The strategy will be different for every school; the key is to get started. The execution phase is the starting point. The quality of execution is determined by the results. In order to improve the results you have to have a starting point or a foundation to measure by. In order to measure a system that system has to be in place and executed consistently.

Documenting Systems

One of the most dangerous lines we hear from school owners is that they don’t have to be at their school. Their school runs itself. When we ask to see their systems, they say the systems are in their head. There is a huge difference between having a system in place and documented that is duplicable than if you simply abdicate your leadership by not showing up. Owners who begin to abdicate responsibility slowly begin to lose control of their school. You still have to be there and present to “inspect what you expect” and to make sure the systems are being executed as designed.

Unless a system is documented, it can’t be repeated properly. You may have a system that has naturally developed over time, and it works pretty well because you have been doing it that way for a long time. But if that process is not written down, how can you train others to create the same results?

Documenting processes is essential. And it’s not necessarily about the structure
of the document, so don’t get caught up in that aspect. We make it easy with our Action Checklists or you can create your own checklist. Just make sure that you do it in a way that can be easily followed.

Evaluating Systems

The key to improving your systems is to carefully and consistently monitor
your results. If your system is sporadic, you’ll get sporadic results. That makes improvement difficult to target. What can you improve on if three different people are doing the same task three different ways. In that scenario, it gets easy to start pointing fingers at employees rather than at the system. You must track your results and stats in order to have a measuring barometer for your system.

Think of it like a kata. The first thing we teach is the importance of a good stance. Whether it’s a front stance, back stance, horse stance it doesn’t matter. If the lines are off in your stance, the rest of the movement will be off. Your system is your stance. There is no point in correcting shoulders that are misaligned when the problem starts with the stance.

Systems Improvement

Systems improvement is about creating new systems, enhancing existing systems, and doing things in a better way. The truth is that every system can be improved and systems improvement will keep your school healthy year after year.

Using the indicators you developed in your systems evaluation process, you’ll be able to immediately determine whether or not new ideas are having a measurable impact.

At the end of the day, your systems have to serve your business. They should help you by minimizing costs, maximizing profits and ultimately increase the value of your business.

The Performance Experience Model

I have always considered teaching to be very much like a performance. I would often pause before entering the school and do relaxation exercises to loosen up my face to make it easier to smile and to put myself in a mindset of stepping on to a stage when I enter the school.

You can get a clear picture about your school by looking at it from the perspective of The Performance/Back Stage Model. This model draws a parallel between the theater and the experience you create for your students in your school.

When we see a live performance, we have a magical experience, captivated by powerful performance; the lights, the sounds, and the atmosphere. You want
your school, like the theater, to create a positive and memorable experience for your students. The goal is to create a truly unique experience in which students, customers, and prospects see the the “The Performance” without seeing the “Back Stage” logistics.

Everything you do in the Performance creates value for your students. Everything that happens in the Back Stage is designed to create and support the Performance.

Your goal with the MATA Masters’ System Generator is to create a tight Back Stage. In fact, would could call this the Back Stage Builder. Everything that happens Back Stage is designed to create a better Performance. Anything that happens Back Stage has to contribute to the Performance, or it must be eliminated.

Think about the people who are at work Back Stage at a show. You have lighting, sound, and stage technicians. Plus of course, you have performers. Would you ask your star performer to do the sound work for a Performance? Of course not. You wouldn’t do that anymore than having your sound guy play the part of the star for a Performance. You want everyone in the Back Stage to maximize their unique skills and strengths. You want the sound guy doing sound and the star mesmerizing your audience.

Everything that happens during the Back Stage is judged and measured soley by the quality and success of the Performance. If the Performance is weak and gets bad reviews, people will stop attending and the show will close. If your system is weak and your people are not in positions of strength, then your classes will weaken, you’ll get bad reviews, and your school will close.

The Performance

The better your Performance the more students you will attract and the more distance you will put between yourself and your competition. The Performance is where you connect with your audience of students. It’s your job to create a unique experience for your students using your Back Stage systems to make sure it’s consistent and excellent.

The Performance is where you earn your tuition and the better your Performance the higher your income. You want the Back Stage to put you in the best possible position to create a memorable experience for your students. You want to
put yourself in the best possible position to earn high revenue from your Performances.

