Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast
Welcome to Black Belt Banter, the best martial arts business podcast for instructors, school owners, and entrepreneurs who want to increase their profits and generate substantial revenue. Whether you're running a single studio or scaling a multi-location empire, we break down the strategies, stories, and systems behind profitable martial arts businesses. From student retention and marketing hacks to leadership, curriculum, and community building, we cover it all. Tune in for weekly insights from Master Chan and Master Jimmy Hong, who’s been in the trenches and come out kicking.
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Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast
#10 | How to Create Sustainable Staff Pipelines That Prevent Burnout
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Preventing instructor burnout might be the most critical challenge you face as a martial arts school owner. How do you build a staff culture that's sustainable while delivering exceptional training? This episode tackles this challenge head-on with insights from three martial arts business veterans.
Master Tony Kook (president of BC Taekwondo Federation with 2,100 active students across multiple locations) and Master Tony Chung join host Jimmy Hong to share battle-tested strategies for developing unbreakable staff teams. Their conversation reveals the critical difference between treating leadership development as "free help" versus creating true apprenticeships that benefit everyone involved.
Whether you're struggling with instructor turnover or looking to expand your martial arts business sustainably, this episode provides concrete strategies you can implement immediately. The insights apply across all martial arts styles and business models. Connect with this community of school owners at the upcoming ASA Summit this October in Las Vegas—details in the show notes.
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In this week's episode we'll discuss the topic preventing instructor burnout before it breaks your team how martial arts school owners can build unbreakable staff culture. 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 Tony Chung. We are joined by Master Tony Cook, a powerhouse school owner whose impact spans two martial arts worlds, with two major Canadian cities With over 2,100 active students. He teaches both Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu in Vancouver and Toronto. He currently serves as the president of the BC Taekwondo Federation, guiding the direction of an entire region's martial arts community. Welcome everyone, and what a coincidence both of your names are Tony and both of you are very skilled in staff training and development. Let's start with you, master Chung. We've all been through it as martial arts school owners. We, as an an industry, are notorious for burning out our staff and instructors. What is your advice to our community, master Chung?
Speaker 2:This is a tough one, but for me I think pain's the best teacher. But you also want to guide people towards pleasure, so obviously you have to have targets. There has to be suitable standards of living for pay you have to have. Every staff member has a unique thing that they like. Some people like to be home multiple nights for dinner with their family. Some people want to be able to pick their kid up from school.
Speaker 2:But the pain part is you have to have a solid amount of part-timers that are qualified to be full-timers behind your full-time staff so that in the event that a full-time staff member wants to move on or if you need to fire someone, that you have a good replacement. So there's that kind of pressure. And then obviously behind your part-timers you have a lot of standard leadership staff and then behind them you have a lot of black belts. So once your bench strength is good and you have that pipeline, it's just like in sports Sports all the way from the major leagues it goes all the way down to rec sports, but there's this heavy pipeline of people that want to move forward and that's, in my opinion, the pain pipeline, right. So one person's goal is another person's pain. So when somebody gets what they want, oftentimes somebody loses what they had. So that's all I know. Oftentimes somebody loses what they had.
Speaker 1:So that's all I know. That's definitely not the case, master Cook. Just like what Master Chung is saying. From my personal experience it was so hard finding a number one, number two instructor, but it was even harder to find the bench strength to replace them or bringing them up. What? How do school owners find that bench strength for? To replace that number? Not replace that number one, number two, but to train and develop that number one and number two.
Speaker 3:Master Cook, develop that number one and number two, master Cook, I think. So, getting back to Master Tony Chung's point about making sure that all your staff know what they're doing, I think that's a key point For me staff. So we have this thing called mat culture in our industry, where you come onto the mat and you bow, and the Taekwondo Dojang is a sanctuary where you learn about focus, respect and discipline. I think what we're talking about is staff culture, and so, within our staff culture, I think it's very important for highly successful clubs to really balance the workload and rotate responsibilities. So I think Master Chung brought up a great point there.
Speaker 3:If you have one person, for example, your head instructor, that is teaching every single class, monday to Saturday, it doesn't matter how great they are, they're going to burn out. So, to be able to rotate those responsibilities and now to answer your question, master Hong, in order to do that, you have to create a pipeline. So you have your senior instructors or your head instructors, and then underneath them you're going to have assistant instructors, and underneath them you'll have junior instructors, and then your base is going to be your leadership team or some sort of team that you're developing so that they can one day become your future staff, so I think that's incredibly important for long-term sustainability within the dojang.
Speaker 1:Well, master Chung, what do you say to the smaller school owners who can't have a big staff and big payroll? Do you pay the assistant and part-time instructors, or are they just in leadership training without pay? How does that work, master Chad?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I never had the war chest of money to pay people. So once you create a game plan, it's kind of like a point of no return. So you need to get a group of people together. I think the story was like Cortez. I don't know if it's a bad story, but I just heard the part where when they landed with the ships, they burnt the ships and they're like what are you doing, sir? And they're like he goes. I don't know, but we just can't. We can't go back.
Speaker 2:So I think that you want a group of people, even if it's like when you watch a movie and you have that ragtag gang of people where they're not really talented but they're family and they're friends and they're friends like family, and the goal is like the mission is more right, the mission is forward and as long as you have a good core group, that they have each other's back and the money, even if you have the money, for example, you can't just pay people and assume they're going to do great work Sometimes. Sometimes volunteers are going to be the best staff that you'll ever have and they're not even paid. Sometimes the most expensive people you ever have is free, is free help. So it just it's really dependent on results. So, after after having now after 20, some plus years, I've had probably hundreds of staff part-time and full-time and dozens of full-timers over the years my average full-timer now has been with me for over 10, since I've been in Georgia for about 14 years. But the only thing I could say is the only way you know is results right.
