Webinar

Running Multiple Martial Arts Schools: What Actually Works

Originally Aired

August 6, 2026

Who you'll hear from

Omar Kadi

Owner and BJJ black belt, four NYC locations

Glory Martial Arts

Greg Buck

PushStart Host and Martial Arts Specialist

PushPress

Watch the replay

Key Takeaways

Systems that scale The systems Glory runs on to grow from one location to four, without sacrificing culture or coaching quality.
Retention is your growth engine Why keeping students longer beats any marketing campaign, and how to build a community people don't want to leave.
Lead across locations How to hire, develop, and hold teams accountable when you can't physically be in every room.

Full Transcript

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PushPress: Yeah, how's it going, everybody? Thanks for joining. Gonna give it a few minutes, let people kind of fill in here.

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PushPress: As you're filling in, feel free, drop into the chat.

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PushPress: Kind of where you're from, what's the name of your gym if you run a school.

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PushPress: And then, what you're hoping to learn from today. Super excited to get, Omar on today.

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PushPress: Good friend of ours over here at PushPress.

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PushPress: Don't know Omar, you should know him, he's great.

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PushPress: Core strength and performance.

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PushPress: Those of us who have never been on a PushPress webinar, just to give you an idea, kind of what we'll go over today, Omar and I will present, we'll have a little plug for PushPress at the end, then we'll definitely jump into some Q&A.

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PushPress: So we'll leave some time for that.

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PushPress: During the webinar, though, do feel free to use the chat if any questions come up. I will be monitoring the chat as we go.

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PushPress: Kind of try to pepper those in where they're appropriate.

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PushPress: Oh, what's up, Victoria? Good to see you, all the way from Dublin.

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PushPress: Got to work with you guys a bunch, glad you could make it.

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PushPress: That's in California… CrossFit Monroe, good to see some of our CrossFit friends jumping on. Thanks for joining, guys.

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PushPress: Those of you who don't know my background, I'm a jiu-jitsu practitioner myself, but I do also own a CrossFit gym still.

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PushPress: Kind of, play both sides over here for push press.

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PushPress: Find our presentation…

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PushPress: All right, guys, so like I said, thanks so much for everybody who joined. I'm super excited for today's webinar. My good friend here, Omar. What we're gonna be talking about today is running multiple martial arts schools, how you can do it so it actually works.

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PushPress: And from there, I'll kind of let my friend Omar here take it away. Omar, if you guys are not familiar, very successful founder of soon-to-be Four Gyms, Glory Martial Arts Center out in the New York area.

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PushPress: Second, or fourth one will be in Brooklyn too, right? So you're gonna do two Brooklyns? Oh, Queens. Okay, so we're gonna have two in Queens, we got Brooklyn, we got Staten Island.

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PushPress: So, if you don't know Omar, he's building and has built one of New York's fastest-growing martial arts communities in a relatively short amount of time. He also has his black belt under the legendary Marcelo Garcia as a two-time IBJJF World Champion. Thank you again, Omar, for joining us today.

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PushPress: You know, just to kick it off, I love connecting with

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PushPress: practitioners and business owners, just to hear, like, your story, how you started in jiu-jitsu, and then how you got into, running your schools. I think you, in particular, have a really great story of how you kind of got into this business.

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, so,

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Omar Kadi: when I was about 24, 25 years old, I was working for, Sterling, which is K Jewelers and Zales, big corporation, and, I started as a part-time salesperson, worked my way up the ladder, and…

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Omar Kadi: when I got my last promotion, which was, like, I went from managing something like $3 million to $25 million, every time you get a promotion, a big promotion, especially from, like, management to, like, become a district manager, then you, go through a background check.

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Omar Kadi: And, I had a sibling that,

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Omar Kadi: you know, kind of played the gray area of the law. He was selling fake sneakers, used my name.

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Omar Kadi: My mom, traditional Middle Eastern family, asked me to take the rap for him, because otherwise he would have, because it was his, like, third offense, he would have ended up going to serve a year in jail. So she asked me to take the… take the hit for him, I took the hit for him, ended up costing me my job. I was 250 pounds, super heavy, like, overweight.

