Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast

#9 | Connect and Conquer: Building Your Martial Arts Empire

• Jimmy Hong • Season 1 • Episode 9

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🗓️ Mark your calendars for October 3–4, 2025—because the ASA Martial Arts Summit is throwing down in Las Vegas at the iconic Paris Hotel & Casino, and you don’t want to miss it. This is the business event for martial arts entrepreneurs ready to evolve, scale, and sharpen their competitive edge.

🔥 It’s a full-throttle experience designed for passionate martial arts professionals who refuse to settle. Only a few weeks left to lock in the $399 early access rate—offer ends August 15th.

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Master Lee shares the fastest way to build a martial arts business through strategic networking and learning from successful peers rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

• Success leaves clues – learn from those who have already achieved what you want
• Having the right mindset is critical – be open to new ideas and changes
• Take immediate action on what you learn through networking
• Surround yourself with people more successful than you to grow faster
• Networking provides accountability, motivation, and friendship with like-minded owners
• The American School-Owners Association (ASA) Summit in Las Vegas brings together successful school owners
• Learn both business strategies and teaching techniques from industry leaders
• ROI from networking events can be substantial through implementing just one good idea
• Staff development is crucial – bring your team to learn professionalism and career pathways

Join us at the ASA Summit this October in Las Vegas to connect with the best minds in the martial arts business. 


Dynamics World – A one‑stop martial arts supplier offering uniforms, belts, gear, mats, and custom designs, delivering great products, great prices, and great service to martial arts school owners.

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  • Email us at jimmyhong@blackbeltbanter.com
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Speaker 1:

In this week's episode the fastest way to build your martial arts business connect and conquer. Welcome to Black Belt Banter the best podcast to help your martial arts school increase in profits and generate substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hong and my co-host is Master Chan Lee. Master Chan has over 2,100 active students with multiple locations. He is well-renowned and highly respected by his fellow peers for his business acumen in operating martial arts schools. Master Chan, welcome to the show, and I don't really understand this topic today. What are you talking about in terms of connecting and networking? And conquering is the fastest way to build your business, and it's not marketing, it's not like sales and it's not retention. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:

here there are people that are a lot more successful than all of us, in whatever industry. I recently got a chance in fact, you were there too we got a chance to meet a billionaire, and we got a chance to meet this guy at his office and we were talking about some things and he happens to own a very famous MMA gym. That's one of his many businesses, and so a friend of ours who is the head coach at that gym gave us an introduction and we wanted to bounce some business ideas off of him and his principles were super simple and then I realized it's the same principles I also abide by and I really wanted to kind of share that with you. Is that and here are some of the things that he said success leaves clues. People that are already successful have already done there and been where you want to go. So instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not just do the same thing right and then tweak it for what you do? And I realized that in my martial art career.

Speaker 2:

Like the only way I learned about running a martial arts school originally was my dad. He ran the martial arts school. I learned from him. He had a kind of an old school, 1970s, 1980s way of doing things and then I just had to come up with different. I mean, back in the day my father's classes were two hours long 30 minutes of stretching, 30 minutes of basic technique, 30 minutes of working on your forms and the last 30 minutes was sparring. No kids, it was just all adults learning how to fight and it was just kind of a rough, rough thing, not a very sustainable business model if you want to scale. It's a very strong subset of people and our market changed. Our market changed in 1985 when the Karate Kid movie came and all these kids came and everybody now had to learn how to teach children. You have to adapt. You also have to kind of very expertly learn from other industries and be able to work with children.

Speaker 2:

And so when I got into the industry I only knew the way to do things that my dad told me to do it and I knew some of these ways were not a successful formula. So even though he had a really successful school he had back in the day he had 300 students by himself that were rabid fans of the way he did things. But as more kids got involved we had to kind of change things, mentors and people and and in that case there was no martial art industry association, there was no NAPMA, there was no ASA or or anything any of these trade groups that are out there. There was nothing. There was no internet.

Speaker 2:

So literally you were like I heard, this guy does well, and then you would try to find the phone number and then call and say, hey, I'm going to visit your school, is that okay? And then you would get on an airplane and fly all the way there and at that time I had a mentor that lived in Florida and he had eight schools and was doing super well and just basically shared the way he was doing things. And then we met a martial art consultant. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1:

Can I just say I never received any of those calls. I never got one call during that time. So I just want to point that out. Well, the point is nobody called me Well here the thing is successful people, right.

