Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast

#15 | From Zero to 120 Martial Arts Students in Less Than A Year!

• Jimmy Hong • Season 1 • Episode 15

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From Zero to 120: How a Young Martial Artist Built a Thriving Taekwondo School

In this episode of Black Belt Banter, hosts Jimmy Hong and Master Tony Chung converse with Master Liam Guttmacher, a 24-year-old martial artist who rapidly grew his Taekwondo school to 120 students in under a year. Liam discusses his journey, starting from his early karate days to his focus on acrobatic Taekwondo and high-level gymnastics, and the creation of a strong online presence with over 1 million followers. The conversation covers Liam's innovative teaching methods, unique business strategies, and how he successfully converted existing karate students to his new program. Master Tony provides insight into the discipline and entrepreneurial spirit that drive Liam's exceptional growth. The episode offers inspiration and practical advice for young martial artists and school owners aspiring to build a successful martial arts community.

Stay connected with Master Liam Gutmacher! Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok at @LiamGutmacherTKD.

For more information about ASA Impact Consulting, please contact us at jimmyhong@blackbeltbanter.com or visit https://asamartialarts.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

In this week's episode, we'll discuss the topic from zero to 120. How a 24-year-old built a thriving martial arts school in under a year. 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 Liam Gutmacher, 24 years young with a fourth degree black belt. Master Liam's journey has taken him from the Massachusetts State Champion to founder of LG Martial Arts, where he disc focuses on acrobatic taekwondo and high-level gymnastics. But Master Liam's reach doesn't stop at the map. With a thriving online community of 1 million followers and over 100 million views, he's inspiring martial artists around the globe, one viral combo at a time. Master Liam, Master Tony, welcome to the show. 1 million followers and over 100 million views. Wow, that's some accomplishment. I don't even have a hundred friends on my Facebook account. Master Liam, you've built a massive following. Thank you, sir. Over a million fans and counting. What do you think clicked for people? What's been the secret sauce?

SPEAKER_02:

I think maybe the most important thing is I feel like I'm relatable. I'm not some really like a bodybuilder, not even super attractive. I just create content from my room and I go to my martial arts school and I'm making tornado kicks and 540 kicks. And I feel like any martial artist can relate to that, and then they can see my progress too. Like the same type of tutorials and videos I made three years ago, I'm making now. And so I think people can just relate to, you know, just a everyday martial artist just trying to, you know, put their content out there.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's really helpful. Master Tony. I mean, actually, I'm sorry, let's go back to Master Liam. With the traction, with all that traction you've built online, does that digital momentum translate into real-world growth for your March High School?

SPEAKER_02:

I wish it was that simple. I think it creates a super cool reputation, and anybody who finds my school through my website or social media might find it interesting. But my reach is global. So unfortunately, it's not, you know, the local audience that I'd want to see. So I think it might help, but there's so many other things going on behind the scenes that I need to do to run my business that have nothing to do with social media. So yeah, I think it enhances it, but it does it's not make or break. It doesn't give me a million students at the school. I still have to work hard and do what any you know martial arts school owner would do, just like if they had no social media at all.

SPEAKER_00:

Huh. So with all that Master Liam's million followers, Master Tony, are you secretly running like a Tojon TikTok empire that we don't know about?

SPEAKER_01:

That's how I found I found Liam, you know, because I was looking online and I've been following him for years, and I was like, who's this kid? He's in this triangular room. You would know if you Google Liam Gumacher, you know what I mean? You'll see all of his videos. You're like, I've seen that kid. And then over the years, when I first watched, I'm like, okay, you see a lot of content creators online, a lot of them fizzle out, but this guy kept posting more content, and then obviously he worked in Cobra Kai. So when I saw his Cobra Kai content, I'm like, dang. And you know, it I mainly got a chance to watch a lot of his Cobra Kai content post Cobra Kai because I was like, they call it uh you didn't even you can't even come up for air, you're so busy. And when I finally connected with Liam was after he had posted, I'm going to be opening a martial arts school. So I reached out to him and I'm part of a SA. We we coach schools to help them unlock their potential. We want you to be an industry leader. Anything we can do to help you, we'd love to help you. And you know, I started researching and realized he had over a million followers across all of his socials. And once you get to the level, he's at his 0.1 billion views. That's it's nuts. And uh he was just so nice and so respectful. And I was like, man, how can I help you? I can tell you a lot of the stuff that I've done that that that hasn't worked over the years and some of the stuff that has worked. And he's just really smart, he's incredible. And I I know because I work with uh a couple of different social media influencers. Alex Wong, I've been her coach, and she works for me for the last eight years. And uh it's not that easy, it's a lot of consistency of posting. But then as I've seen Alex, her channel grow, Liam's has exploded even more. And Liam he does these tutorials and then he's gotten better as a martial artist, and now he's a man, he's not a kid, and he's I think he's sharp, he's like muscles, he's flipping, he does MFA stuff, and and then more so he's a great teacher, and he's just an awesome guy. Been working with Liam for just short of 10 months or so, and what a rock star! I can't wait for people to hear his story.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. I mean, Master Liam, one of the big reasons we wanted you on the show is because you've done something pretty remarkable. Um, you opened your Tekwano school less than a year ago, and you've already grown to over 120 students. I mean, I've known schools that's been around a lot longer than that and that couldn't break a hundred. That's just such a huge growth in such a short time. Walk us through it. What sparked this journey? What made you decide to open your own school? And and how were you able to do that at such a young age?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, first off, thank you, both of you. Such kind words and coming from you guys, it really means a lot. I'm still such a beginner when it comes to this, and you guys are the experts, so it definitely, yeah, it means a lot. So I started karate actually when I was five years old, just at my, you know, home martial arts school, home karate school, five minutes from my house. I was there for around 10 years, and it was fun. It was kind of another just after-school activity. I was playing soccer, I was playing basketball, so I wasn't really thinking that could be a long-term career. I took a one-year hiatus um in my freshman year of high school to just try other sports like run track and cross-country. But I had the yearning to want to go back, but I wanted to try something new. So, my sophomore year of high school, I started Taekwondo for the first time. And I had my karate background, but as you guys probably know, all the styles are a little bit different, different hand position, and just from the very first day when I saw what they were doing, like spin kicks and jumping, it just seemed way more exciting than what I was used to doing for all those years. So, yeah, I started Taekwondo when I was around 17 and I stuck with it for all the way till now. I think I knew during high school that it was going to be my passion. I wasn't the greatest academic student, and I always wanted to be physical. So it was a great outlet for me to not only impact young children because I was not only taking classes but teaching, but a way to stay active too, because being active is a super important part of my life. I was at this Taekwondo school for around seven years, and I really enjoyed it. It gave me a lot of experience. I by the end became almost a GM of the school. I was teaching the classes, we had an after-school program, I was running the social media, signing up students. So anything you would need to know about how to run the school, I was doing that by the end. And we opened up a second location, and I thought it was gonna be, you know, my school to run, but I had a little disagreement with the owner, so it was time to part ways and do my own thing. And sure enough, my childhood karate school's owners asked me to come take it over. So that was incredible timing. I thought I was gonna have to, you know, search far and wide in Massachusetts or even go to another state to open up my school. But yeah, my childhood instructors were during the end of their tenure, they were looking to do something else, and they asked me to take over their school. So yeah, that was pretty much one year ago. It was August 15th. So we're pretty much to the one year date.