Speaker 2:So I believe in giving people a fair wage, but then you have to give them opportunity. And the only way you know they're good is not assumptions, it's not wordplay, because you'll interview somebody and they talk a great game and you're like, dude, this guy's going to be a rock star. Or you're like she's so shy there's no way that she could talk to anyone. And the only way you know is you put them in the batter's box and you see the results. And not the first or second or the third time I've had so many staff members. They're like sir, I'm not comfortable teaching class, sir, I'm not comfortable selling, I'm not comfortable doing this, but I'm like listen, just teach 10, 20, 30 classes and then let's see how it goes. I classes and then let's see how it goes. I'm willing to lose tons of money. I'm willing to lose students even. Just do your best, sharing your story on the mat or in the office or in between, and let's just see how it goes. And then, once you kind of set that tone, the results will speak for themselves.
Speaker 2:I do believe that selling is not a full-time job in martial arts, nor is marketing, so you're going to need to, I believe, starting them, like Master Cook says, you want, you want the culture of a martial artist and you want somebody that believes in what they do. That was, that's willing to do it for free. They would. They would do this for free If they won the lottery, they would still teach. And then those people, if you could find a fair way to compensate them. That's how you build something, something great, and that's how you build something great.
Speaker 1:Well, talking about free, I know all of us here has heard hey, sometimes free help is not the best help. You don't want free help Because with free help, with volunteers, they're just different than your payroll staff. What do you say to that, master Cook? Is that true, especially nowadays, or is that kind of obsolete?
Speaker 3:and it's about how you lead your team and your school Well. So I want to start by saying that when we talk to first-time school owners, or perhaps someone who's been in the industry for a long time and they're not quite where they want to be, that that's a wonderful question to begin with. What we say begin with the end in mind. So if we were to say to someone what is your ideal situation? Where do you see yourself in five years and 10 years for your club? And perhaps they say I would love to have the autonomy to come in and out of the dojang when I want. I would love to have to teach the classes when I want. In a perfect world, I would have 300 students, or 500 students, with a full-time manager, a full-time head instructor and maybe three or four-time part-time instructors and then a wonderful leadership team. So first they have to have the courage and the creativity to answer that question, and so that's your end goal. And now we say, okay, that's wonderful. So now let's start to fill each of those roles. So, for example, your head instructor isn't just one day going to walk into your gym and say I would love to be the head instructor of your school and you don't have to pay me anything now, but when you can, you will. And same thing with your program director. And so, in order to start filling in these roles, you now have to start identifying and train these people to get to the position you want them to be in.
Speaker 3:And we don't call it free help, we don't call it volunteering, we call it an apprenticeship. So, for example, our leadership class they come to our leadership training once a week, on a Friday or a Saturday, and that's what we call the theoretical training. Now they have to use that theoretical training that they're learning in their practicum, and that's what we call it. It's your practicum. You're not volunteering, you're coming in and you're using your theoretical training as practicum. So you come once a week or twice a week. What have you and what you're doing is you're training to become a better leader level one, level two, level three. What have you? So, I guess, in terms of dollars and cents, yes, you're not paying anything.
Speaker 3:So it might be free, like you want to say the word free but when in fact, you're actually training them. You're training them to become better leaders, better leaders in the community, better leaders in your dojang, and they're becoming wonderful role models and mentors to your students and it's a win-win situation. And then they one day can become your part-time staff and many of my instructors have one time been a leadership team member with me a really shy kid and that's how you work and you start filling in those roles little bit by little bit and once you get that ball rolling as Master Tony Chung and yourself, master Ong, know it becomes addictive. When you start seeing great results, little results, that grind becomes addictive and you become hyper-focused on now developing more staff and more leaders and more future staff for your dojang. So I think that's the way to go is maybe change that mindset from free help to you're training them to become leaders in your school. That's the way we've been doing it.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, Master Cook. That's brilliant Master Cho.
Speaker 2:You know, I, when I hear him talk, he's just so awesome, I would, I would want to work. It's the mindset first of all, master tony cook is like is my young? So I'm like, oh, he's my big brother, and we have this event called the sauce. We kind of get together and there's always these older people and then now I'm one of the old I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, but by the way, master chung, you know master tony cook, he's, he's one of our speakers for us summit this year.
Speaker 2:So it's gonna be, it's gonna be awesome, but he's great, like you know I've seen him attend seminars and you have five schools right young like yes, sir, yeah so I'm opening my fifth currently and it's like and you've been doing it for a very long time, but but his five are not the same as my five. He's way more successful.
Speaker 1:Also Master Chung, also your fives altogether. His schools are from one end of Canada to the other. I know you have to take airplanes right, it's like crazy. Right, You're, you're, you're talking about Toronto and Vancouver which is on the.
Speaker 3:it's talking about East coast and West coast, and then one one of your locations would recommend that it's usually multi-school.
Speaker 1:One of your schools is totally different style.
Speaker 2:But having said that, what I'm saying is so I've watched him over the years. At Assam He'll he'll go to meetings and take notes, which is a servant leader, which is crazy. When I was getting nervous I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to say something stupid. I definitely got to say something stupid. But he writes notes and then he debriefs his entire staff, right when we finish a saw, we take pictures and we're like, oh my gosh, thank goodness it's over, it's awesome, let's go eat and have some fun and relax His group. They all sit down on a table. We have a, a couple tables together, a couple dozen of them, and they're debriefing and they listen and it's like holy smokes, it's impressive and they genuinely they.