Speaker 2:

So you wanted to call successful people and at that time you were floundering and anyway, that's right, and some people it was a secret society. So sometimes I went to New York and I visited a karate school that I heard was doing really well and I was like, hey, I was wondering if you can give me some lessons. And I'd go in there and they gave me their lesson. And then in fact, this organization had videotapes and for the kids that don't know that before, before you went to watch them, you had to put stuff in a videotape and then put it in a machine, a VHS machine. They gave out VHS tapes of their style. So I got that. I mean, I literally traveled everywhere and I just said, ok, well, let me, let me watch other classes and see how things were done. And then you go through trial and error. You know you go and say, ok, let's, let's do this and see if so. You know you go and say, okay, let's, let's do this and see if so.

Speaker 2:

For example, one of the things that I really got into was Olympic full contact sparring and I said this is going to be great, this is really going to be good and you know, we did full contact sparring, got people ready for a competition and I got two kids on national team and that was kind of my model and I realized, wait, this is not for the masses, people that want to do that type of sparring, they're going to quit. And so we went to point sparring, we went backwards, we went back to point sparring light touch. We created a competition team that was separate, that did that type of stuff. So basically, my whole point is is that you have to fly everywhere, go everywhere, network, learn, bring the ideas, try it and then see if it fits within your culture and if it doesn't, then you redo it.

Speaker 2:

The first time I saw a colored uniform I mean, my dad is a traditionalist it was white uniforms and I created a leadership team and they wore red uniforms and I remember just saying, dad, I'm telling you, we don't have a lot of kids, let me run with the kids program. We fought tooth and nail and finally he allowed me to get red uniforms and all of a sudden I kid you not, we're making about $2,000 a month just on red uniforms. And we had a leadership team, a huge, great leadership team, and then later on I created a demo team and they were blue uniforms and this and that, and so you know, he saw the retention and he saw that and he said, okay, maybe, maybe as a traditionalist it doesn't fit my model, but for children it's a, it's a separate adjunct program.

Speaker 1:

he had an open mind to it. So yes, sir, back back then, when my father was running the the school, there was no, like you said, there was no internet, and because there was no way to connect. I mean, obviously he had friends who was doing other dojangs and stuff, but for for me, we didn't connect with anybody and I guess that was why we were so isolated and we did all this trial and error and we didn't know what was working or not in the industry. And I know my dad didn't know and I sure didn't know as well. So we were very in a bubble and we just thought we were doing so great because we had nobody to compare it to. I didn't have a network of people to bounce ideas, to see what was working in the industry and looking back on it, we weren't doing well at all compared to what I know now. We just thought we did because we didn't know any better.

Speaker 2:

Right, and that's the thing. Once you're in your own silo and you think this is the way it should be, you just don't grow. Which then brings me to my next thing is that you got to have the right mindset. If you go, this is, you could lead a horse to water and you can't make it drink. That's an old adage. You could give someone the greatest idea in the world and they go that's not going to work. Then it's not going to work. If people don't have an open mind about doing things and getting things done, then you're not going to grow. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2:

I took five years of kendo and gumdo and I learned some Aido and so forth. And you know, I learned from a traditionalist and so I revered the sword. I thought, oh man, we've got to learn Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon, the Last Samurai, we're going to learn some good swords. I did all the sword stuff and just got into it for a while. And then, you know, one of my instructors proposed to me and they said, sir, I saw this we're going to take a birthday cake, we're going to take the sword and we're going to cut the cake with it. And I was like dude, that's the dumbest idea on the planet.

Speaker 2:

You know, when you take out a sword, my friend, that means you're about to kill someone. That's the meaning of the sword. You take that sword out of that hilt, right, you're going to kill someone, right? That was the idea. And then he did it and he took some pictures and I was like, oh, people love it, kids love it. What a great picture thing. And I was like sometimes you got to get out of your own way, and being around young people too, sometimes is a great way because they're able to kind of get away from the traditions. And our birthday parties are are epic they're, they're fun. And here we are, we're talking episode whatever, and we're talking about birthday parties again I wanna, I wanna talk about birthday parties.