SPEAKER_01:

And then how many students did they have?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it was 40 or yeah, so they claimed to have around 80 students, but when I first came to visit, only around 50 of them showed up. But during that initial period, none of them knew me. And then all of them thought I was just super young, and they didn't really know if they could trust me or not. Because you you you go from having almost like an additional set of parents. You know, the the masters are in their 50s and they've been teaching those students for years. And so just for a random kid to walk in and say, Yeah, I'm gonna take over your school and be your instructor, I can definitely tell that's a little bit overwhelming and a little bit strange. So in those first two weeks, it was like super fast transition. I found out in August, and then by September 1st, two weeks later, I created my business. I set up my accounting. Anything I would need to do to run my business legally, I created in two weeks. And then I met all the students in that time and was able to convince them that yeah, you should sign up. So I was able to retain all the 50 students who were who had been doing karate, who had never done Taekwondo before, just based on the conversations I had with the students and the parents. Of course, I showed off some of my skills, and I think everybody got hooked after those first two weeks.

SPEAKER_01:

And now you didn't purchase and take over the contracts, they were all released from their commitments and agreements, and then they had to sign new agreements with you. So they were free to go. So you even though you had a not a direct relationship, you had an opportunity. You technically started with zero students, is what I would assume, right? Because I've done this before.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh exactly I mean that's a that's that's a high closing ratio.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great, Master Liam. I've I've known stories where it that was not the success rate that you had when they took over a school, nobody wanted to continue with the new master. I mean, that's literally starting sometimes, it works against you because they already have a biased opinion of the previous master. They have a relationship with the previous master, they don't want a new master coming in taking over their kids' relationship, and that work that sometimes works against you. You can't automatically assume that they're all gonna join you because you're the new master and owner. They go, they they walk out the door because they're not happy of how you know what happened. So that's a big testament to you. You can't assume that 50, 40, whatever the students that you had taken over was automatically joined because I've seen it work the other way. It was a very low closing rate, not not a lot, majority didn't join, and it was a terrible situation for the new.

SPEAKER_01:

I just thought about this. As corny as it sounds, it sounds like Daniel LaRusso taking over Miyagi Doe from his teacher, and then also Lawrence taking over Cobra Kai. So it's like what you did on social media for it happened for real for you. It's pretty crazy, except you're like the opposite. You're super nice, you're super respectful. It's crazy that you say that you weren't the most studious kid at school because you're so smart and you're so brad. I assumed you were just a 4.7 GPA. Because I'm telling you, working with Liam has been the pleasure because every time I say something, he'll be oh, and I'll ask questions, and he doesn't automatically say yes or yes or yes or it's almost we talk about it, it's a deliberation. And once he's like, I don't think I want to do that, sir. How about this? Or sometimes, sir, I think that's a great idea. How do I go about doing that? How would you do this? And then I'll try to be honest and say, I don't know. But literally every single thing that Liam has done has been, he's got the mightest touch. So I know it sounds great to have 120 inside of 10 months or so, but wait till you see where he's at in three to five years. I'm telling you, follow him on social media. Trust me, he doesn't need your followers, but he his students that are light and yellow belts, they're doing aerials. And you can sit there and have had a chance to work in film. So when I'm telling you that these are not trained professionals, these are kids, right? Where we might have a demo and you have your black belts, or you might import some instructors from overseas and they're doing flip kicks. That's impressive. It's great. But uh when he does a demo, he just did a baseball like the it was like a baseball game or something. But these kids they're doing complicated choreography, and Liam is playing the role of six different people holding, conducting, cheering people on. These kids are holding backflip jackknife kicks, and it was incredible. I I'm impressed when like you know, when you go see a demo and then you go to the school, you go to some halftime show, you see some cookie one demo, and then you go to the school and they're like, one, sir, two, sir, three, sir, students. You actually go to class and be like, we're doing cartwheels today, and then we're gonna do one of cartwheels, and we're gonna do aerials, and then he teaches what he shows you. And I think that's refreshing. And it's actually made me rethink a lot of my curriculum. Like, I don't, I stopped having demo teams before. My demo team is what we train in class. I believe that. I believe a curriculum should be demonstratable, testable, and modular. And I want you to tell, I want to tell you that as much as I've tried to innovate, what Liam's doing is the future. So I'd like you to speak to that a little bit, Liam, because you're the boss, you're the master of the school, you're a quanjung, you're in charge of your quan, your academy. And what is your curriculum vision?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, sir. So actually it kind of sprouted from all of my past experiences because as much as I enjoyed learning how to do weapons and self-defense and you know the basic hand techniques, I think those are all definitely important. But just like you're talking about in my social media, I'm posting my flips, my spin kicks, my acrobatics. And to me, that's fun and exciting. And so I don't want my kids to spend their 40-minute classes just learning how to grab each other's shoulder and like, no, you have to do it this way, no switch hands. I don't think that's one super realistic, only because I'm a I've been doing martial arts my whole life. I've never been in a fight, but I've been able to create, you know, amazing content and inspire students to do amazing tricks, like how to become a ninja. That's almost like my I'm gonna teach you how to, yeah, I'm gonna teach you how to do super athletic skills, super amazing skills that I learned how to do myself from YouTube. I watched other people do those tricks. As much as I want to say I'm so amazing, I only started gymnastics three years ago. If you watch my videos from the very beginning when I did my first tornado kick tutorial, it's really bad. But it's kind of inspiring to go back myself to watch my old videos, but even for my students, they'll be like, go watch my board breaking from 2021 and watch it now. That was the everyday creating videos, watching myself using film to get my to make myself better. And so that's what I teach my students. I'll just give a very quick example. I have a girl who started to learn 540 hook kick, and she learned it pretty fast. But every day she's just like, I want to get it, I want to get it, why can't I get it? And I keep giving her feedback, but you're in this position, do it like this. And I was like, I'll just name drop. Rebecca, I was in my room at midnight recording this 540 kick over and over again for years to be able to tell you exactly how to do it. So as much as it would be great to get the instant gratification, the this point of the training is not saying we need discipline, we need discipline, you need patience. It's just keep doing the kick, realize that if you don't practice, you can't make it, and then over that time you'll be able to learn. So, as much as it's just flashy and cool, there's a lot of values that I'm trying to instill with them through this type of education without jamming it down their throat. I just want them to learn through experience, and that's way more powerful than how many times I say it.

