Starting Your Own Dojo

When you’ve been training in martial arts for years and finally get your black belt and perhaps a few Dan grades under your belt you will inevitably want to branch out and start your own dojo.

The reality is running a dojo is a big commitment and although you have a black belt and have attended lessons for a few years hosted by your instructor, You now have to learn a whole new art of running your own business.

Rightly or wrongly some styles actively discourage running anything but small clubs and say that you shouldn’t make money from teaching martial arts. It’s the old the nail that sticks out gets hammered mentality. It’s absolute rubbish and serves one purpose and thats to ensure that the people at the top stay centre stage in the organisation. 

So where do you start?

1. Syllabus / Curriculum 

You need to have a clear concise syllabus in place. I know this seems like a given but you need to compile everything that you intend to teach in your dojo so that the students have a clear path to black belt. Normally your style will have a syllabus already in place for your style but some instructors want to do their own thing so compiling a syllabus might be a requirement. This is easily done download something like Open Office (Free) on your laptop and get to typing your syllabus! 

Your syllabus doesn’t have to be an encyclopaedia with 500 pages, I’ve seen both extremes with syllabuses with some just having 5 or 6 punches and kicks per grades and some like ours which has 259 pages. Both are equally valid depending on what your trying to develop as the outcome for training in your system.

Once you have you syllabus get it published on something like Amazon KDP and order Author Copies they are a few quid each printed and bound. If you need help with sorting the cover out and sizing it for your syllabus contact is and we might be able to help you out.

It should be mentioned you have to be an experienced martial artist with years of training to develop your own system. You need at least 3 years experience just to get insurance to teach martial arts. My point is you can’t just make up your own style with no experience and training in your bedroom/garden doesn’t count! 😂 

2. Branding

This can be a bit tricky to get right. The easiest way to sort out your branding it to go on Fiverr and get someone to design your logo for you. I personally use a guy called sketchzone for my logos it’s about £20 and takes a few days. All you have to do is provide your dojo name, some images that you want in your logo and the colours you want in your design and its sorted. In my opinion thats the easiest way to get your logo sorted but you can do it yourself using something like Photoshop or Adobe CC with a little time invested. The thing is you want to outsource/automate whatever you can when it comes to your dojo so try not to spend ages on the smaller tasks if you can pay a small fee to have it sorted for you. 

You want something modern and cool looking for your logo, you have to appeal to the people on the street and unfortunately lists of Japanese Kanji don’t mean anything to someone who isn’t a martial artist already.

The same thing applies to the name if your dojo if you call it the Mushin Shurikenjutsu Renshu Kai then NOBODY will have a clue what you teach! Keep it simple! It’s always a good idea to have “Martial Arts” in the name of your school. We personally tried advertising our specific style (Ninjutsu) and get far more traction with the name Seal Martial Arts as people know what we do in the dojo.

Also once your logo is sorted try not to put together a tombstone ad when advertising your dojo. By this i mean don’t smash a huge logo at the top of the page with a load of text underneath it. People want to see pictures of what you do and your logo just needs to be featured it doesn’t need to dominate the advert. Again keep it simple! 

What do you offer? Adult martial arts. 
How do they join? Come in for a free lesson.
Where are you located? Provide address.
How do they contact you? Phone / Email.
Call to action. Book your place today!
Price? Discuss after first lesson.

It’s easy to do the potential student doesn’t need to know the entire history of your art and all the previous masters on an advert. Thats what they are attending the lessons for!

Final points about branding are don’t use free logo creators they suck, Pay for a decent logo it represents your brand! You’ll know when you find the right logo that fits your business so don’t be afraid to revise your design a few times with a designer to get it perfect. We’ve had loads of logos over the years but Seal Martial Arts is our final branding so don’t be afraid to experiment and try different designs.

3. Website

Getting your website right can be a nightmare when you first start out! I’ve had loads of websites for the dojo and shop over the years and most of them have been terrible if I’m honest. It’s hard to get the look you want unless you have a lot of experience in website design.

So what’s the easiest way to get a decent website up and running? Personally i think Shopify is the answer, it’s about £20 a month, you buy your own custom domain (www.sealmartialarts.com for example), get your own custom email, can update it easily on your phone, integrated payment system, can sell packages and lessons, doesn’t take a degree to use it, overall Shopify is the forerunner in my opinion.

I’ve extensively used Wordpress in the past and wouldn’t go back to it now since transferring over to Shopify. It’s not worth using free website builders and stuff like that you need you own domain for your website with an SSL certificate.

