SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to Beyond the Mats and Mirrors, the podcast for martial arts and dance studio owners who want to grow and make an impact. Each week we sit down with industry leaders to share their stories, strategies, and game-changing tips you can put into action today. Now, let's jump into the episode.

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

All right, well, welcome everyone to the Beyond the Mats and Mears podcast. Uh today I have Joe Lazan joining us uh on um the the show today. So Joe, thank you for for coming on. And would you um kind of take a moment to introduce yourself and share a little bit more about your school?

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

Uh yeah, so uh my name is Joel Lazan. Uh I've had like 20, I've had a lot of fights in the UC, 26, I think, fights in the UFC. Um so I've had a I've been training martial arts, you know, since I was like, I was a late start. A lot of these kids are starting like super young now. I started when I was like 15 with jujitsu and grappling um and just kind of have gone on from there. Um I I basically I fought professionally from like 2006, like full-time professionally from like 2006 to like 2019 or so. Um that was like my primary source of income. So I had a school for a long time during there. We started my school in like 2009, right? So I got in the UFC 2006, 2009. I kind of kind of took over to kind of absorbed my my my trainer's gym and kind of we went joined forces together. Uh so from like 2009 to 2000 like probably 15, didn't really run it like a business, it was more like a training ground for me. It gave me a good environment to train. Yeah, um, and then you know, the last like maybe eight years or so, we've been trying to run it like an actual business, and and it's everything's gone much, much better, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39

So it's been good though.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

It's been good. Um, I so I have a school, uh I have one location right now in Rainham, Massachusetts called Loz on Mixed Martial Arts. Um, we have like about 250 kids and maybe another 200 adults, um, which is crazy because for the longest time we always have 100, 150 adults and like 30 kids, and then we started getting special things and it just it took off like crazy. Um, but like we have like we have like a very, very diverse group. I got like little three-year-old kids doing jujitsu and learning how to like you know tie their belt and stuff like that. And then I have like guys that fight in the UFC, and and I've had a bunch of fights in the UFC, so like it's a very, very diverse group. Um we're more focused on like families. I think more we're business, we're more focused on families. Like, I have like the the fighters is kind of like my hobby, kind of like the pet project. As a business goes, it's more about you know having families.

SPEAKER_03: 2:27

I love that. Now, with those who are looking to kind of train to fight, do you have a lot of programs catered towards those in addition to more kind of children-based and family programs, or is it kind of shifted a little bit?

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

Um, so we have everyone that walks in the door, not everyone, but a lot of we have guys every week they're walking like, oh, I want to fight in the UFC. Okay, well, that's like that's like saying, like, okay, I don't know how to I don't know how to put cleats on, but I want to play in the NFL. Right? Sure. There's there's a lot that goes into it. It's not as simple and straightforward as people think. I think that like I think they're a little delusional sometimes. I think I'm gonna train for two years and I'm gonna fight in the UFC. It's like it doesn't, it doesn't work like that, you know. Sure. Um, you know, so but we're real big believers in like just doing the basics really, really well. You know, like if it's terrible and you're not keeping your hands up, like maybe you shouldn't be worried about fighting, you know, UFC. Um, you know, so just real basic. So like for the most part, we have like all of our all of our classes are beginner friendly, even like the uh the classes like we put our pro fighters in and things like that. They're taking the same exact classes, it's just basics, basics. Um, but then you know, the the guys that do want to fight, we have our amateur fighters, we have our you know, people that want to fight amateur, we have our amateur fighters that are you know happy being amateurs, we got our amateur fighters that want to go pro. We have our pros that are like pretty good that want to get to the UFC, and we have like our UFC level guys. So we have like kind of like different steps or stages to it all. Um, you know, and it's just you know, if you're coming out of the streets, we've never trained with you before, we you don't know anything. Like, well, it's gonna it's gonna take you a couple years of doing like the basic classes before you even think about okay, maybe you take an amateur fight, and you take an amateur fight and you maybe take an amateur fight, then you actually take it. It takes like it's a couple, probably a couple years between each step. Um, but that's just I mean, it's just someone that thinks that they're gonna, you know, go from nothing to the UFC in in two, three years is just not they're a little naive. So yes, um, we try to we step along that we have like a very like set path for okay, if that's what you want to do, yeah, focus on this and then focus on this and then focus on this, and just we we baby step our way and we get up there.

SPEAKER_03: 4:22

Okay, very nice. Now, with kind of that that experience and those programs offered, do you find that a lot of students stay with you guys for quite a bit of time just to kind of hone that skill set and really just kind of up their game?