SPEAKER_01:

Preach it, preach it, let's go. He even has adults, he had an adult, he has a bunch of like crazy high-level trickers at his school because he has a spring floor, but he has regular adults. You had a 40-some-year-old adult, he never did martial arts, and he was doing backflips. How long was he been? How long have he been training?

SPEAKER_02:

Sir, we had our grand opening, and at that time I did my demo team. We had a whole bunch of super cool trickers, which is Taekwondo and gymnastics doing flips. And a week later, he's like, Liam, I saw the trickers, it was so inspiring. I want to learn how to do a backflip. So he had zero experience. His daughter is one of my students, and she's she's awesome. But this guy just did backflip, he did a backflip into a pool once, and then he's like, I want to learn how to do a real backflip. So from that day, zero martial arts experience. He just comes during Open Gym when we work on backflips.

SPEAKER_01:

How old was he? He's 45. He looked pretty big, he was like 200 pounds. He's a big dude.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he's a pretty pretty big dude, but his backflip is awesome. He has a really awesome time. Yeah, it's completely true. So, so your question was about curriculum. So, my curriculum is um gymnastics, very basic gymnastics bring your kids. So, yeah, what we're saying, cartwheels, one-handed cartwheels, aerials, learning how to do flips, stuff like that, and then kicking, and then the takeock forms. But we don't do self-defense, we don't do sparring. Minimally, we do basic blocking. The way we practice blocking is through their forms. So we'll do the first two moves of a form to practice how to do a low block and punch properly. So our stripe system is if you want to go to the next belt testing, your black stripe is able to demonstrate the board breaking, which is some advanced kick. So, for example, I have my white belts, my four-year-old white belts doing a tornado axe kick because they can learn how to do it. An axe kick just stomp on the board. After a month or so, they can already do it. So why not give them a challenge? And I have my yellow belts doing a 360 or 540 hook kick because they need to be challenged. And I think I again I learned through my experience that I don't want to feel suppressed when it comes to my skill development. Like, why wait until black belt to actually start improving your skills? Why not look like a black belt at yellow belts by the time you reach black belt, you seem like a master? And I think that I'm so convinced that my current yellow belts are gonna be better than me in three years.

SPEAKER_01:

There was like there was an article I read. It was, I think it was Grandmaster Greg Silva, I believe, Grandmaster Silva. He wrote it a long time ago and it marked me. It was like he had a bunch of stats and everything, but it said instead of having 300 students paying$100 a month, can you get 200 students paying 200 a month? And then you're driving so much value to these people that they look like 200 demo team members. It's almost like you have four demo teams, you have two A teams and two B teams. So we're having a, I think it was like I have 150 students and they look like demo team members. And the reason I say that, some people that are listening to this podcast, you you could be bothered by the uh the Instagram and the twit the social media TikTok generation. But let me tell you, he posts super consistently, he's very disciplined, he has clean content, he's super respectful in the comments, even though people are brutal sometimes, right? And maybe he's not wrong. You're like, no self-defense, no weapons, no sparring. But you know what? As school owners, we share and comment and celebrate America's Got Talent, Kuki Wan Demo Team, World Taekwondo Demo Team. And what are they doing? They're literally doing what you teach in your curriculum. So I'm not saying we all need to do what Liam's doing, even though I'm incorporating. I I recently, my four last hires are all martial art tricking stunt men that came from Cobra High. And I'm incorporating exactly what Liam is talking about into my curriculum because I want to start having performance. I want to teach kids, it's great that you're a social media star. It's great that I've got a chance to work on Cobra High, but how does that affect regular class? And I agree with you. I used to fight in the ring. I wasn't the best fighter, but I had a lot of knockouts. Never been knocked out. And I've never been in a street fight. I'm the biggest chicken. People turn up, I'll just call the cops. I'm not trying to be in a fight. I'm not trying to have my people fight either. I want them to be able to defend themselves. And let me tell you, if a kid can do a no-handed cartwheel and has that body awareness, if an adult can do a backflip at 45 years old with one day of open mat training and just the will to do and the motivation to be like, I can do this, and the safety of a$20,000 spring floor that you put in there and he's got the equipment, right, and the training. If you want to unlock people's potential, the distance, the timing, the accuracy, the power, the coordination, the motivation, it's very similar. If you look at high-level performers that fight fake on camera, or crickers that flip in the air and do triple corks and hit a Nada Bond and bust them, they're thin boards, but then they can snap an impact. It's very similar to the common denominator of people we have at Asa this year. We always have Grant Eddie Cha combs, he's a famous UFC striking coach, was a taekwondo school owner himself. And it's all very common denominators. And I believe we should have this not the scarcity mindset of just dividing and saying, oh, he's doing it wrong, or I don't agree with this, or I don't, I can't do backflips, I can't do that. I think we should lend from what we've done in the past and what we can do in the future. And I think that's the future. This is the golden age of martial arts. You know what I mean? And how crazy is it that you are able to get the torch from your teacher and take a school that was dwindling down to 50 and release them on their contracts and basically say, I know I'm new, I know I'm the Danielson, Johnny Lawrence character. But if you're willing to go on this adventure with me, let's have some fun. Let's unlock your potential, let's train together. And within 10 months, boom, you know what I mean? And I know I I've never met your former teacher. I know he's super proud of you because there's nothing more after success is succession. Legacy, right? That school are you still in the same facility?

