How Much Does it Cost?

[Tony Dismukes]

I took a look at your website. Most of the obvious questions besides price I might want to ask are already covered. The remaining ones are stuff I would want to see in person anyway.

A potential student with no background either won't know what questions to ask or will have a bunch of silly questions you'd rather not deal with anyway. ("Will I learn to break bricks? How long will it take my 8 year old to get his black belt? Do you fight in the UFC?")

 

[ShortBridge]

Fact is money is important in this world it'd be great if it wasn't but it is. Money and savings is more important than martial art training so most aren't going to go broke doing classes that's why they ask

You're right...I know, you're right.

 

[ShortBridge]

I took a look at your website. Most of the obvious questions besides price I might want to ask are already covered. The remaining ones are stuff I would want to see in person anyway.

...

Maybe I should be less forthright on everything else, to prompt better questions.

 

[JR 137]

I always encourage newbies who come here asking what style to take to do the same thing...

Make a list of all MA schools in the area, eliminate the ones they can't afford, and the ones that don't align with their schedule. Visit the rest.

I always ask price, and it's typically one of the first questions I ask. It turns a lot of instructors off for some reason. The way I look at it, as a potential student, is if I can't afford it, let's not waste each other's time. It doesn't matter how good the instruction is, if I can't afford it, I can't train there. I'd love to drive a Porsche 911 Turbo every day, but I can't afford that either.

There was a place locally that I'd have liked to join. If me, my wife, my 6 year old and 4 year old joined, it would have been almost $400/month. And that included discounts with their family plan. That's more than my car payment was at the time.

Like just about everyone else, I wish cost was no object. Until that day comes, I have to ask how much. Good thing that found my current dojo; it's the best dojo I found in the area, and it's cheap.

 

[ShortBridge]

I'm not sure why I started this thread, but I'm actually learning some things from your responses and may change my approach as a result, so thank you. I basically advertise once a year, during Chinese New Year (tomorrow) and usually stay full for the year and don't normally have open spots available, but because of my current ad push, I'm getting more calls than normal and it is interesting to me to see patterns in the dialogue. Some are very good, by the way.

I always encourage newbies who come here asking what style to take to do the same thing...
...
I always ask price, and it's typically one of the first questions I ask. It turns a lot of instructors off for some reason.
...
The way I look at it, as a potential student, is if I can't afford it, let's not waste each other's time. ...

You typed some things that helped me, so let me try to explain the part that you said you don't really get from my perspective. As others have pointed out, I deliberately didn't put the cost on my website, that may be prompting the question and I'll consider that, but it's also I sign that I don't really want it to be public. So, when someone contacts me and ONLY asks that, they're just fishing for information that I clearly withheld. I'd like to know who they are and what their interest is, ideally before I share.

When I visit a kung fu teacher of any kind in their space, even if they are junior to me, the first thing I do is thank them for having me and discretely press a red envelope into their hand with enough money in it to buy themselves a beer. This is universal code for "I respect who you are and I'm not here to be any trouble to you." It opens up tremendous doors for me.

I don't expect someone not on the inside to be quite there, but I would like them to tell me who they are, tell me why they're contacting me e.g.- "I trained x years ago and am interested in starting up again because y." and it seems like there are a few critical things that they would want to know about us, - like how do we train? Is it dangerous? What do I think about x? In that line of questioning, logistics like "what do you charge?" and "do I need any special equipment?" is fine.

Oddly enough, most of the people who ask, never follow through. The one who prompted me to start this finally caught up with me and said he is not available on our class nights....which are posted on my website...so he really didn't need to know what I charge and he actually did waste both of our times.

What I have learned from this discussion is that by not making it public, I may be making people concerned that it isn't affordable. The irony is that I'm under-priced for the market, which is one of the reasons, I don't have it posted. I don't want to undercut the sifu up the block and I don't want people choosing us because we're cheap.

I get that I'm marketing a service to the public and in marketing (I'm told) if you're not getting the response you desire, you have to change something about your marketing and I will consider and do so at some point. But, sheesh.

 

[ShortBridge]

Side note, I just got a call from a 21 year old man who has been trying to learn on YouTube and expressed an interest in formal training, was very respectful, asked all the right questions, NEVER ASKED what I charged, and offered to meet me for tea.