SPEAKER_01: 4:34

Um, for the most part, we can kind of I can we can tell pretty early, like if you're gonna stick around or not. Sure. If you're like, oh, I trained at this gym and I didn't like this, and I trained at this gym and I didn't like this, and like that person's not gonna stick around, right? Sure, yeah. We just know they're not gonna stick around. That's fine. Okay, you know, they'll come and you know, they'll they'll be part of the you know, part of our community for however long, and like even if they come on somewhere else. We're big about cross-training, we like crop people that cross-train. So even if they leave us full time and they go somewhere else, like they're always welcome back and uh and that kind of stuff. Um, but there's definitely like it's it's a way higher, I think, injury rate when people are training like very intensely, right? If you're training twice a week, doing a little jujitsu, a little kickboxing, sure, and you're not sparring, that's very different than someone that's training, you know, twice a day, five days a week. Yeah. Um, you know, so there's definitely some turnover there. Um, and sometimes it's just bad luck, you know. It's like you're you're maybe you got hurt in the gym. Yeah, maybe you slipped on the ice walk into your car, you know, it's just your knee. It's just so there's there's uh definitely a little bit higher, I think, in uh incidence of injury when it comes to like our guys that are like training all the time. Yeah, it almost becomes like a hiccup, right? You know, I got I got guys like, oh, like I had surgery in my elbow, no big deal, they'll be back in two months, or I had this or I had that, or I think I have my knee scoped, no big deal, be back in two months or a month or whatever it's gonna be, you know. So um I think the the guys that are actually gonna become fighters usually don't let those injuries bother them so much. They just kind of carry on through. Kind of constantly doing business.

SPEAKER_03: 5:57

Yeah, no, absolutely. Now I know you mentioned um with kind of starting um back in 2009 up until that 2015, it was kind of a refinement of kind of figuring out who your kind of target audience was. Um, was that something that was hard for you to kind of dial in? Or what was the strategy on how you know it kind of took that step back and kind of evaluated where you really wanted to position yourself?

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

Uh well, you know, in the beginning I didn't really care about the gym making money, right? I think about the gym covering itself, which it always covered itself. It always made it always made money, it never lost money, but like, but it wasn't my primary focus, you know. Like I was fighting the go and I can go and fight, make a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars in a weekend.

SPEAKER_03: 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:36

Um, you know, so it didn't really matter to me as much about trying to, you know, make uh money with the gym. You know, you fight two or three times and you make two or three hundred thousand dollars, like you're you're you're okay. Um, but then as is things, you know, I I kind of felt like I was wasting opportunity because like two or three hundred thousand dollars is good. Yeah, I couldn't the gym make that much money as well on top of that, right? Now you're like so. It's like so I started getting more serious about the gym, and I I don't think there's any real like um there's no shortcut to it. I think a lot of it comes down to like just like it's almost like marinating like food or something like that. It's like it takes kind of like to for that community to kind of soak in and build and grow. And I don't think that you can just do okay, I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z. I'm gonna have this uh, you know, massively successful school like overnight, you know? Yeah, um, so it's just you know, we we just try to make like small incremental changes and just a little bit better all the time and get our systems dialed in. Like that was a big thing for us is getting all our systems so like no matter who's at the desk, they have the same experience. It's not that we got one great sales guy and then one person that's not, it's gonna change. It's like it has to be the same thing every single time. Yeah, um, you know, very systemized and it just it goes much, much better this way.

SPEAKER_03: 7:39

Absolutely. Now I know you mentioned you're kind of getting ready to open a second location. Now, are those farther apart, or are you kind of looking at having similar staff at each?

SPEAKER_01: 7:48

Um, so uh so I'm actually this is gonna be the second location. Yeah, we're working on it today. Had that uh had that we I I plan to be here before we had this book. Um but uh yeah, I mean like uh we definitely have some carryover with staff, like I'm gonna have some working at both. Um we try to keep a ratio of like six for our kids' classroom together, like six to one, right? So six instructors to every every kid.

SPEAKER_03: 8:10

I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:11

So, but for the last because we knew we were gonna do this for the last like couple months, it's been more like sometimes two or three to one. Right because you know we want to have that, we want to have like all those people trained up to come over here for sure. You know, so like I it's like the the gyms are like maybe 30 minutes between each other, okay, not too far. Yeah, I wish it was a little bit closer. If it was a little closer, I could have offloaded some of my current a few more of my current kids here. So we'd start with like we wouldn't be starting as fresh. We still have some that are gonna be here, but I would have I would have liked having a few more. Yeah, um, but it's good, it's just you know, it's just we it we had a good opportunity, it was a good spot, good location, just kind of fell in our lap. So we kind of we we nice thought it was the right opportunity, so we took it.