SPEAKER_02:

It's the same building I was in when I was five years old.

SPEAKER_01:

It's the same building, and it's super, super important. Look, sorry, here's my daughter saying hi. Right? There's my daughter, one of my four kids. All right. Legacy. When you can create legacy, game changer. That's what I want. I want my kids. I'm the fifth generation in my family to do martial arts. My kids are the sixth generation. So for it to keep going, it doesn't have to be dad's way. You know what I mean? You know, Grandmaster Honk, famous grandmaster. I got to see him in LA recently. And Master Jimmy, he's a it's been in his it's in our blood, right? And I actually want my kids to be inspired by people like you. You've got to actually meet all four of my kids, and I'm, you know, and I'm grateful. And I want people listening to this podcast to remember that you could do it on your own terms, right? And generational businesses, as Master Hong knows, they're tough. Our dads and moms, they want it done a certain way, and it's tough. And then with Liam, your master was able to pass that over, and now you're able to take it on to a whole nother level. And the kids that you're teaching, like Rebecca, I don't know who she is, she might be the future. The greatest black belt has yet to be a black belt at your school. And it could be the it could be the next Bruce Lee or Eddie Cha.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. I got so many, I have so many questions right now. It's on my mind, my mind is blown. Okay, first of all, what is tricking? You guys have been talking about tricking the last 30 minutes. I don't even know what that means. What what is tricking? I don't what are you tricking? I I can you explain that, Master Leon?

SPEAKER_02:

So I'm not even an expert really when it comes to tricking. I actually met a group of people through social media, thankfully. So I'll give a shout out to Sam Lincoln. He created a kind of a crew called BBB, which is kind of like Boston tricking. And tricking is a combination of gymnastics, taekwondo, breakdancing. It's all different types of arts together that you can mix in kind of combinations. If you can think of a sparring combo, a roundhouse tornado hook kick, it's kind of like that, but you're incorporating flips into it. And there's just so many different ways you can move your body. There's so much variance, it's very creative, and just it's just so powerful and inspiring to see people flipping like that. And it's super cool, obviously dangerous, but super cool. So through my social media, I was just posting, you know, my normal kicking videos, and he was like, Hey, you're from Massachusetts, why don't you come and train with us? So I started going to open gyms with a bunch of other, you know, 20, 30 year olds and practicing these moves. And that's actually what took my skills to the next level because you know, the Taekwondo kicks are totally incorporated into this tricking style about how to jump properly, how to have good air awareness and spin, and just understanding how to control my body in different ways and changing the accesses instead of being always upright, you can change little by little, lean back. All those things really helped me to be a way better kicker. And then also just develop more patience and discipline to be able to realize I don't have these skills right now, but if I want to make them better, I'm gonna actually need to put in the work. And also starting that as a 21-year-old compared to when I was five, that's totally different. The karate skills and taekwondo skills I learned was maximum tornado kick or a bali kick, but I had never done any flips, I never did multiple kicks in the air or putting it all into a sequence. So being able to create that community and work with people my own age was so inspiring. And so I was able to bring that to my own school. And so Master Tony was talking about my spring floor. When I took over the building, it was kind of in bad shape. The paint was blue, the lights were bad, the floor was just like a 20-year-old like judo mat. So it wasn't really the greatest space. So every month, as I was making money, I was putting it back into the school. And we talked, me and Master Tony talked this a lot. It's like, you know, a spring floor is a really big investment, but as long as you budget properly, you can do it. So after the after the fifth month of saving, I was able to, you know, afford the$20,000 spring floor. But to do that was able to not only help my students to improve, not only make myself improve, but I've created open gym on Mondays and Fridays from 8 p.m. onwards. So last night I was here from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. doing open gym. And it was a crazy session. And we have people who are all different backgrounds doing amazing tricks. We were playing around with the lights, so it looks like we're having like a like a rave. It was super cool, and it creates awesome content. And also it's free because I realize that people my age aren't really doing that well financially. They're just kind of struggling from mediocre jobs, they're not really in their full career yet. So I make my open gyms free, and they're not even my students. I'm just like, come in and train because we all have the same goal. We all want to improve and have a really strong community. So open gym has just been amazing, and that's kind of where tricking comes from.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, as a quick aside, because I do know some things about Liam because I talked to him and coach him. Um he had said a lot of trickers, they he helps a lot of trickers out because they're young people and it's movement based and they uh they really appreciate the support that he gives them. And one of the ways that they help him is they give him a Google review. Could you share where inside of a year, 10 months, how many Google reviews have you earned with your brand new business?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh uh we're at 167 five-star reviews on Google.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, I think you've actually had actually 70 or 90 more, but they were all real Google reviews. But Google at one point was like, hey, there's no way these are all new. These are there's no way these are real. And they throttled you and took some off. It was crazy. But yeah, he legitimately had over 200 Google reviews.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh do you know how hard it is to get a Google review from a parent to your Tikwando school, martial arts school? Your parent could be supportive and been with you for years, and then you ask him to, hey, can you write a uh Google review or a Yelp review? And it would take months if it happens at all for them to do it. They just don't think about it. It's not like they don't want to do it, they just don't think about it. Yeah, and then as soon as they walk out that your take on their class, they forget about it. Yeah, you have to chase them down and remind them so many times to make one review, and so you could work on that for months and years, and you could only get 10 to 15 reviews from your parents of hundreds and hundreds, and you're able to get how many, Master Liam? We have 167 five-star on Google. You know how what kind of a difference that makes when people are searching martial arts schools on Google and they see that type versus other schools that have three to five reviews. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

