As a martial arts school owner you must understand that you are in the business of getting and keeping students if you are to succeed in your ambition of running a great business.
The martial arts business can give you the opportunity to have a fantastic lifestyle while doing the activity that you love – teaching martial arts – and at the same time it can allow you to deliver a meaningful contribution to your community and the lives of others.
If we understand that getting and keeping students is the key, we need to become obsessive about customers as they are the only source of sales and profit for your business. The way that you view your customers, and the experience that they get when training with you, is vital to success.
The concept of customer obsession is nothing new but unfortunately continues to be rare although it is well known that organisations which obsessively follow a strategy of delivering what the customers want and providing a memorable experience in the process, consistently outperform other businesses.
To illustrate that this concept is not new and that we can still learn from the past: following Indian independence in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi is claimed to have used the following statements when advising Government employees of the importance of the public as customers.
Customers/Students are:
- The most important visitors on our premises.
- Not dependent on us. We are dependent on them.
- Not an interruption in our work – the purpose of it.
- Not an outsider in our business – part of it.
- We are not doing them a favour by serving them. They are doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.
These statements are as valid today as they were then and can help to serve as a reminder to all of us of just how we should view our relationship with customers/students and what their importance is to our business and our life.
If you would like to discuss the above in more detail just call the NEST team on 0115 945 5030.
Quote of the week:
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
Peter Drucker – Writer, Professor and Management Consultant (1909 – 2005)