I love this kid already.

 

[JR 137]

I'm not sure why I started this thread, but I'm actually learning some things from your responses and may change my approach as a result, so thank you. I basically advertise once a year, during Chinese New Year (tomorrow) and usually stay full for the year and don't normally have open spots available, but because of my current ad push, I'm getting more calls than normal and it is interesting to me to see patterns in the dialogue. Some are very good, by the way.




You typed some things that helped me, so let me try to explain the part that you said you don't really get from my perspective. As others have pointed out, I deliberately didn't put the cost on my website, that may be prompting the question and I'll consider that, but it's also I sign that I don't really want it to be public. So, when someone contacts me and ONLY asks that, they're just fishing for information that I clearly withheld. I'd like to know who they are and what their interest is, ideally before I share.

When I visit a kung fu teacher of any kind in their space, even if they are junior to me, the first thing I do is thank them for having me and discretely press a red envelope into their hand with enough money in it to buy themselves a beer. This is universal code for "I respect who you are and I'm not here to be any trouble to you." It opens up tremendous doors for me.

I don't expect someone not on the inside to be quite there, but I would like them to tell me who they are, tell me why they're contacting me e.g.- "I trained x years ago and am interested in starting up again because y." and it seems like there are a few critical things that they would want to know about us, - like how do we train? Is it dangerous? What do I think about x? In that line of questioning, logistics like "what do you charge?" and "do I need any special equipment?" is fine.

Oddly enough, most of the people who ask, never follow through. The one who prompted me to start this finally caught up with me and said he is not available on our class nights....which are posted on my website...so he really didn't need to know what I charge and he actually did waste both of our times.

What I have learned from this discussion is that by not making it public, I may be making people concerned that it isn't affordable. The irony is that I'm under-priced for the market, which is one of the reasons, I don't have it posted. I don't want to undercut the sifu up the block and I don't want people choosing us because we're cheap.

I get that I'm marketing a service to the public and in marketing (I'm told) if you're not getting the response you desire, you have to change something about your marketing and I will consider and do so at some point. But, sheesh.

I'm not saying call or stop in and make the first thing you say is "How much?" That's just rude. For the sake of argument, here's more or less what I did when I was looking to restart my training around 2 years...

Hello. I'm currently looking to restart martial arts training after about 15 years off. I've seen your website and what I think you do looks interesting. Unfortunately being a private school teacher and having 2 little ones doesn't leave me much disposable income these days, so I have to ask about how much do you charge for tuition?

There's usually breaks in that conversation, due to being asked questions by the person answering the phone, and answers from me.

There were several places that didn't want to disclose how much they charge. A few said I should take an intro class, then we could discuss tuition. I don't run a dojo so I don't fully understand their side of it, but as a potential student, it turned me off. My reply was usually a polite "I'm very interested in your school, but I don't want to take a free lesson and potentially waste your time if I can't afford your school. It's the same principle as I don't test drive a car without knowing I can afford it."

Most of them chuckled and gave me a price. 2 still refused. One said they don't reveal their price until after 3 private assessment lessons. After speaking to a few students and parents, it's quite obvious it's a highway robbery belt mill.

I visited most places rather than calling. I figure stopping in and a face to face conversation is better than a phone call out of the blue. I called a few though.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Side note, I just got a call from a 21 year old man who has been trying to learn on YouTube and expressed an interest in formal training, was very respectful, asked all the right questions, NEVER ASKED what I charged, and offered to meet me for tea.

I love this kid already.

Here's an interesting note. I wouldn't be as interested in him as you are. And I wouldn't be as irked by the money question. And I'd find it odd if someone visiting my school slipped me money. None of that is wrong, I just have different expectations. My point in this is that perhaps your website speaks to my audience, and not yours. I'm not sure how to fix that, but it's something to think about.

 

[ShortBridge]

That all seems very reasonable and respectful on your part and shady on the part of the places that wanted to hook you without answering your question.

That's not the type of dialogue I'm reacting to and I'm happy to talk about it with people once I know who they are and that they are sincerely interested.