That's and our reviews there are reviews with it's not just a five-star review, like he's good. There's paragraphs and pictures, and people they really they genuinely love, they love it at LG. You know what I mean? It's crazy, it's amazing. It's uh and I'm not trying to say anything because I don't know anything from Adam, but part of my job as a grandmaster that has masters and black belts and instructors. Could you imagine losing the opportunity to have someone like Liam? He is such a great asset. And uh sometimes when things don't work out, it actually becomes the best thing ever. You know what I mean? Sometimes when you don't get what you want, in the moment it is hard. And not to disrespect anyone, if you're going through anything tough now, I've gone through some tough times many times. The more successful you are, sometimes it's the trout that defines the peak. So it's not that you're just on top of a mountain, it's because you fell down that cliff and you crawled out of that valley. And if you're going through something tough, just understand this. Life has something big for you. And that's up to what you do with your situation. It's up to how you crawl out of it. And when I tell you Liam has done everything, he has literally done everything. And he has done it, he's self made. Like there's there's this, I have this corny statue in my house, and it's of a guy chipping himself out of stone. And some of you know my story, I was supposed to take over my dad's. Like my dad has this five million dollar To Jiang on five acres, five minutes from the beach. It's 10,000 square feet, and a 20,000 foot plaza in front of it. It's like I was supposed to take one day this will all be yours. Right after I got married, my dad was supposed to give me the key, and then I had to go make my own. And when I finally, my dad came on Cobra High and he saw the success that I had. And he was like, Aren't you glad I made you you do it yourself? And I was like, Yes, dad. And some lessons are 40 years, 30 years, 20 years in the making. And if you're going through something tough right now, hang in there. Reach out to Liam, reach out to Master Hong, reach reach out to me. Come to a sa. We want you to do well. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna try to like tell you it's easy. We're not gonna tell you that it's a gimmick. Unlock your potential, make a difference. What is your story? How does your story end? Is your story a tragedy? Nobody wants to watch that. Does it finish well? Right? A great movie can have co incredible loss and challenge, but it can come out great. When I met Liam, he was at the beginning of something very exciting, but he had come out of something very difficult. He had professional crises, he had personal crises, he had a lot of different things. On the outside, it looks like you have. Let me tell you, when you have a million followers on socials, they're brutal. They're nasty. You know what I mean? And for him to do what he's doing, I personally think it's a God thing. I think it's an amazing thing. And if you're listening to this, just hang in there and just know that in this economy, in this time, he's in a very expensive area. He's in Massachusetts and he doesn't do contracts. You don't do contracts, sir. You don't do paid in fulls. You're 23. How old are you? 23?

SPEAKER_02:

I also I'm I'm 24. I also don't do any upgrade. I don't I don't have upgrade fees. I don't have like I don't even charge for uniforms. Stop talking, stop it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you can't stop.

SPEAKER_02:

Do whatever you want, man. Yes. I have I have when somebody comes in for the first time, they take a free class and then they see if they like it, and then I'll say, All right, here's our membership option. It's cancel anytime, and then my payment is automatic. So the whenever that day of the month happens, that's it. And we have belt testing fees, it's not super expensive, and that's about it. I don't really charge for anything else. It's just class membership.

SPEAKER_01:

And you grew, if you understand, I'm so sorry, Jimmy Young. He grew over the summer. He grew over the summer.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we had we had really good growth this summer.

SPEAKER_00:

I was positive this time next year, after working with Master Tony, you're going to have an upgraded program. You are gonna have all this stuff that's gonna be. No, he's gonna convert me.

SPEAKER_01:

Liam's gonna convert me. I'm gonna work. I'm not yeah, I'm gonna work for him. I'm gonna be following his advice.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, just so that our listeners know, Master Liam is a client with Asa Consulting, where Master Tony has been working with him and growing his school in the past year. I mean, Master Tony, you've worked with all kinds of martial arts school owners over the years with their own style and their pace of growth. From your perspective, what is it about Master Liam, his approach, mindset, methods that allow him to grow so quickly and successfully?

SPEAKER_01:

