From The Dojo to The Business: Transference of Habits

As a martial artist for almost 20 years, I've learned that the best way for me to win at anything is to always bring focused intention - coupled with multiple reps - into the game. Whether it's winning at becoming a successful instructor, winning a competition, or winning at effectively learning a new technique, I must intently focus on the task at hand with lots of repetition. Yet, what I also learned early on was that, even with focused intention, if you're not constantly practicing the actions necessary for you to win, then focused intention loses its luster and hinders your ability to win.

As an instructor, I constantly tell my students that 'what they learn on the training floor can be transferred to the classroom or workplace.' Though I firmly believe this and consistently give my students examples of how their martial art training is a life-skill that is useful for all aspects of their lives, I missed something in that translation when I ventured into entrepreneurship.

In 2009, I became a full-time entrepreneur. Often referred to as the "Queen of Reps" by my instructor, there is no technique that my students and I do not practice over and over in which each technique must be executed with focused intention. (I simply adopted the teaching style of my instructor that helped me and my Blackbelt colleagues to succeed at each level.) Understanding the importance of focused intention and repetition, the transference of this critical aspect of my training did not immediately transfer to a critical aspect of my business practices: follow-up!

From the beginning of my training in 1998 to now, there is no technique that I have not done thousands of times. Yet, even with all the focused intention of my execution and repetition in learning techniques, I initially failed to transfer this training habit into my business practices. I believed that I had enough know-how for running a successful martial art business, especially since I worked as the head of a successful martial school for nine years. I worked the business from almost every level - except ownership.

Well, I got off to a great start with my own business but, after a few years, the business became stagnant - little growth. I had the people skills, admin skills, an awesome instructor team and staff, the martial art techniques, and the teaching skills. I worked daily on improving my marketing skills, and had become very creative with the advertising - so I thought. Yet, the business was no longer growing.

I continued to be mentored by a successful school owner, continued to study, train, research marketing strategies, and network with similar businesses. However, what I hadn't done properly was place my focused intention on the very aspect of the business that was challenging to me – the follow-ups! I didn't transfer the critical element of my training as a martial artist into my business: focused intention with lots of repetition. Getting walk-ins and referrals to sign-up was pretty easy, but with the online and telephone requests we - I - kept falling short.

For instance, I felt confident with building strong client relationships, motivating and training the staff, and teaching, but those darn prospect follow-ups were a challenge for me. I was responsible for getting the clients - not the staff - so I had to work on me! I had to be the one whose focused intention - and attention - was on finding an effective follow-up system that worked consistently, and then rep the system to become an ‘expert' at follow-up.

For example:

Step 1: Call the prospect back within 24-72 hours (depending on when they called)

Step 2: Rehearse the follow-up system a thousand times or more until I could say and do it in my sleep - just as I did my martial art techniques

Step 3:  Set daily goals to get a certain number of prospects into the business from each follow-up call

Step 4: Intently focus on the goal at-hand with my thoughts, words, and actions, and not allowing others to distract me while I was working on that task

Step 5 (which is really Step 1):  Envision every prospect as a “yes!”

Step 6: Critical step! Accept beforehand that a rejection was not personal! It only meant that I had to go back and rehearse (and revise, if necessary) to ensure that I was meeting the needs of the prospects via my conveyance of the benefits of martial arts.

So, how did I miss transferring this aspect of my martial art training into the follow-up aspect of my business? I took the focus off continuously generating new clients because I had become "comfortable" with the fast growth and relied on it to continue.  Initially, I wasn't willing to work on my weakness – prospect follow-up – which was hindering the business’ growth.

Since numbers don’t lie, I had to buckle down and deal with this aspect of the business that was failing. I began to utilize my martial art training of focused intention and repetition and began to transform the weak follow-up percentages into higher percentages. Not the expert yet, but I’m still working on it!

From the dojo to the business, proper transference of training habits into the business is essential to my success.