Its that time of year again. A new year means new resolutions, right? Wrong!!! Yup, ya heard me right.

Apparently, the only person who I know who hasn’t set some kind of new years resolution thus far is me. I don’t need to. You see, I know the secrets of goal setting.

Goal setting is one of the most powerful tools that you can employ. But the problem is that most people set goals once a year. Then they forget about them until next year.

Worse, they never even write them down. They just whisper it off into the wind hoping it will somehow magically come true.

Well, I want to share my secret to goal setting. This could change your life. But, you have to be committed to doing it every day for just 15 minutes a day.

Ok, it isn’t my secret. I learned this from Brian Tracy. It’s the most powerful goal setting tool I’ve ever come across and I am happy to share it with you as Brian did with me.

You see, the reason I don’t need to set new years goals is because I set goals every single day. I am ALWAYS goal setting. Not just when the new year rolls around.

On January 1st I just keep monitoring and setting goals the way I did the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before… well, you get the idea right?

This is not going to be easy, but if you want the most powerful goal setting tool with the most life changing effects, you’ll do it. But again, THAT’S the key… You HAVE to DO IT!!!

The trick is to write and re-write your goals every single day. It’s that easy. But you have to do it in a certain way.

Get yourself a simple spiral single subject notebook. When you get up the very next day, I want you to grab that notebook a pen and your breakfast and pull up a chair at the table. Now, write 10 to 15 goals on one page, numbering each.

Try to make sure you at least write 10 at a minimum. This will not be very easy at first. In fact, it may be downright difficult. It may take you a few days to really get clear on what your goals are. But that’s ok. Its all part of the process.

You can review these all day if you’d like. But the last thing you do at night should be to turn the page over to a fresh page.

The next morning, without looking at yesterdays goals, you are to re-write your goals. If they are different, that’s fine. You should be simply writing what you feel you want. Every day, preferably first thing in the morning, you are to do the very same exercise.

I do this every single day, without fail. As I achieve goals, I set new ones. Try to at least do this no less than 30 days. Once you have reached 30 days, take a look back to see just what you’ve accomplished.

What you will start to see is that your real goals get repeated each day. Things that really weren’t important to you will start to disappear.

Your goals will start growing and developing as you gain clarity on what you want. The way to achieve the goals begin to reveal themselves to you as if by magic.

If you do this simple daily ritual, I promise your life will have changed. Can you do this for 30 days?

Here Are A Few Simple Rules To Follow:

• Write them first thing in the morning
• Don’t miss a day
• Don’t read prior pages
• Write as if you already have achieved – ‘I earn X per year’ not ‘I want to…’
• Just write them – don’t turn it into a project. This should take from 5 to 20 minutes. The more you do it, the less time it will take.

This is the most powerful method of active goal setting I have ever experienced. If you do it and stick to it, your goals will become reality. You will always be thinking about them and striving to achieve them. And you’ll never need to wait until new years day to set goals again.

Without this, I would never have not realized all the success I have with my school. I would not have developed Stranger Seminar Success, Bully Seminar Success or my brand new program, the Business Builders Academy.

Everyone seems to be very worried right now.  You obviously cannot turn on the tv without being inundated with doom and gloom.

Well, I am here to tell you that not only can you weather this storm, but if you do things right, you can grow in this economy.  And when we come out of this recession, you can end up being in a position to really rocket to the top.

But instead of me telling you about it, I want to let my friend Mike Michalowicz tell you.  He is the author of a book called the ‘Toilet Paper Entrepreneur’.  Not only is his book awesome, he is a graduate of Inc. & MIT’s “Birthing of Giants” Entrepreneurial Program, Mike received Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards multiple times. He is a recurring guest on CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR), and in the New York Times, Smart CEO Magazine, and other publications.

You have to watch this video.  It might be the best thing I have seen so far to demonstrate how to survive and thrive in a recession.  Click the link below to watch:

Start & Grow a Healthy Business in a Recession from Toilet Paper on Vimeo.

Mike has agreed to let me interview him in a free teleseminar just for the martial arts industry.  To attend this, click here now to register

Whether in a recession or not, you should always work to recession proof your business.  If you have done that all along, you are probably ready to weather the storm.  If you have not, don’t look back… look forward and begin recession proofing right now.

One of the best methods of obtaining new business in good times or bad is through referrals.  These are always the best customers because they come pre-qualified and excited.  It is much easier to sell to them than a call from say, the yellow pages.

How is your referral program doing?  Everyone gets referrals.  The trick is to maximize this.  Maybe you get 4 referrals a month.  That’s awesome!  Now lets double, triple or quadruple that.