Your website also doesn’t need to outline every minute detail of your art as realistically most people will spend less than 30 seconds on your website so you want the important information presented first. What your offering, where your located, how to contact you, a promo video and a call to action should show up on the home page as soon as someone types in your websites URL. 

Then showcase your products and services below once you’ve peaked the potential students interest.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add content to your website just make it clear from the offset what your offering. With my basic website knowledge I’d say the fundamental content that should be included on your website is:

• Home Page - Core content
• About Us - Tell them about your school/art
• Contact Us - Contact form / Contact details 
• Our Instructors - Who’s teaching? 
• News - Blog
• Products - Lessons / Services
• Payment Options - Shopify Pay / PayPal

Once you’ve got these aspects of your website set up your pretty much ready to go, You just need to build it up over time but as i said keep the key information on the home page.

As a martial arts instructor there are loads of products you can offer via your website especially if your using Shopify. A few examples of possible products are:

• 1 Lesson a week - Months worth
• 2 Lessons a week - Months worth 
• 3 Lessons a week - Months worth
• Unlimited lessons - Months worth
• Private lessons
• Weapons lessons
• Blocks of 5/10 lessons
• Workshops
• Seminars 
• 4 Week courses
• Ladies Only
• Personal training (if applicable) 
• Uniforms 
• Training Weapons
• Sparring Gear
• Branded Clothing & Merchandise
• Birthday parties
• DVDs & Video Courses
• Grading Fees
• Black Belt Programmes 
• MMA
• Self Defence Courses 
• Books & Syllabuses 
• Patches
• Competitions 

The list of possible products and services you could offer on your website is endless depending on your skill set. Get creative and make sure you cover both ends of the spectrum you want a cheap accessible staple service and the top end products such as providing personalised coaching for an individual all the way to black belt in an intensive course finishing with a visit to the masters in Japan for example like a £20,000 product. This may sound crazy but you want to showcase what you can potentially offer and some customers will be looking for a personalised experience and won't mind paying for it. You need to ask yourself the question what is the maximum amount of money that someone could potentially spend in your dojo and tailor your products to suit. 

I'm not saying all of your services should be expensive more that they option should be presented to the customer or they won't know that it's a possibility. 

Once your website is sorted thats one fairly big hurdle tackled.

4. Social Media

This is a fairly simple process, You want an online presence on all social media platforms. 

The key ones are:

• Facebook 
• Instagram 
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• TikTok
• Google Maps - Business Page

It can be a bit tedious but go through and get your dojo set up on all of them. Keep your personal and business pages separate on Facebook but don't overcomplicate the situation by creating different pages for each age group of your students. You just need one page. You can link Facebook and Instagram so that when you post on Facebook it auto posts to Instagram. Try and be consistent with your posts on your page posting content 3 times a day at breakfast, Lunch and Dinner times. One of these posts should be a marketing post specifically promoting the lessons and your current membership offer. For example your first lesson is free and then upon signing up as a member we'll provide your uniform, belt, patch, syllabus, membership card, QR card, backpack and the first month of lessons free for £69.99. 

Spend some time constructing your marketing post and word them correctly and then you just have to copy and paste the text and change the images each day. You can even spice up the text by using font changers for Facebook that you can find online. An example of one of my marketing posts is included below:

 

🥋 𝗡𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥 🥋

First lesson 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘‼️

𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦 of Rugby! Do you want your children to learn martial arts in a fun and friendly environment? Do you want them to develop confidence and self respect? Do you want them to learn to be safer and more aware of potential threats?

Then bring them to the Seal Martial Arts Dojo‼️

We teach traditional Japanese Ninjutsu (The art of the Ninja 🥷🏻) and FMA (Filipino Martial Arts) at our martial arts school located in Rugby, Warwickshire. 

We are offering an exclusive membership offer to new students who join in November! The first lesson is 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘‼️ 

Then you can sign up as a student for just £49.99 and receive a 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 uniform, 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 patch, 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 syllabus, 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 annual membership and your first month of lessons 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘!

Why should you train at Seal Martial Arts? Because we help you to:

🏋️ IMPROVE YOUR FITNESS

⚡️ GAIN MORE ENERGY 

👊 DEFEND YOURSELF 

💪 BECOME STRONGER

🎯 DEVELOP FOCUS AND DISCIPLINE 

🥋 BUILD SELF CONFIDENCE 

⚔️ LEARN COOL TECHNIQUES AND TRICKS

😁 MAKE FRIENDS AND SOCIALISE

When you come along to one of our lessons please feel free to bring a friend or family member with you! 🙂

All instructors are fully qualified, insured and DBS checked.