 

[ShortBridge]

Here's an interesting note. I wouldn't be as interested in him as you are. And I wouldn't be as irked by the money question. And I'd find it odd if someone visiting my school slipped me money. None of that is wrong, I just have different expectations. My point in this is that perhaps your website speaks to my audience, and not yours. I'm not sure how to fix that, but it's something to think about.

Interesting, tell me why. And remind me what system you teach. The "lucky envelope" is a Chinese thing, I would not do it in a Japanese school.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Interesting, tell me why. And remind me what system you teach. The "lucky envelope" is a Chinese thing, I would not do it in a Japanese school.

I teach Japanese art that's a cousin to Ueshiba's Aikido.

I can't really clearly spell out the why in all of it. Let me try a bit, though. Something like going for tea (or coffee, or beer) seems awfully personal for someone asking about classes. That might not bother me if they had stopped by and talked to me and we started a good conversation first, but otherwise it just seems odd as a starting point - well outside my normal experience. As for the money question, to me it's a natural question to ask, so it doesn't bother me if that's the first thing they ask. They are likely outside the MA culture, so I rather expect them to take a retail approach at first. And the lucky envelope, you already addressed.

 

[ShortBridge]

I studied Daito-Ryu briefly a million years ago. Close?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I studied Daito-Ryu briefly a million years ago. Close?

That's the primary source art for Nihon Goshin Aikido. We also incorporate some striking from Shotokan Karate and some principles from Judo, and possibly some directly from Ueshiba's Aikido.

 

[ShortBridge]

I loved that style. I will say Chinese and Japanese systems are starkly different culturally.

 

[JP3]

Whatever you are charging your average student, just go ahead and put that on the website. If nothing else, it'll cut way down on those types of calls and you won't feel the need to pull your hair out about it.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Whatever you are charging your average student, just go ahead and put that on the website. If nothing else, it'll cut way down on those types of calls and you won't feel the need to pull your hair out about it.

I think I agree with this. I understand not wanting to undercut the others in the area, but I don't think most students make their selection entirely based on price, anyway. If anything, you're likely to lend him some credibility in the view of some prospective students, as he is "able" to charge more.

 

[ShortBridge]

Whatever you are charging your average student, just go ahead and put that on the website. If nothing else, it'll cut way down on those types of calls and you won't feel the need to pull your hair out about it.

If you saw my shiny head, you'd fall out of your chair at this point.

 

[JowGaWolf]

95% of all inquiries just say something like "I'm interested. How much do you charge?"

How do you answer this question? Do you just answer the question or do you add additional information about the school along with the answer?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If you saw my shiny head, you'd fall out of your chair at this point.

Damn! Too late!

 

[ShortBridge]

I was walking around our Lunar New Year festival yesterday with a friend who teaches a Karate style in a fairly big dojo with kids classes and the whole bit. We were comparing notes on things like this and it made me aware of a couple of major differences in approach.

1) Commercial vs non-commerical / modern vs traditional approaches. If I was trying to grow more than I am, I'd need to be more American business-like about it. and

2) Chinese vs Japanese vs other culturally.

I'm guided somewhat by what I think is traditional in Chinese systems taught semi-privately. I chose my students, they chose me. I have a process that I take people through when they call and it usually results in (I hope) them saying "Wow that guy was really nice and super-helpful, but I'm going to check out some other places or maybe join a rock-climbing gym instead". I don't want to explain or hash this piece out too much, but there are suggestions of this elsewhere on my website and people who recognize it, push through it quite easily. I also know that I'm not Chinese, this isn't China and no one is trying to restore the Ming Dynasty, so I don't think I overdue it and frankly most people who inquire miss the whole thing. But, this is how I get good students and I have very good students and they count on me to bring new people in who will also be good students and not drag them down.

So, maybe that explains why "Dude, how much?" starts that process off on the wrong foot for me the way that it does.

But, here's what I'm going to do:

I think that I will be at capacity after this month or I'll have one theoretical spot that I could fill or leave open indefinitely, so there will be no hurry on my part. I have virtually zero attrition, so spots tend not to open up unless I decide to grow again or someone moves away. I'm continuing to work on my website and I think there needs to be a FAQ section in it's future. The next time I am actively fishing for a new student, I'll put the price up and see if I get better or worse responses as a result. And I'll report back...and I'll take the stick out of my *** about it all.