Episode 4
Exposing Martial Arts Frauds | Rob Ingram McDojo Life
Inside the wild west of martial arts — exposing the frauds, the cults, and the business systems that separate real schools from McDojos.
For 13 years, Rob Ingram has run McDojo Life — the most followed and most feared page in martial arts. He's exposed hundreds of frauds, written a book, helped run Academy Safe, and is now filming a feature documentary with Jocko Willink as executive producer.
In this episode, Nick Cownie sits down with Rob to break down what 28 years in martial arts has taught him about culty instructors, the legal mess of an unregulated industry, and — most importantly — how to actually run a successful martial arts school.
This isn't a fluff conversation. It's a rare, honest look at the dark side of the industry and the operational systems separating real schools from the frauds.
🔥 IN THIS EPISODE
- Why martial arts is the most unregulated industry on earth
- The five rules every legitimate school must follow
- The psychology behind why people believe in "no-touch knockouts"
- How Rob enrolled 250 students in a single month at a consulting client
- Why "Field of Dreams" marketing is the #1 reason schools fail
- Pre-launch marketing 4 months before opening
- The three-contract pricing model that locks in revenue without locking out students
- The 2-4-6 phone call system that saves students from canceling
- Why collections will destroy your school's reputation (and what to do instead)
- How to use equity, positive reviews, and personal touch to beat negativity
- How Rob turned McDojo Life from a hobby into a business
- The one martial artist Rob would love to spar
🕒 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
02:51 The McDojo Life documentary with Jocko Willink
04:27 The five rules every school must follow
07:01 Why fraud instructors actually believe their own lies
09:03 Martial arts is completely unregulated in the US
12:51 Chi, Hermetics, and the deep rabbit hole of martial arts cults
17:02 Why Australia and the rest of the world isn't immune
19:25 13 years of McDojo Life
24:11 The investigative journalism behind every story
27:53 Did Rob start good at social — or get better?
35:24 The big three: leads, conversions, retention
35:54 Pre-launch marketing 4 months before grand opening
43:06 Three contracts: month-to-month, six-month, yearly
46:22 The retention secret most owners miss
49:08 The 8-month to 18-month martial arts drop-off cliff
49:57 The 2-4-6 phone call retention system
56:48 Why collections destroys your school's reputation
58:35 Equity, positive reviews, and the personal touch
01:01:23 The Joe Rogan bump and turning McDojo Life into a business
01:04:21 The one martial artist Rob would love to spar
01:09:35 Where to find Rob
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👇 CONNECT WITH ROB INGRAM
Rob Ingram is the founder of McDojo Life, vice president of Academy Safe, and an author with over 28 years in the martial arts industry. A 3rd Degree Black Belt in American Freestyle Karate, 3rd Degree in Lima Lama, and BJJ purple belt, Rob is currently filming a feature documentary with Jocko Willink as executive producer.
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mcdojolife
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/themcdojolife
🌐 Website: https://mcdojolife.com
🛡️ Academy Safe: https://academysafe.org
📖 Book: Sensei's Bars and Scars — on Amazon
⚔️ ABOUT THE SHOW
Most martial artists open a school. The best operators become DOJOCEOs™.
Hosted by Nick Cownie — founder of Enroll 365™, Dojo Toolbox CRM™, The Dojo Map™, and DOJOCEO™ Mastermind — each episode goes "behind the belt" to break down the business, battles, and breakthroughs behind successful martial arts schools.
👉 FOLLOW NICK
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/dojoceo
Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Grappling Map podcast.
Speaker A:It's Nick Counter here.
Speaker A:And on this podcast we go behind the belt to dig into the business, the battles and the breakthroughs of the martial arts industry.
Speaker A:And super excited today we have the one and only Rob Ingram, who you may know better as the man behind McDojo Life.
Speaker A:And we're going to have a super awesome podcast here with Rob today.
Speaker A:So let's jump in and get stuck into it.
Speaker A:Rob.
Speaker A:I've got Rob's bio here.
Speaker A:Rob's been in the martial arts industry for over 28 years, which is awesome.
Speaker A:I've been in martial arts about that long myself.
Speaker A:He's the author of Sensei's Bars and Scars, vice president of academysafe.org and if you don't know too much about Academy Safe, I highly recommend you check it out on the Grappling Map.
Speaker A:I actually gave Academy Safe free advertising.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think it's something that every school should be involved in so you can find them on the Grappling Map.
Speaker A:Click on that and go straight off.
Speaker A:Get your academy signed up.
Speaker A:If you're teaching, you absolutely should be involved with Academy Safe or you'll end up on the instructor list on the McDojo Life website.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You don't want to be there.
Speaker A:So Rob also helps runs the Florida Man Games, which I had to Google and I'm glad I did because that is phenomenal.
Speaker A:And the fightcon Expo, we're going to dig into that in a little bit if that's cool.
Speaker A:Probably most well known these days as founder of McDojo Life.
Speaker A:I don't think there's anyone involved in the martial arts industry who doesn't know and probably follow McDojo life.
Speaker A:And if you don't, you definitely should.
Speaker A:It's probably the best page on the Internet if we're all being honest.
Speaker A:And personally, Rob is a third degree black belt in American Freestyle Karate, third degree black belt in Lissa Judeau, and just like myself, purple belt in bjj.
Speaker A:So, Rob, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker A:Super excited to have you here.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me, man.
Speaker B:I appreciate the the rundown.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now that I moved over to la, I'm not working with the Florida Man Games anymore because I'm an LA guy now, but hopefully only for the year while we're working on the documentary and then new projects.
Speaker B:So I have a ton going on now and hopefully I'll have a ton going on after this documentary is done and then hopefully eventually get a headquarters in Vegas.
Speaker B:I'm thinking the fight Capital of the World is the only real place to put it, I think.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:That'd be phenomenal.
Speaker A:Let's, let's start with the documentary.
Speaker A:Typically, I'll, you know, do a bit of an origin story with people.
Speaker A:How'd you get started?
Speaker A:And all that kind of stuff, but I think we'll just dive head first.
Speaker A:You're in the middle of filming the documentary right now, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it took.
Speaker B:We have been working on it for five years, which is insane to think about, but it's true.
Speaker B:We crowdfunded did all that, which is basically took up our first year and then pretty much right after that Covid hit.
Speaker B:And so that was two years of nonsense of having to deal with that.
Speaker B:And then after that was done, we wind up filming for like 30 days, editing for another 60.
Speaker B:And then based off of that, we just did not have enough to make a full blown documentary that we were looking to do.
Speaker B:So we wound up trying to crowdfund by doing bigger, bigger investors.
Speaker B:We wind up getting Jocko Willink as an executive producer of the film, which is amazing.
Speaker B:Thank you, Jocko, for coming on board.
Speaker B:And because of that, that allowed us to raise the rest of the funding that we needed to.
Speaker B:And then now we're off to the races.
Speaker B:I moved out here in October and then we secured all of our financing since then and now we are on day two of filming.
Speaker B:Our second day of filming was yesterday.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:Securing Jocko as executive producer is a massive win.
Speaker A:He's doing huge things at the moment with his movie coming out and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So that's perfect timing.
Speaker A:Is there anything you can tell us about the documentary that's not going to spoil it for everyone when it comes out?
Speaker A:I can't wait to see it.
Speaker A:All the short videos exposing the fake black belts and stuff are just absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker B:What's like.
Speaker A:Yeah, what's the big premise behind the doco?
Speaker B:Well, with, with McDoja, life itself, it's based off of five rules, right?
Speaker B:Don't lie about your bank belt rank and fight record.
Speaker B:Don't financially defraud people.
Speaker B:Don't physically abuse people.
Speaker B:Don't rape anyone.
Speaker B:And, you know, don't try to convince people that you have supernatural abilities or mislabel what you're doing.
Speaker B:Like, if you're doing cardio kickboxing, that's awesome.
Speaker B:You're doing a keto, that's awesome.
Speaker B:You're doing wing chun, kung fu, that's awesome.
Speaker B:Just make sure you're being Very direct with your students about what they're learning.
Speaker B:So that way they're not misguided into thinking cardio kickboxing is going to make them a world class kickboxer, because it's not right.
Speaker B:So we took those five rules and then we're making that an amalgamation of how the film is going to go.
Speaker B:So we're going to dig into all five of those rules.
Speaker B:Mostly this doc is going to be about the culty side of martial arts.
Speaker B:We will touch on the sexual abuse stuff, but no one wants to listen to a movie about rape for like nine, you know, 90 minutes or like three episodes.
Speaker B:So we wanted to make sure we dug in a little bit more into the culty side of things.
Speaker B:The people who believe they can knock each other out mind or, you know, the, the people who were just lying about their credentials, things like that.
Speaker B:So we're digging way more into the culty side of things.
Speaker B:But I will say this, we are not just doing a talking head video.
Speaker B:That was real big when I first started wanting to do this was all of my YouTube stuff is talking head stuff.
Speaker B:That's me sitting in a chair and there's a picture in picture and we talk about why people are full of crap.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which is entertaining in itself.
Speaker B:But it's not what I wanted.
Speaker B:What I wanted was, okay, well now since we have the funding, let's go ahead and put some rubber to the road and do this for real.
Speaker B:Let's go to these people, or let's bring these people to us, whatever the case may be, and let's confront them face to face, full contact, whatever the case may be.