Give us a quick call to get your child booked in for their first lesson or alternatively drop us an email 🙂

☎️ 07901 758 353

📧 info@sealmartialarts.co.uk

💻 www.sealmartialarts.com

 

Use emojis and make it look appealing to all ages and once your happy with your copy try doing a sponsored ad. What I personally do with our sponsored ads is target the local area in a 20km radius with and age between 16 and 65 years old with targeted demographics towards all martial arts and parents. I only usually do small spends about £50 a time but if you spent £200 you'd get better results. Turn off sharing the ad on Instagram it's a waste of time 

I know paying for marketing stings but you have to think of marketing as the engine for your business. If you don't pay for fuel your car won't run and its the same with marketing for your business. You won't necessarily get 10 students from a £50 spend but if you get 4 then that's £200 for a £50 spend and I'm talking about low end sponsored ads. Overall it's worth the investment. 

Get your dojo listed on Google Maps as well, It used to be Google My Business but they changed it and integrated it into Google Maps. A simple trick for listing your business it to create a name like Martial Arts (Area) | (Your dojo name) as then whenever anyone searches for martial arts in your area it’s likely to show up pretty high on the list. I get quite a few enquiries through google directly so it’s definitely worth doing.

YouTube is good for posting content so that potential new students can see what you do, it’s also a good idea to have basic videos up like how the student should tie their belt, breakfalls, rolls, etc as well as some gold content showing what you can do. YouTube is pretty easy to use overall just put your hashtags in the description box for your video and your all set. I’ve had a fair bit of traction on YouTube about 150k views recently. 
Obviously you will get stupid comments from keyboard warriors but you have to ignore it as literally everyone gets trolled it’s the society we live in.

TikTok can be useful to appeal to the younger demographic of students as they are all on there. I wouldn’t invest too much time into it though personally, you can get followers easily enough on there and post cool content but for me it doesn’t convert into anything tangible and I’ve never made a penny from TikTok. As i said the younger students like it because they get featured on the dojo TikTok page so it’s worth it in terms of getting them engaged but aside from that most of the followers you get on there are all over the world and pretty much just care about how many followers they have so it’s a massive waste of time trying to market your dojo on there. As i said just my personal experience, I think the only real way to make anything off TikTok is by doing Lives regularly and developing a following but even then thats just via GIFs more than converting leads into customers. I’ve never once had a customer say oh we saw you on TikTok and decided to try a lesson I doubt there’s any adults from my local area on my TikTok! 😂 It serves it purpose for the kids but overall its crap for marketing in my experience.

Twitter is just a link on my website I don’t use it at all! I just don’t get it, never have, seems like a totally pointless platform to me. We only have one for the dojo in the event that someone tries to contact us via Twitter. A total waste of time and energy for your dojo invest 0% time into it just get a basic page up so that your on there but i doubt you’ll ever use it in reality.

Pinterest is more for ideas than marketing but can be useful to showcase what you do with pictures from the dojo just incase someone does attempt to find you on there.

5. Finding A Venue

Finding a venue can be one of the biggest tasks when you first start out as unless your loaded your probably going to want to hire a hall by the hour from someone. So where should you start looking? I have included a list below of some ideas:

• Community Centres 
• Scout Halls
• Dance Schools
• Schools
• Colleges
• Sports Clubs
• Gyms
• WI Halls
• Local Bars/Pubs (Might have a spare room)
• Private Venue (You might know someone)
• Other Martial Arts Schools (Different style)

The general price range your looking for is under £20 an hour, preferably under £10 an hour, don’t be afraid to try and barter the price and explain you will inevitably need more hours as you grow so it would be steady business for the venue. 

They will require your public liability insurance (10 million cover with 1 million professional indemnity is about £80 a year from Insure4Sport) and you will need an in date DBS check if your going to be teaching children in your lessons. 

An easy way to sort this all out is through BMABA (British Martial Arts & Boxing Association) they offer just about everything you need when you join and offer online courses and qualifications which I highly recommend. I’ve been with quite a few associations over the years but BMABA is without a doubt the best in the industry. 

You want to start small at one venue at first, it gets complicated hosting lessons at multiple locations just build your dojo in one place. 

