ChampionsWay Spotlight featuring Erik Charles

What form of Martial Arts do you and have you trained?

I’m a certified instructor in Bruce Lee’s Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do and Muay Thai.  In addition, I’m a certified coach under USA Boxing.  I’ve trained in various martial arts throughout the 22 years that I’ve been training.  I’m always looking for new and innovative ways to teach and train.  I love learning and feel it’s important to always be a white belt at something in life.

What inspired you to begin your training?

One day, I was bullied by three kids walking home from school.  I loved Bruce Lee and used to watch his movies over and over.  You see him and he’s beating up like 10 guys at a time so I figured I would go learn some martial arts and beating up three guys would be easy.

What aspect(s) of your business do you feel being very successful?

There’s two key elements where we are very different from every other martial arts school I’ve ever seen or trained at:

1)      Marketing – At my schools, CNY MMA, we’ve been very successful at generating a tremendous amount of prospects at a very low cost.  We have some pretty unique ways of attracting attention to our programs.  We were forced to be this way.  When we started I had $500 in the bank and I owed one of my students $250 of it!

2)      Sales – Our sales process eliminates all of the standard objections to becoming a member that most school owners hear.  Its turnkey so we can teach it to any employee, which by the way, all of our employees have to know how to sell.  It also creates a more satisfied member and helps with retention.  Additionally, our closing percentage for the first day that someone comes in is very high, around 90%.

What inspired you to continue in that style of Martial Arts?

Ha.  I didn’t want to continue to be honest.  I wanted to quit several times and I tried.  My adopted father, who happened to be my martial arts instructor, wouldn’t let me.  I struggled with continuing my training many times.  The fact that he wouldn’t let me quit taught me some valuable lessons about finishing things that you start and getting re-focused when you lose sight of your goals.

It also helps me deal with students that want to quit because I can relate to them.  It’s funny because I tell new prospects that they will more than likely want to quit at some point.  That it’s a natural thing to want to quit when we challenge ourselves.  It’s not a sign of weakness but an opportunity to be strong.

When did you decide to take on Martial Arts as a career? Why?

In 2004 I was a crossroads in my life.  I hadn’t trained in martial arts for 3 years at that point.  I went from making up to $20,000 a night as a concert promoter to being broke, lost my house, my car, my wife, my kids, and was sitting in a mental hospital depressed, suicidal, and wondering what the I was going to do.  Long story short, I basically sat down and asked myself if money wasn’t an issue what would I do?  I loved helping people and I love martial arts.  I was going to get back to training and teaching martial arts.  I figured if I could talk couple students into paying tuition I could probably afford some rent, some groceries and make this work and be happy.

I founded CNY MMA with two partners in 2006 and in 2008 parted ways with them to run the school the way that I wanted.  When I took over we were grossing about $60,000 per year.  Then next year we were grossing $200,000 and last year we did $600,000.  In 2010, CNY MMA, will gross over $1 million.  I can afford groceries and I’m happy.  Haha.

What business knowledge (if any) did you have when you started running your Martial Arts business?

I knew how to sell and I knew what I wanted to create.  I had a vision of what our school was going to be and I took massive action and I went about making it happen.

What were some of the major obstacles you faced as a school owner and how did you overcome them?

The biggest obstacle that I faced was that I had partners that didn’t get my vision, not to mention they were using school funds for their personal expenses. They actually fought me on implementing a ranking system.  Can you believe that?  The other huge obstacle was that when I took over we only had 14 active students and $500 in the bank.  I had to generate leads and grow this business with what I had and what I had wasn’t much.

I got rid of those partners and started calling people that tried our program but didn’t become members.  I also made it an unspoken requirement for current students to give me referrals.

How has ChampionsWay Martial Arts Solutions helped you manage your business needs?

The other thing I did when I took over was I called ChampionsWay and said, “I need some help.  Can you help me please?”.  Haha.  They were like we can do this for you, we can do that for you, and this for you.  It was awesome.  I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to do billing, attendance tracking, or my website.  I’ve been with ChampionsWay for 2 years and we’ve tripled our revenue every year.  Mainly because I can focus on marketing, sales, and instruction … the things I’m best at.

What ChampionsWay solution has been most useful to you and why?

The billing, transaction processing, and student database management was really the biggest thing for us.  I had no idea how to handle any of that.  We used to track students attendance by a sign in sheet.  Can you believe that? ChampionsWay really took a lot of work off my plate and allowed me to focus on growing my school and teaching my classes.  There are so many resources that I use to train my staff in Martial Arts school operations as well.  ChampionsWay really is a silent business partner for me.  It wasn’t an easy decision for me sign up with ChampionsWay either because I didn’t think I was going to be able to afford it.  In the end, it basically came down to the fact that I couldn’t afford not to do it.  If I didn’t do this for my business, I really feel that I wouldn’t have a business for long.

What new features of the ChampionsWay platform excite you the most and why?

There are so many things with this new PerfectMind update that are exciting that it’s hard to wrap my head around it.  I really like how easy it is to customize and the fact that I can have all 3 of my locations in one database is real cool.