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Omar Kadi: And, I went to LA Fitness, and at LA Fitness, I saw this guy that was, like.

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Omar Kadi: pretty jacked and shredded. I was like, man! And he was in the sauna, You know, kind of like.

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Omar Kadi: you could tell he was, like, zoned out, listening to something, whatever. And I asked him, I said, hey man, like, whatever you're eating, whatever you're drinking, whatever you're doing, let me know what that is, because I want to look like that, you know? And he started laughing, he's like, oh, I do Brazilian jiu-Jitsu. And I was like, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, like, some, like, karate-type stuff?

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Omar Kadi: And I was like, had no clue what jiu-jitsu was, you know? And he's like, oh, why don't you come try a class?

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Omar Kadi: tried a class, fell in love with it, and said, I want to make this my, living, you know?

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Omar Kadi: during that time, I, kind of built another business, which is, like.

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Omar Kadi: you know, I went into the ATM business, filling up ATM machines, and did a couple of other business ventures, so I own multiple businesses, but ultimately, I knew that

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Omar Kadi: I wanted to be in my happy place. I wanted to be in a place where I love being. And, you know, although sales was fun.

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Omar Kadi: It wasn't as rewarding as, being part of the martial art industry.

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PushPress: Sure.

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PushPress: Yeah, that's, I think a lot of us, especially in CrossFit and Jiu-jitsu, have a very similar story of that kind of life-changing moment that we went through when we found our selective endeavor, which is incredible to hear. Obviously, someone who's doing it has done it at a very high level, and now a very high-level business owner has that same background as a lot of us is huge.

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PushPress: I'd love you to share, if you feel comfortable, kind of your story of how you got started with Glory itself, opening the locations. I think that's a really cool story as well.

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, so, COVID hit, and we had, you know, pretty much nowhere to train. We were training in the parks.

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Omar Kadi: And, my closest friend and I, he's like my brother, we were like, you know.

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Omar Kadi: training, we would just… I had rollout mats, we would go to the park and just train at the rollout mats, and I have pictures I could share, if anybody wants to see those, where we would be, you know, training. And then, all of a sudden, you would see, like, hey, oh, I do jiu-jitsu, can I join you guys? And this is during COVID, when everything was shut down.

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PushPress: Oh, shit.

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Omar Kadi: it was like, man, Unity was shut down, all the big schools, all the big players in New York City were, like.

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Omar Kadi: Completely shut down, and, you know, we reached out, and hey, when are we gonna open? You know, when… and, you know, they would just say, hey, you know, we gotta wait until…

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Omar Kadi: We feel comfortable, and the government feels comfortable, and, you know.

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Omar Kadi: people started, like, hey, can I join your training sessions? When do you train? And then it was just, like, 1, 2, and then, like, I have a picture where it was, like, 15 other jiu-jitsu practitioners, and we were training in, like.

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Omar Kadi: sometimes in Fort Hamilton Park, which is, like, a park close to where my gym is now, Dumbo, where, like, the Brooklyn Bridge is, and it was, like, really cool. Like, we had people… and then I looked at all, and I was like, man, like, we've been talking about opening up a gym since we were Blue Belts.

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Omar Kadi: let's just do it. And he's like, bro, you are nuts. He's like, you're out of your mind.

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Omar Kadi: He's like.

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Omar Kadi: there's no way, like, in the middle of COVID. So I just said… I said, man, when there's a will, there's a way.

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Omar Kadi: And during that time, I had been already, like, kind of, like, volunteering and teaching at a local, like, community center, at a mosque, where

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Omar Kadi: you know, Muslim people go to pray. And during Ramadan, usually when we're fasting, it's very hard to train, with no food, no water, nothing to eat or drink. So, what I would do is, at night, I would ask them if we could use the facility to, like, get a couple of the people that were fasting to come train at night, so this way I wasn't out of shape.