Speaker B:And I'm putting myself 100% out there to make sure that I am exposing these frauds for what they truly are.
Speaker B:And who knows, maybe I could be wrong.
Speaker B:But so far in the last 28 years of doing martial arts, in the last 13 doing McDoja life, I have not been wrong about a fraud yet.
Speaker B:So if that happened, this would be the first time.
Speaker A:Have you had any just straight up pushback from, you know, these no touch knockout mind control, yellow bamboo systema Magical, magical experts.
Speaker A:Or are they genuinely happy for you to come in?
Speaker A:Are you like, are you guys ambushing them?
Speaker A:Are you dojo storming or are you doing this in advance?
Speaker B:Yeah, I can't tell you how we're gonna do it because we're still filming.
Speaker B:But what I can tell you is that most of the people who we do these experiments with or confrontations with, they truly believe they have these abilities this is not.
Speaker B:This is not fake to most of them, which will surprise a lot of people.
Speaker B:I think a lot of people assume that, that these instructors are doing it just to make some money.
Speaker B:Most of them are not very well to do.
Speaker B:Most of them have a lineage just like everyone else in martial arts, right?
Speaker B:Your instructor had an instructor.
Speaker B:What really it is, is a fascinating form of brainwashing.
Speaker B:And we've looked into this and there are all kinds of, like these odd occurrences that have happened.
Speaker B:For instance, there was an occurrence that happened where a lady just started randomly dancing in the street, right?
Speaker B:Just started dancing for no reason.
Speaker B:And then people started joining her, but because she didn't stop, they didn't stop.
Speaker B:And eventually she danced herself to death.
Speaker B:Now, this is a real story of a real person who just randomly did this, and people joined in and wind up getting hurt.
Speaker B:But that phenomenon is going on all the time.
Speaker B:And our culture, the root word of culture is cult, right?
Speaker B:Our culture is made up of a bunch of cults.
Speaker B:And most people, whether they believe it or not, are probably a part of some type of cult like behavior in some way, shape or form.
Speaker B:And so what we're really trying to do with this film is just show, like, look, while, yes, this is crazy that martial arts is completely unregulated, and it is.
Speaker B:Every podcast I go on to, there's some jackass that always tries to argue, yes, it is regulated.
Speaker B:No, it's not.
Speaker B:To open up a martial arts school in the United States, you need nothing.
Speaker B:You don't need a background check, you don't need cpr.
Speaker B:You don't need first aid, you don't need safe sport most of the time.
Speaker B:Most of these people operate without business licenses and, or insurance.
Speaker B:So you don't need anything to start a martial arts school in the United States.
Speaker B:And that's kind of the craziest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker B:So hopefully we can expose that and maybe we can start getting people to at least do background check.
Speaker B:And that will actually solve a lot of our issues in the industry, in my opinion.
Speaker A:Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker A:And that's the whole reason why when I came across Academy Safe, I reached out to.
Speaker A:To.
Speaker A:I think I might have even actually reached out through you on Instagram from memory, or it might have been directly to Milton.
Speaker A:And I just said, I just want to, you know, I can't be directly a part of this because it's.
Speaker A:You guys are only operating in the US And I asked, do you have a branch in Australia?
Speaker A:So, yeah, maybe in the future I'm like, well the, the least I can do for now is just give you free advertising on the grappling map.
Speaker A:Because I want to be involved in getting this out there.
Speaker A:I've got a bit of an interesting background that makes what you do fascinating to me.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because I've been doing martial arts probably 34, 35 years.
Speaker A:I'm a third degree jiu jitsu, black belt, Japanese jiu jitsu, first degree in karate, freestyle karate as well, and a purple belt in bjj.
Speaker A:And I've done a bunch of other stuff over the years, but outside of martial arts, I'm an NLP and hypnosis trainer.
Speaker A:I've taught all over the world and a university trained acupuncturist.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So, so I went through the whole mindset of chi is a magical energy that flows through your body and you can manipulate and control and move and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And it's really interesting to have the, going through this training at university.
Speaker A:You're taught, here's the Chinese framework and worldview and here's our most up to date scientific understanding of what happens when you put these needles in the body and why it works.
Speaker A:Not saying chi is a magic energy that you can circulate through your body.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I was pretty fortunate that I got to see both of those simultaneously.
Speaker A:And my opinion on it is that like a lot of things when you, when you dig into this with, you know, traditional Chinese medicine, it's just written poetically with the best way that they felt they could explain it at the time.
Speaker A:And it's all very, very poetic.
Speaker A:Like you feel someone's pulse to diagnose what's going on inside their body and you'll explain this feels like ants crawling over a log, right?
Speaker A:There's no ants in there, there's no wood.
Speaker A:You're feeling pulse, pulse characteristics, everything is just explained poetically and because of certain people just grab onto that and go, well then, you know, this is energy and magic and I can direct the chi out in my palms and all that kind of stuff and, and other.
Speaker B:People take a more scientific, yeah, there's a very deep rabbit hole when it comes to chi and when it comes to like the supernatural and, and how people try to explain it.
Speaker B:If you look up the definition of chi, just like anybody can Google, what is the definition of chi.
Speaker B:You're not going to get one definition.
Speaker B:It does not exist.
Speaker B:As a matter of fact, chi chi is a bunch of different things and it could be a unit of measurement.
Speaker B:Chi could Be what people would consider.
Speaker B:Some people consider it breath, some people consider it life force, whatever that may.
Speaker B:Some people consider it your spirit.
Speaker B:So chi has like a million and one different definitions.
Speaker B:And typically when you hear it from a chi master, and when I, I say chi master, I mean a fraud who's trying to say that they can knock people out with their magical abilities, they typically use the definition that they're used to saying and spewing because it matches what they're teaching.
Speaker B:And so they'll find this like definition that is an all encompassing definition for them.
Speaker B:But then if you talk to another chi master, they'll be like, oh no, no, no, he's wrong.
Speaker B:It just means this.
Speaker B:And if you talk to another person, no, it means this, this.
Speaker B:And that's kind of the, the, the fascinating part.
Speaker B:We started researching a guy named Franz Barton.
Speaker B:Are you familiar with that person?
Speaker A:Yeah, I've heard the name, but feel free to, to dig into it a little.
Speaker B:Yeah, so Franz Barton was around during World War II time and he wrote a book called Initiation into Hermetics.
Speaker B:And typically when you're dealing with people who are more Tai Chi, internal martial arts based, they'll usually use his book Initiation into Hermetics as the gold standard bible for how to astrally project or turn invisible or walk through walls.
Speaker B:By the way, all this sounds absolutely ridiculous, because it is.
Speaker B:But this gentleman wrote this book during that time as not just a, hey, I can do this, but as a manual on how to do it.
Speaker B:So anyone can buy this book, Initiation into Hermetics and learn step by step how to project chi out of your hands or set things on fire with your mind or actually project.
Speaker B:And so he wrote this book and during that time, Nazi Germany got a hold of him and was like, you know what, this guy knows how to like do all these magical abilities.
Speaker B:We are trying to make super soldiers.
Speaker B:So they captured him and they held him prisoner during that time to try to get him to teach Nazis how to become superhuman and supernatural.
Speaker B:Now that sounds insane to a normal human being.
Speaker B:It's all true.
Speaker B:That all did happen and he did write that book.
Speaker B:And, and of course the book is full of nonsense, but somewhere along the line people took that as gospel.
Speaker B:And now you'll see it with the, with organizations like Heaven Man Earth, which is a, a Tai Chi organization.
Speaker B:And that guy teaches references that book.
Speaker B:And then you have people who are like Mark Rasmus, who is a branch off of that, or Denish Kumar who also is a branch, and they'll reference these Books.
Speaker B:And you're thinking, that's horseshit.
Speaker B:That's like, that's like just saying, you know What?
Speaker B:I read Dr. Seuss, right?
Speaker B:And there was two fish and they were talking, I swear to God, fish talk.
Speaker B:That's about as sane as this really is, you know, and so, but it's crazy because people actually buy it and they speak with the utmost confidence.
Speaker B:And because they're in this vacuum of trying to get confirmation bias, they just continue to like talk to each other about this.
Speaker B:And then when they're confronted, like any other culture, they make sure that they cut off the outside entity, whatever it is, and make sure that they already prepared their student base to understand that people will attack your beliefs.
Speaker B:They're wrong.
Speaker B:No one anyone else says is correct.
Speaker B:We're right.
Speaker B:And that's how cults work.
Speaker B:And it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker B:I'm really excited to be able to get that out to the world to finally talk about this.
Speaker B:Because people often ask, why do people believe this?
Speaker B:Well, there's a deep rooted psychology to this.
Speaker B:It's not, it's not just people decided to wake up one day and believe they had magical powers.
Speaker B:There was a lot of things that happened to lead up to that point.
Speaker B:And we'll be able to talk to not only victims, but also talk to the instructors themselves and kind of call them on it.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's phenomenal.
Speaker A:I can't wait for this to come out.
Speaker A:Is it going to be like a.
Speaker A:Are you leaning more towards a, you know, a 90 minute film style documentary or a miniseries, multiple shorter episode type thing?
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:So we're hoping to turn one into the other.
Speaker B:So we, we originally approached, we were able to talk to Hulu and Amazon.