Before you run one time referral programs designed at bringing a  big flow of new clients, make sure your ongoing program is strong.  Here are my 4 steps to a top notch referral program.

STEP #1 – Make sure you have an ongoing referral program.

Do you have a referral program?  What is it?

I am not speaking of one time referral promotions.  You can do those on top of what you normally do.

But to work it right, you need to make sure you have an actual ongoing referral program.  This is what you reward your client with when you get a referral from them.

Do you give them money, free service, thank you card or something else?  If you don’t give them something, they will eventually stop referring.  Even if it is just recognition for the referral, you have to give something.  The higher value thing you give, the more people will want to refer others.

It doesn’t much matter what you give.  I know many different businesses who each offer many different referral rewards.  All of them work.  It is not what you offer.

STEP # 2 Communicate the reward

Giving away a reward when people are referred does not mean you actually have a referral reward program. Your referral reward can be a luxury cruise to the moon.  If no one knows about it, it doesn’t exist.

The best way to know if you have a referral reward program is to go ask your clients what it is.  Call or stop one in the lobby and just ask if they know what they get for referring a new client.  If all of them cannot tell you, then you don’t have one.

You have to have a plan and process for:

• Explaining the program to all new clients
• Consistently re-educating existing clients about it regularly
• Making sure clients are always rewarded in a timely fashion

STEP #3 Build Enthusiasm

You have to be excited about it.  If you are not excited about it, you cannot expect your clients to be.

Communication isn’t enough.  You have to create a culture in your business where people want to strive for giving a referral.

There are many different ways to do this.  Be creative.  You can place pictures of those who referred a new client in the lobby.  You can give them a huge round of applause in front of all the other clients.  Take a picture of you giving them their referral reward for your monthly newsletter.  The ideas are only limited by your imagination.

STEP #4 Ask for referrals

Do you ask for the referral?  When do you ask?

The best time to ask for a referral is… whenever it is appropriate.  Don’t just ask once.

Of course you should ask when you close the sale.  Once your prospect becomes a client is the first time you should ask.  But keep a look out for those special times to ask in the future.

Maybe you hear a great success story.  How a shy little child was able to stand up to a bully and they give your school all the credit.  This may be a great time to ask for a referral.

If you have good rapport with your clients, asking for a referral every now and then should be just fine.  If the only time you talk to them is when you want something, you have a problem.

These 4 steps are simple yet powerful.  If you have a strong referral program, you will enjoy a consistent improvement in referrals all year round.

CNBC received record ratings recently, beating out some of their more mainstream stations. People are hooked to this stuff. It seems it is all anyone wants to talk about.

So I am going on a ‘Turn it OFF NOW!!!’ campaign. The media is not helping the situation. We all get it. We know there is bad stuff happening. But there is nothing we can do about it either.

Agonizing over every little detail of the economic downturn is just making matters worse. People are walking around like zombies waiting for the other shoe to drop. And this forces their wallets to tighten up whether or not they have financial problems.

Don’t get caught up in all of this hype as a business owner. Don’t make knee jerk reactional moves that could negatively affect your business because some pundit is yelling about the Apocalypse. This too shall pass.

Once the milk has spilled, all we can do is clean it up and move on. So what are you doing to move forward and make this a great month, year, etc?

I am doubling my efforts. I am trying to be efficient but no more than I normally am.

I am looking for new ways to keep our current students happy and enroll more new ones. We do a whole lot of free community seminars normally, so that is being taken to an even higher level as people are tightening their wallets.

If traditional ads are not pulling the new students in, you need to get out into your community and press the flesh. Do seminars, host events, network. Do anything and everything. But just don’t let this doom and gloom stuff scare you into inaction.

Don’t let your fears rule your actions. Make your actions rule your fears.

And if you have not yet checked out my new Bully Seminar Success system, go to this website now. This will help you get new students for sure.

I was asked to come in as a success update from a previous telephone appearance.  September was our best month that we had ever had at the school.  Much of it was due to putting their awesome advice to action.

The best part of it was that I was able to launch my new system; Bully Seminar Success during this month.  Not to mention that putting this system to work inside our school was a very big reason for the success we had.  And this all happened during what will go down in history as the worst month in our economic history.

I just re-launched the Bully Seminar Success website.  You can check it out now by clicking here

I have been running these seminars at my school and off site for years with great success. It is a simple and effective way to build value in the community and ultimately enroll new students.

Well, I launched this product just today and the response was incredible (and a day after the single largest stock market dive ever).  And the feedback is even better.  I am really proud to be of help to my fellow martial artists.

