / tournaments
• etc.

June Referral & review drive -> June is a great time for a Referral & review drive.  We use a Bingo based event that the kids check off squares for bringing friends, family, parents leaving reviews, fitness based tasks, and other things outside of the school.

Summer Special -> A referral drive pairs really well with a special.  Over summer months many people are hesitant to sign up for new things due to summer activities and travel and expecting to miss time.  A summer special that turns into a membership after school restarts can help get over that bump. 

July & August Attendance raffle. -> Every class they show up for they get an entry ticket. At the end of the summer we do a draw for the prizes. This one we like to do one really big, really cool prize. We’ve done Electric scooters, Meta Quest VR system, A drone, etc. One big prize that everyone really wants and a few smaller runner up prizes. (I’ll get the assets we use into the internal marketing section soon)

Community BBQ -> Rent some inflatable bouncers, a big grill, and get a cotton candy machine. This is a free event, basically an open house that everyone wants to come too. Hot dogs and cotton candy are cheap and the event can bring in a ton of leads.

External Community events -> Any larger community events that you can pay to get a space for a canopy tent are a great way to keep things flowing in the summer. There is a section in the internal marketing area on how we operate these.

Want more help planning out a summer game plan? Book a free strategy call here: https://app.calendarbridge.com/book/fQB4gaf

kidsbjjplaybook.com

Group Meet & Greet / round table set for next Friday!

Check the Skool calendar for your local timezone.

This is open to all members, come in say hi, ask questions, help others out with theirs if you can.

3 New Group Games in the Skool Classroom Games Library section

New Youtube video!

5 Jiu-Jitsu Games to energize your class:

(make sure to subscribe)

And be sure to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheKidsJiu-JitsuPlaybook

Within Jiu-jitsu there are probably 3 major coaching paradigms.

• Traditional / Move of the day
• Concept based
• CLA / Ecological

All of these have value, and have different strengths and weaknesses. But I think we do ourselves and our students a disservice if we try to focus down to only one of those.

Different people will learn things differently, and get better at them differently.

35 years of martial arts later:

if I see something new I do like to go through it statically a few reps first (Traditional)

I feel like I can pick up new techniques pretty quickly, or even help diagnose something someone is trying that I am not as familiar with because I have a pretty good conceptual understanding of things. (Concept Based)

But to actually start using it live, in rolling, I need to create drills and objectives that are done live (CLA)

And I think that translates to coaching as well.

I can show you a technique, explain the concepts behind how and why it works, how those concepts can created variations on the technique that follows the same concepts and then use CLA drills / games to turn it into something that can be used against resistance.

So what does this look like as a class structure?

Suppose we are teaching a standing guard passing class.

We might start with a simple constraint based game. Lets say bottom person trying to get and maintain inside hooks. Standing person trying to get one or bot of the bottom persons legs to the outside.

As we drill this we can introduce basic guard passing theory. Get passed the feet, immobilize the hips, stay above them, clear the legs, get chest above chest, etc. (Concepts)

Then we can introduce a couple of solutions, or techniques. Ideally ones that play well to how the top person was controlling legs. (Techniques)

Then return to a live constraints based game that goes to a full guard pass as the goal.

And finally full sparing.

You don’t take someone that has never swam before and try to explain a perfect front crawl to them. You get them in the water, let them doggie paddle around a little, then introduce technique. Show them how to flutter kick, give them a board to keep the upper body out of it and for the skill “live” in isolation. Then start adding other skills until you can put the full front crawl together. Then you repeat, go back and refine each piece.

A a good coach will absolutely show them proper technique, then isolate it, then put it all back together. Ex. Cup your hand this way, arm follows this path, etc. (Traditional)

They will give you constraints based tasks to use those skills and refine them individually. Ex. Just kicking, no arms. (CLA)

They will explain the concepts of why you are doing things. (Concepts)

And they will integrate it back together.

I don’t know why we have this argument in the Jiu-Jitsu world of which method is best, a good coach should use every tool in their toolbox to improve their students, not pick a favourite tool and ignore the others.

Traditional give us mechanical clarity, a common vocabulary,

Concepts gives understanding of why things work and better ability to recognize patterns and adapt

CLA gives us functional ability under pressure

We need all 3, and can use all 3 in coaching in order to achieve different pieces of our goals.

# of Leads

# of Trials

Show Rate

# of Enrolments

Attrition Rate

These tell us where the problems are in terms of students. (Not finance, although they are connected)

If you get 100 leads per month and book 60 trials, that’s 60%

Of those 60 if 45 show up thats 75%

And of those 45 that show up, if you sign up 30 that’s a 67% close rate.

100 x 60% x 75% x 67% = 30 New Members

Now if we bring those percentages up by 10% each. A little more follow up on leads, a little more follow up before appointments, a little better sign up process…

100 x 70% x 85% x 75% = 45 New Members

Didn’t need more leads, just a refined process.

To get more members it’s just looking at those 4 numbers and seeing where the most room, the low hanging fruit is. And dialing that in.

It also affects our advertising. If a lead costs $20 in ad spend, and every 30 out of 100 leads ends up a member, I have a cost of acquisition of $66.66.

It also affects our advertising. If a lead costs $20 in ad spend, and every 45 out of 100 leads ends up a member, I have a cost of acquisition of $44.44.

Knowing the approximate “cost” of a new member lets me plan out promotions and advertising.

This does change based on lead source to some degree as well. A lead from a Referral > a lead from organic search > a lead from advertising > a lead from an event. You’re not likely to hold a Easter Egg Hunt, collect 600 leads, then sign up 270 new members from it.

Attrition lets me know another important number. If I have a 10% attrition in a school with 150 members, I need to sign up 15 new members every month just to stay the same.

Or from the other side, if I sign up 15 members a month and have a 10% attrition rate, I would level out at 150 members. (15 / 10%)

Dropping that by 2% to 8% means even if I sign up the exact same number of members, my school will now max out at 187 members instead of 150 (15 / 8%).

A good attrition target is actually 5%, which would be 15 / .05 = 300 members before maxing out.

As you get bigger, attrition becomes more and more of a priority as it becomes harder. It is much easier to maintain 5% attrition in a 80 member school then it is in a 300 member school.

We are very non-traditional in our approach to jiu-jitsu class culture.

But, class rituals are a really important piece of keeping classes structured.

The first class ritual is how you start a class. In martial arts it’s most common to line up, bow in, quick pre-frame of what’s going to happen in this class and then get started. Some schools will recite a student creed.

In other sports it might be a huddle. In a school it might be the national anthem, or roll call. Athletes often have rituals before they go into competition.

What that ritual looks like is far less important than it being consistently present. If multiple instructors run classes, they all start and end classes the same way. Japanese influenced schools may bow on and off the mat. In BJJ many schools do a 1-2-3-clap before breaking from instruction. Slap-bump before starting a roll, etc. Rituals help keep the class working as a unit, providing everyone is using them the same.

It gives the class that state change, that now class is starting and its time to go into class mode.

These class rituals have a basis in psychology, and are things people use everyday in their day to day life. A getting ready to leave the house ritual, a getting ready for bed ritual, a going into a meeting ritual, etc.

In one of our magazines we even teach this concept to kids, and have them think of rituals they use in their daily lives.