Speaker B:Amazon left the door open, but they were really adamant about wanting a one specific bad guy.
Speaker B:And we wanted to show that this is a global issue that's happening all over the world.
Speaker B:In your backyard, there is somebody who believes they have magical abilities, I promise you.
Speaker B:And so Amazon didn't want that.
Speaker B:They wanted, we'll pick one guy.
Speaker B:And we were like, well, that's kind of not the point of what we're trying to do.
Speaker B:But what we can do is we can make our movie the way we want.
Speaker B:And they were like, you can on your own dime.
Speaker B:So it took us five years to be able to make the movie we want because now no one can tell us what to do.
Speaker B:You're not in anyone's pocket because you're not borrowing someone else's money.
Speaker B:And so now we're making the movie we want and we're hoping to use that as concept to be able to turn it into a show and then have episodes dedicated to different martial arts cults.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:So my YouTube alone, I think I've covered maybe over 500 different cults if I remember correctly.
Speaker B:Some long form, some short form, but definitely over 500 individual cults with all their own belief structures and like some really crazy stuff.
Speaker B:Like one guy, he decided to start his own martial arts school and he bases it off his religious beliefs.
Speaker B:And he himself has two wives.
Speaker B:He had three wives.
Speaker B:But during that time his third wife, I guess, didn't want to be a part of his crazy.
Speaker B:So he then he made a Facebook page pretending to be his ex wife while he was using his own Facebook page to argue with himself, pretending that him and his ex wife were arguing.
Speaker B:Now that sounds weird, that's a weird thing to do.
Speaker B:But then he winds up going on to his.
Speaker B:And he winds up having these like basically starting off their martial arts sessions, which is jiu jitsu based.
Speaker B:He gave his purple belt students as a brown belt, black belt.
Speaker B:That's not how that works at all.
Speaker B:And then they turned around and promoted him to black belt.
Speaker B:Then he started his own jiu jitsu school that actually still speaks in tongues on the map.
Speaker B:Now I wish you could make this up, but you can't because that really happened.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You know, there's.
Speaker B:I could just go story after story honestly about these different like cliff notes of cults and they're everywhere.
Speaker B:It's insane.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:And mostly because the industry is unregulated, you can just do whatever you want.
Speaker A:The unregulated part is absolutely crazy.
Speaker A:It's the same here in Australia.
Speaker A:We do have this here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But there, there are less of, there's less crazy here overall I'd say in martial arts.
Speaker A:Australians probably just don't go in for it as much.
Speaker A:You know, there's a bit more skepticism in general and everything's kind of pretty laid back here.
Speaker A:And across the board, that kind of stuff doesn't fly terribly well.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which is great.
Speaker A:By and large, if you turn up to a martial arts class, you might still be wasting your time.
Speaker A:There's a lot.
Speaker A:I won't badmouth any specific styles, but there's a lot of rubbish out there.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But you probably at the absolute minimum you're going to get some exercise benefits from the star jumps in the warm up.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Without thinking that you've got magic powers.
Speaker A:But this is.
Speaker A:I have seen the Specific breakdown you're talking about on that guy with the purple belt who gave his.
Speaker A:What was it?
Speaker A:Brown belt?
Speaker A:Who gave his purple belts, black belts and two or three.
Speaker A:Yeah, I remember the video.
Speaker A:Absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker A:So when.
Speaker A:When you.
Speaker A:You said it was nine or 12 years ago that you started McDojo life.
Speaker B:So I think I'm on year 13 now.
Speaker A:Thirteen.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's.
Speaker B:It's wild to think that's how much time has flown by, because, I mean, it's really just been.
Speaker B:Put my head down in work, and then I come up for air, and years have gone by, and it's wild to think that I've, like, literally dedicated my life to this now.
Speaker B:And, you know, I'm hoping that with this doc, and maybe that will turn into a series or something.
Speaker B:I'm hoping to be able to expand the company.
Speaker B:I mean, I've been doing it myself from my phone again for 13 years of my life.
Speaker B:That's a.
Speaker B:That's a long time to be working on something by yourself.
Speaker B:And I've seen some really horrific things.
Speaker B:You know, I don't just cover crazy people.
Speaker B:I cover people who are criminals and, you know, rapists and convicts and pedophiles.
Speaker B:And it happens all the time to the point where I had to take two years off somewhere in there to just be like, you know, I'm gonna take classes, but I'm not nearly gonna take them as much.
Speaker B:Like, I just need some time away from this.
Speaker B:And then after I. I was like, you know what?
Speaker B:I feel better.
Speaker B:Then I dove right back into doing with Doja Life, and it was like, okay, news story every day, which I can do another.
Speaker B:Like, actually, as a matter of fact, just for giggles, because I haven't looked today.
Speaker B:If I type in martial arts arrest into Google right now, right?
Speaker B:And then I look over at my little tool setting, and I say, you know, let's go news.
Speaker B:And let's see when it was, like, the most recent.
Speaker B:Let's see here.
Speaker B:And I can just name these off this.
Speaker B:I just typed them in, right?
Speaker B:Martial arts instructor arrested for sexual assault of minors.
Speaker B:That happened 15 hours ago.
Speaker B:Taekwondo instructor indicted on statutory rape charges in Jackson County.
Speaker B:Spark.
Speaker B:Martial arts professor accused a lewdness with a child.
Speaker B:14, Hyde park martial arts instructor sentenced to 10 years for sexually abusing children.
Speaker B:Like, I could just keep reading these.
Speaker B:And it's over and over and over and over again.
Speaker B:And that's all posted.
Speaker B:The last one on at least the first page was, let's see, November of this last year.
Speaker B:And that's that search.
Speaker B:That's not even searching martial arts instructor.
Speaker B:That's not searching individual martial arts.
Speaker B:So if I had to bet dollars of donuts looking at least the page, I mean, we're pro.
Speaker B:We're probably talking about at least 15 different cases of abuse of any kind within the last week.
Speaker A:How fucking scary is that?
Speaker A:That's absolutely crazy when.
Speaker A:When you talk about expanding the company, right.
Speaker A:And not just being you with your phone, what would that look like 12 months down the future?
Speaker B:What's your life?
Speaker B:So I was working on the documentary for like five years, and then I thought it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker B:And then it happened and I was like.
Speaker B:But while I was thinking it wasn't going to happen, I wrote a book, you know, like, I was like, all right, well, let's do something with my time.
Speaker B:And then we did mcdojalife.com and started the registry.
Speaker B:And then we.
Speaker B:I started helping out with a vice president of Academy Safe now.
Speaker B:And so I kept working while trying to get this done.
Speaker B:Finally it got over there.
Speaker B:But one of the things I was working on was a headquarters for McDoja Life.
Speaker B:And I already do news, but the problem is, is that I'm only one human, so there's a lot of things that I'm missing that fall through the cracks.
Speaker B:So I want to create a headquarters where I have at least one employee and I can start making areas where it's like McDojo, Karate, Taekwondo, Jiu jitsu, and not just covering the negatives, but just covering things in general.
Speaker B:I mean, when it comes to McDoja life, technically, all I really do is investigate a journalism.
Speaker B:And I've been doing that for a long time.
Speaker B:And I do reach out, I do investigate, I do go to places when I can go to places where.
Speaker B:When that's possible.
Speaker B:You know, I do my homework.
Speaker B:That's why I've only really been sued once doing this in 13 years, because I do my homework.
Speaker B:And I think there are a lot of news outlets out there, especially in the martial arts industry, that are just very knee jerk, you know, so and so says we're going to do a story about that.
Speaker B:I don't think that's the right way to do it.
Speaker B:Like with the.
Speaker B:The Andre Galvo thing or the Checkmat thing or, you know, the Lloyd Irvin or the Chris R. Yeah, the cyborg over at Fight Sports.
Speaker B:Like, while I agree that those things need to be covered, I think they need to be covered with journalistic integrity.
Speaker B:You can't just say, hey, this person's done something because someone else said so.
Speaker B:You have to make sure you do your research, get some proof.
Speaker B:And when people were jumping all over that stuff, you know, that takes a lot of time, like I said, for one person to do so.
Speaker B:Being able to compartmentalize that and say, okay, this is my jiu jitsu department, my figurehead.
Speaker B:You're going to cover those stories.
Speaker B:These are the integrity.
Speaker B:This is the integrity we're looking for in our journalism.
Speaker B:And then we can grow from there and become a legitimate news outlet.
Speaker B:Not just for the negatives, but also the positives.
Speaker A:That's a fantastic idea, right?
Speaker A:Because I mean, one of the big issues with having integrity, Strange thing to say.
Speaker A:What's the issue with having integrity?
Speaker A:It's that you miss out on the news cycle, right?
Speaker A:If you don't just jump on the bandwagon and post for clicks and eyeballs.
Speaker A:Grow your online presence like the vast majority of people.
Speaker A:By the time you've done your investigative journalism, that story is old news now and people have moved on to the next thing that everyone else is just promoting for clicks and eyeballs.
Speaker A:And so I think this idea of, you know, an actual media company where you take things very seriously the way you obviously have been, but just by yourself is a fantastic idea.
Speaker A:When you first got started, what if you, you know, looking back 13 years, right, that's a long time to get things wrong and to get things right.
Speaker A:What were like the, the off the top of your head, what were, what were the biggest, you know, fuck ups that you made?