We launched this product at 50% off.  I wanted to offer a really huge incentive to raise the money so I can go to a seminar in St. Louis.  I figured why just go to the seminar.  So I set a goal to sell 100 units and pay for the seminar that way.  Gotta stay inspired!!!

This special pricing is only good for the first 100 people.  We are closing in on that faster than expected.  The price goes up once we hit that mark.

To learn more and get your hands on yours before the price goes up, click on Bully Seminar Success

Here is the email as Mr. Pollman wrote it to me:

I just had one of my senior Brown Belts, Trey Foster, who is waiting to take his black belt test come by to see me. I almost did not recognize him. He is a jailer in Custer County Oklahoma at night working his way through college here at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

Yesterday morning one of the inmates threw a quarter cup of bleach in his eyes and attacked him with a shank. Trey fought with him for 6 and a half minutes trying to save his own life and keep the inmate from getting the keys that fell from his pocket.

Trey said he had to come by and thank me for saving his life. He said that if it were not for the things we teach and make them do he would be dead. He has a number of staples in the top of his head. You cannot see in the photo where the shank got him.

Special thanks to Peter Hill. In the ‘on the ground’ portion of the fight, Trey used a full lock to get the keys back and was able to throw the keys out of the cell stopping a possible escape. Special thanks to Bill Kipp and RAMCAT because I make all my senior students fight a blind beginning to a fight over and over and over again since you guys made me do it. So take pride my fellow instructors and keep it real.
Yeti

As I was corresponding with Mr. Pollman to get the specifics of this, he told me this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. Here is the second story he just told me:

My wife and I were in a private bus to an event at our state capital. We were having dinner with the governor. It was a large group and a long story of why. As we got out of the bus we had to go through security to enter the grounds.

We were at the front of the line about three couples back. The Capital Patrol guard was checking ID’s. As we stepped up I handed him my ID. He said “Sir I know who your are Mr.. Pollman, you saved my life.” and sent us on in.

He was a former student of mine. I had not given him a black belt but he had been training for several years and joined the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Working drug stops in Tulsa he got in a gun and hand to hand fight with a stop gone very bad.

He said in the bottom of the ball of human fight he remembered things I said in teaching and it saved his life. The really cool thing about it was I knew everyone on the bus and they all heard him. We had to park our cars away from the capital and take the bus in.

For more information or to contact Chris Pollman:
Chris Pollman Karate Academy
580-772-3897
1805 East Main Rear
P.O. Box 2000
Weatherford, OK 73096

I wanted to share a little of what he said as he came to the topic of the recession. I thought this was relevant since the topic of raising tuition is always challenging for us martial arts school owners.

I personally believe we could charge $500 a month and grossly undercharge for the incredible value we provide. But many school owners have a very hard time charging what they are really worth.

And it is not just us martial artists that get nervous about raising prices, it happens in every industry. We are all worried if we raise our fees everyone will quit.

Well, Dan was discussing the recession and said in times like these the massive knee jerk reaction by 99% of the people will be to lower their price. Then he urged the audience to do the opposite of what that 99% will do if we wish to be successful.

I won’t go into his entire tirade, but the gist of it was that in economic down times, volume will go down. To make up for this, the best thing to do is raise the prices. This will keep the income high when the transactions go down.

Disney did it. I went to Disney before the supershow and had noticed that ticket prices were about $10 more than my last visit 6 months earlier. They raised prices to make up for the folks who would not be coming. The folks who were planning to come were coming anyway, whether the price was higher or not.

Now, here is another important point. He is not just saying raise prices because he thinks it will help. He knows it will because he has seen it hundreds of times work for companies that follow this disciplined approach. Food for thought.

Learning how to pick ourselves up when things get tough, to be determined to succeed, are principals that so important to any person desiring success in life.  ‘The Race’ is a poem he recited at the end of his keynote speech that speaks to this very subject.

Click the link below to watch the video. I know you will be as inspired as I was. Oh, and by the way, at the very end before the video cuts out you will hear him talk about ‘throwing starfish’. Well that is another very inspirational story that I will share with you in a few days so make sure to check back.

Dear Martial Artists:

Could I please recruit your help for a martial arts TV show that’s beneficial for our entire community?

For over 35 years now, I have helped other martial artists promote their films and TV shows, only a handful of which I was personally involved. This time I need your help, too.

On Saturday, June 17th, MTV aired an episode of its hit reality-TV show, “Made.” It was their prestigious 100th episode of the 9-season hit show and this time it presented a wannabe who sought to become a “karate kid” (see the recent media release below my signature line). Each episode of “Made” follows one willing candidate, a teenager, as they embark on a mission to transform their life through a chosen activity (sports, cheerleading, etc.).