SPEAKER_02: 8:48

No, that's possible.

SPEAKER_01: 8:49

So it's a little bit uh it changed again. I said before, like we're real big about systems. So this is a little bit of a wrench in our systems, a little bit. Okay, um, but it's just like anything else. We just we adapt and we we improve and just always do no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 9:02

And I think systems really do play a part when you are a small business owner. You have to figure out what works, what doesn't, what's gonna help you hit those growth milestones. So um, I think there's a lot of panic when it comes to sometimes small business owners is oh, I've got to do so much, and then you end up spreading yourself so thin. So I think so having those systems in place are definitely something that is so are so important to be able to hit those growth uh paths for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 9:24

I think part of that comes down to like I think that a lot of owners, um, and I do this too sometimes, better at it, but is they they have like they have like this big long list of things that they think that only they can do, right? So it's not really you don't really own a business, you have like a job, you own a job, right? It's like I have these tasks that only I can do, and I have to do these, and now I'm gonna open up a second gym, so now I have to do it. Now I'm doubling yeah the workload. And like I'm trying to not do that. We've been pretty good for the last couple of years. I have uh I so I have like three full-time employees, okay, and then I have like 30 instructors. Okay, we have a lot of classes, yeah. Um, but I have like people that are like head instructors that can like run the class, sure. People that are like they can run the class on a pinch as like an assistant, sure. We have a and we're we're keeping a high ratio. So I have like uh call helpers. Um they can run the warm-up, they can help you know organize the kids, they can help the kids in groups. Okay. Um, like some of our classes have like we have like 50 kids in one of my groups.

SPEAKER_02: 10:21

So I have like 10.

SPEAKER_01: 10:22

I have 10 people that you know, I have 10 people that help with that class. Yeah, we have like so that's how we keep the ratios low. Um but so yeah, it's just it's it's going well. It's going well. I think I think I'm doing a good job of kind of stepping back and not having to be the guy that does everything. Like I'm trying to kind of long-term growth, like the long-term planning and the long-term stuff. I'm planning stuff for like next year rather than people're working on classes today or tomorrow and next week.

SPEAKER_03: 10:47

Oh, absolutely. Now I'm curious how many classes are you guys currently offering?

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

Uh oh, we have a ton. One, two, three, four. That's it. We have like each uh Monday to Thursday, we have like 10 or so each day.

SPEAKER_02: 11:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 11:02

We have we have we have three age groups. So we have our youngest kids are tiny, so we have two of those groups because we have so many kids. Sure. Two of those groups, then we have like the middle, middle kids, then we have the older kids, and then we have two jujitsu classes, jujitsu and grappling, and we have kickboxing.

SPEAKER_02: 11:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Kickboxing class. So that's like Monday to Thursday. Like that's our schedule. And then we have six a.m classes, uh, two days a week. We have 10 a.m. classes and a and 11 a.m classes most days, like five days a week. So we have like we have like a lot of classes. Oh my god. That's our instructors.

SPEAKER_03: 11:31

That's awesome, though. I feel like 30 is a lot, but I agree. When you are trying to really tailor those classes and making sure you have those good ratios, I think that's a pain point for a lot of people. They don't want to send their child to a class where it's overcrowded and there's only one instructor. Having those more hands on deck, I think definitely helps differentiate you guys and position you very well uh when people are evaluating options.

SPEAKER_01: 11:51

Our our gym gets like it's wild from like say 5 to 7 p.m. on like Wednesday, because we have like 250 kids, but we get like of those 250, though, like 140 of them are there on Monday, Wednesday. So between five and six, we're gonna kids that kind of rotate through. We have two mats, so they don't, but we run like a little kids group for 30 minutes, and then in the back, we run like a 45 minute of the middle kids, and then run another one of the little kids, and then we're on the older kids, and then we have an adult class, and we have another adult class, just like uh we have like a lot of bodies through the gym, like on like on Monday afternoon, we might have like you know 200 people through the gym. Wow. It's good though.

SPEAKER_03: 12:29

It's good, it's yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Now, I guess kind of Joe, transitioning a little bit over to the marketing side. Now, you know, with branding and kind of positioning your school, what are some of those things that people really know you guys for? Or are you really trying to position yourself when people are evaluating you know schools or other extracurriculars altogether?