Speaker B:The fuck ups that I made honestly were just based off of laziness.
Speaker B:It wasn't based off of like putting a story out there.
Speaker B:I've never put out a story that I did not take my time to research.
Speaker B:That's never happened, nor will I, because I think that that is a lot of weight that gets held on to you as an individual because you're putting someone else's reputation in your hands when you put out a story.
Speaker B:So like that I take seriously.
Speaker B:I don't ever want to mislabel or harass someone.
Speaker B:I don't think that's fair.
Speaker B:But I do think that the public has the right to know the truth about somebody who has done something illegal, right?
Speaker B:If they've done something horrific and they're putting their students in harm's way, their personal.
Speaker B:I don't care about, I don't care if so and so slept with so and so nine times out of 10, I don't give a. I care that if so and so slept with a minor.
Speaker B:I care if so.
Speaker B:And so maliciously raped a person.
Speaker B:You know, those are different than some.
Speaker B:Some gossip circle that I could give two shits about.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So I. I typically stay in my lane with stuff like that, and I stick to the five rules.
Speaker B:But the only mistake I could, I think I've really made was the times where I was taking a break or time off, and then I would go back to my inbox, and when I go back to my inbox, there'd be a story that I missed of a victim, and then there was another victim who got victimized before I was able to do the story.
Speaker B:Like, those are mistakes.
Speaker B:Those weigh heavy.
Speaker A:Yeah, I can see how that are definitely way heavy.
Speaker A:I mean, even though it's not your responsibility.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You've kind of also taken on this role of exposer of those who need to be exposed.
Speaker A:And people probably have that kind of expectation of you, too.
Speaker A:I never really stopped to consider that.
Speaker A:It's pretty interesting.
Speaker A:How about from a business point of view?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I've seen over the years, I know you do some consulting as well with, you know, with businesses.
Speaker A:And obviously you kick ass at social media.
Speaker A:Like, were you good at that stuff when you started, or did you get better at it over the years to the point where you're like, now I know this, I know what people should be doing.
Speaker A:I do a lot of work with Jiu Jitsu school owners.
Speaker A:I was a business coach for 20 years.
Speaker A:I still do coaching.
Speaker A:You know, we have a CRM that we offer and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's like, it's so common that people's social media is just absolutely terrible, and their website is worse than not having a website.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So the struggle is real for people out there.
Speaker A:What, what was that journey like for you?
Speaker A:Did you have to learn how to get better at it over time, or were you already.
Speaker B:I think that's like anything else, you know, like anything.
Speaker B:You get better over time.
Speaker B:But, you know, I think by the time I started McDojo Life, I mean, I've been training 28 years.
Speaker B:I've been doing McDoja Life 13 years.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:What, 15 years in, if the math adds up or some shit.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So, like, you know, I've been doing.
Speaker B:I had been doing martial arts my entire life, and I was very lucky to be around circles of people who were, like, good at the business side of things.
Speaker B:And when I was growing up, when I started, when I was 12, you know, going to different Martial arts tournaments, especially open tournaments, you get to hear and listen and pay attention to not only the failures of people, but their successes.
Speaker B:And I think that really helped to create like an understanding of how this business really works.
Speaker B:Because people often talk about martial arts not being a business and that's horseshit.
Speaker B:This is not true.
Speaker B:Of course it's a business, right?
Speaker B:It's, it's kind, but it's kind of like a business.
Speaker B:It's a business you do because you love it.
Speaker B:Like, no one gets into the martial arts industry going, I'm gonna be rich.
Speaker B:Like, I have never heard that person exist ever.
Speaker B:I the last, what, 28 years of doing this, I've never heard one person get into martial arts.
Speaker B:They wanted to get rich.
Speaker B:So like that old adage of like the McDojo or the belt factory or people just doing it for the money, they could do plenty of other things to get way more money.
Speaker B:I promise you that.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And seeing as how this industry is completely unregulated, you don't even need to know martial arts to make money at martial arts.
Speaker B:You just show up, right?
Speaker B:So, but what I've noticed is so many people were so concerned about integrity that they forgot that they got paychecks from every other job they've ever worked.
Speaker B:And they never once thought about the integrity of that.
Speaker B:They never worked at a McDonald's and went, well, I do love making burgers.
Speaker B:I can't accept this paycheck.
Speaker B:No one's ever done that because it's a job, right?
Speaker B:And so while with martial arts we really do, we go out of our way, we do the extra, we go the above and beyond.
Speaker B:If we're a good instructor, we take care of our people.
Speaker B:We do teach them self defense and integrity and hopefully some honor and respect.
Speaker B:We do do that, but also we charge those people to do that.
Speaker B:And so if we're going to do that, we need to make sure that our business side of things is tight.
Speaker B:Because if you're going to teach somebody well it you actually will teach them better if you know the business side of things better.
Speaker B:It's just a fact.
Speaker B:Like think about it this way.
Speaker B:If I don't ever pay attention to when I need to pay my bills, when I need to pay the water, the electric, when I need to restock for supplies, well, if I don't take the time to treat my business good enough to buy supplies, to clean the mat, how many staff infections are going to pop up?
Speaker B:Now if I don't take the time to replace my equipment, how many people might be potentially injured because of bad equipment?
Speaker B:If I don't take the time to do my due diligence of seeing how many people are signing up, maybe I'll just keep blaming the student instead of going, you know what, maybe I need to take a white belt mentality here and go, you know what?
Speaker B:There's something I'm saying and doing that is making people not want to be here.
Speaker B:Meaning you have less students, meaning you're helping less people.
Speaker B:So, like, if you take your business, tighten that up, you'll start actually making your school better.
Speaker B:Your students will become better.
Speaker B:They will.
Speaker B:It just automatically happens because you're going to start thinking about, well, if I'm monitoring and checking all of these things off the mat, maybe I should monitor my curriculum.
Speaker B:Because how many martial arts studios don't even have a curriculum?
Speaker B:If you treat it like a business, you will.
Speaker B:Or how many problems have we had in the industry with sexual abuse allegations?
Speaker B:Have you taken the time to make sure your coaches are safe, sport certified?
Speaker B:Do you have cameras on site in the facility?
Speaker B:Do you have insurance in case someone gets hurt?
Speaker B:Do you have background checks on all your employees?
Speaker B:That's what a business would do.
Speaker B:And that automatically will make your students better and safer.
Speaker B:So ultimately, I think that if people tighten up the screws with their business side, they're automatically going to make better students.
Speaker A:Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker A:I think it's super important.
Speaker A:I was pretty lucky to come through a Japanese jiu jitsu lineage where one of, one of our head instructors was a lawyer.
Speaker A:So that was phenomenal.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We got a lot of really useful info on the realities of self defense.
Speaker A:And if you need to defend yourself, this is what you're going to have to deal with from a legal standpoint.
Speaker A:And it's nowhere near as straightforward as people think.
Speaker A:You can't just claim self defense and get off right?
Speaker A:So super complicated.
Speaker A:And then my most recent instructor used to be a business analyst.
Speaker A:And so he's baked into the.
Speaker A:We have a curriculum.
Speaker A:He's baked into the curriculum.
Speaker A:You know, we've got academic components, we need to write essays on certain things.
Speaker A:And I remember, I think it was when I was, when I was going for my second dan, I'm going to.
Speaker A:I'll say that I think one of the things that I had to do was write an essay on a, you know, the prompt was, you're running a class.
Speaker A:A student injures their shoulder, what's the, what do you do immediately?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:What first aid do you apply, if any.
Speaker A:What's your responsibility?
Speaker A:What's outside your scope?
Speaker A:And what's the, this is the interesting part.
Speaker A:What's the relevant piece of workplace health and safety or occupational health and safety legislation?
Speaker A:What are the specific clauses that, that outline your legal responsibilities and how do you make sure that you tickle all that stuff off?
Speaker A:And I remember looking at it going, this is phenomenal that he's even asking those things, you know.
Speaker A:And everyone who trains with us, once they, once they reach a certain belt, even students have to get a police clearance to be allowed to continue training.
Speaker A:They have to, if you're an instructor, you know, working in Australia, it's called working with vulnerable people.
Speaker A:The, you know, the safety check we have to.
Speaker A:All these things are baked into our system.
Speaker A:And what I'm finding, I teach jiujitsu once a week at the moment.
Speaker A:What I'm finding is these kind of stringent requirements, this should be the baseline, are absolutely non existent in most schools.
Speaker A:Like you're saying you just slap up your logo on the door, tie your black belt around your waist that you got off Amazon, who knows?
Speaker A:And then you walk out onto the mats and, and start teaching whatever is coming off your head that night.
Speaker A:It's absolutely mind blowing.
Speaker A:So I'm right on board with everything you're saying here.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a wild, wild west out there.
Speaker B:It's very strange.
Speaker B:You know, if you're going to be, you know, somewhat a hair stylist, you know, in the United States you have to be certified, you have to get a certificate.
Speaker B:But if you're going to teach children martial arts, you need nothing, don't even need a background check.
Speaker B:If you're going to teach people how to choke people to death with your bare hands, you don't need any certificate.
Speaker B:You're just like, yeah, you can teach them how to kill.
Speaker B:Wait, don't you dare cut their hair without that certificate.
Speaker B:It sounds stupid, but it's true, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's, it's a bit mind boggling really when you think about it.
Speaker A:When thinking about like all of the schools you've seen, right.