There is also your equipment to consider which can be a nightmare unless you own a transit van. I can’t do it in my Audi as I wouldn’t be able to transport the mats to different locations. 

Once your venues sorted make sure you list the address on your website and all of you social media profiles.

As i said it can be tough finding a venue but spend some time emailing all of the local venues as someone will have space somewhere. When we started at Impact Dance Studios we had one Sunday lesson running and lessons running at Warwickshire College on a Thursday evening, There simply wasn’t the availability to do all of the lessons at Impact Dance Studios. Then we stuck with them and i let the owner know we wanted any free slots that came up in studio 2 and over the years the other hirers left and now we are in the dojo 6 days out of the week all at prime times of the day. My point is be patient and build your dojo slowly, If your looking for a venue with 20 hours a week availability from day one thats simply not going to happen, be realistic in your approach and play the long game.

Also it goes without saying really but always pay your rent on time, you want to develop a good working relationship with the venue owner and they like getting paid accordingly, late rent and stuff like that will make it hard to expand as the owner might not be willing to put their trust in you when you owe them a £1000 in back rent. 

You may also need to fill out a risk assessment, contact us and i can send you a risk assessment form which you can fill out yourself.

6. Buying Mats & Equipment 

There is no getting around it kitting out a dojo is expensive! I’ve spent literally thousands on equipment over the years so where do you start. 

The first thing most dojos need is mats for health and safety. I would advise 40mm thick jigsaw mats from a decent supplier like MMA Matting (https://www.mmamatting.co.uk/product/promat-jigsaw-mats-grey-black-40mm-standard-finish/). 20mm jigsaw mats provide minimal protection and are designed for arts like Karate and Taekwondo where your not being repeatedly slammed into the ground with throws and takedowns. 

35 Mats is a good number to start with which is about £1200. It’s probably best to save up and buy them outright rather than messing about buying a few at a time but i know this is quite a bit if you don’t have a lot of spare cash.

Another option is to keep an eye out on Facebook and ask around if anyone has some old mats that they want to get rid of. Often martial arts schools replace their mats every few years and sell them cheap just to get rid of them and they are still perfectly functional just might need a wash down with a mop. 

Try and arrange storage with you venue, It’s a nightmare having stacks of mats filling up your house as they take up so much space and are extremely heavy when stacked. 

Once you have your 40mm jigsaw mats sorted your good to go!

When it comes to getting equipment like Bo, Bokken, Nunchaku, Uniforms, Pads, Sparring gear and everything else you simply need a trade account with a martial arts wholesaler. It’s a simple application online which takes two minutes just have a brief google search and you’ll find some. 

My biggest bit of advice is only buy what you NEED! It’s easy to think you need to spend thousands on 10s of each weapon and pad but the reality is you don’t. If your going to do Bojutsu take orders from your students and buy them according to requirement, It will save you so much money and storage space!

Punchbags are also often a requirement and freestanding punchbags are expensive especially from Century but they are worth the price. This is again something you need to save up for really as 4/5 will set you back about a £1000. Most venues won’t let you hang punchbags from the walls so freestanding bags are the way to go.

I’ve already covered syllabuses once its sorted you just order Author Copies off of KDP.

Dojo merchandise like t-shirts, hoodies, hats, mugs, notebooks, pens, bags, etc should all be ordered according to requirements. You can use a company like Academy Sports and order what you need or automate it with a company like B4 Branded where the customer orders directly from a website that they set up for you. Don’t buy vast amounts of dojo clothing in various sizes you will be stuck with it for years and will probably end up giving it to charity, Better to order what you need once the customer has paid. This is another product line that could be added to your website.

As i said you have to play the long game and get everything bit by bit over time, The only alternative is to take out a loan to buy everything which I wouldn’t advise doing. 

What I did personally was secure the backing of the Princes Trust and buy most of what we needed with the funding we received but a lot of my equipment was bought over time. 

7. Building A Student Base

When your first starting your dojo getting students seems like the hardest job in the world and unfortunately you have to do it constantly. Luckily it gets easier with a few simple steps:

• Leaflet the local area.
• Have a good online presence.
• Ask students to give out leaflets in school.
• Contact schools about free assemblies.
• Be consistent with sponsored ads.
• Post regular content online.
• Do a review competition.
• Lifetime membership competition.
• Email campaigns (Mailchimp)
• Blog posts on your website
• Branded clothing
• Charity events
• Fair & Fetes 

The list of ways to bring people into your dojo is endless!