I can just give you examples, right? I do a crazy stats, right? So I know a lot of people know statistics, but if you ask most people in the industry, I feel like I'm one of the leading people as far as metrics and stats. I have stats on stats. So when I started going through all of the KPIs and all of the Keystone metrics as well, and I started getting that with Liam, you know, I usually start building him a spreadsheet. That's what I do for all of my clients. Liam is my only client that has literally built his own spreadsheet, right? Because I use Excel, he uses Google Sheets better than mine. Because it's like just to give you an idea how good his spreadsheets are, I use billing companies, right? I have five locations. He created his own Stripe account and he handles his own billing. He created his own Google uh check-in system with it's hard to explain, but he he built his own check-in system with Google Sheets. He has no fees, and I'm like, don't be cheap. But when I was telling him, I looked at his stuff, it's actually not about being cheap, it's just he does it because he figures it out. And and I'm not trying to get political or anything, but for him to not get good grades at school, it just tells you that school's not for everybody. You know what I mean? He is one of the smartest. Like, because you have to be a little lazy too. You can't just be like some light turns on, hit the button. GMC tells me to do this. I'm gonna incorporate my stat sheet. He thinks, and he's I I don't believe in that, or I think I can figure something out better. And he is the American dream. He is an entrepreneur, he was an employee making less than my part-timers, to be honest with you. And now he's a like now he's a six-figure earner inside of 10 months. Life-changing. When I meet with Liam, we're not just talking about how to enroll people. He's already raised thousands of dollars for schools with big checks and did the poster, go to his website, and then he's already booked four, those same four programs again for this year and next year. And just to give you an idea, he literally does everything, but he doesn't just do what I tell him to do. He understands it and he incorporates it and he makes it his own. That is that is the ultimate. It's I feel blessed. Some of my clients are like, thank you so much. I'm grateful for Liam because uh I don't know what I'm doing all the time because I'm like, I don't wrap off, ABC, one, two, three, this is how you do it because this is what we did 15 years ago. I share with him some of the ways I'm fishing, how I fished successfully in the past, how I use metrics in the future, using math, and his logic is uh is great. And then he just does everything that I say to do, and he does it super well. And uh I'm just grateful. And he's given me a lot of ideas. Wow. So he's just he's really smart. And you're you are highly intelligent and highly effective. And if you just stay on the track that you're on, because I've told him I was like, don't get sick, don't break. He has no employees, right? He has adult black belts, kid black belts. He did everything by himself. Amazing. Yeah, teaching the feeder programs, marketing. He has a demo today at a farmers market, and I was like, right before the right before the call is like, Liam, farmers market, what time is the demo? He goes, I was like, it's Tuesday, and he goes, It's at two o'clock, and I'm like, two o'clock, no kids are gonna be there. And he goes, moms are gonna be there. And I'm like, Hey, this guy, he's good.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for that. You're welcome. You're welcome. I believe in you.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Master Liam, you is again, you essentially started with zero students and had the challenge of convince convincing and converting the 50 existing karate students into your new Taekwondo program. I'm curious at what point was your break-even income? What was that the 50 student mark? And from that number, you know, how or or was it lower or higher? How what did it take to reach that break-even point? Did you did you know that number or did you just go into it?

SPEAKER_02:

This is a another important piece to this, which is when I took over the school, I still had to kind of make a deal with the old owners, and like that was a really important piece because I had saved since I was 13 years old, I have saved everything I've ever made from all my jobs. Now it wasn't that much, as Master Tony said, I kind of was making less than minimum wage to run very profitable martial arts school. But anyway, everything that I saved, I thought that was gonna be my down payment on a house. And so I had saved a lot to thinking that that was gonna be my future. And when I, you know, came to take over the school, they asked for a lot of money. And so I had to put a pretty big down payment down to the owners. And then I had to figure out okay, if I retain 20 students or 30 students with the current rent utilities, would I break even? And so pretty much without being able to now also I told you the space wasn't really in great shape. So just to break even and also not even to pay myself anything, was pretty much those 50 students. And then as I was making a little bit more, I was gaining two or three students here and there, it was just going all back into it. So the first month we repainted, the next month we fixed the lights, the next month we fixed the plumbing. The month after that, I did a saving and then one more month of saving, and then I got the spring floor. So pretty much since February or March of this year, I've been just like making, putting back in, making, putting back in. And I am now profitable, but I'm always finding something to get. It's another crash mat or a new martial arts supply. So I'm always trying to innovate and figure out how to make the business better. And I know one day I'll make it back, but this still feels like my growth period. So I'm not really concerned about paying myself.

SPEAKER_01:

It's more about a really good target. Like when we sat down initially, we had year one target, year two, year three, and then we focused on year one. He's exceeded that we have a billing target. And it's important to understand that Liam is in a financial state where he's got a lot of discipline, right? We don't just teach discipline, we have to live it. Liam has the physical and the financial discipline. And then we would go over it. And I was like, hey man, you're spending a lot of money. Are you sure you want to do that? He goes, Yes, sir, because he understands the value of your business. A business has value, right? So you can take that money and he can go on vacations, he can buy a nice car, he can go eat dinner and take a girlfriend out and go pop bottles and go crazy. But he wants to invest his money in asset producing in income producing assets. And and I think it's I think it's genius. It's just most people don't have the discipline. Literally, I wish I had that approach. And as we know it in business, it's not what you gross, it's not even what you net, it's what you do with your net. You know what I mean? Does your net affect your net worth positively or negatively? And we talk about five things, right? All my clients, right? I even talk to my kids about this and my staff, of course. Steady income. And then you want to work on increasing that income, right? And then there's tax strategies and stuff, but steady income, increase it. Then step two, right? Which is you need to make sure that you focus on really having a good budget. Like a 50-30-20 rule is great, personally. And then there's some kind of different strategies for your business. And then the third thing is an emergency fund, not only a personal emergency fund, a business emergency fund, which is to help you get through things like COVID, right? And then obviously you can't do emergency funds unless you're debt-free, right? Lien's debt free. I like to be debt-free. It's important. Then the fourth thing is tracking your net worth. How do these three things affect your net worth, positively or negatively? Do you want to get that Lambo? Do you want to get that hybrid this, that, or do you want to buy a test? Whatever you want to buy, is it really worth it? Do you need it? Is it asset? Is it is it income? Does it help you? And then we start talking about retirement targets. Do you want to retire when you're 65, 60, 55, or do you want to do martial arts for the rest of your life like me and have a work less hard retirement lifestyle, which is where it's at? And everybody has different goals. But let me be very clear. Liam, he nobody knows everything perfectly to a science, but he has a very clear vision, day to day. He knows what he has to do today. He doesn't live in the sauce. He knows he's got to do a badass demo in an hour and a half because he might get one, two, ten more students that will lead to more. And then that's how it not losing students, getting students, growing them. But we're trying to get Liam to come to a saw. I'd love to hear him talk to people because that's the greatest thing that we do is we share, because that's why I like this podcast. I was actually pretty skeptical about the podcast, I'll be honest with you. What I like about the podcast, it's a conversation and you get to hear it. And Master Hong had the vision for this. And we've had so many people from all over the world, new school owners, people that are thought about closing their school, people that have decided to open a school like Liam, and they've been inspired by the conversations that we've had, and uh we're grateful for. And I hope Liam changes your mind. Keep your school open or go open that school.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, sir. I uh Liam, my I have this image of you in my head. As soon as you had the the school, I from this conversation, I just I just every day you're just hustling. There is no way you would be able to do this if you're holding down a day job. You know, from the morning that you open the school to the start of the class through your classes, you're hustling. You're you're you're not just sitting in the office, you're doing something to improve your school, whether it's it's painting the walls, whether it's fixing, replacing the lights, whether it's doing demo, and that's that's how you succeed in the business, not just from four o'clock to eight o'clock teaching teaching kids. That's just that that's the fun part is teaching kids. It's the business part that you have to put in the effort to increase your student count, to increase your business. And that's the image that's running in my head, and and that's how I know you'll be successful moving forward.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, sir, I can actually talk about some of the different things aside from teaching the classes because you're right, teaching Taekwondo, that's that's the fun part. That's the thing I look forward to every day when I wake up. It's not like, oh, I have to teach this. What when people ask me, Oh, you have no other instructions? And I'm like, no, I want to teach the class. I want to show them the skills and teach them how to do the skills. I get such satisfaction when a kid learns how to do a new move that like they couldn't do before. They saw me do it. They're like, I saw your video, tell me how to do them. It was like, how do you do the dragon kit from the new karate kit? And I'm like, okay, let's do it. It's it's it's fun, you know. But some of the other things that I do, could I hire somebody to clean? Sure. But I like cleaning myself. I think a clean environment, it smells nice when people walk in. There's no dirt or bugs around. So yeah, I clean the school. All my emails, I use constant contact. So I'll draft an email and I'll send it to all of my students or my demo team or my leaderships. I do that. I keep track of all my bookkeeping. I don't really have to talk to my accountant besides once a year when she asks for all of my books. But every time I buy something for the business, I track it. I write how much it was, which category it was. Social media. Every time we every time we do an event, I will take a boatload of photos and videos, put it on our Google page, our Yelp page, Instagram, Facebook. I'll post the demo to my YouTube channel. I think it's really good to keep up a really solid image. My mom always says it, she's like, Liam, you've only been open for a year, but it looks like you've been open for 10 years. You have so much content. There's so much going on at your school. And I'm like, well, I think that's really important. And I think one of the one of the first questions you asked is how does social media impact your school? Like just help you get more students. I think it really helps create more of a sense of community. I've made so many class videos of some of my black belts doing. I don't know, you guys must know K-pop demon hunters. We made a K-pop Demon Hunters Taekwondo edition. That was almost fun. We did a Taekwondo Hunger Games. Now I started a series of choose your LG martial arts students. And now it's black belt versus black belt showing them. It's it's my same style of videos that I do, but now my students are doing it. And they're like, Liam, when are you gonna post my video? So I feel like it creates a stronger sense of community. And then also for a random seven or eight-year-old who's never made a video before, they see their video got 100,000 views and they're just like, oh my god, I'm famous. So I don't know. I think it's very inspiring, and I feel like I'm using my platform in the right way instead of just showing off my body or you know, being a toxic influencer. I feel like I'm creating positive change.

