The Dojo of Karate

It’s been 3 1/2 weeks since I turned in my plans to the City, and they have not reviewed my plans yet… I even had them expedited! Apparently there are 4 other plans ahead of me. I’m beginning to get frustrated because my goal was to start construction this past week, and possibly be open by the 2nd or 3rd week of June. It’s not looking good… I expected these type of delays, set-backs, etc., but not this close to being open. Well, there’s not much I can do other then continue to market my school by any means possible.

My 2nd round of direct mailers through Val-U-Ads for North Metro go out this week, which I’m hoping to get more inquiries. I’m also creating a flyer to put outside of my school, like real estate does when selling a house, so pass-goers can grab some information. I’ll probably get them printed this week. I’m hoping that this will not only generate hits on my website, but appointments. Granted I’m not open, but it does not mean that I can’t conduct “introductory classes” It probably does, but I need to try and lock in some students before the school opens.

My buddy Ryan also had a great suggestion, and I can’t believe that I didn’t think of this! He thought I should setup a booth outside a movie theater for the opening of Kung Fu Panda - which by the way looks great!!! Anyways, it comes out this weekend on June 6th. A bit too soon, but maybe it’s worth setting something up and passing out flyers to kids and their parents. There is a new movie theater in Westminster at 144th and I-25, in the Orchard Shopping Mall. I’m going to call them tomorrow and see if this is even possible. Hopefully it won’t cost me a dime, but we’ll see…

Oh yeah, here’s some good news. I got my 2nd prospective call last week! The call went well. The prospect seems very interested and accidentally stumbled on my website, as she was looking for another school. I obviously wasn’t able to setup anything, but told her the plans of when the school will open. Seems like she just wants to learn Karate and the discipline side of it, so I think she would be a great fit for my adult program.

One last note… I got a tattoo! I’m actually really surprised that I did it. Not really, as I’ve been wanting one for quite awhile, just didn’t know what I wanted. I’m just surprised that I jimmied-up the balls to move forward with it. It’s a tattoo of 4 Japanese characters, that I designed to look like a stamp - like what you see on official Japanese signatures. You can see it on my business cards and on my website. The first two characters on the left (they read top to bottom if you have forgotten) read “Dojo” and the other two characters on the right read “Karate”. So yes, in translation it says, “The Dojo of Karate”. The tattooist did a great job. He made the characters and the outside line look broken in some spots, like a real stamp. It’s on my back in between my shoulder blades, and I have to say it was a VERY painful process. My friend Tina took some pics, so I’ll post them as soon as I upload them to my mac.