Speaker 2:You know like I work in film a little bit, so there's I'm around actors and sometimes they're like there's the real person and then there's their character on screen, right. So at Asah, when we finished the final picture, and Asah, we're done, everybody's pulling their ties off or relaxing, and because the seminar's over the weekend's over his group is the exact same as they've been the whole time. They're taking notes and they're talking about different things and I was like man, they're just. Those are the kinds of people that I want teaching my kids. So part of me wishes that I lived closer to his schools, because I take my kids to his dojang, you know, because those staff members, not just him, but his staff members, the culture that he has.
Speaker 2:they're really good people and I think that's the magic sauce is how do you, as you replicate dojangs, as you replicate students and staff, how can you take what you experienced with Master Tony Cook? It's embodied in a staff and the only way you could do that is there's no faking it. You know what I mean. People know. When you go work for a larger company, there's a corporate culture and some companies are known that you work hard.
Speaker 2:I would assume that Master Tony Cook Schools his culture. There's an expectation of professionalism and when they go they go to win. But when they go they go to learn. And I don't know, because I always take some of my staff and I say look look at that group. That's how we should be. We want to learn. You got to make it your own, but I will tell you that it's not as easy as it's not as easy as just emulating. I think the secret sauce is, whatever the mission that he has set forth in his organization, it's embodied with his staff and I'd be interested to hear about how you program that, how you live that, how you encourage that and foster it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was. My question is I had a hard time managing schools that are close together. How do you run a staff when they're a country apart?
Speaker 3:I'm zones apart, yeah, yeah first of all, thank you very much, master Tony Chung. I mean both yourself and Master Hong. You know both of your reputations precede you and to hear nice words coming from you, gentlemen, actually mean a lot Martial artists, and we love what we do. But when we're running a business, a Taekwondo business, it's imperative to understand that the most successful Taekwondo businesses are successful because they use systems. They use simple, effective systems. They have to be simple so that anybody can use them, and they have to be effective, which means that they work.
Speaker 3:And it's your team, your staff, that run these systems. And we all know that nobody succeeds alone. You need a team to succeed alone. And if it's you and one other person, that's your team. If it's you and a 16-year-old part-time instructor, that's your team. If you're in a dojang and you have 30 staff, that's your team.
Speaker 3:Regardless on the size of your team, your highest priority is for us as technical professionals, is to cultivate and nurture and develop that team so that we can deliver a superior service to our students. So the answer to the question is continually build these simple, effective systems that are run by your staff. And now, what are these systems? They're very simple. You have an enrollment system. You've got to sign up students and you have a retention system. You have to teach amazing classes where they're learning and growing, they love coming to class In order to maintain those two main systems. You do that by creating and developing your staff. So that's one of the things that I think I'll be talking about at Assa, and it's it's, it's it could be. The highest goal of every Taekwondo dojang owner is how do you continually develop your staff so that they can deliver these simple systems to run your dojang?
Speaker 1:it's, it is brilliant. But go back to you, master Chung. Do you, do you ever have to hire outside staff? Because I know a lot of dojang owners. They don't have that bench coming in continually. Oh, absolutely Sometimes they have to, absolutely. What do you? Your experience is good, bad.
Speaker 2:So like one of my headmasters now he came from when I went to the AT&T store. Every time I see, first of all, I grew up in an area where there's no Koreans, right, and anytime I see Korean I think there are some Kwanjangs. I'm like hello, hello. But now I'm in Georgia now. So I'm like, oh, okay, they're just normal Koreans. But when I first got to Georgia I saw some young Korean kids are good, looking at the Korean barbecue place or the AT&T place. So to ask them and doljangs are not actually in the Korean area, but when I would go shop or dine I'd ask and then you eventually meet somebody.
Speaker 2:I met one of my head instructors, master Johnson. He's incredible. I met him through Costco. You know what I mean. I'm walking in Costco and then the guy looked at you and I know he wants to talk to me about direct TV or something. And then the guy was you look at him, and then he like and I'm like, oh, this guy wants to talk to me. And there was a couple of them. So I'm like, okay, one of these guys is the manager trainer, and that was Richie, richie, master Johnson. So when I was talking to him and then I was like hey, is it true that at Costco you can't talk to me until I make eye contact with you, but if I'm at Sam's Club or BJ's Wholesale, it's like the flea market or the mall. They're like you know meet up, meet up.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey hey, you know whatever. And he's like yeah, how did you know that? I said well, I read the Costco Connection magazine and they pride in the shopping experience and I know that. So I just started talking to him. He was so good, he was very eloquent. He asked me what I need. He wasn't even talking about direct TV, he was talking about televisions and I was like man, I'd love to hire you, but too bad, you're not a Blackbird. He goes oh, I'm a third degree Blackbird with the Leo to Machida system. I'm like, oh, no way. I was like I would love to teach you. He was making six figures. There's no way I can hire him.
Speaker 2:At the time of where my business was. So I literally ate a hot dog once a week for seven weeks and I would see this guy every day and he would rotate Costco's. So I would go to different Costco's to find this guy and then eventually I said, yeah, let's have lunch. And and then six months later he became. He switched his life and it wasn't for money, because he had to take a huge pay cut to come work with me. A huge pay cut, less than half.