Speaker 1:

Once we have to, we gotta drop it in and be like it's gonna be a mission.

Speaker 2:

We need more cowbells. The people listening to I get the reference and the younger people are like cowbells. What's a cowbell?

Speaker 1:

No, but you're absolutely right with the younger people, because they have this perspective that you've never even thought about. And some of them are far-fetched out there, but a lot of them are like, hey, that's a great idea if you're open-minded, if you're a traditional master business owner. But no, no, no, my way, my way, you're not going to get anything.

Speaker 2:

But if you listen to your younger staff and your younger leaders I mean leadership students, I mean they have some great ideas and you don't want to be surrounded by a bunch of yes people, right, you want people to bring some ideas and you guys can all work together and all this.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's why my family, they never say yes to me. They're all no people. It's the only you're successful. I follow that.

Speaker 2:

The only person that listens to you is your dog, pixie, but anyway, she doesn't even listen. But my whole point is if you are exactly where you're at, based on the habits and mindset you have now, so if you continue to have them, then the following year you're going to do the same thing. So you got to change things. You got to have a positive mindset and an open mindset to change. The next thing too is I have several juniors Like. I have a junior I call him the phenomena. Within three years of meeting him he's built a multimillion dollar building. His school is bursting out of the seams and before that it was just a small mom and pop operation. And this kid also has an MBA.

Speaker 2:

Smart kid immediately takes action. You give him an idea and he's like hey, what do you think of that? Oh, yeah, I already instituted it. The person by the T takes immediate action in whatever they take. They don't just sit on it, mull on it and whatever, and they take action. And sometimes the action spectacularly fails. They said it didn't work and then they call you and you go hey, this didn't work. Okay, did you do it this way? Oh, they have feedback. They're able to kind of keep re-engineering the idea.

Speaker 2:

It's people that here we go. It's people that say birthday parties don't work and you're like, how many did you do Two? And I'm like, all right, what'd you do? And I taught the kids how to do a form and we stretched for half the class. Okay, well, that's a terrible birthday party If you don't experiment and keep trying and trial and error and keep going, it makes a huge difference.

Speaker 2:

Oh, by the way, talking about secret to success, I have a I don't want to name the company because it's kind of company secrets, but I know this company. My wife's best friend works there and it's a sporting goods type stuff, very big and many different brands that they cover, and they're losing money because of the economy right now People are not buying some of their products. And I said, well, what about this? And she goes well, there's one department that's kicking ass. I go really, it's our apparel. And I go really, they're up 300%. And I just out of curiosity, I said, why, what are you guys doing? She goes oh, we hired the same company that did Lululemon and they are now doing our marketing and we're doing the same products and we just copied and now we're up 300 percent and it's the same stuff that Dave told us about. It's the billionaire.

Speaker 2:

It's like, take a formula right Success leaves clues. Just do it and copy the people that are ahead of you and be in being ahead of you, and then reformat and rinse and repeat. Just keep doing it. And to me that's just incredibly important. Advice is that, yes, you may have a unique idea, but if someone else is doing it, just just copy it and then redo it and then refashion it.

Speaker 1:

That just for our listeners and our viewers. Dave is a person that we met through one of our associates and he he is a multimillion dollar, multimillion dollar success, but not in our industry. He he's in a different staffing industry of all industries. But we ended up picking his brain for hours when it was supposed to be a 20-minute meeting. But he liked us so much he was sharing how he got his success, what he did from the ground up, from the first company to others.

Speaker 1:

And then you asked a great question there in the middle and he's like why would you do all this? He's like I'm not even a smart guy. I'm paraphrasing. All I did was I just copied from a successful company. And then I just did it myself and did it better. And at first we were like, I mean, it seems so simple, we didn't think much of it. But now, going back, just like what you're saying, it's oh my gosh, you know, and that Lululemon story, I mean how many of these billion-dollar companies, just instead of creating something, they're just copying something else and just doing it better. That's all the time, every day in America 100%, 100%.