There are three areas to the Performance we will address this month:

1. The Student Experience 2. Design
3. Creating Benefits

The Student Experience

Think about a time when you attended a live performance on stage. If you have ever attended a Broadway type of show, the experience of the evening didn’t start when the curtain opens to start the first act. The experience is everything that happens from the first moment you see an ad for the show and decide to go all the way until you leave the theater after the show.

Every step of the way from first contact until you leave the theater comprises the total experience of the Performance. Entering a beautiful theater, seeing the posters of past shows, drinking in the history of the theater while awaiting the start of the show are all exciting mini-experiences that accumulate into the total experience.

Now, think of what your prospect or student experiences from first contact until they leave class. Everything from your answering machine, how you answer the phone, how you greet visitors and students and what they see, smell, and feel when they come to your school adds up to the total of their experience. What are they seeing, smelling, feeling when they arrive? The richer, warmer, and more satisfying the experience, the more you differentiate yourself from the rest of the schools and show you are indeed, a MATA Master.

You want your school to be a unique and positive experience for your students.

Design

If you really think about it, you are not in competition with the school down
the road. You are in competition with all of the other well-designed experiences your students and prospects are attracted to. Your job is to compete and stand
out from all of the other appealing, exciting, and well-designed experiences your students could choose rather than your class. Going to the movies at 7pm rather than attending your 7pm class is an example of a student being tempted by a well- designed Performance with an excellent Back Stage that is competition with your school for your student’s time and attention.

Using the Systems Generator allows you to create a consistent Back Stage that will create a well designed and packaged Performance experience that will keep your students coming back to class. The key is to be able to create those experiences consistently rather than hit and miss, like most schools. That’s why the MATA Masters Program is so systems oriented. We want you to get the equivalent

of standing ovations each and every class night after night so that you will be Performing to a packed classroom.

Creating Benefits

It’s one thing to sell benefits, it’s an entirely different thing to make it clear to your students they are receiving those benefits. It’s important to remember that there are no benefits being conveyed to the student until the student perceives they are receiving that benefit. It’s our job in this third area of the Back Stage to communicate, remind, and resell to the students the benefits they are receiving.

Break down each point of contact you have with prospects, students, and family members during the Performance. Sit down with your team and determine the best possible ways you can improve the experience of the student at each stage of the Performance.

The Back Stage:

In order to have a successful Performance, you must have a Back Stage that’s capable of supporting the quality of experience you want to create for your students.

The stronger your Back Stage, the better the Performance experience for your students. Back Stage activities exist solely to support and create the Performance. If they do not relate in any way to the client experience, they should not exist. The Back Stage develops in three distinct areas:

Skills:

The skills behind the scenes create and support what is presented to prospects, students, and customers. The more the team develops their strengths and skills, the more the Performance can grow and flourish.

All Back Stage activities are based on the best use of each person’s job skills and strengths. As a team, you want to get the best combinations of the team’s unique strengths. The best staff experience and school growth is achieved when people are

in roles where they are successful, enthusiastic about the work, and always striving to get better.

Teamwork:

Along with individual unique strengths, there also has to be focus on continually increasing the quality of teamwork within each of the Back Stage teams and systems.

To create great Performances, there is an even greater need for regular communication between team members. They all must have their ladders on the same wall. This means they must understand and speak the language of your Back Stage and its goal of creating a unique experience during the Performance.

All team members must have a deep understanding appreciation for one another as individuals with unique strengths and roles to play. Everyone needs to be focused on working together toward a common goal, with a spirit of constant learning and progress. People collaborating, contributing their talents, and regularly communicating with each other combine on the Back Stage to create a powerful and memorable Performance.

Coordination:

Coordinating each team member’s efforts is the other key aspect to successful Back Stage. Developing and documenting systems and keeping these systems current,
is another ingredient of success. It’s easy for a staff member to focus on delivering their result without necessarily understanding their impact on the rest of the team. The more teams coordinate their activities with one other, the better the Performance experience.