Speaker 2:But I gave him targets and basically he was really good shape. He showed me some pictures of when he did some MMA fights and then he gained 80, 90 pounds. And then I was like, hey, you don't have to work with me, let me just train you. I'll train you for free, I'll help you lose that 90 pounds. I need to lose weight. Let's lose weight together. And then that's kind of how it started we just worked out and then he kind of liked the vision. And then he's like you know what? I think I want to do this, and now he's his partner. So that's kind of how it works Like you need to meet people.
Speaker 1:He's still with you to this day.
Speaker 2:Master Johnson is going to be running everything he is. You know, after some point of success, you need succession, and I have several great masters and master johnson is among this group that are the. I'm tripping over myself and I have the torch in my hand. I'm crawling on my belly, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm going the wrong way, but these guys will take that torch and run it to the end it's amazing that you did that with a couple of hot dogs.
Speaker 3:I have a very similar story $1.50 hot dogs.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have one of my head instructors, one of my most prized students, and now he's a multi-school owner, incredibly successful. His name is Master Milad. He had started Taekwondo and he had stopped for some reason. And then I ran into him at the pizza store and I said Mlad, if I buy you this slice of pizza, will you come back to Taekwondo? And he said yes, sir. He was kind of cute and pudgy at the time. It was a $2 slice of pizza. So he actually came back to Taekwondo, became a black belt, became my head instructor, became a partner. Now he has a multi-school. It's probably the greatest $2 I ever spent.
Speaker 3:It's a funny way of just illustrating the point that any interaction can be a potential for something significant in the future, and I always remind my staff that is sometimes without thought.
Speaker 3:We say to Charlie or or Stephanie, it's great to see you. Sometimes we forget the profound positive effect that we have on our students just by that small, tiny interaction and by Master Tony Chung implanting something more than just a vision. It was a purpose. Costco is a wonderful company, but I think what you did with your partner, master Chong, is you planted a seed of purpose in him where he really feels passionate about what he's doing and at the end of the day, when he goes to sleep, that he feels really good about the contributions he made to society that day. You know, I think that's probably one of the most blessed things that we have as Taekwondo masters is that we get to train, obviously, but we're making such profound positive impacts in the lives of our students and, in turn, contributing to our community, and to be able to do that while being able to make a living, I think is such a privilege.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting the way you guys talk because regular school owners they don't have that they would never. You know, myself included, I would never have thought, oh hey, this person. But you're constantly thinking of ways to improve and you have your schools in mind when you're conversing with your day-to-day. That's not involved in work, whether you're a Costco or a pizza shop. It's just the way that your brain functions is vastly different than the majority of us out there. So fascinating, master Tony Chung. Go back to our original question of preventing burnouts, to our number one instructors and number two instructors. How do you because we have to put our number one instructors on our beginning classes for them to beginners classes, for them to really buy into our schools right, because they're our customers. They're not our students yet they're not our students yet. They're not our students until they become intermediate belts. But then you don't want to take them away from your advanced classes either. How are they not in every class in your school and how do you prevent burnouts from doing that?
Speaker 2:I think that the key thing is you have to have a sense of priority.
Speaker 2:So your priority has to be if you really believe in something, you need to try to create a perpetual system to run that. And I think that a lot of people, when I talk to school owners, they'll be like I'm trying to implement this Tigers program and this and that, and it gets me tired. Or I'm doing summer camp and and if you, if you're passionate about summer camp, then you should make the best summer camp that you can. If you're passionate about teaching Tigers, then you should have an elite preschool program. But what happens to a lot of school owners is that they actually really want to do ABC and then they're working on XYZ to get back to ABC and and it's just, it becomes a distraction. You can only do so much work there's. You're limited by time, energy and money, and everybody thinks it's it's your, it's your money. That's the most important factor. It's actually your energy is more important than that. And then your time is the highest tax on your opportunity. So I think that for most staff, you need to find out what their goal is. So, yes, everybody wants to make more money. That's a staff member. But once you get to that, maybe it's a sense of freedom. Okay, if you had freedom, what would you do? They're like I would travel. Okay, so it's actually more than the money. The travel is important to you, okay. Now I don't know, there's one particular staff member that I have that runs a location. When I first met him, he looked horrible. He looked horrible, okay, and he was lost. And I said hey, I think you should actually work and do martial arts. And he was like I don't want to do that. I was like okay, that's fine. Do you like money? And he goes yeah, I like money. And I was like perfect, well, I'm going to hire you part-time and I'm going to have you focused on money. So, instead of trying to sell martial arts and then now he teaches tiger class, he teaches regular class, he's training to be tournament go to Costco, go to anywhere in between. They're just looking at people and then only when somebody like pops up in a uniform with a black belt and says I'm looking for a job, a career, I want to be a partner, you talk and interview that people.
Speaker 2:I am constantly where people see mounds of dirt or rocks. I'm like there's flakes of gold everywhere here. If I sift enough of this, if I sift enough of this shit, you know what I mean, right, I, I will, literally I'm working, I will walk around Best Buy and I'm just walking around. I go around Costco, go around the mall, go be at Disneyland or wherever, and I'm always looking. And if you're there, it's out there, it's out there.
Speaker 2:And if you think that you're going to find a nugget of gold, that would that might've been in the seventies or the eighties, maybe even the nineties, but nowadays you're going to have to wash a lot of dirt to get flakes right, to create a system.