SPEAKER_01:

If you're listening to this, I know I know there's just some school owners or listeners who are like, okay, okay, kid, give it a couple of years. Yeah, all that good energy. You're gonna get you're gonna get burnout, instructor burnouts real, and this and that. That may make sense. But for example, for me personally, having daughters changed my life. You know what I mean? Because I always wanted my boys to be like me. But once I had daughters, I'm like, ooh, I don't want my daughters to marry a guy like me. I want them to be disciplined and I want them to be consistent and stop jumping from one thing to the other. Work hard, be good, stop trying to hack the system. You can't AI is a tool that can embellish, it's not something that do your work for you. So, yes, Liam works hard. He is a good person. And there's restaurants all around our schools. Most are empty, especially on a Tuesday afternoon. Some restaurants as their food is fire, they don't even have good seating. There's a place right here in Atlanta called Heirloom Barbecue, and it's a Korean lady and a guy from Texas, and they made this fusion barbecue. It's always one of the top 20 barbecue places in the country. It's amazing. It's a Korean and Texas barbecue mixed. And it's part of a gas station. There's no sit-down place, and they have a line of 20 to 40 people every single day, and they always sell out. And if your food at your school is that good, that's what you're gonna have. So if you're listening to this and you want to what know what marketing strategy Liam does no paid ads. He does no paid ads. Nope.

unknown:

What?

SPEAKER_01:

Nope. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't waste that money. He puts I do paid ads. So there's nothing against paid ads.

SPEAKER_00:

Everybody, everybody I know does paid ads. That's not wasting money.

SPEAKER_01:

Wait, wait till he will do it at some point, right? He will do some more advertising, but he just started. He's only one person. He will hire people. He's he has people in a pipeline that he's we're talking about building his team, right? Yes, some of you are listening to this, you're like, yeah, kid, yeah, okay. Anybody can get a hundred and twenty students in 10 months. I signed up 60 students in one month one time. Humbly, sir, ma'am, whoever's saying that, thinking that to yourself right now, what do you do? What did you do recently? I didn't have one school that signed up 120 people in 10 months, the last 10 months. Liam did. So I want to grow. So I'm not gonna sit on my laurels and on my past work and think that I'm all set because if you start thinking you've arrived, you're done. You know what I mean? And I want to grow. So I'm watching people like Liam, I'm encouraging him. I want to learn from him, and I want to be around people like that that bring out the best in me because the economy's tough.

SPEAKER_00:

I I I have so many okay. Last section, and I I mean, we could talk, I feel like we could talk about this all day, but there is a time limit. Liam's gonna go to a farmers market demonstrate.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, who's demo who's demonstrating with you? It's all of my black belts that started a year ago. Dude, that's awesome. So, how did you get black? How old are these kids?

SPEAKER_02:

The age range is from eight years old to 13.

SPEAKER_01:

But it's two o'clock in the afternoon. They have to, are they being taken out of school? Like, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02:

So, for most people, school starts tomorrow or next week, thankfully. And I think that's why we planned it in advance like that. But I've been very I've been very thankful to the parents because it's still like during work hours. So I told them very far in advance and said, if you can't make it, I totally understand. So we only have one girl who can't make it, but I'm having a fill-in, like somebody to come in to take her spot. So we're able to do the same demo we did last week.