Speaker 2:

That's all the time every day in america, 100 and and and that's the thing is, people go I'm going to do this and and just do it my own way and this is the way, and and they just don't. They don't have, you know, the idea that don't recreate the wheel, just just do what people, what other successful people have done and and doing it. I'm saying I'm not a big real estate guy and I have. I have a couple of students and people that I know and friends that are big time real estate developers, like huge, and you know, I would sit down and say, okay, how did you guys do this deal? How does one person works, works strategically with a grocery company and he puts up all the grocery stores here in town and I'm like, how do you guys negotiate a deal like that and how you're able to work through? I have another friend that works with a coffee company and has put up 20 locations for them and he owns a piece of the real estate and I'm like, how does that work? And I have a few deals myself that I put together some strip malls and whatever.

Speaker 2:

And as I was just getting into that, I didn't want to come up with my own idea. It's not even my wheelhouse. So I contacted these two people, I had lunch with them, paid for some drinks and we sat down and talked and next thing, you know, I had a template of where I needed to go with some of my real estate deals. And next thing, you know, I had a template of where I needed to go with some of my real estate deals, because that's within the norm. I know, Jimmy, you do very well with real estate and I know in the beginning you didn't come up with these great ideas. With your real estate holdings. You followed a template, right, you followed. And then, not only that, you're part of a big networking group that says these are the latest trends.

Speaker 2:

And at one point you were coming up to me and I introduced you to some people too, and one of the friends I have has 200 units of apartments and I know you're involved in a little bit of stuff like that and you guys started talking and I'm sitting here and you guys spoke the same language of how to do a zero down deal on this and that or whatever, and I'm just sitting there going holy cow, here's another world. I just really don't know about how you guys were just talking and doing stuff. And then you guys got into trailer park homes and you told me about this way back and I'm like you trash, I can't believe you're getting into trailer park homes. You're telling me that. I'm like I can't believe. I was like you'll just do anything for a buck. Yeah, yeah, you get a Lord.

Speaker 2:

And all of a sudden this guy I know that with 20, he's like hey, we bought three trailer park homes. I'm like what he goes? Yeah, these things are moneymakers and and and you're telling me he was already ahead of you. But then, just from you guys networking, I was just sitting there going holy cow. And so here's my next point If you're the, the, you're, if you're the best person in your group and your friend circle, then you're in the wrong circle. You need to be around people that kind of scare, you kind of intimidate, you kind of like are doing better than you. And and I really believe if you, if you don't do that, you're not going to grow. And to me that's an important part of that. I can sincerely say I'm probably the least successful person in my friends group.

Speaker 1:

I know your friends, Master Chan, and you are definitely not the least successful.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm saying, the group I'm with you is, that's the lower tier group. I'm talking about my other higher tier group.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, you, know you just got with that dig. You got to get that dig in Anyway. So, and I think it's important that you have all types of people and I'm going to do a quick pitch here. I'm part of the American Sabanim Association and I helped create this group and it's a networking group that I helped put together and because I just wanted to give back to other people that helped me, because if it wasn't for all my other seniors that got together and helped me be where I'm at, then I'm just kind of paying it forward.

Speaker 2:

So we have a group of it's actually a super eclectic group. There's an eclectic, there's a higher group of people that have 10, 15, you know, 20 locations to people that have five, five, six locations, to some people that are they're probably six months away from closing that are there and they show up and, yeah, we do seminars. Of course, these people talk and they talk about how they did it and the secret to their success and we have everything from marketing to staffing, to teaching good classes, teaching new drills. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1:

Well, okay, to bring in the audiences of our listeners and viewership. Master Chan started this organization called ASA and it's American. It's actually American School Owners Association. I don't know why Master Chan keeps talking about different American School Owners Association for all martial arts school owners and what he does is that he shares. We meet once a year in the best event in Las Vegas in October every year. We've been doing it for 20 something years. It's crazy awesome. Everybody comes from all over the country.