SPEAKER_01: 12:48

Um, I so we're a little bit different, I think. I think a lot of these other schools they kind of take a take an approach that I don't personally enjoy. I don't like when schools like they're like, oh, you gotta sign up and you're locked into this contract. And that I understand that for your business, that is a little bit that's more secure. I I'm I'm totally on board with that. I get that. I don't feel very good about that though.

SPEAKER_02: 13:09

Yeah, I just don't.

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

So um, so we don't like we don't lock anyone in for contracts. So we instead, which is a little different, is we charge more their first month, right? So like most places they maybe$165 a month for your 12 months, and then they give you something or whatever, like that. So we charge like we'll charge like I think$299 the first month. So we charge them a little bit more in the first month, but then we that covers the cost of us giving them stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 13:32

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

Okay, covers the acquisition cost, you know, like for our marketing dollars, yeah, staff and things like that. So like they chase a little bit more in the beginning, sure, and they're not locked in, they can go whatever. So, like when we have like right now, we've lost a lot of kids to like uh baseball and all these other stuff. That's totally fine because they call us if if their payment is going through today and they call us today before it goes through, we'll we'll freeze it, we'll do whatever. We're not like oh, you have to give us 30 days. We're just like we we try to be as like as transparent and as easy as possible. Yeah, then they always come back as soon as baseball season's over, they're coming back right away. We're not having to like acquire people, which I think is different. Most people are like, Oh, well, you can pause your you can pause your time, but your payments are still gonna come. And I understand, yeah, from a business point, but um, we just we try to be a little more flexible and a little less friction. So like our signups are too like we sell, we sign up a ton of people every single month, and we don't we don't keep as many people, we have a lot of cancellations too. So there's definitely some churn there, but it's churn that I'm like I'm comfortable with. Like I'm I I like that so I think we're a little different in the way we do that. Um everyone, it's not I don't think it's wrong the way other people do it.

SPEAKER_03: 14:35

Just that sure, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 14:37

I like I that's just how I I enjoy doing it. That's how we do it.

SPEAKER_03: 14:40

Yeah, no, and I think finding what really works for your school and with the community within your school is so important. And I think, you know, as you mentioned, people do leave for for baseball or for soccer or whatever in their local area. And so that you giving that flexibility, I think definitely helps build that rapport with parents, with families, because they know, hey, I have a place I can come back to and continue to work on my skill set. But if I need to take a step back, I'm not, as you said, locked into anything and can expect those payments. So I think flexibility is huge. I think that's something that a lot of people are looking for because as we all know, life happens, life gets busy, you know, that you go through different seasons. So being able to have that flexibility, I think is definitely a really unique position and a good way to kind of bond within you know your student base.

SPEAKER_01: 15:22

And I and I like I like when like when we have kids that like one, you know, one mass some masses, like one state wrestling. I got this like this kid Wyatt, who's just like phenomenal, you know, he's like eight years old. He just won states, he's been wrestling for like a year and a half. Wow for a long time, but he's but he goes in like I love that when like okay, like we don't see Wyatt for a couple months, yeah, anymore. But then he goes and does that and he comes back and brings that back. It's just like it's great to have. I think it's good for the kids to do other sports. I think it's not like I think kids shouldn't be specialized in their sport at seven years old and only I think it's good to do other no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 15:55

I totally agree. Um, no, I know you mentioned within kind of the cost, you know, factoring and marketing. So, in terms of marketing right now, what is your current marketing mix that you're utilizing and it's really working for you?

SPEAKER_01: 16:06

So I think that most people do a lot of like Facebook ads and sure or Google ads and stuff like that. And we don't do a ton of that. I think that that's like that's like very, very good for when you're trying to be like surgical on what you want. Like I want, I want women, I want adults. I want like yeah, and that's definitely I think that's better and that's more targeted. Yeah, what we do is a little bit, um, a little more broad. Okay. Um I I've had a ton of fights in the UFC. So like this entire area, like I'm obviously I'm I'm known as having a very good school and a very good program. So that part kind of helps me. Like that's like passive helps me. Um, but the number one thing that we do that I think brings in people um is we take tons of photos of our classes, right? I have I have on staff and we take photos at least two days a week every single day.

SPEAKER_03: 16:51

Wow, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

And we post like really good. It's not like if you had to do it with a cell phone, then that's that's a great. But for us, it's like you know, it's like with a legit camera. Um, it's you know, we we color balance, we edit the photos, we watermark the photos, we post the photos. Um, okay. I've uh I said I have I have 250 kids.

SPEAKER_02: 17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:09

So like we do like a stripe test in jujitsu, we do a stripe testing every month, the end of every month.