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Omar Kadi: Especially because at that time, I was competing, and you know, I was competing in big tournaments, and trying to do my thing.

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Omar Kadi: So I would gather my friends, we would go and train at the local mosque, and they kept saying, man.

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Omar Kadi: It's just crazy, we see, like, 40 people or 50 people are asking to train with you, and, you know, it just… and they kept telling me to open up a gym, and open up a gym.

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PushPress: There.

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Omar Kadi: Little behold, 5 years later, I was like, oh, you know what, I gotta open up the gym, but I was, like, kinda tight on money, and they actually funded it for me.

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PushPress: Incredible, yeah.

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Omar Kadi: Within 6 months, we… when I say we, like, me, Ali, and my brother, who's the Muay Thai coach, but also a business partner.

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PushPress: paid us.

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Omar Kadi: And it was, like, they were so happy that we paid them back. And also, we do lots of little community things for the community still, just kind of, like.

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Omar Kadi: you know.

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PushPress: Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, I mean, you guys were basically born from your… from your community, and were able to give back, and continue to give back to the community, you know, even though they had to kind of help you guys start it up, but, I mean, that's an incredible story, you know.

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PushPress: Jiu-jitsu and CrossFit, you know, having that… that through-line of community being so important, like, I just wanted you to share that, because I think that's such a cool story. As a business owner, seeing that through line of community is just incredible. So yeah, thank you for sharing.

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PushPress: From there, guys, we're gonna get into it. Let's talk about, you know, some tactics and how Omar runs his school, some of which you guys might already be doing, some of which hopefully turns on some light bulbs for you guys, especially when it comes to running multiple locations.

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PushPress: You know, the big thing that Omar and I have discussed is going from one school to two is not, like, an A to B path.

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PushPress: Just because you have the resources to open up school, too, doesn't necessarily mean you should, or maybe even want to. So some of the big things that we're gonna call out today and talk about a little bit is

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PushPress: You know, things you need to have in place, your systems need to be down pat. You need to make sure your culture is down pat, whether you plan on replicating that culture at the second school, or potentially having a completely different culture at that other school. Now, I've seen a few, a few gyms where

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PushPress: School number one is, you know, that's the competitive school. School number two, that's kind of the hobbyist school. So…

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PushPress: getting some of those things outlined is super important. And the other thing to think about is, you know.

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PushPress: how your time is going to be spent opening these new schools. You know, I think a lot of the very developed coaches and very developed business owners are used to that, you know, you're 5, 10 years in, and maybe you're only coaching one or two classes a week.

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PushPress: and you are potentially only in the gym a few days a week, you go to open that second school, you maybe have forgotten what that grind of that first year or two can look like. And, you know, Omar, just some stuff that you could shed light on here of how you went through that decision-making process of when you think people are potentially ready to open a school.

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PushPress: You know, I think the one you hit on really well is the chef analogy of, you know, potentially one of your instructors says, hey, coach, I think I want to open a school. Do you want to do this with me? And kind of where does your mindset go when somebody approaches you to open a school.

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PushPress: Or, you know, if you're looking to open a school, what are the metrics and systems you have in place for stuff like that?

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Omar Kadi: So, I kind of like you said it earlier, just because you could, doesn't mean you should, right?

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PushPress: Yep.

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Omar Kadi: you know, a lot of people think, you know, oh, you know what, financially, you know, I could open up a second school, or… but that doesn't mean that you're gonna enjoy it. And I always tell people, like, you know, especially, like, I have instructors that, which we're gonna discuss in a few seconds, and gonna get to, that say, hey, I wanna

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Omar Kadi: do XYZ, but the actions don't match the words, you know?

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PushPress: Yep.

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Omar Kadi: The second you give them a little bit of your workload, they're like, whoa, that's crazy.

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Omar Kadi: Even though, like, you know,

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Omar Kadi: I compensate my guys really well. I look at my staff more as partners in business.

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PushPress: Samir?