Speaker 1:

This is actually how Master Chan's been building his network of successful and non-successful martial arts schools. There will be successful school owners that come in to see what the industry is doing, what Master Chan is doing, and then there are single, small school owners coming in to increase their and grow their schools. So we have all range of martial arts, and this is not just Taekwondo, by the way. This is all martial arts, from karate, from jujitsu, from Kung Fu school owners. So everybody's invited. It's all inclusive and it's the best martial arts business seminar because of what Master Chan does. Seminar because of what master chan does. He shares everything, like like he's sharing right now with you in these podcasts. He's sharing everything of what's going on in our industry, what is working and what is not. And it's, and, master chan, I remember when we did this. We've done this survey of participants and we found out that every participant that increased their profits and student count and retention threefold within the three months and they're keeping in touch.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know, this is the event of the year, the thing that's I mean, just as important as the actual seminars is there are three really main events of networking. So at our opening ceremony actually we're not doing opening ceremonies, we're doing a opening mixer where everybody's getting together in a round table with each of our speakers and some high-level school owners and they are going to be able to kind of talk and ask specific questions. At Friday night there is a kind of a mixer, kind of an informal mixer. A lot of people, in fact 90% of the people, go there and meet up and talk and you can ask. All our speakers and all our successful school owners are readily available to talk and explain how they're doing it and you can bring their questions. And then Saturday night we have a barbecue. We have a Korean barbecue that we go out afterwards and everybody just really enjoys each other's time. So I think most things like this, people go all right, I'm in, I'm out, and but really it you're really missing the point if you're not doing the networking portions and everybody's really helping us out. And and we've got some pretty amazing speakers We've got the master, tony cook, who is in Canada, who used to be a U S, a Canadian team member.

Speaker 2:

He's also a Brazilian jujitsu black belt. He has six very successful locations and his seventh location is is a BJJ school and he's going to talk about how to do staffing and how to create dynamic staff, how to motivate dynamic staff and how he's done it. We have Master Tony Chung, who has been on this podcast, amazing speaker and has a wealth of knowledge in how to build a small school and be very profitable at it. Master Bronson Ko, who I've known for 20 plus years. His father is also a grandmaster in Taekwondo. He has, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful schools in the United States in Kansas City, and also charges one of the highest dollar amounts I've ever heard of $400 plus a month in tuition.

Speaker 2:

And he's just talking about what he does. And I asked him once. I said what was your secret? Are you teaching blow darts and ninja stars and you're climbing rock, climbing a wall, or no, just Taekwondo, just very, very basic Taekwondo and how he does it. And then one of the things I like about our ASSA sessions is that we also do have physical sessions that you can bring into your classroom. So we have a world striking coach. Coach Eddie Cha is going to be there and he's an MMA coach with a company called Fight Ready. He's created three UFC champions out of that gym and he's also a Taekwondo guy, so he has some background in traditional martial arts. He's going to teach us some advanced rules that you can use for your black belts and for your students.

Speaker 2:

And then we have Master Stephen Lambden Olympian in 2016, I believe in Taekwondo is going to talk about some advanced drills. And then we have Master Tim Thackery, who is a strength and conditioning coach, is going to be talking at this year's ASSA as well. We also have Dave Young Dave Dave Young and Dave Young is the master of reality-based self-defense, and if you say self-defense, you're going to have to include knife and gun, because if we ever get mugged on the street, it's probably going to be with one of those two weapons, and so it's super important that people have that type of realistic curriculum in their repertoire, and so we have him, who is his day rate for a police department is about $10,000. So it's kind of cool to have him at our summit teaching. We also have Master Victoria Repepe, who helps manage eight martial arts schools in the Cleveland area and she's the head of the sales and some of the staff there, so we're going to get her expertise. And then we have Josh Lannan, who I met him at an AI marketing conference and he spoke last year and just blew our minds with the technologies of how AI and how you can use that in your marketing pieces. And then we have the famous Dave Zewine, who is a very successful business guy, who's going to be speaking at this year's conference as well. So it's a star-studded lineup of the who's who in martial arts and people that can help your business.

Speaker 2:

And, more importantly, I really do believe I would not be where I'm at today if I didn't network and I flew all over the world talking to people at individual schools. You guys get a chance to do all this in one stop shop, at a, at a thing, and then, importantly, you'll make some friends. That's going to help you, keep you accountable, to help you grow into your next, the next level of where you want to be. So if you want a fast track to growth, don't reinvent the wheel right. There's a shortcut. The shortcut is ask the people that have been there and that's done it and meet up with them and then I will be there.

Speaker 2:

I would love to meet you and help you and as an industry, we are doing a super poor job. We're still less than 3% of the US population, so we really need to do a better job of marketing for the US population. So we really need to do a better job of marketing, teaching, inspiring, changing lives. And if you do that in mind, I really believe you'll be successful. And so, anyway, that's kind of my two cent pitch.

