A parent wrote this on a parenting forum, about their nine-year-old son and his karate classes.
"My son (9) isn't interested in much. He likes art and animation and that's about it. He resents doing anything else such as brushing his teeth (needs to be prompted), going to school and doing homework of any kind. He resisted learning things like learning to ride a bike or learning to swim. He does have anxiety."
Read it again and look for the word confidence. Or discipline. Or focus.
They're describing the exact child your beginners class was built for, and not one word of that description matches the line on your homepage. If you want to get more martial arts students, that's the cheapest thing in your business to fix. It isn't the budget. It's the sentence sitting in front of that parent.
Why doesn't confidence and discipline work any more?
Because it's true, and agreement is the problem. A parent who already believes martial arts builds confidence has nothing there to choose between you and the school down the road.
A dad posted on a parenting forum asking whether his son's karate open house had been normal. He liked the class. He didn't like being told his seven-year-old couldn't quit unless the family moved away. A jiu-jitsu instructor replied to him:
"I've always found it amusing when martial arts schools claim to teach "focus" and "discipline" but for some odd reason… self defense and fighting isn't taught."
That's an instructor, not a parent. He wrote it under a post from a dad who had just taken his son to a free class.
None of which makes the benefit wrong. Neil thinks it is the main thing parents are buying:
"often these secondary benefits or what the instructor might think of as a secondary benefit is actually the main benefit that parents are looking for"
The benefit is what they're buying. "Builds confidence and discipline" is a category, though, and a parent can't tell two schools apart by their category. What they can tell apart is whether one of them seems to know their own child.
The McDonald's problem: why your own value goes invisible
Neil has a name for this.
"when people are so close to their business they often don't realize the value they're really offering and we call this the mcdonald's problem"
A regular walks into McDonald's and orders a number one. He doesn't describe it. He doesn't need to. Everyone inside that building knows what a number one is, so nobody in there ever says out loud what's in it.
You run those classes every week. "We teach martial arts" is your number one. From where you stand it's complete and obvious. The parent who wrote that post has no idea what's inside it.
Here's Neil's shorthand for what that parent is bringing you:
"kids will fall into two main categories of problems one is the kid that's hyperactive and got too much energy and the other is a kid that lacks confidence"
That's a rule of thumb rather than research, so hold it loosely and test it against your own desk. Neil adds bullying to the list too. A parent turns up with one child and one problem, and they want to know whether you've met it before.
How do you find out what this family wants?
You ask. Then you write the answer down in the words they used.
"you should be like a doctor trying to diagnose a problem you want to ask questions find where the pain is find where the problems are and then you give your prescription you don't give the prescription first"
The prescription is the easy part to hand over first. The timetable, the styles, the grading system, the price. All of that can land before anybody has asked what's wrong.
Two moments give you the words. The first is the text thread just after a family books a trial, which is where the questions we send with every booking belong. The second is your desk, while the child is on the mat and the parent is sitting there with nothing to do.
You're after the pain rather than the preference. Neil's line from his book:
"find out people's pain points and show how you can solve them with your martial arts classes. This will help tremendously! Remember, people will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure"
The five questions, and the only hard rule
- "What made you look for classes now, rather than last year?" Listen for one specific event. Something happened at school, or at a party, or in the car.
- "What would you like to be different for him?" This is the one that hands you the sentence you'll use in your ad.
- "Has he tried anything like this before, and how did it go?" Tells you what you're being compared with, and what went wrong last time.
- "Is there anything you'd like me to keep an eye on with him in class?" Shy, clingy, gets frustrated, won't stop talking. Now your instructor knows before the child walks in.
- "Does anything worry you about him starting?" The objection, offered freely, before it turns into "we'll talk about it at home".
The hard rule: write the answers down word for word. Not your summary of them. Their wording is what you're short of.
Do that with your next few bookings and you'll have a pile of families' sentences in front of you, in their words. Watch for the one that keeps coming back. That's the one to put in the ad.
Where do the words in your ad come from?
From that list, in that order. Swap the generic line for the one a parent gave you.