SPEAKER_03: 17:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

Every single month we we we photograph all those classes, those kids getting their stripes, all that stuff. So yeah, that just gets us like a massive amount of of parents posting. Oh, I'm so proud of I'm so proud of Ben, he got his stripe today, or I'm so proud of Katie, she got her belt. I'm so proud of this, you know, and they're like, Oh, then their friends are all like, Oh, where does Katie do this? What is this? Oh, they do it at they do it jujitsu, it's at Lozon MMA. Yeah, we have that every single month, right? So we're photographing 250 kids every single month. Yeah, photos to our Facebook groups that we make it very easy for the parents to basically just take and save the photos. Like some people, like they they try to make it hard to steal the photos, like no, I want them to take that photo.

SPEAKER_03: 17:54

Yeah, that's free advertising.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

We get we just get tons, and then like when those parents when when their friends come, we don't even have to sell them on anything. There's no sales pitch. They're like, nice, I'm a friend of so-and-so, I want my kid in that same group. Yeah, school. Uh, my son Jake is like like nothing, he's uh he's 11. I don't know. My son Joey's 11. My son Jake is seven. Okay, he is like big time. I'm I'm big time introvert. Like, I don't like big people person. Like, I'll talk to people, but like that's that doesn't charge my batteries. Jake is the opposite. He always wants to do and he always wants to make friends. I think I've got like six kids from Jake's class. You know, it's just like his friends, like his friend Jasper and his friend Ben and his friend this, like it's just like you know, it's just because Jake is talking about he's obviously talking about Jitsu, and like we post photos of him on the on the on the Facebook group or whatever, and then you know, so Jake's telling his friends, and the moms want to come in. So it's like it's so easy because now it's you know, like having the mom of someone like, oh, I you know, I want Jasper to be in Jake's class. We don't even sell them, like just like I want him in this class, they don't care what it costs, it doesn't matter whatever what's going on. Yeah, so it's like it makes like the it almost it's almost like it's an all-inclusive marketing thing. I don't have to sell them on stuff, I don't have to have a sales process, I don't have to like we have all that stuff, but I can help them walk in the door, they're like, hey, here's my card, let's go. It's just like it's just very easy.

SPEAKER_03: 19:11

I love that. And I think you know, having those good photos. The nice thing about social media is your website's kind of you know, giving all the information and giving people a snapshot. The social media shows the day-to-day. So the fact that you're taking those photos and being able to post, letting other people post and share, and that, as you said, it's it's doing that marketing that's selling for you, but it's also giving people a glimpse into the day-to-day because a lot of times, a lot of websites show all of those glamorous photos, but people really want to see, you know, is it always like that? Are the classes always that size? So giving that more organic feel to things, I think is a great way to leverage those photos. And and photos are so powerful, they really tell a story, they give those snapshots, videos as well. So I love that you're really leveraging those as just another layer to to that marketing.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Another thing that kind of passively happens on that too is like, yeah, parents like they they get the that that photo of their kid and then they they save it to their phone a lot of times, right? I don't know if Amazon Android has something else, but it knows who the person is. So it's like, oh, here's here's Jake or here's whoever, right? So now you're right. Pretty much every single month, going back to when they first started jutsu. So we had I have kids that started training us like four or five years ago. Oh my god, but we have snapshots of them every single month.

SPEAKER_02: 20:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

For five years. So you see them on their first day, and they got this gi that's probably a little bit too big for long, the belt's hanging down long, they get their white belt on, and they see okay, they got their belt, so and so got your belt. You get to see like the progression, it's just like it's super cool, and then that that becomes its own self thing, right? Because then like Jotti's mom is gonna go and post. So here's Jotty when she got her white belt, and here's her her her gray with white and her solid gray and black and all the entire wrong. It's just like it's really, really cool to kind of see like that progression.

SPEAKER_03: 20:48

How incredible! I love that. Now, to play devil's advocate and look at kind of the flip side of things. Is there any marketing things that you have tried and just did not work for you?