Get creative with it and invest your time into tailoring your image online. Are you trying to attract kids, adults, ladies only, traditional martial artists, combat sports enthusiasts? Who is your target market? 

Once you know who your trying to appeal to it makes it easier to build up your group of students. For example if your trying to appeal to parents you don’t want ultra violent techniques in videos and lots of weapons as parents will be put off by that. I’ve experienced this personally everyone knows i love weaponry thats one of the reasons i love Ninjutsu and I regularly practice Tameshigiri (Test Cutting). However I’ve also had parents run a mile when they have seen me using a Naginata online so I’ve put in work to change our image to make it a little less scary to parents.

Perception is a big part of the battle when trying to recruit new students so keep it light and friendly. A young woman for example probably isn’t going to want to train in a BJJ dojo where all of the students are 16 stone gorillas with bad attitudes so you need to appeal to everyone. 

Try and use videos of your students training, you can edit them to make them look cool using something like CapCut which is free on the App Store. Photos and posters serve a purpose but videos always convey the message better. Show the students having fun while training and learning a diverse set of skills. Post a sponsored ad of about £60 on Facebook and you’ll be sure to get a few enquiries.

Running referral schemes is another good idea. We offer £20 cash to any student who brings a friend who signs up as a member and have gained quite a few students that way as teenagers have loads of friends and want to earn £20. I’ve had 16 year old students walking out of the dojo with £100 in their pocket in the past due to our referral scheme and we gain 5 students out of it.

You can also run review competitions within your dojo so everyone who writes a review on the Facebook page could win £100 by this date (insert date). You get the idea it incentivises existing students to write a review which will be positive as they could win £100 and love what you do already and potential new students will see the reviews which will make them more inclined to enquire about your lessons. It’s a win win.

Sometimes we run competitions where students can win prizes. There are two ways of doing this really, I tend to do small prizes quite regularly for example a student did 1000 kicks recently and won a bokken, one of the adults won an archery competition so we gave them a Cold Steel Bowie Bushmaster bustcraft knife as a prize. We keep it small but word gets out that students win prizes sometimes. The other way of doing it is to buy a games console or a bike and put your branding on it and then run a competition where the student who brings the most friends in can win the prize. This will bring in loads of new students as all the kids want to win the prize. I think you have to balance it out though you don’t want the prize to be too extravagant as its teaching the students the wrong lesson and the expectation goes up for future prizes. Make it relevant to what your doing thats why our prizes are training equipment and weapons as it aid the students in their learning process.

One that I’m not a big fan of is offering lifetime membership competitions and i’ll explain why. This id quite a common tactic to offer a lifetime membership competition and get loads of interest from local children in your lessons who can’t really afford the lessons. You host a big event where you’ll announce the winner of the competition and then all of the children who wanted to win inevitably sign up because the parents don’t want them to be disappointed. I just don’t like this tactic you shouldn’t be playing on kids emotions so because of that I don’t do it personally. 

Another option is to approach your local council about handing out leaflets in towns. Normally they require you to provide insurance and you might have to pay a fee but it’s worth getting out into your local town centre and giving out leaflets.

Leafleting is a good idea but it doesn’t always produce great results. What i tend to do is get a student to post leaflets around the local town and pay them for doing it. Find a trustworthy student who wants to make a bit of extra cash and offer them £100 to hand out a couple of stacks of leaflets in the local community. Just tell them to avoid houses that say no junk mail and job done. Everyone hates leafleting but you should do it quarterly if possible just to keep an active presence in the local community. 

As your student base grows get yourself a CRM system like Dojo Expert or Club Hub, There are loads on the market but once you get it programmed correctly you can track your students progression and keep all of their data safe in one place.

Make the sign up process as simple as possible and automate everything you can. By this i mean provide the students with a welcome pack when they come in with a welcome letter, lesson info, timetable, core values, pricing, rank structure, membership forms, health questionnaire and a consent form for social media. I can provide you with an example of our welcome pack if your unsure what to include in your own.

This provides the students wirh everything they meed to know about your dojo in one place rather than having to piece everything together individually. Use your Shopify website to sell adult and children's membership packages to make the process simple, you just have to send the student the link and they can pay then and there.

Use Gocardless to handle monthly direct debits for lesson fees its a simple sign up online and handles all of your students direct debits in one place. Its fundamental for most martial arts schools so get yourself an account. All you have to do is set up a plan, enter how much you intend to charge each month, when you want to charge it and how often and its done. You just send the link to the student and receive a confirmation email when they sign up to their monthly direct debit plan. 