Speaker A:And coming from just from a very kind of business perspective at the moment.
Speaker A:I know you've run a school yourself in the past.
Speaker A:You've done a bunch of consulting.
Speaker A:You've seen the insides of schools all over the place for years for sure.
Speaker A:When I'm consulting people, I tend to focus on marketing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Getting more leads, enrollment, converting them into students and retention, which are the three main revenue drivers.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:If you were Working with someone or starting your own school from scratch.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And there'll be most of the people who, who are going to be listening to this wherever they listen to their podcasts or watching it on YouTube, are going to be school owners and they struggle with those three things.
Speaker A:It's the big three, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Looking at marketing first, in your opinion, what's like the most effective approaches to generating leads for a martial arts school in.
Speaker A: What are we in now, in: Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I, I think I agree with your, your, your assessment of the big three.
Speaker B:Lead generation, conversion, retention.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's about getting them in the door to begin with, getting them converted to become an actual student and then keeping that student for a longer period of time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Everybody already knows that if you're in martial arts, it's, you're not going to become a martial arts master overnight.
Speaker B:You even phenoms like BJ Penn, he got his black belt in three years in Brazilian jiu jitsu.
Speaker B:He had to go through that period, you know, of being able to be a white belt and learning and understanding.
Speaker B:It's a process.
Speaker B:So the person off the street, they might not necessarily want to commit to that off the bat when they just stepped in.
Speaker B:What I've noticed the best, if you're really looking to like keep your business running for a long period of time, is building a solid foundation, like right off the bat.
Speaker B:And I don't just mean with like your policies and procedures.
Speaker B:I do believe that if you're going to start a martial arts school, my advice to you would be probably right around like the four months ago mark, you should already have your policies and procedures, your curriculums, all the stuff that's already going to be ready to go that you have to use in your facility should already be done at that four month mark, that quarter mark before you're starting your martial arts school.
Speaker B:That should be the time that you're taking to train your staff with how you want things done.
Speaker B:And that's also the time that you should start marketing ahead of time for your grand opener.
Speaker B:Like start marketing well ahead of time because what people will do, it's the biggest mistake I've seen in martial arts school owners, period, ever.
Speaker B:Even just not just today, but ever is they'll open a school and then they'll just have empty classrooms and they'll just be like, hey, come on in, thinking that that's how this works.
Speaker B:And it doesn't.
Speaker B:It's just like going to a bar or a nightclub.
Speaker B:If you decided, for example, I'm going to go to a Latin club.
Speaker B:You're like, all right, cool.
Speaker B:You and your friends are going to go to this Latin dance club.
Speaker B:And you start walking and you notice there's an empty Latin dance club on the left and there's a busy Latin dance club on the right.
Speaker B:Most people are going to go to the busy one.
Speaker B:Most people.
Speaker B:Now, me personally, I'm just going for the booze.
Speaker B:I'm going to go to the empty bar.
Speaker B:That's me.
Speaker B:But most people are going to go to the busy spot because it's hopping and there's got to be something about that that makes people want to be there.
Speaker B:So people are intrigued.
Speaker B:They're saying it, be busy.
Speaker B:So if someone walks into your martial arts studio and it's dead silent and empty in there, and they walk in, they're going to wonder the opposite.
Speaker B:Why is no one here?
Speaker B:And they're also going to be bored because there's only going to be you and them.
Speaker B:And it's basically glorified private lessons.
Speaker B:And eventually they quit.
Speaker B:Now, you as an instructor could do that old bull crap where you blame them and go, well, it's your fault because it's too hard for you.
Speaker B:No, maybe you're just terrible at marketing and you didn't have anybody in here to begin with and you need to work on you.
Speaker B:So my suggestion to anyone out there would be start advertising about at least four months before you do your grand opening.
Speaker B:During that advertisement period, run a special like three class pass or something like that, which ultimately becomes a free trial class anyway, because you can just incorporate that right back into your.
Speaker B:Your initial fee.
Speaker B:You could be like, well, if it's $100 a month, whatever.
Speaker B:I'm just picking a number off the top of my head.
Speaker B:If it's $100 a month and you just did like a three month class pass, well, that was 30 bucks.
Speaker B:I'm just going to give that back to you.
Speaker B:So now you only owe 70 for your initial, right?
Speaker B:Boom.
Speaker B:They still paid 100.
Speaker B:They got a free class out of the deal, right?
Speaker B:And then they can continue with students, and you gave them incentive to do so.
Speaker B:But if you don't start stacking those classes early, you're really doing yourself a disservice.
Speaker B:Make sure that those passes are starting to go out early.
Speaker B:So that way by the time your door opens that you already have classes full.
Speaker B:And, you know, keep it simple.
Speaker B:If there's only one of you, two of you only initially have maybe five students per one employee.
Speaker B:So that Way you can do that, like mass sale to them, like, hey, guys, just so you know, this is how it works.
Speaker B:This is how you sign up.
Speaker B:Who would like to join?
Speaker B:Boom.
Speaker B:But if you try to overdo that and over pack, you're just going to lose more students than you gain.
Speaker B:So, you know, I'd say stick to five new students per one employee.
Speaker B:If you can have at least three employees, that'd be great.
Speaker B:That way you can rotate, you can have somebody running the desk, you can have somebody teaching a class, you can have somebody doing intros.
Speaker B:But definitely advertise early.
Speaker B:And that, that first like month should be all basically intros and people who just signed up.
Speaker B:So that way by the time you're out of that first month period, you're already filled up your classroom.
Speaker B:Now doing it this way allowed.
Speaker B:The last time I did a consulting job, we had 250 students in the first month.
Speaker B:I mean, for some that's not impressive, but I thought that was a great run, especially for it being a small building.
Speaker B:So it does work.
Speaker B:You just have to make sure you take the time to set up a game plan.
Speaker B:Don't just open your doors and hope that people will show up.
Speaker B:You start advertising well before.
Speaker B:So that way by the time your doors are open, you already have people and students there.
Speaker B:No one knows.
Speaker B:They're all free trials, you know, they're all just students.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker A:The, this idea of like the field of dreams approach, you know that Kevin Costner movie.
Speaker A:If you build it, they will come.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You just open the doors and then assume that people are going to walk past.
Speaker A:I actually had a consultation with a guy a little earlier this morning who he's had his school going for a couple of years, but it's inside.
Speaker A:I don't know if you guys have this in the state, the pcyc, Right.
Speaker A:It's like a.
Speaker A:It's a community gym, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, we have a thing called the ymca.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's pretty much the same thing here.
Speaker A:And he was just renting space inside that particular gym in his.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, in his town.
Speaker A:And now he's got the opportunity to have a dedicated space in there because when he's not there, other people were using the room and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So he couldn't set it up the way he wanted to.
Speaker A:So after two years, he feels like he's finally just able to actually really start his business.
Speaker A:But he's in an area where there's zero foot traffic.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's really challenging to not have anyone walk past your school at all, which is very interesting.
Speaker A:That's quite rare here.
Speaker A:I'd say most places are going to have at least some foot traffic.
Speaker A:And this idea of promoting for a few months before you open and building, building that buzz in the community, even just the awareness, hopefully a wait list if you're a little bit savvy and you actually gathering people's contact details, which would be my number one tip is actually gather contact details, right?
Speaker A:Because you might have a thousand people who show interest and if you get 0 names and email addresses, how are you going to get in contact with them when you do open the doors?
Speaker A:So that's absolutely amazing.
Speaker A:When we then look at, we've got all these people, they've come in for a trial, right?
Speaker A:There's a big debate in, I see this a lot in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker A:Do we sign people up on a month to month cancel anytime, no lock in contract, we're so friendly.
Speaker A:Or do we sign them up on a 12 month contract and you have to buy the branded GI and all this kind of thing?
Speaker A:I think both work and it depends a lot on you.
Speaker A:What do you think is what's like the best way to enroll?
Speaker B:Yeah, there's always more than one way to skin a cat, right.
Speaker B:So I think that if you're going to open up an academy, half of that battle has to be.
Speaker B:You have to be comfortable with your marketing.
Speaker B:Like it has to feel like you.
Speaker B:And a lot of people will say like you can only do it this way.
Speaker B:You could, you could do it every any way you want.
Speaker B:But to anybody who's thinking about, well I'm going to do month to month because ethics like you can just make your six month or your year contract, whatever the case may be, just ask for a 30 or 60 day notice before they cancel.
Speaker B:Like then it become, if it's a 30 days notice, it's a month to month, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker B:So like you can have a year or a six month or a year contract with a 30 days notice and now you have them locked in for the year, but they can cancel with a 30 days notice.
Speaker B:So they're still doing month to month, you know.
Speaker B:But my suggestion would be, and this is for anybody out there, if you're going to offer both, like some people do month to month and some people do year and month to month, right?
Speaker B:So if you're going to do that, just have three different contracts, have a month or your year is your standard.
Speaker B:Most people will do that.
Speaker B:Make it the cheapest, right?
Speaker B:Just make it the cheapest.
Speaker B:These people have committed to you, so you're going to commit to them a cheaper price.
Speaker B:Like, look, I can guarantee my budget now.
Speaker B:And if anybody's ever tried to do a legitimate budget on a month to month, you're running a fool's errand.
Speaker B:Like, how do you know how much money is coming in next month?