Open the ad with the child rather than the class:
"For the child who hides behind you at parties."
"If homework takes all evening because he can't sit still, start here."
"She came home upset about a girl at school again. This is the class we'd put her in."
Then the class times for that age group, and nothing else.
Then prove it. Neil's instruction is to show the family you've done this before for somebody like them:
"If you can explain to the student or parent that your classes have really helped others with the same struggles they have, it will go a very long way to getting an enrollment."
And keep saying it after the ad. The same sentence goes in the texts before the class, in the class itself, and in the enrolment conversation. One of our clients, Grandmaster Marco Sies, finds out what a child struggles with before the first lesson, then at the end of that lesson has the child break a board with that word written on it. Same idea as the ad, done in a room instead of a feed.
That first lesson is where the parent decides, so what happens in its opening minutes is worth planning as carefully as the ad.
All of this has a commercial point, which Neil puts like this:
"By packaging your classes as the solution to their problems you are setting yourself apart from your competition and they can't just compare you with any other martial arts school, because you offer something unique to their needs."
If what you sell is "martial arts classes", a parent can line you up against every other school that sells the same thing and sort the list by price and distance. Sell the answer to one child's problem and there's no list to be on. His other line for it: "you're not a commodity you're becoming something that's different like a premium product that people will pay more for."
Then the price question becomes a different conversation.
One warning. If families keep showing up and not enrolling, Neil's view is to look at your enrolment process and at who you're letting in the door, not at your offer. "Don't just blame the person who didn't enroll, take ownership of the situation."
The words in the ad decide who turns up. What happens after that is still the conversation at the end of the trial.
What about your adult classes?
Market to the children first. Neil is direct about why: a child gets brought through your door by an adult, the show rate is almost always higher, and once that adult is standing in your lobby you can make them an offer too.
For an adult the method doesn't change, only whose why it is. It's their own goal instead of their child's, so ask for it the same way and sell to that. The nearest one to ask is the parent on your bench on a Tuesday night.
Where we sit in this
We find the families, get them booked and remind them to come. You welcome them, run a great first class, and enrol them.
So the words are a shared job. The ad is our side of it, and the sentence that makes it work comes off your desk, from a parent we've never met. A notepad does that job. Send us those sentences and we've got something better to test than another photo of a kicking drill. Without them we're guessing at what worries the families in your town.
What we can't do from our side is sit in your lobby and listen. That matters most with a family where nobody has ever trained, because they arrive with questions they won't ask out loud.
Do this Monday
Ask every parent who books this week what they want to be different for their child. Write the answers down in their words, not yours.
Then take the answer you hear more than once and put it in the first line of your ad, at the top of your booking page, and in the first thing you say to a new family at the door. Nothing else needs to change this week.
If you'd rather we did the testing part, bring your timetable and the number of beginner spaces you can genuinely take this month. If we do not think we can fill them, we will say so on the call.
Questions owners ask
Why isn't 'confidence and discipline' working in my ads?
Parents already agree with it, and every school in town says it. A claim everybody makes carries no information, so it gives a parent nothing to choose between you and the school down the road. One jiu-jitsu instructor on a parenting forum called the line amusing. The benefit is real. As a sales line it has worn out.
What should my martial arts ad actually say?
The problem the parent came to you with, in their words, and then your proof that you've fixed it before. Shy at parties. Can't sit still for homework. Getting picked on. Those are the lines parents use at your desk every week, and they're far more specific than anything on a rival's homepage. Say the problem first and the style second.
How do I find out what a parent actually wants?
Ask, and write the answer down in their words. Neil's instruction is to behave like a doctor: ask questions, find where the pain is, and only then give the prescription. The best moment is just after they book a trial, by text, one short question at a time. The next best is your desk, while the child is on the mat.
How do I market martial arts to adults?
Market to the kids first, because a child is brought in by an adult and the show rate is usually higher. Then make an offer to the parent already sitting in your lobby watching. For an adult the reason is their own goal rather than a child's, so ask for that goal the same way and sell to it.