SPEAKER_01: 20:58

Um, I think that almost anything that you do is gonna work. Okay, I think you just gotta do it, right? I think that's something like people want to be as efficient as possible. Sure, absolutely like if I can spend a dollar and I can make a dollar, yeah, then I'm gonna do that. If I can spend a dollar and I can make two dollars though, that's better. Sure. If I can spend a dollar and make three dollars, that's better. So like yeah, I think sometimes people spend too much time like trying to get to like the two and the three dollars. Yeah, obviously, you want to make more than you're spending. Absolutely. Part of it is just like it's just like long-term, like just like awareness and stuff. So make you know, spending a dollar making dollar, that's maybe not it doesn't seem like it's the best, like directly, but it's but just spreading awareness. I think that's okay. Absolutely. Pretty much anything you do is gonna be okay. Um, I said we we we don't do we don't do a ton of like Facebook ads, sure. Uh the paid ads, uh, just because we get so much organic stuff already. You know, we're already getting like um I got 200, I guess 250 kids. That means we get at least 250. It's probably like closer to three or four hundred photos that we're gonna post. The class and we're gonna post a stripe and whatever, like that. So that's just and that's just for like that last like that those like two days.

SPEAKER_03: 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:02

Then we also have like class photos like of jujitsu, adult jujitsu or adult kickboxing, yeah. Like that that happens throughout the week as well. Um, so because we have so much organic stuff, I don't think it's necessarily worth it for us to go and spend a ton of money on ads. If I do something specific, yeah, we would do that, but usually it's just I'm just looking more overall, yeah. Um so that works for us. Um, I we've done print stuff, and that's always been good. Like we we do a summer camp, so we'll do like we'll print up like ads from like staples or something like that. That always seems to do well. Um, we've done like touch a truck events and things like that, and like yeah, like it's we've done mass intros. I think that like everything works pretty well. I think it just matters how much effort and energy you want to put into it, you know. It's like for sure. Money you want to spend time, yeah. Um but it's it's I think everything will work. You just got to figure out what you want to do and then like just be a little bit intelligent about how you're gonna do it, make sure it's good. If you're doing print ads and the ads look like crap, it's not very good. No, you're gonna spend that, you know, maybe we're just better getting double the double the number of print a designer to design it a little bit exactly and then reuse that design however many times you need to.

SPEAKER_03: 23:08

Absolutely. And I think also I think ads are something that can be very costly. And if you're a newer school, you're looking to cut costs where you can, but still get the word out there. So I think actually looking at photos as a way and leveraging something like social media, just taking that extra time, I think is something that can go a long way for someone who's just starting out and are really looking at kind of um exploring options that are going to kill a couple of birds with one stone. I mean, if you've got good photos, you can use them on your video or your uh your website, your socials, on you know, branding packets, all sorts of good things. So I think that's actually a really great tip for you know people at all levels um who are just kind of looking at some some good organic ways to to kind of get the word out there.

SPEAKER_01: 23:46

I think I think part of it too is like it's kind of the things that people focus on, right? So I can argue and I can say, okay, jujitsu is gonna help you lose weight. Sure. And if it's it's a good exercise, it's good workout, right? But if you're going jujitsu three or four times a week, but you're eating all kinds of crap food, sure, it's not gonna help, right? But what does help with jujitsu is okay, you start going with jujitsu and you're working out three or four times a week. Yeah, and then because you're working out those times, now you're gonna eat a little bit better lunch because you want to feel better for jujitsu, you're eating better dinner because you're trying to recover for jujitsu. You're not trying to eat crap, you're not going out drinking on Friday and Saturday night, or you're at least cutting back and limiting it if you're putting it all together. You know, it's like it's making all those like those positive choices that will all together as a package that will lead to losing weight. But to go and say, Oh, jujitsu on its own, it's gonna help you lose weight, it's like that's not really like you can't, you know, can't out eat a bad diet, not work a bad diet, you know. So um, so it's kind of you know, I think sometimes people they they they they they try and like BS people, like, oh, you're gonna lose so much weight doing jitsu, you're gonna do this, like, and they get the sale, but then that person doesn't get the results, then they lose the yeah. So I think that like kind of just like packaging like the overall thing, like once you get them in the in the door, yeah. Like, I think the marketing doesn't end there. I think the marketing now gets into like, okay, like help them reach these goals. Like, how let's let's keep it going. Let's try to you know get them to make positive choices and positive life changes, and that will lead to those long-term goals.

SPEAKER_03: 25:08

Yeah, I think you bring up such an important part. Retention is half the battle. You know, you can get them closed, but you know, how long are they going to stay with you? And as you said, are you helping them achieve their those goals? Because if someone comes and they're gone within two months, you've got to re, you know, invest in getting another new person in the door if you're looking to kind of grow your school. So being able to continue, as you said, marketing and selling and keep making sure they're enjoying their experience, they're growing and they're learning um, you know, week over week, I think is so, so important because a lot of people do forget that retention is half the battle. We don't want to only rely on new people. So excellent. Um, well, to kind of switch gears, uh, kind of again, um, looking at market muscles. Um, uh, I know you've been with us for for some time, Joe, but how did you originally kind of hear about market muscles and get started?

