Most referral programs fail the same way. The school announces a reward \u2014 fifty dollars off, a free month, a free uniform \u2014 everybody is excited for two weeks, and a month later nobody remembers it. Least of all your staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The honor student party solves that. It is a referral event you run once a month, and it costs you about the price of the pizza. Toby Milroy, who taught it to our members, called it the biggest internal marketing activity at the school where he ran it \u2014 good for roughly five or six enrollments a month. Toby credited the idea to Matt Young, and the selection method to Master Rios. Here is how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party is a reward, and the reward has to be earned. We picked honor students by attitude stripes<\/strong> \u2014 the character-homework stripes students earn at home alongside their physical-skill stripes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A white belt, for example, earns a stripe for using the “seven magic words” \u2014 yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am, please, thank you, you’re welcome \u2014 ten times at home, with a parent initialing a box each time. Another stripe for giving mom eye contact when she speaks, ten times. Students need a minimum number of attitude stripes to test, and the ones with the most become honor students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t publish a fixed number. If Johnny has seven stripes, Sally wants eight. If he has twenty-one, she wants twenty-two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At belt graduation, pick them in front of everyone, the way Master Rios did it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pick more from the lower ranks. Newer students are excited, and they haven’t already brought every friend they know. Your brown belts have. In a group of 50 graduating white and gold belts, 20 honor students is reasonable. At advanced ranks, three or four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walk each honor student and a parent straight to your program director \u2014 not tomorrow, right now. Offer two dates: the Saturday right after graduation, and one Saturday the following month. The Saturday after graduation is best. If they graduate this week and the party is next Saturday, attendance is high. Make them wait four weeks and it falls apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is what makes it work. You do not run a separate party for each honor student. You run one hour on one Saturday, with every honor student’s party together.<\/strong> Seven or eight parties in the same hour is normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compare that with a private birthday party. If the birthday child brings one friend, you’re teaching a class for two people. Stack eight honor students and even if each brings one friend, you have eight new prospects. In practice, one brings ten, one brings two and one brings nine, and you have twenty or more prospects in the room. It isn’t a party with ten kids. It’s twenty parties with three or four kids each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each honor student takes home a package: invitations, permission slips, a description of the party, a note that guests don’t need to bring anything, and a blank guest list due back by a set date (a week ahead worked well). Expect about half to three-quarters of families to return the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the school \u2014 not the child \u2014 handles the invitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get consent on the guest list and follow the calling and texting rules where you operate \u2014 automated calls and texts in particular are regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A dropped-off child is a much harder enrollment than one whose parent watched. The best hook is a first belt ceremony<\/strong>: the guest can earn his very first white belt at the party \u2014 reciting the seven magic words, a front kick, a strong kiai, standing at attention \u2014 and parents are invited to tie it on. “Bring your camera. That picture will be on your refrigerator for ten years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frame it around the honor student as a mentor: “Johnny has earned the chance to teach Steve four fundamental skills. Steve can earn his first white belt. Can you make it at 1:45 to watch his graduation?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n If some parents still don’t come, send each guest home with a sticker on their shirt: “Mom or Dad, ask me what I learned in karate today!” Kids who have practiced the seven magic words twenty times in class will recite them at home. Put a free-gift offer and your phone number on the sticker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Staff it with two people. The instructor can be anybody who can run a good beginner class. The program director has to be sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStep 2: Book It on the Spot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 3: Stack the Parties<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 4: Control the Guest List<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 5: Give the Guests’ Parents a Reason to Stay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 6: The Hour Itself<\/h2>\n\n\n\n