in it? Finish this sentence: “(Name of your school) is a school that _____________.” Get as detailed as you can. Remember that the more detailed you can get now, the easier it will be to use the information in your marketing identity later.
When it comes to image, there are no right or wrong answers. You are free to choose the image you wish. But the image you choose will have consequences. It will affect the kind and number of students you bring in. It will also affect your financial success. That being said, your school is your school. You choose your image, and you reap from the results of your choice, both positive and negative.
Your Own Personal Image
The next question, once you’ve pinpointed your business’s image, is “What is your professional image?” How do you want to come across to current and potential students? Are you a mentor, a professor, a kindergarten teacher, a drill sergeant, or something else? What is your outlook on life, your views about education, your opinion about the role of the martial arts in society? How do you dress? How do you carry yourself? Are you a full-time, professional teacher? Do you do some other work by day and teach martial arts instruction in the evening? Is your art a way of life you share with a handful of students? If a reporter were to do a feature article about you, what would you like to read in it?
In your notebook, describe the image you yourself want to project. Get as detailed as you can. Again, the more detailed you can get now, the easier it will be to use the information in your marketing identity later.
The Image You Project
Now go back and read your notes on image, both for yourself and your school, and ask yourself another question. What tangible things do you do to project that image? This stage of the process is a reality check. You cannot afford to have an image that exists only on paper, only in your own mind. Look at what you have on paper and compare it to what exists in the real world of your school.
Take a look at your school and yourself. What do you do (or what will you do) to make your image real? For example, do you consider yourself a family school, a school for both adults and children? Then examine your dressing rooms, your equipment, your pro shop, every corner of your school. What do you have for children? Can they reach what they need to reach? Is your waiting area child-safe? Do you and your assistants know how to talk to children? Do you have activities for parents and children to do together? Perhaps you see yourself a winning tournament coach. Then look at your tournament program. Do you have training equipment for your athletes who choose to compete? Do you look for sponsors to help pay tournament expenses? Are you with your athlete at the tournaments? Do you avail yourself of programs that will make you a better coach?
Look, also, at your current students, especially your senior students. Many school owners have defined their target market as adults, both men and women, young to middle-aged. But when they look at their senior students, they are almost all young men or children. Look at your program, the physical demands, the atmosphere you create within your school. Is it suitable for your target market? Are you doing what is necessary to capture and keep the students you want?
Go back to the things you’ve written about your image. For each part of your image, ask yourself, “Am I projecting this now?” If the answer is “yes,” add it to a page in your notebook and title it “Current Image.” If you’re not projecting the image right now, can you change a few things and make this part of your image a reality in a month or less? If so, add it to a “Short-Term Image Goals” list. Make a note, too, about what you need to change to make this part of your image real. If the image is still more dream than reality, that’s OK. Those dreams can inspire your long-term goals. Add that part of your image to a “Long-Term Image Goals” list.
Remember these lists aren’t just lists, they’re your goals, the rudder for your school. Keep them in front of you. Figure out how you’re going to meet them and when you’re going to do so. Dream big dreams. Then, work as much as you dream.
Examine Your Features—What Do You Have?
Now that you have a clearer idea of your school’s image, let’s look at its features, what you and your school have to offer. Image is the impression you want to make on your students and prospective students. Features are the specific things you have to offer them.
On a list entitled “Features,” list the noteworthy features of your school. Think about equipment, physical space, resources, your own training and skills—in short, physical, objective characteristics. If you use Olympic-regulation equipment or nationally recognized teaching methods, those are features. So are well-lighted dressing rooms, a training area with good lighting and ventilation, a pro shop, your own credentials and associations, and your employees and their credentials. Walk around the school and look. List all the positive features.
Then recognize that a student will choose a school for more than just its features. A student will choose a school for the benefits those features offer.
Determine Your Benefits—What’s in It for Them?
Let’s say you’re a member of a national association of martial artists. A new student walks through the door. You tell him, as a part of your introduction to the school, that you and your school are a part of this great organization. He nods with a blank look on his face.
Let’s say, by contrast, that you listen to your prospective student, find out what’s important to him. If he has dreams of seeing himself standing on a dais with a gold medal around his neck, you show him how your affiliation will offer him tournament opportunities. Or if he is worried about having to start from scratch should he move to another city, you show him how your organization offers recognition of his rank throughout the country. What you have done is shown what a feature of your school can do for that prospective student. You have demonstrated its benefit. Benefits are how features tap into the basic needs and motivations of your students. Benefits satisfy the wants and desires of prospective students.
A brief word on people and what makes them do what they do and buy what they buy: One of the most commonly used hierarchies of motives was developed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow.
He maintained that people have six kinds of basic needs. The most fundamental of those needs are the physical ones: food, shelter, oxygen. If these fundamental, primitive needs are met, then people are freed to meet their second level of need: safety and security. Once people feel safe and secure, then they seek out the third level, and so on through the six levels.
How does this work for you? Remember: people’s hearts motivate them to buy as much as or more than their heads do. Typically they are motivated by the lower-level needs more strongly than upper-level ones. What benefits can you offer to tap into one or more of your potential students’ basic needs?
Let’s say that one of your features is a spring-loaded training deck. This allows your students to train without putting undue stress on their joints. In short, it helps keep them safe. Safety is one of the basic human needs (level two). A pro shop is a feature. If students can get your opinion before purchasing gear, they will feel that they know enough to make a wise selection. That increases their feelings of competence (level four). Moreover, they will be more likely to have gear that matches the gear of the other students, increasing their feelings of belonging (level three).
Go back to your features list. Pick out your top ten features—the features that are your strongest, that are most likely to distinguish you from your competition. List how each feature will benefit your students. Write down as many benefits as you can think of.
Each feature should have several benefits, and those benefits may be different for different students. For example, a spring-loaded, padded floor may appeal to an adult student because it saves wear and tear on arthritic hips: it makes them feel safe. Parents of young students will like the idea that it takes the pressure off the growth plates of their child’s joints: it appeals to maternal and paternal instincts. And the three-year-olds might just enjoy jumping up and down on it: it makes their time