Speaker 2:

I know I've been given a lot of great advice through these podcasts and things like that, but I really do believe the shortcut is networking with some of the top people in our industry. And what's crazy is we'll have other people like we have one school owner who she spoke at past events of ours. She did two and a half million dollars in one location. She's there networking and learning and seeing. So if there's someone that I know and, by the way, she has got an MBA from Stanford If there's people that that's going to be there, then I really believe then you have no excuse to be there. They're learning, there's a reason, they're successful and that's, and that's important, that you guys go to get get a chance to kind of network and be out there and and be able to kind of talk to other people well, can I, can I add it's we, I.

Speaker 1:

I get this all the time. Just going through day-to-day grind, I get tunnel vision because I'm just focused on, on the school, on the day-to-day that, so I I forget to step back and and take bigger picture. And that's what this ASA Summit is all about. It's a martial arts business seminar held in Las Vegas, of all places. So, las Vegas, we want you to work hard, we want you to go to the summit hard and we want you to vacation hard as well. So make it an event.

Speaker 1:

But, master Chan, I have a question for you. What do you say to those single school? Master Chan, I have a question for you. What do you say to those single school owners who doesn't have a staff? How are they supposed to come to this event? What do you say to those? I mean, forget about the school owners who have a staff that will, I don't know, take care of their school while they're attending. But what about the single school owners who don't have a staff to continue their school on that weekend let's say it's the first weekend of it's, october 2nd to 3rd, it's in Las Vegas. What do you say to those school owners? How are they supposed to?

Speaker 2:

come. If you're really, I'll give you two things. If you're really scared about something happening or you don't really have anybody to help run the school two days, that you close, you can tell and I've done this in the past when I was a smaller school owner and I had to go to places or wanted to learn something or go to a tournament, is that I would call it instructor development, just like any school. Schools kind of have a for school teachers, they have teacher in service and they do teacher development or teacher learning or instruction. So I would tell your students early on saying, hey, this is the weekend that will be closed for two days and we're going to do and learn new things to bring back to our schools, to make our school better and let people know. So that's my answer to that. If you're really scared about staffing and so forth, then just to close it for four, you won't. You won't go out of business after being closed for two days and but but you will go out of business if you don't attend this.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, Absolutely. So go, go, come, come and learn, I mean. And how can you go, come, come and learn? I mean, and how can you? What's important is that your roi right return on investment if you come back with an idea. I mean, I remember one year we had a grandmaster, Kim from Rochester, and he gave us an idea and I I just took copious notes and then all weekend I hounded him and I took more notes and then I gave him, I played the what if? Game and then afterwards I hit him up again and he had this Black Friday sale for uniforms. I mean the guy did $200,000 in one weekend on membership sales slash. Like what else did he do? He did retail apparel.

Speaker 2:

I didn't make that much. Usually I do a holiday sale 20, 25,000, whatever and I remember we did his ideas and I was like I doubled it. I was at 75,000. And to me I mean, yeah, it's a couple thousand dollars to get out to Vegas and your hotel rooms and pay for the seminar ticket and dinners and this and that, but the return on investment was like it was peanuts. Just that idea alone made me $35,000. And so if you look at other things from that standpoint, you got to look at the investment in your education and growing your school Coach, Eddie.

Speaker 1:

Well, can I also add I forgot to make the point of having tunnel vision with day-to-day and then you're coming out for one weekend and you're meeting everybody that knows where you're coming from, knows how hard you work for your school. Going through the daily grind of your classes raising that really opens up something, master Chan. I'm like when I daily grind of your classes raising, that really opens up something, master Chan. When I come out of that weekend I'm refreshed, I'm re-energized, re-motivated and I'm so productive for the months afterwards I can confidently say you have to come. It's not like you should come.

Speaker 1:

You have to come because your school will be so much more successful in just a few months after coming because of all, not only all the knowledge that you're gained from from all these speakers and their seminars, but from the important part that nobody talks about is the networking of people who you're meeting. And guess what? You're going to continue your communication with these people that you've met in an ASA event throughout the year, because then you're going to motivate each other to do hey, did you try this, did you try this birthday party? Did you try this buddy day? And you're going to compare notes and get better and better and that's how your school is going to be successful. Through networking, through networking. That exactly what this topic and this episode.