Speaker 2:Maybe they start as a student, maybe they come in as a part timer, and then you're going to have to smelt all those flakes together and that's going to compound into a bar of gold way bigger than a nugget. Because in my opinion, we are in the golden age of martial arts, because people are lost and they need something to do, they need to be, they need hope right, and I think that's what Master Cook does so well. He has a great system 2,100 active students, he has hundreds of black belts, and then from that he has he has dozens and legions of of leadership members. And then obviously, the pipeline goes up all the way to partnership. I mean, could you imagine for someone like master Tony cook to be able to be a partner with someone like him? I mean, that's a golden ticket, that's the Willy Wonka golden ticket of the martial art industry, and he has a pipeline for that. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know it wasn't always that way. I want to go back to my very first school. My very first school was on a small island. We had a population of 3,500 people, believe it or not, and I had to take a ferry to go there and it was only open twice a week. It was on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So at the time I started with 40 students, it grew to 100 and then 150.
Speaker 3:But this is how it starts. It starts by planting seeds. So to the dojang owner that only has 50 students, it could be someone daunting. Hearing about multi-school owners that have lots of staff and a lot of help. That's great, but it starts when you have a small team. So here's a blue belt or a red belt shows a lot of potential.
Speaker 3:He or she loves Taekwondo and you pull them aside and you say you know, I recognize the effort and the passion you put into your practice. Are you enjoying Taekwondo? Yes, I love Taekwondo. I think one day you would be a phenomenal leader. I'm always looking for ways to grow our club so that we can help as many people as possible. I think you would be a wonderful fit to help and be a future leader of our academy. You're just planting that seed and you have that conversation with two, three, four people, and they don't have to be teenagers. We have doctors, we have professors that help on our leadership team because they're honored to be a part of the culture, and so that's how you start. You start by planting those seeds and then, when you have a small group of two, three, four, five people, you create that leadership program. You say, listen, I want to help you guys with how to lead a proper warm-up and how to teach basic movements, and how to teach basic movements and how to teach punches and kicks. But what you're actually teaching them is how to become a leader. You're teaching them public speaking. You're teaching them to stand in front of their peers and be a positive role model. That's incredibly empowering.
Speaker 3:And to your point, master Hong, how do you prevent burnout? When you look at the most successful restaurants in the world, they have an executive chef, but they also have sous chefs. They have the right hand and left hand people, and then they have people under them, and so what you're doing is you're creating staff within staff. So if you have a head instructor, empower your head instructor, give them help. If you have an assistant instructor. Empower your assistant instructor. Let them know that you're always there to help them, but empower them.
Speaker 3:And I think one of the biggest things for burnout and I've seen it and I'm guilty of this is when we demand too much of our staff without giving them autonomy. So if we give our staff responsibilities but then also give them the autonomy to make decisions, they feel empowered. So I think the combination of those things will prevent burnout long term for your staff but at the same time, continue to grow your company. I love what Master Chung said about finding gold in a desert. That's literally what you're doing. You're always looking for future staff, always, always.
Speaker 2:Well, can I say something real quick? I'm so sorry. Sometimes some people will say and I've heard people say things like oh, you're in Atlanta, you're in a big city, or Master Cook's in Canada. They have very dense population in metropolitan areas. But look at the metrics.
Speaker 2:A lot of school owners, when they go to an area, they go to the stores, they drive around, they're like there's nice cars, people have money here, there's a lot of kids walking around on a weekday, and they basically land on these numbers. They find an area that has a qualified household income right, and there's 50,000 accessible people to a location. They find the market is always 2%. So 2% of 50,000 is 1,000, right, and their goal is to capture 10% of that market. So that's a hundred, right. Well, maybe their, their minimum goal, their minimum net, is 10% of the market. And then they try to get to two, three, four, 500, like he says, but they usually end up around 60. Maybe they can get to a hundred, but master cook was in an area of 3,500 people. 2% of that is 70, 70.
Speaker 2:So he opened with 40 students. He captured 57% of the actual market immediately and then he scaled to 100 and then to 150, right. At 150, he actually increased the market. 2% of people want to do martial arts. There's only 70 people in that area of 3,500, but he got 150 of them to train and that's what happens when you do a massive activation. So he is very soft-spoken and he's very eloquent and he is very regal in his leadership development. But make no mistake, if he was a fighter in the ring which he was a massive fighter, but if he was fighting in today's martial arts arena for business, as soon as they say go, as soon as his doors open up, as soon as he walks onto the mat with his belt, he's a badass.
Speaker 2:He is out in 30 in a market of 3,500 people. That is 14.2 times smaller than a 50,000 market. He was outperforming a normal school by 50%. So if you're in an area, if you're listening right now, and you're teaching out of a daycare, out of a gymnasium, if you're in a small town with 3,500, 3,500 people is crazy small, right Then what is it? What is it that he is doing that you're not doing? What is it that his staff is doing that that you're not doing or your staff is not doing? That's the key.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing and this is important for us because we're not doing this for us. If we're doing something for us, we'd probably be golfing. Because we're not doing this for us. If we're doing something for us, we'd probably be golfing I'm super lazy or training or doing something like that. We're doing this to inspire even just one of you that are listening to this right that you are enough as you are. You're missing nothing. You just need to take what you have, take the location that you're in, take the place, the market you're in, and make a couple of tweaks, a couple of switches, a couple of dials and whatever it is, understand. This master cook has it and if he's willing to share it with you, if you have a chance to meet him, to talk to him, listen and apply it right. Apply it because you're not just. There's a lot of people out there that are, that are, that are talking about it. He's doing it and it's amazing, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, you do have. Everybody does have a chance to meet him, and you, that's right. That's right, yes, at at ASA summit this October in Las Vegas. I'll we'll leave information, website information for that on the that on the show links below. But going back to you, master Tony Cook, I had a question that's not really relevant to staff training, but is is teaching the staff the same as Taekwondo with Jiu-Jitsu? How does you know? Or is running a business from Canada for US the same versus the world? Is there any difference? That was always my thought, because I've never ran a business outside of the US. Is it just as the same? Is it just in a different location?