SPEAKER_01:

Incredible.

SPEAKER_00:

My kids' school started last week or a week and a half ago. So I was like, Oh, that's okay, okay. I'm sorry. Last subject, and then let's call it a wrap. I know Masselium has to go, but we're definitely heavy back on Massiliam. Yes, sir. I'm thinking okay, so you're the only school I know that does not teach sparring. I mean, that's that's that's mind-blowing, you know. Anybody listening to this, like, no sparring school. I'm just thinking the kids that come in they're looking at they were always interested in Taekwondo. They they come in and they see all these acrobatic movements and tricking, whatever that is, you know, and they must have been mesmerized, but like, oh, I want to be a part of that. Just by seeing your class, they must have been already because it's such an aerial high performance like technique that they want to be a part of that. They're not, they're not seeing a classroom where they're doing a horse riding stance for 15 minutes, right? Like, what seven-year-old would want to be a part of that? But when they see kids cartwheeling, tumbling, 540s, they're like, Mom, dad, get me into that class now. Yes, is that a right assumption or or am I totally off-base there, Messaline?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that is definitely true. I said this before, but I think my biggest inspiration to create the program that I have now is one, because it's my passion. The reason why I create the videos I do is not because I think it's viral content, it's because what I like to do. I don't think that I if I posted sparring tips and tricks or if I did boom say videos, that not only it wouldn't do well, but I would be so bored making those videos. That's the one part. The other thing is, I mentioned that I haven't been to Street Bike before. I don't personally, many people might like in the comments hate me for saying this, but I don't think children should be learning how to fight. I use my martial arts school as an outlet to do physical activity. But in truth, the values that I want to teach my students, as we've talked about, are like respecting your parents, following the rules at school, having discipline and patience, having a positive attitude, how to set goals. All of those values that I want to teach are done through the process of learning these super cool, fun tricks. But if every day when they come in, they're putting on their gear and being aggressive, I feel like that's the person who's gonna go to their school and start beating up on kids. I don't want to create bullies. I want to be the person who's mature for their age and then is doing well in school and is a leader in their community. And I feel like the only way to do that is by instilling the values that you want those people to emulate. So one, I have to do that myself, lead by example, but also not put them in a situation where it feels like they have to be aggressive. So any parent, I haven't really had a lot of complaints, but any parent who was like, why don't you do self-defense? Why don't you do sparring? I was like, Okay, we literally had this two weeks ago. One of the moms I've known for a while is like, why don't you guys do self-defense? Can you please teach them what happens when somebody punches them? And I was like, Okay. So I was like, Eloise, come over here. I'm gonna punch you. I want you to dodge and roundhouse kick. I did a punch, she dodged, and it looked like she was gonna knock me out, and her mom's like, whoa. And I'm like, so ma'am, respectfully, I've taught your daughter and your son how to protect themselves. So if anything did happen, they're gonna see that, respond to it, and they can kick very powerfully. I don't, I don't not teach power. Just because we don't spar and we don't do self-defense doesn't mean my kids are not strong. They are very strong. One of the most fun things we do during class is we play a kicking game. Who can kick the target the loudest? So we will have lines by lines. All right, guys, we're gonna do tornado kicks. It'll be one on one. All right, one point this team, go back. Next team up, go. We'll even play another game. Maybe you guys can take, maybe somebody in the comments, you guys can take inspiration. We play a game called jail. This is how it works. You have everybody make a straight line, you choose a kick like front kick. If they make, you know, the clap, you know, the clapping sound, if it's a satisfying kick. If they make that sound, they're still in the game. If they make a weak sound, they miss the target, they go to jail, they go out. And so if you survive all the rounds, you make it such a fun game. So I try to make my classes fun. We could just practice kicking with each other 10 times. Go, 10 times go. But I like to make it interesting and more competitive. But at the same time, they're learning how to make their kicks very powerfully. If I said, all right, guys, we're gonna spar today, I think they could do well. It's just not what happens to be teaching them.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you win jail? So if you have 10 kids in a line, they do a right leg Nata Bond, they all they they all go, then you do the left leg, you keep changing the kicks until there's one kid left.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. Let's say, for example, let's say we're doing yeah, let's say we're doing right, yeah, right leg front kick. You have everybody go, let's say it's four people get out on the first round, two people get out on the last round, you have one player left, they get the point. Everybody back in, now left leg. And we go all the way up. We do front kick, jumping, front kick, round, jumping, round, double round, tornado, 360, 540. The hardest part is when you get to 540 kicks and you're like, I don't know how to do a 540 kick, and I'm like, do it, try it. And you know, that's that's just how it goes.

SPEAKER_00:

The way I get out of jail is with my get out of free jail card from the Monopoly portrait.

SPEAKER_02:

Someone's gonna give me the get out of 540 kick card. Someone's gonna get it. So that's awesome. Yeah, but but yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That is Master Lee. I'm telling you, you really do have something there because you can you can be a traditional martial arts school and but not have to be the way that we learn, Master Tony and I learned from our fathers of of a long stance and for however long part of the of the class, it it just doesn't resonate with kids nowadays. And and you are more relatable to them than than Master Tony and I are and I am. So you really do have something there. I think it's gonna it just explode, and and we're I'm that Master Tony's gonna be with you every step of the way. I'm I'm gonna enjoy the show as you grow. And let's wrap there on today's episode of Black Belt Banter. A huge thank you to Master Liam for sharing his incredible journey. Amazing. Opening a tech owner school less than a year ago and already building a thriving, tight-knit community. You know, your story is proof that passion, discipline, and vision is can create something truly special in just a short amount of time. We know that a lot of our listeners are young martial artists, and we hope that hearing Master Liam's path inspires you to dream big, work hard, work really hard like Master Liam, and believe in what's possible for your own journey. Of course, big thanks to Master Tony Chunk for co-hosting with me, adding his wisdom and keeping the banter sharp. Our mission here is very simple to keep help as many school owners and martial art professionals as possible. Every time you subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode, you'll help us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. Until next time, this is Black Belt Banter signing off.