SPEAKER_01: 25:54

Uh so I'd seen market muscles a little bit on first of all, I love the color scheme, right? Thank you. I like the green. Um the green was always my favorite color as a little kid. So like I love the green. Excellent. You know, but uh no, but I I talked to I talked to Steve Ranstein. Uh Steve Ranstein owns market muscles, uh, and he reached out to me and like, so I I have a computer science background, right? But I don't I don't have like a marketing background, right? But you know, I'm I get punched in the face for a living for a long time. But I do have I have a bachelor's in computer science. So my brain is actually very like I have a lot of conversations with Steve, and like they're very, very similar to how we think about things a little bit. Yeah, um, but I didn't I I I did not have like a marketing brain at all. Okay, and like I've gotten a lot better and I learned a lot more, but I didn't have a marketing brain. So like yeah, so like I'd seen like all these. I think I was with um it was back in the day, they was called FCOM.

SPEAKER_03: 26:43

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:44

So I I had an FCOM website, and it was like, and it was basically about like okay, we want the website to like do a better job of um like it's not necessarily for your your members. I before that I had like a WordPress website. Sure. Like I'm like, oh, I can do this, I'll set up my website. I don't need anyone else about the stuff right up my you know, right up my alley. So I set up a website and it was like it was good. We had the schedule, we had the pricing, we had all the other stuff, right? And like I made like literally every like cardinal sin I could make as far as the website goes. Like, I'm not getting any leads, yes, which is what the website really should be doing. It should be getting getting it should be you know, that should be the primary focus. But instead, I'm like giving them the pricing, I'm giving them the schedule, I'm giving them uh all the information. It's just like that's not really what it should be. And then uh when we when I switched over to FCOM for a little bit, it was okay. Like, this is like um this is everything about this website is supposed to be to just get leads information. You're not there to help out your current people, exactly a lead generating website. That's it, that's the only focus. Get the name, get their email, get their phone number. And I'm like, okay, so I tried that a little bit and it started working way better than what my WordPress site was. And then, but a lot of it was like images. It wasn't like it wasn't the SEO, it wasn't very good, it wasn't like things that weren't good. And then I saw Market Muscles and I talked to Steven a little bit, and like it sounded like it was a way better, it sounded like it was like just talking to Steven about it. It just sounded like I felt like we clicked it kind of right off the bat, right? Like just brain, just talking about things, and he had a bunch of really he brought up a couple things to me that made a lot of sense and was better and things like that. Um, so I'm just I I gave market muscles a shot. I didn't know if it was gonna be good or not, and right off the bat, it was like super outperforming anything we'd done in the past. I'm like, all right, this is it's growing. This is like it's almost like the guy that knows computer science and knows marketing, yeah. A better job, you know. So um, so it's great. So we love our market muscles website. I love all the um there's so much more functionality to it all, like on the things you can do. So it's just it's it's been uh it's been a home run for us all together.

SPEAKER_03: 28:43

Oh, it's wonderful. How have you seen Market Muscles kind of help you guys grow as a whole?

SPEAKER_01: 28:48

Um, I mean, like we use it for so many different things, right? So, like sure, it's great for like obviously, like when someone goes to our homepage, like it they get to see the different programs. Uh, it tags everyone, which is that's something we never had in the past. Like it tags everyone exactly what they're looking for. So we get a lead and we know exactly okay, this is a kid that's looking for tiny ninjas, our preschool age kids, and they're getting bullied and they're getting this. It just it just makes the entire process way easier when we're trying to do the sales process. Um, it helps the automation stuff, like they have all the workflows and stuff like that on the back end, which is great. Um, they're starting. I Steven's posted about this a little bit, but it's not like super out there, but they're starting like a like a full featured CRM. Yes, you know, so like we'll they'll do the automations and they'll do billing and scheduling and stuff like that, you know. So we're starting to use a little bit more of that. I'm trying to, you know, I think I'm kind of being the guinea pig a little bit for it, a little bit. Uh, but that's fine, it's okay. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna try and use it for the second location and just kind of see how it goes.