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Omar Kadi: They are the representation of who I am, and my… you know, they're communicating my philosophy, they're communicating my culture to the students. You can't be everywhere.

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Omar Kadi: All the time. So… Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: with that being said, you know, I think, knowing that

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Omar Kadi: knowing what I know now, advice to… like, we're gonna go over the most basic, simple things. Obviously, don't stretch yourself in. If you don't have the right people in place, it's not the right move to do.

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Omar Kadi: If you don't have systems, curriculum, structural organizations like SOPs.

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Omar Kadi: Operating agreements between you and your partners, your staff, operating agreements for people that you're going to be working with. All of these things are not there. It's not the right time.

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Omar Kadi: And then putting your finger on the pulse, understanding your KPIs, is one of the most important things. And obviously, like, having a CRM like PushPress,

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Omar Kadi: Or any of the, like, the super…

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Omar Kadi: high-level CRMs, will give you breakdowns of your KPIs.

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Omar Kadi: But just because you have the breakdown, how often are you looking at it?

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PushPress: Yeah, for sure.

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PushPress: Yeah, 100%. So, like, that's almost like your baseline. You have to have all that stuff in place.

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PushPress: before you should even be thinking about, hey, maybe it's time for location 2. It might be profitable, you might not have to be in the gym every day, but when you're gonna go and just open up location two, you don't have all that stuff, the groundwork laid, it's gonna be a rough, rough go for you, for sure.

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Omar Kadi: Absolutely, and like, you know, anybody that's thinking about it, the first thing that they should, like, stop and think about is.

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Omar Kadi: What was it like… what was my experience like when I opened up my first gym?

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Omar Kadi: What did that… cost me.

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Omar Kadi: Now, we're not talking about just money, because dollars and cents are easy to make, right?

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Omar Kadi: You know, I always tell my guys, it's like, man made the money, right? I know it's very cliche, but it's the truth.

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Omar Kadi: Man made money. Money never made the man. So, if you opened up a gym, and you're successful, and you're running a… a very, you know…

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Omar Kadi: Well-structured, well-organized gym.

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Omar Kadi: What did that cost? How much time and effort did you put in? Do you want to do that again?

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PushPress: Right.

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Omar Kadi: And now we go back to the chef analogy.

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Omar Kadi: Just because.

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Omar Kadi: You can cook, does not mean that you want to own a restaurant.

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PushPress: Right, right. Or… or maybe you… you did open a restaurant, and now you're just a cook, because that's what you want to do, because the restaurant's humming. Now you want to go back to being the guy who has to run the restaurant, right?

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Omar Kadi: Exactly, exactly. So, and that's kind of the… the… like, the… the message that I'm trying to communicate. Some people just…

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Omar Kadi: are, you know, like, oh, you know what, I'm excited, I can make X amount of money. Just because your first gym is also successful doesn't mean your second gym will be as successful. And what does that look like?

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PushPress: Right.

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Omar Kadi: You know? So those are some of the things that I think that are really important to communicate in this conversation, and when you're thinking about scaling, it is so important to have all of these things

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Omar Kadi: lined up at SOP, like, you know, people are like, SOPs. Alright, well, what is an SOP? I have a cleaning SOP. Like, how I want the gyms cleaned. One of the things that, like.

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Omar Kadi: you know, I pride myself on, is you walk into my gym, and people are like, man, this is one of the cleanest gyms I've ever walked into.

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PushPress: Yeah, it's huge.

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Omar Kadi: You know, and…

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Omar Kadi: you can… if you walked in today, Greg, and said, Omar, I want to join your staff as the cleaning, you know, like, the guy that's going to clean the gym.

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Omar Kadi: I give you my SOP, I say, read this.

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Omar Kadi: Let me know if you have any questions. We're gonna go over it on the next call.

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Omar Kadi: What call? We schedule Zoom calls with our staff every week.

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Omar Kadi: So every week,

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Omar Kadi: I don't do this with every staff member, I give them the option to, but it is non-negotiable for me that the guys that are managing or part owners of the gym, which I have partners in the locations, are on a Zoom call with me at least once a week.