By looking at all the activities in your school from the context of Performance/ Back Stage, you and your team can start to see ways to enhance and better protect your client experience. The unique advantage of using this model lies in the fact that you know that you are selling experiences, while your competitors think they’re selling lessons or classes. What people really want is to have a relationship with you, not just to learn the martial arts. This focus on unique experience will take you out of the typical mindset of who you are in competition with.

Assignment One

1. What kind of Performance experience do you want your students to have?

a. What are the contact points that can create this experience? b. How will you create the experience at each contact point?
c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

2. What kind of Performance experience do you want your prospects to have?

   a. What are the contact points that can create this experience? b. How will you create the experience at each contact point
   c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

3. What kind of Performance experience do you want your student’s families to have?

   a. What are the contact points that can create this experience? b. How will you create the experience at each contact point?
   c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

Systems - Month Two

Establish a Student Service Policy

Phase One

Many owners think that to attract more students they need to first increase their marketing and promotions.

While it is true that better marketing can generate more traffic, if you don’t provide your students with an excellent program you’ll lose them as fast as you can enroll them. All growth starts with a focus on the students’ experience and creating quality control systems for every step of the way to black belt and beyond is central to that goal.

Establishing an all-encompassing student service system will be a work-in- progress project that should be done in phases. You and your team should always review ways to improve the student experience. But the first step in establishing consistent student service is to create some guidelines.

Your team will meet to define and document the following components of your student service system:

1. Greeting Procedure.

Making sure your Students feel welcomed as soon as they walk through your doors is a must. Use the “Three Step Rule.” A student or visitor is greeted with enthusiasm within three steps of entering the school. We believe that class actually begins at that moment for the student. A nice greeting works as a mental and attitude warm up for a great class.

2. Seek the Silent Students.

Some students just quietly come to class until one day they quietly are not there and not missed for a few weeks. Teach your team to seek out the silent students for an “atta boy” and give your team good open ended questions to ask like: “How are you enjoying your classes?” “What do you think you need to do to prepare for your next exam?” “I see your sidekick is looking better. Have you been practicing?”

3. Exit Strategy

Just like you want students greeted up arrival, you want them to leave with some recognition, so teach your team to say, “Nice work today (Student Name). See you next class!”

4. Two Notes Per Day

Have each one of your team send two handwritten notes to students, parents, and prospects. Between you and one staff member, that’s about 40 notes per month. Use the MATA Send Out Cards System to automate this process.

5. Advancement Process

Every staff member should be aware of the belt cycle for Students. Belt requirements, time in grade, technical requirements are too often left to a subjective criteria rather than clear technical requirements.

6. Establish Benchmarks

Regardless of style, your school should establish benchmarks for each student and rank. For instance:
a. 70% class attendance for promotion.
b. Students missing class on Monday or Tuesday are called either during the class or by Wednesday at the latest
c. Students at xyz belt must be able to punch with a flat wrist 100% of the time in kata for promotion.(Be careful creating too many specific rank requirements as the more you require, the more admin and maintenance you create for yourself.)

7. Handling Student/Parent Complaints.

No matter how good your school is, you’re going to experience complaints from time to time. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t lose Students every time you make a mistake, you lose them when you don’t properly handle their complaints. Think of complaints as an opportunity to impress your students.

a. Respond within four hours to the complaint via phone (not email)
b. Listen carefully to the complaint
c. Apologize for any inconvenience caused (whether real or imagined)
d. Restate the complaint back to the student. “Let me make sure I understand your concern...”
e. Thank them for bring it to your attention.
f. Important! Ask “What would you like to do?” This is real important. Often, it’s much less than you are expecting.
g. Describe exactly what you are willing to or capable of doing to resolve the issue.
h. If you can’t do anything, avoid citing school policy. Instead, use the Feel, Felt,

Found pattern followed by the Because bridge:

“Mrs. Jones, I understand how you feel. A number of students through the years has expressed the same feeling. In time, they found that...” or use the “because” bridge, “I understand you want this, this, and this. Because we have to be fair to ALL of our students, we’re only able to do this in these types of situations. Again, thanks for bringing this to our attention.”

i. Write down in your log book what you promised and follow through.
j. Send thank you note (you may include a gift certificate for a local restaurant as a surprise gift) The Send Out Cards program has great gifts that are perfect for this task.