8. Pricing

Pricing can be a tricky subject. You don’t want to undervalue yourself but at the same time tour lessons need to be affordable to be sustained for a long period of time. So where do you start? 

Most martial arts schools charge a membership fee upon signing up as a student. This needs to cover your costs to kit the students out with their uniforms, patches and syllabuses. The membership fee can be anything from £29.99 to £149.99 at the expensive end of the spectrum. Personally the most I charge for a membership fee is £59.99 and usually I will include the first month of lessons in the price to make the dojo accessible to everyone. 

Some schools charge a £90 membership fee and £60 for the first month of lessons which means the student has paid £150 before they have even started training. 

What you charge is up to you but make sure that the student is getting value for money. For example if I was going to charge £149.99 as a membership fee they would receive their uniform, belt, patch, syllabus, tshirt, backpack, membership card, QR card, training weapons pack and the first month free. It sounds like a huge package but the uniforms about £11, belts free, patch costs pennies, syllabus costs £3, tshirt cost £8, backpacks £8, membership cards free, QR cards free, training weapons will cost about £70, so thats what £100 and you still make £49.99 profit when the student signs up.

You should offer different packages according to the amount of lessons that the student attends. For example:

1. 1 Lesson a week - £29.99 a month
2. 2 Lessons a week - £49.99 a month 
3. 3 Lessons a week - £64.99 a month
4. Unlimited lessons - £80.00 a month

Don’t do PAYG lessons its an administrative nightmare and people forget their lesson fees and then you have to remember who owes you what. We have a rule that all lesson fees are taken via direct debit each month unless there is some extreme circumstance as to why the student can’t pay via direct debit. Your students are paying for a monthly subscription you don’t offer individual lessons. We have rules regarding cancellation and refunds as well which you can view in the dojo rules section of the website. 

You can also offer packages of private lessons such as blocks of 10 lessons for £250. If your private lessons cost £30 an hour then its an incentive for the students to book blocks of private lessons as they save £50. 

Workshops are another idea to raise revenue. This could be a workshop on the use of a specific weapon such as the Nunchaku, A sparring competition or a parent and child joint training event. Get creative with workshops you want to make them affordable £10-£20 for a few hours and have fun with it. This isn’t a seminar where your extensively exploring a specific area of your art but a workshop where the students are learning something new and having fun. For example it would be perfectly acceptable to get a load of nerf guns and let the kids have nerf battles in the dojo during a workshop provided that it was framed in the right way and they learnt how to shoot properly. It’s a good way of engaging the students and raising some additional income.

You can also organise seminars when you have a fair amount of experience in your art. This is something I particularly enjoy doing myself. Seminars are a good way of raising a decent chunk of cash every couple of months if you are hosting them yourself on a regular basis. However it is also worth considering working with other martial arts instructors from other arts purely to share knowledge and experiences. It doesn’t really matter what style you practice we all have more similarities than differences when it comes to martial arts regardless of what you call your techniques. It’s important to be open minded and don’t delude yourself into thinking that your art is the most superior martial art in the industry. 

It benefits your students immensely to train with other instructors so seminars are a great option overall, The general price for a seminar ticket is £25 - £50 per person depending on the instructor teaching and taking into consideration the cost of the venue and everything else. 

You can also offer courses for a variety of subjects such as: 

• 4 Week beginners courses
• Cadet courses
• Black Belt Courses
• Self Defence Courses
• Video Courses
• Weapons Courses
• Flashlight Courses
• Life Skills Courses
• Fitness Courses
• H.I.T Courses
• Meditation Courses 

There are loads of potential courses you could run in your dojo. Just make sure you advertise it well in advance and set a clear start date for the course with a certificate for each attendee upon completion.

Make your courses affordable say £39.99 per person for a 4 week beginners course in martial arts. You will find some of the students on the courses will want to continue with their training in the regular lessons so it’s definitely worth investing time into.

In conclusion if you think about the potential services you can offer as a martial artist there are loads of options so price yourself fairly and offer a high quality service to your students.

As a general rule you should be charging each student enough to buy yourself a decent coffee after the lesson which is about £5-£6 a lesson. 

Don’t undervalue yourself! Potential students don’t value your services at first especially if they are too cheap as the perception in society is that you get what you pay for so if your product is high value the customer will value their investment and is more likely to commit themselves to training. 

This post had become extremely extensive so I will break this information into several blog posts but I hope you find this helpful in the initial stages of getting your dojo up and running.