Speaker B:You have no idea.
Speaker B:You're just rolling dice and hoping that people still stay there because you've, you've required nothing from them.
Speaker B:But if you do a year, you can go, okay, well, I know I'm probably going to have about this much money coming up.
Speaker B:What if you do need a new piece of equipment or bag or mats?
Speaker B:What if you do need that?
Speaker B:Well, you need to budget for that.
Speaker B:You need to be prepared for that.
Speaker B:Or what if you're running ad campaigns and you have X amount of dollars for your ads?
Speaker B:Well, that's really hard to figure out when you're running month to month.
Speaker B:So my suggestion, run three contracts, do a year.
Speaker B:That's your cheapest.
Speaker B:Your six month is a little bit more expensive, maybe 20 or 30 bucks a month more expensive.
Speaker B:And then your month to month is your most expensive because they have no requirements to you, they need nothing to you.
Speaker B:So it behooves them to want to actually pay for a year.
Speaker B:And then at that point they're getting a discount and you're getting peace of mind.
Speaker B:So you can do all of them.
Speaker A:Yep, fantastic advice there.
Speaker A:And so let's say, I mean, you mentioned before, the last school you consulted basically went from 0 to 250 within the first month.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And 250 students.
Speaker A:I talked to a lot of school owners.
Speaker A:That's like a dream for them.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They hover around.
Speaker A:I'd say 100 is a pretty average kind of number for a school run by someone who's not super business savvy.
Speaker A:They might be an awesome coach, but they just don't have the business side dialed in until we, you know, work with them and get a few things working.
Speaker A:So once someone is getting to the point where, you know, they're at that 100, they want to grow to 250.
Speaker A:The big problem is churn, right?
Speaker A:I get one student, I lose two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the third big problem, retention.
Speaker A:What do you find are the most effective retention strategies that schools use that you've found?
Speaker B:Well, the first one would be when you start.
Speaker B:Like, again, this is just when you start your school.
Speaker B:Don't start with a full Open schedule like that is a, that is a good way to kneecap yourself.
Speaker B:And people think, well I have to offer everything all at once.
Speaker B:And all you're really going to do is you're, let's say you take that hundred students, right?
Speaker B:And you have a full schedule.
Speaker B:So you have let's say two kids classes in the nighttime and an adult class and you're doing that Monday through Friday.
Speaker B:And then in the morning time you're doing a 6am and then in the afternoon you're doing a noon and, and you've got a full class and then you're doing like maybe two or three classes on Saturday, right?
Speaker B:You just spread yourself so thin no one knows that there's a hundred students there.
Speaker B:Like it looks empty.
Speaker B:It will look like a desolate wasteland.
Speaker B:And that is a good way to harm your retention like no other.
Speaker B:Especially when you're starting.
Speaker B:So rather than going, I'm going to offer everything to everybody, fill up a couple classes so that way you don't overextend yourself and then as you grow, get to a point where you can afford, afford an employee as you grow.
Speaker B:Overextending yourself is another good way to have horrible retention.
Speaker B:You're gonna burn out.
Speaker B:Students will see the burnout.
Speaker B:They'll see you don't care about this anymore and they're going to go to a place that does care.
Speaker B:So like if you want good retention, start with a good foundation.
Speaker B:Start maybe just with your primary classes like your evening classes and just start with those.
Speaker B:Don't do a 6am, don't do a noon, do your basic kids classes.
Speaker B:After that you start with your adults, start with your kids together and then grow as you grow.
Speaker B:Don't do the whole schedule with nowhere else to go from there because you're just going to create a wasteland of nothing.
Speaker B:You're going to have two or three students a piece.
Speaker B:So that would be my advice.
Speaker B:Your schedule should grow with you don't start with a full schedule because all you're going to do is spread yourself then and make your place look empty.
Speaker A:Yeah, phenomenal advice I find.
Speaker A:Specifically I'll talk BJJ schools here, right?
Speaker A:It's what I talk about, talk to a lot is there's a couple of really big obvious drop off points.
Speaker A:One is after the trial class because they're not good at converting into, you know, a member, then within the first two years, right, because it takes about, and that's an average but about two years to get a blue belt in BJJ could be 18 months depending on where you train.
Speaker A:And people feel like they're never going to get there.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then there's the blue belt curse, where someone gets their blue belt and then they vanish.
Speaker A:And no one really knows why.
Speaker B:There's all kinds of things because that's not just Jiu jitsu.
Speaker B:The average martial artist drops out between eight months to a year and a half.
Speaker B:So that's across the board sweeping every martial art period.
Speaker B:So while.
Speaker B:Yes, that is the old Jiu Jitsu adage.
Speaker B:That is the adage period, like no matter what the artist.
Speaker A:Yeah, amazing.
Speaker A:So eight months to a year and a half.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so that means you've really got that much time to look at it from, from a different angle.
Speaker A:You've got that much time to build enough of a relationship with someone and have them fall in love with training.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there are.
Speaker A:What I, what I find is no one does the simple things that would encourage that to happen, like automated check in and follow up with.
Speaker A:I don't mean check in where you say, yes, I'm in class right now.
Speaker A: take five minutes and message: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then you've got a conversation going.
Speaker B:Just to add to that, because I think you're touching on something that's so important for retention is communication.
Speaker B:You know, like a student feels like you don't care when you don't communicate with them.
Speaker B:If you don't remember their name, they feel like you don't care.
Speaker B:If you don't remember their birthday, they feel like you don't care.
Speaker B:And all of it, like you said, CRM systems nowadays can keep track of everything and do it for you.
Speaker B:But I do always love the personal touch.
Speaker B:So me personally, I still prefer, and I still tell people to do it this way because I think that since everything's going into an automated space nowadays, I do see so much more value in having a personal touch because it's so rare now.
Speaker B:And it seems like people care a little bit more genuinely when you actually get on that phone and, you know, do two, four, six calls.
Speaker B:So if anybody is not familiar with two, four, six calls, it's basically just when a student doesn't show up.
Speaker B:If a student hasn't shown up in two weeks, call them.
Speaker B:Hey, man, just checking in.
Speaker B:Don't say a word about prices, don't say a word about classes, don't say a word about martial arts.
Speaker B:That does not matter.
Speaker B:You should actually give a about your student.
Speaker B:So you call them to find out if they're okay.
Speaker B:Hey, I noticed it's been two weeks, man.
Speaker B:I'm just worried about you.
Speaker B:Are you okay?
Speaker B:All right, cool, man.
Speaker B:I was just checking in on you.
Speaker B:I'm not even going to ask them when I'm going to see them in class again.
Speaker B:I don't need to like.
Speaker B:What I need to do is find out if my student, who should be hopefully someone I'm close with, if we're going to be choking each other every day, I should find out if they're okay.
Speaker B:Now, when four rolls around, and that means you call them on two.
Speaker B:Two weeks went by, no answer to another two weeks has gone by.
Speaker B:You haven't heard from Chance is good.
Speaker B:By now, either something is wrong or they've decided they're no longer going to be with you and they don't want the confrontation of the conversation.
Speaker B:So then you call them again and then you send them a text again.
Speaker B:That part could be very much automated for a text or an email, but you send them a text, you try it again.
Speaker B:Hey, it's been a month.
Speaker B:I'm just worried about you.
Speaker B:If.
Speaker B:If everything's okay, just let me know.
Speaker B:That's all I care about.
Speaker B:Again, I mentioned nothing about pricing.
Speaker B:That doesn't matter.
Speaker B:Now six rolls around.
Speaker B:There's a very good chance at this point they have not paid.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That could be the issue.
Speaker B:So you're gonna say the same thing again?
Speaker B:Again?
Speaker B:I know this sounds crazy.
Speaker B:Don't mention price again.
Speaker B:Hey, dude, it's been like.
Speaker B:I'm really concerned about you.
Speaker B:It's been six weeks and I haven't heard anything.
Speaker B:Please just let us know you're okay.
Speaker B:Now you will roll into eight.
Speaker B:And that's what most people don't talk about with 246 is the eight.
Speaker B:Now, that means that person's two months behind on payment.
Speaker B:That person has not communicated with you.
Speaker B:Now, you hit a crossroads as a business owner.
Speaker B:Do I let it go or do I have to go after them with collections?
Speaker B:And no one wants to do that because that just makes you look like an.
Speaker B:So what you do is you find a happy medium.
Speaker B:What I found that works.
Speaker B:It doesn't work all the time, but it has a higher percentage than not is just letting them know on the next run, phone call, email, text.
Speaker B:Hey, you know, I. I've been a little concerned, but I also have noticed now that you're kind of two months behind.
Speaker B:I'll tell you what?
Speaker B:You gotta be.
Speaker B:Something's got to be up, something's got to be wrong.
Speaker B:And I'm sorry.
Speaker B:Whatever's going on, you might not want to talk to me about, and that's okay.
Speaker B:But what I'd like to do is help you out.
Speaker B:You're two months behind.
Speaker B:I would.
Speaker B:I'm willing to waive that two months.
Speaker B:You don't owe me a thing.
Speaker B:Just come back into class, come back in, we'll get you started over again, right?
Speaker B:We'll waive that, what you owe and you just come back with a fresh start.
Speaker B:Most of the time, either you're never going to hear from them again or they love the fact that you just gave them such a huge deal and a break because they probably do have a hard time going on in life.