SPEAKER_02: 29:43

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 29:44

So, like it's just it's I I like how it's it's uh like forward thinking. That's the big thing. I think that a lot of times um some like some services are not necessarily like the best foundation that it works, but it's not like it's not like the best for like it's not. Like thought about like way far in advance. It's like okay, they're quick for today, and they only worry about today. And like I like the fact that Steven's thinking like really long term and how this is gonna play out, you know, for a long time. Um, and I think that that's just the the always get better thing, right? Everything I do, I'm absolutely training everything in my life, it's always get better. And I like that market muscles is always trying to get better, like they're always trying to do something a little different, trying to get a little bit better here, a little bit better there. Um, you know, it's just it's good, you know. And anyone that's gonna focus on getting better and improving long term is always gonna win in the long run. Absolutely, they're not gonna they're not gonna slow down and be like, oh, this is good enough. Yeah, maybe it's good enough today, but in two years when you haven't changed it, you know, good enough is not the best anymore. And then you can kind of pass. So um, so I like that. I like that the constant growth mindset.

SPEAKER_03: 30:46

Absolutely. And I think as a business owner, you have to have that mindset and and know that it's not a set it and forget it. You want to continue to innovate. So I love that. So, what is one tip you'd give other school owners who are listening and are really trying to take their business to the next level?

SPEAKER_01: 31:01

Um, I think the biggest thing is like just having systems in place, right? Like you know, having systems. Um I love the book, uh Buy Back Your Time by Dan Marcus. Yes, it's awesome. You know, he talks about a lot of different things that that's helped me a ton as far as our gym. Talks about like time blocking and doing like efficient stuff. Like, don't spend an hour every day doing the same, you know, doing your Instagram posts. Like, you know, spend three or four hours today and doing a month's worth.

SPEAKER_03: 31:25

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 31:26

Time blocking and stuff like that. Um, having you know, doing like playbooks in your gym, like playbooks, what like you know, so people don't know a playbook is basically you take like a task, it could be as simple as opening your gym. Yeah, when you open the gym, you basically walk around with a video, you know, someone films you on their phone or whatever. Doesn't have the best quality, it doesn't matter. But like, here's the light switch for here, here's the light switch for this, here's where all that water bottles go, here's how here we have to clean the mats, here's how we do this, like all that kind of stuff. Like, here's how you open the door, here's where you put the iPad, here's what you do this, like just like but boom, and then you don't have to ever think about it again, you know. So anyone that opens a door, they opens the gym, they watch the video, they know exactly what's going on. Yes. Um, you know, so like the the Dan Martel stuff is really good. Like, I would I would start with that. I think anyone that has any business should Dan Martell book, buy back your time. Um, it's just it makes a big difference. And once everything's systemized, you just like as time goes on, you just start systemizing more and more and more and offer your own stuff to other people, and then you have more time to do the stuff that you want you you're good at that you you really you know um thrive at.

SPEAKER_03: 32:23

Absolutely, absolutely. Um, last question for you, Joe. Any other kind of last minute like nuggets of wisdom you you also want to kind of impart with our our listeners?

SPEAKER_01: 32:33

Um, no, I mean I think that just like you know, if you're gonna run a school, you know, you obviously love your martial art, you love whatever you're doing, or dance or whatever. Yeah, of course. Um, you know, just like you know, don't don't get burned out on it. I think that's what happens sometimes. I think people like they teach so many classes that they get burned out on it. And and maybe in the beginning they have to run those classes, but part of it is I think is like trying to like offload some of that work. Like, even if you run the class, get someone else to run the warm-up, get someone else to run this part, get someone else to do that part, and kind of so that way you don't burn out because like once you burn out, no one wants to no one wants to get burned out, no one wants to be doing that stuff. So, like to try to limit the burnout, I think is like kind of offloading stuff a little bit. I think that helps a ton and and it'll keep you doing it forever. I mean, we started doing this because we liked it, so we should yeah, try to keep it in the in the continue to like it, not get burned out and hate jujitsu and hate this or whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 33:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 33:22

Um, so that that's my big thing is I say just try to try to you know get help from people when when it's appropriate in the beginning, a little harder. Once you're going a little bit though, like don't be cheap, figure it out, yeah. And you know, think about long term.

SPEAKER_03: 33:35

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Joe, I really appreciate you for kind of sharing those um uh items of wisdom with kind of our listeners. Um, if people are interested in checking out your website or learning a little bit more about your school, where should they uh where should they go? Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 33:49

Uh so you can go to so my website is joelozon.com, J-O-E-L-A-U-Z-O-N.com, and my website is lozonmma.com. Uh and that's our that's like our gym website, and you can find both locations of that.

SPEAKER_00: 34:03

Thanks for joining us on today's episode of Beyond the Mats and Mirrors. If you found value in the conversation, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Are you ready to see how market muscles can help your school or studio grow? Head over to marketmuscles.com and book a demo today. And until next time, keep inspiring and keep growing.