The one-hour “Karate Kid” episode happens to be one of the best TV programs I’ve ever seen to date promoting the self-improvement, character development and life skills inherent to our industry. It’s a terrific promotion for all of us. The subject, Ryan Watkins, is a lazy, overweight, 18-year-old junkfood junkie and hardcore video gamer who seeks to change his life and chooses the martial arts as his pathway.

Chan Lee, a taekwondo master from Wisconsin who runs a chain of successful schools with his father, Grandmaster J.K. Lee, plays the Mr. Miyagi role. Only thing is, Chan Master Lee is an excellent mixture of old- and new-school instructor. Master Lee sets the 5-week goal of leading Ryan to pass his gold-belt test and then participating in his first tournament. Plus, Ryan’s a natural slob. He lives in the cellar of his parent’s home and keeps it like a pigsty! Master Lee sure has his work cut out for him to transform this kid. You really need to see what happens.

Here’s the problem we have and the way in which you can help. MTV didn’t give Master Lee enough lead-time to pre-promote the show. He was only given the actual broadcast date a few weeks before it aired. Therefore, I couldn’t get the word out in my magazine; nor could any other editor. Also, I didn’t have sufficient advance time until now to contact the 1,000-plus martial artists in my e-mail address book.

So here’s what all of us can do now to make an impact for our industry by helping this show. The one-hour segment is now on MTV’s Website at MTV’s Karate Kid Episode of Made

On that page, the video will automatically kick in for Part 1 of the show (the one-hour show is broken into 6 segments to accommodate commercial breaks. At the bottom of the video box, running horizontal, there are icons for all 6 segments. When each segments ends, hit the next one in line until you watch the entire show.

Here’s how just watching this particular show on this Website will help. Right now, of all their 9 years of “Made” shows, the episode featuring a young girl who wants to a hip-hop dancer got the highest number of post-show views, 39,000. As I’m composing this letter, the Website showing the “Karate Kid” episode has 20,908 views. According to Master Lee, this number grew from just 600 hits on the day of the show (just 8 days earlier)!

My aim is to influence enough martial arts colleagues to beat the 39,000-view record and put martial arts in the first position. We only need 19,000 more viewers to visit that Website. This will help our industry to influence MTV to put more martial arts content into future episodes of “Made” as well as in other MTV shows (two years ago, MTV aired an entire series based on martial arts contests, hosted by Ernie Reyes, Jr.).

I’m doing my part by sending this info to over 1,000 influential martial artists, masters, instructors, school owners and personal friends. Could I ask all of you to please forward this message to all of your martial arts contacts and urge them to view the show on the MTV Website? Ask them, too, to forward this message to all of their martial arts contacts. As we know, e-mails grow exponentially, and within two weeks we should be able to easily trounce the hip-hop episode.

Thank you very much for your help. You’re gonna enjoy the show, too!

John Corcoran

Managing Editor

“Martial Arts Success”

6824 Elm Creek Dr.

#201

Las Vegas, NV 89108

(702) 645-3331

E-mail: jcorco4234@aol.com

Typical Sedentary Teen Gets Transformed Into Hardcore Martial Arts Fighter for Hit MTV Show

Milwaukee, WI – May 15 2008 – Master Chan Lee, a martial arts trainer for college athletes and martial arts champions, has finished the filming for an upcoming episode of MADE – the extremely popular MTV show that is just beginning its ninth season and is embarking on its 100th episode. In this new episode, Mr. Lee is the local celebrity coach of a small-town Wisconsin teenager who is on a mission to be “MADE” into a martial artist.

Master Lee said, “After more than 30 years of martial arts training and coaching, working with this Wisconsin teenager (whose identity is secret until after the initial showing) has been one of my most rewarding experiences. I’m excited to see how the episode will turn out after over 100 hours of filming.

During past seasons, each episode of MADE followed one willing candidate as they embarked on a mission to transform their life. Whether it was becoming a varsity football player, the homecoming queen or a cheerleader, each teenager dreamed of breaking out of their shell and finding out what they were really made of and what they could achieve when given the tools and training. This is the first episode of MADE where the candidate wanted to be transformed into a hardcore martial arts fighter.

Master Lee was selected as the celebrity coach of this episode following a selective interview process by MTV and was required to be away from his five martial arts schools in the metro Milwaukee area for most of the six weeks of filming.

“At our schools, martial arts is primarily about personal character development instead of just kicking and punching. That is what I emphasized during the training.”

A final airtime for this episode will be established within the next few days. For more information on MADE, Made Information

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