| Friend,
Yesterday in our series on why dojo owners fail, I talked about school owners who "win the martial art school lottery" and then become consultants. I also wrote to you on the dangers of taking advice from someone who has achieved success more by luck rather than through trial and error.
So, today would be the perfect time to discuss the next topic in this series. Namely how your location has a tremendous impact on your school's growth and financial health.
Why Your Location Is Killing Your Dojo
I've observed that the decision-making process most school owners go through for choosing where to locate their schools goes something like this:
"I live in X town near Y neighborhood, so that's where I'm opening my school."
Unfortunately, this is not the best way to choose where you locate your dojo. The location of your dojo can have a huge impact on how well your school performs financially, and how quickly it grows after you open. Therefore, the process of choosing a location should involve much more research and forethought than just finding an empty space near where you live.
And as far as choosing a good location goes, I'm not just talking about what street or shopping center you choose for your dojo. I'm also talking about what neighborhood and town you choose as well.
There are many factors that go into choosing a good location for a dojo. Local median income, proximity to schools and neighborhoods, population demographics, local crime rates, average local rates on commercial space...
It goes without saying that your location choice is a rather permanent, lasting decision. That decision and the resulting repercussions are going to stay with you for a while, years in most cases. Which is why it's a good idea to spend a little more time choosing your location than most school owners take.
The bottom line is that there are a ton of things to consider when choosing a location for a new dojo. My advice is that you choose wisely, and get some guidance from someone who knows that they're talking about before you make your final decision.
Why Your Location Isn't What's Killing Your Dojo
On the other hand, starting a dojo in a "bad" location isn't always a deal-breaker. I've seen schools that did fantastic numbers that were in horrible locations.
For example, the standard wisdom in choosing a location for a commercial martial arts school has always been to pick a storefront location in a high-foot traffic center. Preferably one with an anchor tenant next door or a few doors down that will bring plenty of people in and out of that center on a daily basis (think supermarket or big box store).
However, I've seen plenty of martial art schools that weren't located in storefront locations and that didn't have traffic-generating anchor tenants nearby that still performed very well financially.
And, in some cases choosing a high-foot traffic, storefront location can actually hurt the inexperienced school owner, because those spaces come at a premium, and that usually means the rent is going to be sky-high. (Refer back to part II in this series on ego for reasons why this is not always the best direction for new school owners).
It Might Be Your Location +/- _________ That's Killing Your Dojo...
Then again, I've seen schools open in lousy locations that floundered.
So what makes the difference between schools in less-than-ideal locations that succeed, and those that don't?
In a word, marketing. Marketing is what almost always makes the difference for those schools that have less-than-ideal locations. And needless to say, spending less on rent gives you more money in you budget to market your dojo.
Sure, it's a trade-off--you're trading foot traffic for lower rent--but it's the way I'd go nine times in ten when starting a new dojo.
Some Final Thoughts On Location
The thing to remember here is that you still have to pay attention to all the demographic and other research factors when choosing a location for your dojo, whether you're looking for a storefront, high-foot-traffic location in a busy shopping center or cheap warehouse space.
So, get someone to guide you through the process of finding a good location who knows what they're doing. Otherwise, you might end up in a location with crappy demographics that are killing your school, and no amount of marketing can fix that.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
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P.S. - I've coached several school owners through the process of choosing a location for their new dojos. This almost always requires one-on-one coaching, because it can be a lengthy process. That being said, there are few decisions in the process of opening a new dojo that are more important than choosing your location. So, the small investment in hiring an adviser is worth it in the long run.
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