In order to understand the best ways to keep students attending your classes, you need to understand how the brain and the mind work together.
See, your brain is hardwired to seek out certain experiences and to avoid others. And, your mind (consider "mind" to be a combination of your thoughts, memories, and emotions) has learned over time to act in similar fashion.
Now, we're going to look at how this influences the decisions people make, and how we can use that knowledge to encourage students to keep coming to class.
But before we start to get into that, first I need to tell you how you DON'T keep them coming to class:
Let's look at each in turn and see how these methods actually cause students to drop out of martial arts.
INTIMIDATION
Have you ever known an instructor who ruled through intimidation?
Sometimes it's subtle, and other times it's overt. However, it's always painful to watch, and cringe-worthy to behold.
I used to hang out with some guys and gals who were experienced black belts and members of the same organization. These folks all trained under or were junior to the local head honcho, a sixth dan who ran their local group.
They would tell stories of this guy like he was a god (small G). How he would drop people for push-ups in public. How he expected everyone to bow to him when they greeted him, even in public. And so on.
Eventually, I just straight-up asked these people:
"Why do you put up with that B.S.?"
Their answer?
That he'd beat them up if they refused. Seriously. I am not kidding here - that was their reply.
Now, how many of you are thinking that these school owners lost a lot of students over the years because of the codependent, really twisted relationship they had with their instructor?
Believe me, they did. In fact I knew the guy who ran the rival org (same style) in the area, and (at least from what he told me) they were constantly picking up students from these people.
Folks, don't intimidate your students.
SHAMING
Have you ever seen an instructor go on a rant on Facebook about how no one showed up to class the night before?
Even worse, have you ever seen an instructor call their people out BY NAME on Facebook?
I have, and you want to talk about cringe-worthy... ew, boy.
I had a friend who ran one of those "tough" schools. You know, the kind where they kick each other in the groin in full-contact sparring and all that stuff. (Incidentally, we're going to talk about why certain people are attracted to that sort of training later in this series, and why it's not healthy from a psychological standpoint.)
Great black belt, very knowledgeable - but not so good with people.
Well, he got in the habit of calling people out for not showing up to class - on Facebook - and publicly shaming them for it.
Long story short? Almost all of his black belts and senior people deserted him, and his school shut down. Now, there were other things going on that contributed to that, but when you see this sort of behavior, it's almost always indicative of a dysfunctional school.
And, you don't have to be a black belt to pick up on that. So, don't shame your students publicly if you want to keep them around.
GUILT
Tell me if you've seen this one; instructor writes a long blog or social media post about how they have bills too, they have to keep the lights on whether students show up or not, they're suffering financially in order to keep the dojo open, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Are you guilty of this? Don't feel bad, because a lot of instructors do it. But, it's probably one of the worst things you can do to keep your doors open and to keep your students coming to class (and paying tuition).
Why?
Let me just clue you in on this without a lot of preamble - no one gives a crap about your problems.
Honestly, they don't. Sure, a few of your students will read your post, and they'll feel bad and pat you on the shoulder and let you have your pity party.
But honestly, what they're really thinking is, "Man, this guy's a loser. Why'd I even sign that contract? I thought I was supposed to be learning how to be a champion/confident/successful here - what happened to all that stuff?"
In short, nobody cares about your financial problems. And, by sharing them publicly with your students, you're making yourself look weak.
Also, you're giving them the moral right to use the EXACT SAME logic to STOP paying their tuition to you. Because if you use financial guilt (or any other guilt trip) to try to make them keep coming to your school, guess what?
They will do the exact same thing to you. So, don't do this.
- - -
Alright, that wraps up today's email. Tomorrow, we're going to start getting into why people stay in martial arts. Stay tuned.