Speaker B:And this creates this beautiful, like, you know, I appreciate you, what you did for me as a person, and I appreciate what you did for me as a student.
Speaker B:You could have gone the opposite way and just took them to collections.
Speaker B:Now you've given them even another problem that they have in their life.
Speaker B:But you don't have to do that.
Speaker B:You can still run a good business and still have integrity, you know, And I think that's where people get afraid of the business side is they think that the business side has to lack integrity.
Speaker B:It absolutely does not.
Speaker B:It just means that you're writing things down and you're measuring things.
Speaker B:That's all it is now.
Speaker B:How you write it down and how you measure it and how you continue to improve those numbers, that could be the spice of life, right?
Speaker B:But if you don't do those things, your business will never grow in very similar, your martial art would never do better if you did not actually monitor what you were learning.
Speaker B:If you just walked in willy nilly, never wrote shit down, just figuring out as you go, you will not be nearly as good as somebody who's either a steel trap up here or writing it down.
Speaker B:And that's all you need to do for your business.
Speaker B:Do you want your business to become a black belt?
Speaker B:Then you need to treat it like it's trying to earn its black belt.
Speaker B:Start off saying, I don't know, I know nothing.
Speaker B:That's the most important thing is a white belt.
Speaker B:I know nothing.
Speaker B:Find somebody who does know something about this, who's a black belt in what they do.
Speaker B:Especially consulting firm.
Speaker B:Most CRM companies now have added consulting wings to their organizations because they.
Speaker B:You don't use their CRM system if your business closes.
Speaker B:So they started realizing that the best way for retention was to teach you how to run your business.
Speaker B:So if you're looking to grow and expand, start off as a white belt with a white mentality and always growing to move up, never being happy with what you have.
Speaker B:And it's never, no matter how much it could be, it's never your customer's fault.
Speaker B:It's not too hard, it's not too expensive, it's not too far.
Speaker B:You're not giving them the incentives.
Speaker B:You're not making this worth their while.
Speaker B:Make it better for you.
Speaker B:Set yourself a higher standard and your students will set themselves a higher standard, you know, and then you will succeed.
Speaker B:I promise you that.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's so many pieces of gold in what you just said there.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I remember I learned a concept once which is to treat every.
Speaker A:Every time a student or a client goes cold.
Speaker A:Instead of considering this a problem for yourself, the thought that needs to go through your mind is life gets in the way.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Life gets in the way.
Speaker A:And treat that business problem as a human problem.
Speaker A:So I completely agree.
Speaker A:So although we can automate all kinds of stuff with the CRM, what I like to automate is the thinking work to know when to do those kind of things.
Speaker A:So you can get an internal notification and a task saying, joe hasn't been for two weeks.
Speaker A:You should give him a call.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then you don't have to think and remember how long has it been since he's been.
Speaker A:Are we at two weeks?
Speaker A:Are we at four weeks?
Speaker A:That kind of automation is phenomenal.
Speaker A:I call that at risk automation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They're at risk of canceling or whatever.
Speaker A:And that's fantastic because then people aren't.
Speaker A:And it's people, right?
Speaker A:It's not, you know, leads and numbers, Right.
Speaker A:It's people aren't at risk of falling through the cracks.
Speaker A:A lot of people come to martial arts because they hear things about how it's cheaper than therapy.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And, you know, I'm sure we've all been there.
Speaker A:There's plenty of times I probably should have gone and seen a therapist, but I went and did a few rounds.
Speaker B:Of heavy rolling and came home every time I go.
Speaker B:Every time.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:And yeah, the other thing you were talking about with the collections is something I actually kind of.
Speaker A:There are times when collections are necessary.
Speaker A:I tend to really heavily lean away from it.
Speaker A:And I've been in business 25 plus years.
Speaker A:I've gone down that route with clients in the past on like 25 grand retainers and things, and it never works.
Speaker A:Out for anyone, right?
Speaker A:And these days, the biggest risk that I find the solution is be on top of those things early and treat people well, right?
Speaker A:The biggest risk is even if you are completely justified, that person is going to complain about you on the Internet and you can never get rid of that.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:One negative review might be all it takes.
Speaker A:Even though you were completely within your rights and you did all the right things and it's in your contract.
Speaker A:If you don't pay within X amount of time, we can send it off to this company and whatever, it's still just going to fuck up your marketing.
Speaker A:Like you were saying, if the same as if you go into the Latin dance class.
Speaker A:This one's full and that one's empty.
Speaker A:When you're looking online and you see BJJ near me or karate near me or whatever, and one of the first things that pops up is a complaint on a forum, you're going to check it out and you're going to read these guys chase you if you don't pay your contract and it's not going to be written in a balanced way saying, I didn't pay for a few months, I really should have, right?
Speaker A:They're going to be tearing shreds off the business owner.
Speaker A:They're unethical.
Speaker A:They chased me.
Speaker A:They kept calling me all the time on the phone.
Speaker A:Even though we're calling to say, hey man, how are you?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:The minute the collections get involved, it just becomes a shit show.
Speaker A:That's in my experience.
Speaker A:Maybe you've had other experiences, but I tend to stay away from it completely.
Speaker B:No, collections are horrible.
Speaker B:Collections just winds up causing more issues like, you know, because you got to figure you're spending X.
Speaker B:We'll just say X, right?
Speaker B:To be fair, because everybody's schools are different.
Speaker B:But you're spending X on your marketing, I hope, right?
Speaker B:Even if it's your time and your effort that adds up and that counts.
Speaker B:So you're spending X on your marketing, right?
Speaker B:And you spend all of this time, energy, effort and money to build up your school and you wind up having a successful school.
Speaker B:So by the time everything is done, it could be tens of thousands of dollars, if not more in a year, depending on how much how big your school is.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of factors, but you spend all this time, one review can make all of that feel like it was for nothing because somebody was an asshole and they went online.
Speaker B:The only thing you could really do is just make sure that you're counterbalancing that with equity and I talk about this a lot.
Speaker B:This is actually something I did get from therapy back in the day and I stuck with it because it's good.
Speaker B:So back in the day I learned about equity and it wasn't money, it was time, effort and energy.
Speaker B:And I think that when you actually put a lot of time, effort, energy into people that you wind up getting that back tenfold.
Speaker B:You wind up have put equity into this and then when you need it, it comes back to you.
Speaker B:So are you going above and beyond for the clients you have?
Speaker B:Are you providing incentives for your clients to actually speak out in a positive way about you?
Speaker B:You know, like the easiest, oldest trick in the book to combat negative reviews is good reviews because it's usually a percentage.
Speaker B:If some one person has left a review and it's negative and one person's left a review and it's positive, 50% of people have now thought that you're terrible.
Speaker B:So how about how many people are coming into your school every time that could potentially leave you a review?
Speaker B:You can incentivize that.
Speaker B:It's very easy to just say, hey man, if you leave us a reviewer, check in with us on Facebook or check in with us or post a picture of us on Instagram, we'll give you a free bottle of water.
Speaker B:You won't have to pay for it.
Speaker B:What does that bottle of water cost me?
Speaker B:You know, less than 50 cents.
Speaker B:You know, so they wind up getting, giving me advertisement and then and winds up helping.
Speaker B:Or how about when a student signs up, take a picture of them and shout them out online and say how proud of you you are of them starting their journey, how welcoming you are for them to come in.
Speaker B:And hey, now you have another positive thing that's out there.
Speaker B:People smiling and being happy at your facility.
Speaker B:You know, there's so many ways that you can skin that cat, but really the only way to combat the negative is just to have more positive.
Speaker B:And that is in your hands, that's in your control, that's easy to make happen.
Speaker A:Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker A:When, when just like two more questions and then, then we'll be done, right?
Speaker A:Coming back from McDojo life, we talked about what were the biggest fuck ups and that was interesting.
Speaker A:What were the biggest wins or kind of inflection points where you're like, this isn't just something I'm doing with my phone.
Speaker A:This is, I can make a real business out of this.
Speaker B:You know, I didn't.
Speaker B:So I always thought that I was gonna teach a martial.
Speaker B:I thought I was going to be a martial arts instructor my entire life.
Speaker B:You know, that's all I've ever really done from the time I was 12 to now, you know, was martial arts.
Speaker B:So when I, you know, obviously when Joe Rogan started shouting out the page, that was like a big, like, turning point of how I should view this.
Speaker B:Like, it's obviously getting attention now, and there's eyeballs on there.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And that did make a huge jump.
Speaker B:I got the Rogan bump, as they say, when that happened.
Speaker B:But what really made it become a business is when people started asking me for things.
Speaker B:So, you know, helping people dojo life was just a hobby, right?
Speaker B:People would ask me, hey, will you do cover the story?
Speaker B:Or, hey, this thing happened to me, and I don't have a problem covering any of those.
Speaker B:So I was just doing it for free.
Speaker B:And then I started to kind of see a change in how many people were following and how many people were really invested.
Speaker B:And I just was like, well, people were asking me, like, questions.
Speaker B:One of the questions that popped up repeatedly was, how does this fraud have so many students and I don't have any?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so I was just like, well, let me reach out to that person.
Speaker B:I'm like, well, you know, I've been doing this for a really long time.
Speaker B:I could probably help you.
Speaker B:And that's when the consulting started.
Speaker B:And then, of course, I charged for my time, and I was like, oh, well, that's cool.