Speaker 2:

You know, I was listening to Grandmaster Tony Chung's podcast and he was talking about filling sandbags. And if you go, you're just filling sandbags, because I told you to fill sandbags. Or did you fill sandbags because there's a flood about to come and you need to help save the town? And now there's a little bit more purpose into why you're filling sandbags. And and I I believe sometimes we, if you're just coming to the summit to make money, then I don't really don't want you there, I don't think you should be there.

Speaker 2:

But if you really feel like you're going to make an impact in making your community stronger and making your students better and then really making an impact in helping changing lives through martial arts, if you are from that mindset and mold, I really believe, then on the other end, then the money's going to be there, all that's going to be there, and I really believe that having a purpose and having a philosophy behind what you do makes you a better teacher and a better, a better business.

Speaker 2:

Owner of your martial arts school. Um, and and we've all heard this we, we know all the guys that have run martial arts schools purely for the money and they all fail because we're making a commitment to our students and and helping them be the best they can be through the arts, and we have a unique privilege of doing that. So, as you're saying, yeah, you're working in your business on the grind, but then all of a sudden you're the teacher, so you need to go out and you need to educate, be re-motivated, find better strategies for running your schools, helping you kind of get to that next plateau of changing as many lives as you can doing what you do.

Speaker 1:

Can I also add, obviously, everybody who's in this industry. There are other events that's going on in the country, but what makes ASA summit so different than others? Those people are nerds.

Speaker 2:

Those people are nerds and we're cool. That's the that's I mean. That's all you need to understand. That's the main difference. Like who would you rather share a chocolate milk with what? What type of protein shake can we eat and and and? Was that the answer?

Speaker 1:

I can confidently say, confidently say, master Chan and I have been to all these events. What makes ASA Summit different is that these other big events, they don't share anything, they don't network. Their speakers are there just to give them a little nugget and upsell their program. That they're selling popular is because we share everything with the intent of trying to make school owners better and successful the next day. And our ASA Summit, it's the grand event that we're doing.

Speaker 1:

These episodes are just nuggets for everybody, but then come to our event and then you will see that everything that we talk about, it all comes together because there's no, we don't hold anything back. We share everything that's going on with the industry, with what works, what doesn't, and all these topics. The list of our speakers is so, it's so big we don't even know how we're going to fill everybody in on these events. But that's just what we do. That's that's how we like to operate, this is how we like to show and that is why our ASA summit is so much better than than. I'm not even going to name names by the other events out there, because there's no sharing. They they just say, oh, come to this, you're going to learn this, but they don't share anything and anyone who goes to that because I've gone to that, master Chana has gone to that, and we come back and we're like we didn't learn anything at all. We don't even know what this is about.

Speaker 2:

So the last thing I want to leave everybody with so it doesn't feel like we're doing one big pitch here is that we launched something for the first time and it is called the staff university and we are I'm, I've I've been bringing my staff, my and my head instructors to this. I know a lot of martial arts school owners are bringing their, their staff, and so we're going to have a section on the professionalism of becoming a martial art, martial art industry person, um, and so we're going to talk about sales, marketing, some of the how to run a good classroom floor, how to be a professional in the martial art industry I think these are all very, very important things and having the standards. So we're going to have an owner's section and then now we're going to have a staff university. So cool story.

Speaker 2:

I took one of my part-time staff two years ago and he went to ASA and we hung out. He got to meet other people. He saw the potential of this as a career. Came back a year later he goes sir, I'm going to do this as a career. So we're going to be opening our seventh school with this person. So very kind of a cool thing that we're doing, but it's a great way to kind of celebrate our successes thing that we're doing. But it's a great way to kind of celebrate our successes, our victories, our losses, our things that are. We're kind of like knee deep in and having a hard time. So we would love to see you guys there and, if you can make it, be rest assured, you're hanging out with the coolest people in the martial art industry.

Speaker 1:

That wraps up another power-packed episode of the Black Belt Banter podcast. My thanks to Master Chan Lee and the ASA Summit. Registration is live now, so check out the link in our show notes or head to theblackbeltbantercom to reserve your spot. Thanks for listening and see you guys on our next episode.