Speaker 3:Obviously, running a business in the US is like running a business in Canada on steroids, simply because you guys have 10 times the population, therefore, in some ways, 5 to 10 times more opportunity, even in Vancouver and in Toronto, one of my main schools here, our city is called North Vancouver. We have a population of 80,000 people. We have about 500 active members in that location here. When we opened in North York, which is in Toronto, the city of North York has 800,000 people, so it's 10 times the population, and we were able to scale quite quickly simply because we had the right systems in place, but we also had a bigger market. So I don't think the actual practice, like the SOPs and the KPIs, change. It's just that in most cities in the United States you have a bigger population, therefore a lot more growth potential. I think that would be the only difference with USA and Canada.
Speaker 3:Now, when it comes to Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu, I love Jiu-Jitsu, I love boxing, I love MMA, but I will say this I think that, as a business, taekwondo is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to teaching the life skills that we profess to teach through the platform of punching and kicking, and I think a lot of it has to do with the mat culture. When students come onto the mat, they are trained to take off their shoes, put on their uniform, they show respect. So we're teaching them the physiology of respect, but we're also teaching them the language of respect by saying yes, sir, yes, ma'am. We are challenging them to use respect in and out of the Taekwondo school, by asking them to respect their teachers and their family and their friends, and so on the Taekwondo mat. There are multiple ways that we are teaching these life skills. I can't think of any other sport in the world that does it in the manner that Taekwondo does, and this is why Taekwondo masters are so passionate about what we do, because we know that what we do changes lives, period.
Speaker 3:We all know as Taekwondo teachers that confidence is the most beautiful thing that you can wear and, as parents, the greatest investment we can put is in our children. Who wouldn't want to have a son or a daughter that knows what respect means and is fully confident in their abilities? This is what taekwondo does. So I think bruce lee said it the best. You know the. The foundation of all martial arts is the same, just the blossomings are a little bit different. So whether you're doing judo, karate, jujitsu or taekwondo, I think it's all great. We, just as martial arts teachers, taekwondo teachers, we have to make sure that we are teaching these life skills in a very direct way so that it's benefiting our students. But there's a reason why Taekwondo is the number one practice martial art in the world.
Speaker 2:And I'm so glad you said that, young, because you know two things. Number one earlier he said SOPs and KPIs. Kpis so the fact that he has an embedded system with standard operating procedures and key performance indicators. I'm sure that, whether you have a software or not, knowing your own numbers internally and making sure that your numbers, you're not just looking at what somebody else is telling you, your numbers are like you inspect what you expect, so those are very important indicators because, in effect, mastercook is a Formula One driver and he has a team of drivers and they're all successful, and knowing those numbers going from being the race car driver himself to managing the team and looking at the overall metrics and you need to know when things are going well, when things are not going well, and you need to be able to isolate what SOPs are affecting those KPIs. The second thing is I thought it was fascinating he has a jujitsu school and then he has taekwondo schools as well and there's a lot of people, myself included it's like I do get to train in jujitsu and I'm fascinated with it. I have some level of grappling implemented into our curriculum, but I know that one of the fastest growing academies segments in the martial art industry in the United States are jujitsu schools. It's like they're opening up as fast as Korean restaurants, korean barbecue places, and I think a lot of school owners are like I love those, I love those. Am I being outdated? Do I need to do jujitsu? Because a lot of school owners are like I love those, I love those. Am I being outdated? Do I need to do jujitsu? Because a lot of school owners, they don't have the money, they don't have the time, the resources, maybe their bodies are not able to do that necessarily. And if you want to practice jujitsu, I started because in film I've rolled throughout my life, but in film I got a chance to start training in a group and I just did it as a hobby and as a passion. I enjoy it. But I think a lot of school owners are out there you know they don't want to feel like they're getting outdated, so like, oh, I need to, I need to go to these poomsae seminars where I need to, I need to learn jujitsu. And then it's like holy cow, jujitsu is really difficult. You know what I mean. And then do I need to implement a jujitsu program into my school? And those are all very good things.
Speaker 2:But in my opinion and I'd like you to hear what your thoughts are on this, master Cook, if you have a Taekwondo dojo and you're financially struggling, there's no need to start implementing new programs and new instructors until your core is set. If you want that, aftercare is going to, if you want to be an aftercare business, if you want to be a jujitsu business, you're welcome to do that. But if, if, if, your ultimate long-term goal is I want to actually just run a Taekwondo Dojang, there is a way and it is a solid way. And, like you said, mat culture, languages of respect, that life skills education that you get. It is a very valuable thing in North America, in in Canada, in the United States, of course, and there's no reason to abandon or to feel like you are left behind. I think that there are certain things in life that are about innovation and if you don't, if you don't adapt, you'll get left behind.