Speaker B:Like, that's a byproduct of McDoja life.
Speaker B:Let me see what else I can do.
Speaker B:And then, you know, after that, it was like, well, you know, every other influencer that's doing this has got sponsors.
Speaker B:Let me see if I can get sponsors.
Speaker B:And I actually got them.
Speaker B:And so it just kind of starts snowballing.
Speaker B:But it all started just because people who were my audience were asking me questions, and all I really had to do was listen to them.
Speaker B:People were asking to buy T shirts, and I was like, well, my logo was ugly.
Speaker B:I was like, I'm not going to wear that.
Speaker B:So I went out and made the logo that I have now, and I was like, I do like that logo.
Speaker B:I'd be willing to wear that.
Speaker B:And that's why I changed the logo, was because my audience wanted to wear it.
Speaker B:And I didn't want to put something out that I couldn't put my hat on and say, that is something I'm proud of.
Speaker B:So just listening to the audience really helped me expand and grow and learn how to make it a business.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That thing about the Logo right on the T shirt.
Speaker A:And everything is.
Speaker A:Well, I've had a lot of business coaches myself over the years.
Speaker A:I think if you don't.
Speaker A:If you're not prepared to invest, people aren't going to invest in you, you know, and you have to be humble enough to know.
Speaker A:It's like that white belt mentality you were talking about before.
Speaker A:You've got to know what your limitations are.
Speaker A:And one of my coaches, when talking about branding and logos, specifically said when, because he does all of his own branding as well.
Speaker A:It's a brilliant guy.
Speaker A:Says, when I'm creating a logo, literally the only thing I care about is would I wear a hat with this front and center on the hat?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:It's just so simple and so fantastic.
Speaker A:That's how I came up with the grappling map logo as well.
Speaker A:What's the simplest thing I can do to get this concept across?
Speaker A:Red map pin with a black belt tied around it.
Speaker A:It couldn't be any easier, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So my last question is just a little bit of fun.
Speaker A:I like to ask everyone a version of this, which is I understand karate, a bunch of stuff.
Speaker A:Bjj.
Speaker A:If you could roll with or spar, anyone, living or dead, who would you love to do a few rounds with?
Speaker B:Miyamoto Musashi.
Speaker B:It's my favorite.
Speaker B:My favorite martial artist of all time.
Speaker B:And, like, if anybody has not looked into him, he is considered Ronin.
Speaker B:So he is a masterless samurai, but he is treated as if he is samurai.
Speaker B:And like, the statues and things like that in Japan, you can see statues of him.
Speaker B:He's typically the samurai that you see a lot.
Speaker B:And like Japanese tattoo art, it's usually a depiction of Miyamoto Musashi, but legendary sword fighter, and he was thinking outside of the box with his martial art in a way that no one really had.
Speaker B:And if it wasn't for him, like, evolution of swordplay would have not played out the way that it did.
Speaker B:Evolution of combat.
Speaker B:Like, if you really think about Miyamoto, he was probably one of the first.
Speaker B:The first people to really engage in guerrilla warfare the way that he did.
Speaker B:From a very traditional.
Speaker B:This is how we're going to fight.
Speaker B:Your side, our side fight.
Speaker B:He was like, no, I'm just gonna run in these woods and y' all can come get me.
Speaker B:And then he just, like, killed a bunch of people because it was smarter.
Speaker B:And, you know, he trained in the woods by himself.
Speaker B:He's basically a hobo who trained in the woods forever.
Speaker B:And then he comes out and he's like, you know what?
Speaker B:I think I just want to be the best.
Speaker B:Let me just go find who the best is.
Speaker B:Who's the best?
Speaker B:That guy.
Speaker B:All right, I challenge you.
Speaker B:And then he would just systematically kill each one of them.
Speaker B:So, like, the way that he thought had to be something special.
Speaker B:And, I mean, he died as a young guy.
Speaker B:I think maybe he was in his 30s, if I remember correctly, or early 40s.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I don't think he lasted very long, if I remember correctly.
Speaker B:So forgive me for any aficionados if I mess that up.
Speaker B:But, you know, his book, you know, the Book of Five Rings has been very influential.
Speaker B:And if you, like, really pay attention to that book and the way that it's written, while it is fairly cryptic and applies to sword play, you can kind of pick and choose things out of there that will apply to combat and understanding how to learn if you just really pay attention to the way that was written.
Speaker B:So, like, anybody out there, dead or alive, it'd have to be him.
Speaker B:Now, of course, the hard part about that is he'd probably just beat the living hell out of me with, like, wooden sticks, but I'd learn a lot, I'm sure.
Speaker B:But, yeah, that would be the one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's phenomenal.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:That's a massive coincidence because he's.
Speaker A:That's my favorite martial artist of all time as well.
Speaker A:He's a huge influence.
Speaker A:There's no, you know, claims of any connection of any kind.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But he.
Speaker A:His general approach is a huge influence on the Japanese jiu jitsu style that I train and teach, especially with the asymmetry and the, you know, long sword, short sword, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:Very, very fascinating.
Speaker A:So that's awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, I would.
Speaker B:There is a very good book.
Speaker B:I just.
Speaker B:So I just moved from Jacksonville, Florida, all the way to la, so I can work on this documentary.
Speaker B:And there is a phenomenal book about Miyamoto Musashi, and I'm pretty sure it's called the Lone Samurai, and it's about his, like, travels.
Speaker B:So, like, the story of Miyamoto, for most.
Speaker B:For most people, it's like he's.
Speaker B:He's a kid, like, and then immediately he's like, in a.
Speaker B:In an army.
Speaker B:And then immediately he, like, just runs away because the side loses.
Speaker B:And then they try to kill him as a traitor.
Speaker B:And they were like, you should cut off your own head.
Speaker B:He was like, why you should cut.
Speaker B:Cut it off for me.
Speaker B:And then they all die.
Speaker B:So, like.
Speaker B:Like, super legit.
Speaker B:But all the stories in that book are like, really interesting about like the processes about like how he would go about battle and how he would.
Speaker B:Like each opponent was a little different.
Speaker B:I mean, even the legendary story about him killing the guy with the, the ache, the boat or, you know, like that's, that's intelligent thinking.
Speaker B:Like, that was, that was above and beyond.
Speaker B:And you see little pieces of that warfare now with like fighters who were goading people into arguments.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That was very much a Miyamoto tactic or.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Showing up late to fights.
Speaker B:Like people think, like Muhammad Ali would talk to people.
Speaker B:Like Miyamoto was also known to talk to people.
Speaker B:And he was known to make people angry on purpose because it would get them out of their element.
Speaker B:And of course he did.
Speaker B:He did create the school of two swords.
Speaker B:And so you have like the short, long sword.
Speaker B:That was weird for people to deal with.
Speaker B:But there was all kinds of people who were masters at all kinds of weapons and he was, he was killing all of them just as easy.
Speaker B:So fantastic book.
Speaker B:Fantastic martial artists definitely wanna.
Speaker B:I would love to train with that dude at least once.
Speaker A:Yeah, that'd be absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker A:So let's have a look.
Speaker A:If anyone.
Speaker A:If you've been living under a rock, let's be honest about it, and you don't already follow McDojo life in some way, shape or form.
Speaker A:It's pretty much McDojo life everywhere except Facebook where it's the McDojo.
Speaker A:Lots of good stuff all over the place.
Speaker A:And you can check out mcdojolife.com anything else that people should know, Rob, in terms of getting in touch with you or is it all kind of covered here?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm easier to reach on my Instagram for sure.
Speaker B:Or an email.
Speaker B:You know, my email is located on my Instagram.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:And then I did release a book, I think maybe we're reaching year two now.
Speaker B:About when I was a kid.
Speaker B:I used to fight in nightclub bars when I was a teenager.
Speaker B:You know, like my, my fight record is predominantly from that time in my life, from being like a teenager all the way up to being in my mid-20s.
Speaker B:But yeah, like, it's called Sensei's Bars and Scars and you can pick that up on Amazon and you can hear about all kinds of crazy things.
Speaker B:And I made sure that there was proof in every chapter of what happened in each story.
Speaker B:So I thought that'd be fun.
Speaker A:And if you're not already following grappling map, you can.
Speaker A:With grappling map everywhere.
Speaker A:Unless you want to get in touch with me for some consulting on LinkedIn where you just search my name.
Speaker A:And if you need some help growing your martial arts school, you can go to Dojo Toolbox CRM.
Speaker A:And there's ways to get in touch with me there.
Speaker A:So that's it for us today.
Speaker A:I want to say a big thanks to Rob for your time here.
Speaker A:I know you're in the middle of filming a documentary, so I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Speaker A:That's but absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker A:And yeah, hopefully once the documentary's out and we've got a whole bunch of new craziness that you can share, we'll get you back on and, and talk a bit about that.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's appreciated, man.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:And I'll have plenty of stories by that time, so.
Speaker B:I'm, I'm getting old, man.
Speaker B:I'm 40, you know, I've only got a few more of these runs in me, but I. Hopefully this is a big one and I can make an impact on this industry.
Speaker A:I'm sure it's going to make as big an impact as everything else that you've done through McDojo Life and Academy Safe.
Speaker A:So, once again, thanks for being here.
Speaker A:Much appreciated.
Speaker A:And that's it for us today.
