Why One Live Meeting Is Worth Six Months of Coaching Calls

One of our school owners came back from our last live meeting and told me it was worth about six months of our weekly Zoom calls. I hear some version of that after every live event, and I’ve always believed it. But it’s worth slowing down on why it’s true, because the reason tells you how to get the most out of the next one.

Why is one live meeting worth months of coaching calls?

A live meeting compresses months of learning into a few days because you see the systems running, not just hear them described, and because the most useful conversations happen between sessions. A Zoom call can tell you what to do. A live meeting shows you what it looks like when it’s working, and it puts you in a room with owners who have already solved the problem you’re stuck on.

I’ve always thought an awful lot of the value is in the hallway conversations, the lunch conversations and the dinner conversations. That’s where an owner who just broke through tells you exactly what they changed, in their own words, with no slides. On our weekly calls I can explain it. At dinner, someone who did it last month can tell you what it actually took.

What do you learn from seeing a model school in person?

A lot of what we teach is hard to picture until you see it moving through the system. Two examples come up every time.

Pulling your whole student body up to be instructors. On a call, the idea of developing leaders out of students of every age sounds like a nice theory. Then you watch a class where advanced students are coaching beginners, and assistants are calling every student toward black belt, and it clicks. People can’t imagine how it works until they see it. After they see it, they can’t imagine it not working.

Rotating curriculum. This is one of those blinding flashes of the obvious. Once somebody sees how it works, they’re amazed they ever did it any other way. But it takes real effort to understand it well enough to get it running in your own school, and seeing it run is most of that effort.

The owner who visited our Thornton school this fall said the thing that surprised him most was how many advanced students had chosen the leadership program, by his estimate about nine in ten. When he asked why, the answer he kept getting from families was that they wanted the best for themselves and their kids. You can tell an owner that families will choose the premium path when the school presents it properly. It lands differently when the parents tell him themselves.

What should you take home from a live meeting?

The owners who get the most out of a live meeting leave with a short list and start on it the following week. Here is what one owner came home and put in place:

• An updated welcome book for new families.
• Event marketing, with live event dates on the calendar and a prize wheel at the booth.
• A tighter intro lesson that he is now comfortable running.
• Higher tuition. Another owner told him in the elevator to raise his prices sooner rather than later, because waiting was his biggest regret. He raised his rates when he got home, and his new enrollments are at the new rate.
• Character development and homework sheets, with required reading and attendance tracking. Parents noticed right away.
• The instructor rule of three: greet guests within three feet of the door, use each student’s name three times a class, make eye contact three times a class.
• A faster testing cycle, moving from quarterly testing toward every two or three months, with stripes as short-term rewards in between.

None of that is complicated. All of it is easier to start when you’ve seen it running and talked to someone who has already done it.

Can you close your school to attend a training event?

Yes. Owners worry about this more than they need to. Tell your families you’re going to a training event. Either your B team or C team runs classes, or you cancel for a couple of days for staff training.

I’ve never had a student or a parent upset about it, as long as they had enough notice. In fact, they’re impressed. It tells them the school is spending time, effort and money to train its staff, and that is exactly what a parent wants to hear from the people teaching their child.

When is the next live meeting?

Our next live meeting is in February. If you’re a member, put it on your calendar now and plan your coverage early. If you’re not a member yet and want to see how this works, request a strategy session and we’ll talk through where your school is and whether it’s a fit.

Frequently asked questions

Is in-person coaching better than online coaching for martial arts school owners?

Each does a different job. Weekly online calls keep you accountable and moving. In-person meetings speed things up, because you see systems running in a real school and learn from other owners in conversations that rarely happen on a call.

How do I cover classes while I attend a training event?

Have your senior instructors or leadership team run classes, or cancel for a day or two and tell families in advance that the staff is in training. With notice, families almost always respect it.

Will parents be upset if I close my martial arts school for staff training?

In Stephen Oliver’s experience, no. With adequate notice, parents tend to be impressed that the school invests in training its staff.

What should I look for when I visit a model martial arts school?

Watch how students move up into leadership and instructor roles, how often the staff talks about black belt, how the curriculum rotates, and how families describe why they chose the program they’re in.