How does your karate school make extra money?

Question

Does your karate school have fund raisers? sell things to the students? sell professional group/individual photos?

Answer 1

Another thing you do is hold demos. Put on martial arts demos at your school and charge a small cover charge. Maybe even have snacks and such. You could also have the demo for free and encourage visiters to make donations during the "show" to help run the school. Ive seen it work pretty great

Answer 2

Howdy,

I live in Japan and teach Capoeira. I would tell you that one of the bext ways for any martial arts studio to make more money is to have a community Pro-shop, not just with your equipment and uniforms buts lot of different things.  Of couse you need capital to get started. However, the tournament is always a good choice. Points tournament, grappling tournament. You don't even have to do anything but collect fees for entering and buy trophies, etc.  One tournament a month would do you well. Also you could have a summer camp for a couple of weeks. That would do wonders, expecially for parents that want to get rid of the kids for a little bit everyday.  Just have to plan it all out.

Answer 3

Bake sale!  People can be resentful if you try to sell them things after they've already shelled out a hearty tution fee. But nobody turns down cakes or cookies! mmm, yummy!

Answer 4

If your karate school is in financial trouble then your instructor should look at his business practices.  

I run a school myself.  When I first started it, I was a business fireball and the students and money just rolled in.  My school grossed about 20K per month, and even that is chicken feed to the really big schools.  But still, 20K per month allowed me to have a good lifestyle, and keep three employees.  

Then I went through some nasty personal stuff and got distracted.  I let the business stuff slip and didn't watch my marketing or accounting. My school's income was halved.   Now I'm back on my game and things are picking right up even in this economy.

And don't listen to anyone who says that you have to be a McDojo to make money.  My students do well in everything from kickboxing to MMA and it is d**n hard to earn a black belt in my system.  It has nothing to do with that.  It has to do with financial discipline, marketing and professionalism.  

If you need quick cash to keep the doors open, hold a tournament and invite all the schools your school has a good relationship with.  If you can get together even just 100 competitors you can make several thousand dollars.  

If your teacher needs advice about business stuff, have him email me.  I'll be happy to help.