Speaker 2:But I think that I think that martial arts, especially Taekwondo, it's timeless. It's it's timeless. And yeah, you know it was fascinating my recent stint in film with Cobra Kai. You know I'm like I did some karate. I competed a little bit, but I'm I'm a Taekwondoist. But they love the Baichagi, they love complicated kicking. They think it's beautiful the stepping, the sidesteps, the clean poomsae, you know, and I was like, wow, this is amazing actually. So I think that it's a great time to be in martial arts and it's even a greater time to be in Taekwondo in martial arts and it's even a greater time to be in Taekwondo.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, 100% agree. I love to use the. You talked about Korean restaurants. If the three of us were to get together and say, hey, I'm in the mood for Korean barbecue, we're probably going to choose the restaurant that specializes in Korean barbecue. We're probably not going to choose the restaurant that specializes in Korean barbecue. We're probably not going to choose the restaurant that has a thousand things on their menu. We prefer a restaurant that specializes and does one or two things incredibly well.
Speaker 3:And the advantage that we have in Taekwondo is that we have what's called the five components, which is the basic movement. Self-defense is that we have what's called the five components, which is the basic movement self-defense, sparring, we have breaking technique, we have meditation, and so what that does is that allows us to teach senior citizens. It allows us to teach young children. It allows us to teach children and youth and people with special needs. It allows us to teach Olympians and people that are high performers. And so when we say that Taekwondo is literally martial art for everybody, we're actually walking the talk. I believe that all martial arts are like that. I believe that every single martial art is for any age, class, any gender, because Taekwondo has been systemized and evolved over the past. You know 20, 30, 40 years. We're in an incredible position to deliver that to our community. Do you remember when the Karate Kid first came out in the early 80s? When you went to Taekwondo schools and martial arts schools? Those were all young, 20, 30-year-old, young adult militants. They had no idea how to teach young kids. Now you fast forward to 2025, and the majority of martial arts clubs and Taekwondo clubs are 60 to 80% children. That speaks volumes. People, and the science and the studies prove what an incredible benefit martial arts training have for our staff. So, yeah, I mean I agree, master Chong, that we are living in the golden age for martial arts in Taekwondo for so many reasons.
Speaker 3:10, 20 years ago, I think our biggest competition was like soccer and swimming. I think in today's day and age, our biggest competition is this Social media and kids on the internet. Man, they're not getting out enough, they're not moving enough, they're not interacting enough. I go to restaurants and I see young couples beautiful lady and a handsome young man and they don't even say a word to each other. They're eating their whole meal while on their phone. I don't know what they word to each other. They're eating their whole meal while on their phone.
Speaker 1:I don't know what they're doing liking their friends or bragging about where they are. They're texting each other.
Speaker 3:They're texting each other, I mean it's, you know.
Speaker 2:They're taking pictures of their food.
Speaker 1:I'm guilty of that I'm guilty of what you're eating.
Speaker 2:If you're not eating with me, you don't need to know about it.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. But you know, I think you're right. We are living in the golden age because we need to learn that socialization and that physical exercise and the mental clarity and the mental health Taekwondo and all martial arts does that, and so, yeah, we are living in one of the greatest times to be teaching that and instilling that and then Cook real quick.
Speaker 2:don't you think it's a really good time to be a single school operator, just like if you just want to run it with yourself or you and your wife, like there are so many systems that are available out there like software, like point of sale systems. You use QR codes and somebody walks in Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's all paperless. You don't have to, you can just literally, if, literally, if you teach great classes, there's ability to advertise on social media, there's ability to. It's just a lot easier for single school operators. You know, and for me, my entire business for the last 10, 15 years has been multiple staff members, multiple part-timers. But now, when I have two good staff members, instead of having them run one location, I can have them run their own locations now. So a leaner business model, so your KPIs, your numbers, it's what you, as you know in business, is what you net, it's the liabilities that you incur, not just you know, it's the net of things, right? So if you're a single school operator and you're a one-man show, one-lady show, it's a great time to be alive. It is the golden age, you know, and in many ways it sounds great 2,100 active students, dozens and dozens of staff. But that is also a lot of responsibility, you know.
Speaker 1:I know that my small academy.
Speaker 2:I have a million-dollar payroll and I can imagine that yours is more so I think it's very important to understand. If you're a single school operator, it's a great time. Don't feel. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know, but it's truly greener where you water it. So just just have hope. Being you, reach out to us. We want you to win. If you can't come to Vegas, just just join our, join our Facebook group, dm us, message us, but we, we want you to do well because we want martial arts.
Speaker 2:It's a movement, right, and many of us have been very fortunate and blessed and and our goal obviously, we like to change the lives of our students and our staff, but we want to change the lives of the industry. And, and if you are, you know, and master cook too, I'm sure you've had some hard times. I've had multiple hard times, peaks and troughs, peaks and troughs and um, and that's part of the life, that's part of how it goes. But we are. If you get to, if you get to teach classes today, you're fortunate because there's so many people. Yes, their, their investment accounts may look well. Their, their, their Instagram life, their Facebook posts, they look amazing.
Speaker 2:Most people that are really, really happy. They don't post a lot of stuff, they're living it. You know what I mean. So you know I'm not poo-pooing on social media people, but I'm poo-pooing on social media people. Just try to understand that our goal is we, we want you to win and that's all we want. Just pay it forward. Pay it forward. That's what MasterCook does. Every time I've talked to MasterCook, tony Hulme, he never asked me for anything. He's just so nice and I just asked myself why is this guy talking to me? He's so amazing. He could be hanging out with other people and I'm just grateful. And it's a wonderful community that we're blessed to be a part of and we'd like more of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Last year at Asah we had a wonderful speaker, master Andy Chong, and he spoke about running a tight boutique taekwondo school. By all counts he can have thousands, thousands of students, but he chooses to have a very small, tight, tight run ship.
