The tables turn as the interviewer becomes the interviewee: George Fourie shares his life experiences and journey through marketing and martial arts on the Kyl Reber Podcast.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• George's journey from studying computer programming to selling computers, working on a cruise ship, and eventually starting Martial Arts Media™
• The story behind George's most impactful $37 sale
• George's near-death experience as a pivotal wake-up call that transformed his outlook on life and career
• How George discovered a passion for martial arts and saw potential in combining this with his marketing expertise
• How Martial Arts Media™ was founded, focusing on supporting school owners to grow their businesses through digital marketing
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today, I am going to feature an episode, an interview that I had on the Kyl Reber Podcast. Kyl, a good friend of mine, interviewed me. You can look him up on kylreber.com.au. Also, martialartsmedia.com/145.

I had the pleasure of having Kyl on our podcast. By the way, I was looking at it. In episode 145, we were talking about him having 370 students. I know that number's almost up to 500 now. They are booming, to put it mildly. Anyway, go have a listen to that if you haven't yet.

For this episode, I really wanted to feature it because I got to tell you. I've been trying to record a podcast where I tell a bit of my story and just background where I came from, how this all got together, and I've given the pieces and inside of this over the years. I just had a look. We had episode 150, and I actually started this podcast in 2016, July of 2016.

I'm probably in the race for the longest-going podcast with the least amount of episodes, but 150 awesome episodes it has been, and I'm going to continue to do this for a while. Anyway, I've really wanted to have an in-depth– about my story, and I tried to record it a couple of times solo by myself, and I've got to say, it felt weird.

I did it about three times, and I deleted it every time. Then, I got on Kyl’s podcast, and Kyl gave me 10 questions just to prepare for the podcast. I did that, and I thought it was going to be enough, but Kyl's questioning technique was really solid and in-depth. Every time I answered, he dug a little deeper and dug a little deeper.

I’ve got to be honest. I probably spoke about things that I maybe just haven't shared over the years. Nothing too serious, but just things that I've buried in my past and let go. But Kyl did a really good job of unpacking all the details about me and asking a lot of questions. So, this podcast is going to be a bit longer.

I highly recommend you check out Kyl Reber’s podcast. I will have all the links for that at martialartsmedia.com/150. That's it for me. I hope you enjoy...

If you’re running Facebook ads and all your martial arts leads are tire-kickers, your problem might be two-fold. Here’s the fix.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• What’s potentially causing the wrong quality of martial arts leads
• The pitfall of labeling your martial arts prospects as tire-kickers
• How better Facebook ads attract better martial arts prospects
• Fixing low-quality martial arts leads with paid trials
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey there, George Fourie here. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business podcast. Today, I want to talk about your martial arts leads being tire-kickers. What if they are all tire-kickers, non-responsive, or just the wrong demographic or bad quality when you are running Facebook ads, Google ads, or from any other marketing source?

I’m going to dive into the details with a few little twists to this conversation. For show notes and all the resources of this podcast, head over to martialartsmedia.com/149. Let's jump in.

What happens when all my leads are tire-kickers? They inquired via the website, Facebook ads, or Google ads. They've put their hand up, disappeared, or never put their hand up. We can't get hold of them, and that's that. All the leads are tire-kickers, or they are responsive, but they're just the wrong type of lead.

They won't fit the culture of your club, or they won't be fit for the products that you have, the martial arts services that you offer, and the classes that you run. These are all things that can be fixed within your targeting, quality, and messaging. But here's the danger. I want to address the danger of labeling all your prospects as tire-kickers.

A few of my members in our Partners group brought this up: I love you, and you're not being singled out. Actually, I can count about six or seven encounters where this has come up, and that's just this year. So, you're definitely not being singled out. This is done with love. I hope that this is helpful for you and for you, the listener, as well.

Labeling all your leads as tire-kickers. Here's the danger. Let's say you're running an ad campaign, and you've got 20 to 30 leads in your CRM. It's just a list of names. And you get one bad response, two bad, three, and all of a sudden, your sales mojo motivation dies out.

And you're like, “Oh, really?” They’re all tire-kickers. Maybe it was only three, maybe it was five, but all of a sudden, you give everybody this unanimous label. Now, what if you took those 20 to 30 people off the list and put them all in a room together, all in a room together, or all on the mats? And you looked at all these people, all their faces, and they all put their hand up.

They responded to your ad, right? Can you look them all in the eye and say, “You're all tire-kickers. All of you are wasting my time. It's like all of you got together and collectively decided that you're going to waste my time.” A bit unrealistic, right? But it's very easy for us to look at a lead list and then throw a label out.

The danger that I want to address is it's their fault and not yours. So, immediately, you relinquish all responsibility for the leads, not furthering the conversation or signing up, and it's their fault and not yours. Now, I'm not here to debate whether that's true or not because there can be parts where it's their fault.

But if it's all their fault, you've got no room for improvement. They've got nothing that you can fix. You could...

Here’s how using an irresistible martial arts offer can almost completely squash your no-show rate for martial arts trial appointments.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

• Adding a human touch to automated messages with martial arts prospects
• How to write a successful follow-up email sequence
• Comparing free and paid martial arts trials
• Using high-converting landing pages when you’re time-poor
• Using The Messenger Signup Method to sign up prospects
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Start Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business podcast. Today, I'm going to be talking about how to reduce no-shows. Prospect inquires, books a trial appointment with you, but then ghost you; they don't show up. And sometimes, it's really hard to re-engage and get the conversation back going and get them to reschedule.

So, I'm going to be talking about a couple of ways that you can reduce no-shows, almost eliminate them completely. Some are going to be simpler, and some are going to be a little bit more complex. There's going to be a few options for you to consider. I'm going to cover those. Make sure to head over to martialartsmedia.com/148. That is where we've got the show notes, downloads, and everything for this episode. Head over there, and hey, let's jump in.

Okay, some context first. I was talking at a martial arts business event in Texas late last year, that’s 2023 and was chatting to a lot of martial arts business owners that were experiencing a lot of no-shows. A bunch of these guys was using different types of marketing agencies and just various problems that were coming up, mainly no-shows.

Out of the 10 leads that they were getting, only three were actually showing up—three to four. I’m kind of shocked, to be honest. That's like a really, really high no-show, right? So, there are a few things that you can do to mitigate this now. There are a couple of dangers and a couple of things to consider here, right?

If you are trying to automate things as much as possible and be as hands-off as possible, that might be the price that you're going to pay, right? Is that you're going to have some no-shows, and there's going to be little investment of time and following up and doing things, but you're going to get fewer leads. You're going to be paying a lot more for leads to show up. That's just going to be the nature of the beast for you.

But, if you're keen to be a bit more invested and thinking, “Well, I want to get my dollars’ worth.” Like, “I want to really reduce the cost per acquisition of getting these students in, really want to bring that cost down, control it.” There are a couple of things that you can do, so let's explore them.

Number one is, first up, just looking at the automation that happens, your automated follow-up sequences. What happens once a new trial, a parent or an adult books a trial to come and take their first class with you? What happens from that point?

Are they getting automated email messages instantly and then timed all the way to their appointment? Are they getting text messages or follow-ups? What else? Is there some...