Speaker 2:He did I think he ran by six thousand students at one point.
Speaker 3:Right, he did organization and now he has a boutique school now of less than 200 students and he does that by choice. And again, that it's. It's about beginning with the end in mind. If your goal is to have 80 students, 100 students, work three days week, work four days a week, have a balanced lifestyle wonderful, you have to start with the end in mind. So definitely ownership or single school ownership, it comes down to understanding and loving your craft One of the greatest restaurants in the world is Jiro and loving your craft.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the greatest restaurants in the world is Jiro, I think. He has a small sushi restaurant in an underground subway in Japan and a tiny little restaurant. Your whole meal is done within 20 minutes. But he doesn't have 10 locations. He has one little shop that he's incredibly passionate about. He loves it, he's mastered his craft and that he's incredibly passionate about. He loves it, he's mastered his craft and that's his definition of success. So you're absolutely right, master Chong. Our industry is for anybody that wants to make a positive difference, whether that's on a small scale, medium scale, large scale. This is why coming to Asa is so beautiful, because you get to network with so many people. I love talking to other school owners and learning from them, and my goal is always to come back with one to three new implementable ideas so that I can benefit our students. So this October, which hotel is it at this year?
Speaker 3:It's at the Paris Hilton and Casino. Paris Hilton and Casino. It's an opportunity to meet with other club owners, have drinks and dinner and develop friendships. One of the ways that you prevent staff burnout is you create positive outlets. Create positive outlets and one of the great, great ways of preventing owner burnouts is to meet like-minded individuals and share in on the stresses and share in on the problems and the struggles and look for solutions and know that somebody's been there and done that and draw strength from that and draw encouragement from that. So interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry. Like you know, when you first get married and then you know you have a group of friends. They're not married yet and it's a little, it's a little different. And then then when you start having kids, right, it's hard to find people that are married, happily married, and then have kids. And then you're you're white, you get along with the guy, your wife gets along with his wife, your kids actually get along. It's crazy. And then having people that do the same kind of lifestyle, it's very. You know, I I grew up in america and I'm very americanized and I saw, like, if you're thinking about, it's like, oh man, it's a bunch of koreans to speak my korean's horrible, but but we just and we have a lot of people.
Speaker 1:I can confirm that because my my korean's horrible. But I finally met somebody who's worse than I am, and that's Master Tony Chow.
Speaker 3:In today's day of AI chat GPT, you can just literally talk and have it translate for you.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, one of my friends texted me yesterday and I was like exorcist. And I was like he goes no, no, no, I says good. And I was like he goes no, no, no, I says good. And I was like, but Google, and I sent him a screenshot. I was like, dude, I don't speak Korean, I don't want to tell you, but I have had a Google translate all this shit that you send me. And then he goes no, no, no, that's a slang, it means good, it doesn't mean exorcist.
Speaker 1:And I was like yeah, thank you Well, but, but speaking in this I mean our show and our podcast, and our show is very Korean and Taekwondo-centric, because that's just a network of who we know and our friends and so forth. But our show is applicable to all martial arts styles because it's not about what style we teach on the mat, it's about how we run the business. It's about how we run the business. So whether you're doing karate or kung fu or jiu-jitsu or any style, I really believe our show and the topics that we talk about is applicable to all martial arts school owners and they are all invited to our ASA summit coming up in October. So please don't think that, because we only can relate to Taekwondo, that it's only for Taekwondo, but it's for everybody in US, canada, you know it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:I was seeing the stats of who is listening. They give me stats of where they're listening from and majority is US, but there's a lot of Canadians in England. It was very interesting how people are gravitating to our show. I found that fascinating. But I want to thank you guys, both Master Cook and Master Chung, joining us today. It was a wonderful, wonderful topic. I hope our audience and our listeners got a lot out of this and you can meet all of us. We'll all be there, master Tony Chung, myself, master Tony Cook will be there in Paris Hotel and Casino this October for our ASA Summit. Please check our show links below. I'll have all the information linked there. Final thoughts Master Chung, master Cook, let's start with you, master Chung.
Speaker 2:Final thoughts you can do it. You know just, you're not alone. Every day is a new challenge. You know just, you're not alone. Every day is a new challenge. And just know that even Master Cook and myself, even though we seemingly have a lot of responsibility and a lot of success, we're all in the same boat. We have to continue to drive value and add value to our customers, and it's all about the student experience. And everybody is in tough economic times and in tough times worldwide. It's a great opportunity, not only for business but just for purpose, to give people a reprieve and a sabbatical from their everyday life. They can leave their issues at the door, They'll be there for them when class is over. And what we provide? Regardless of age, gender, political affiliation, religion, we're there to give them a physical outlet and a mental conditioning so that they can win in what their true pursuits are in life.
Speaker 1:Master Cook.
Speaker 3:And you never let your fears be greater than your faith, and you always have to be relentless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. For us, it's making a positive impact to our communities through the platform of Taekwondo. So if you want to elevate your dojang to the next level, come to Asa. I would love to meet you, Master Tony Chung. Master Jimmy Hong would love to meet you. We would love to help you. We would love to meet you, Master Tony Chung. Master Jimmy Hong would love to meet you. We would love to help you. We would love to learn from you and we would love to network with one another. So I look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:Well said, sir. Well said Master Tony Chung. Thank you for listening. Thank you for taking the time to learn and listen to our show. I look forward to our next episode. Thank you everybody. Have a great week.