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PushPress: Yeah, that's perfect. I think that perfectly kind of brings us into our next slide here. So, talking about these systems that scale, you know, you already hit on this a little bit. Kind of those weekly rhythms, those check-ins, those reports, you know, coaching sessions you're doing with your staff.

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PushPress: And then other things around that. When some of this stuff comes up, let's say, you know, you're doing your weekly… your weekly check-ins with your staff, you know, you're managing partners, or you're managing…

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PushPress: you know, facility managers. What are some of the metrics you guys are looking at with them week to week, that you consider to show the gym is moving in the right direction at each location?

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Omar Kadi: So, the first thing I'm looking at is my KPIs, and I, you know, and this is part of, like, the thing that I actually do with a lot of our consulting clients, I look at a couple of different things.

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Omar Kadi: How many leads?

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Omar Kadi: How many of those converted into trials? What… how many of the trials actually showed up? What is the enrollment?

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Omar Kadi: The monthly gross, cancellations, student count, holds, how many people are on a hold, how many people are past due, or what's the past due amount, the revenue goal, which I'll talk about in a second, and how much cash came in.

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Omar Kadi: So I want to be updated on this. Of course, I have access to go into the system and check this through the CRM and see this, you know, live daily, but I think that's not enough.

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Omar Kadi: I think the… sitting there and reviewing this with your staff lets you know exactly where you are. You know, out of sight, out of mind.

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Omar Kadi: Because if we get… you get into this routine, you're like, okay, I log into the system, I see leads, I see trials booked, I see enrollments, but are you really looking at the numbers?

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Omar Kadi: And I have them in front of me, and I'll, like, I'll look at the numbers. So if I have, you know, 122 leads, 110 booked, that's really, really good.

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PushPress: Right.

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Omar Kadi: Okay, and out of those 110 booked, how many showed up?

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Omar Kadi: Well, 49 showed up. Okay, that's a little less than 50%, not so good. We need to improve that. Out of the 49 people, how many did you guys sign up?

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Omar Kadi: 42.

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Omar Kadi: Our conversion rate is very strong.

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PushPress: Yeah, huge, for sure.

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Omar Kadi: You know, well, hey, coach, we got 42 signups, but we got 50 cancellations.

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Omar Kadi: That's not so good.

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PushPress: Right, right. Right.

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Omar Kadi: Why are we getting so many cancellations? So the numbers tell a story, and that's how you kind of analyze your business, is by…

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Omar Kadi: looking at the numbers, and understanding the story, and understanding the story it tells. So if somebody tells me, look, I got 122 leads, and I only booked, or I only, you know, booked out of those 122 leads, 10 leads. Well, that tells a story right there.

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Omar Kadi: It means that someone's either not calling, or there's a really bad funnel going on.

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Omar Kadi: Right? A lead funnel and a lead nurturing system, which is also something that every gym needs to have. I know PushPress has, you know, automations for all of that. And I think these are… these are… I know they sound, like, really basic.

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Omar Kadi: But how many people are looking at this on a weekly basis?

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PushPress: Right, yeah, so many owners get caught in the day-to-day and, like, kind of caught in the sauce, right? For lack of a better term, and

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PushPress: You have to be able to take yourself out, even, like you said, on a once-a-week basis, to look at the numbers. So that's gonna be where you have the ability to come in and either coach your staff, or coach yourself, or tweak something, whether it's the funnel, it's your outreach process, you know,

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PushPress: You guys do a really good job with,

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PushPress: You know, following up with your staff every week, obviously, but then with those numbers, you can be like, hey, okay, so we've churned 50 people.

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PushPress: you know, in this cancellation process, I know you guys in particular send out that form that they fill out around, you know, why are you canceling? Can you talk a little bit about, your cancellation process, and what you guys do to make sure people feel

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PushPress: one, feel like they're welcome to come back, so that's a big thing we hit on, but also just talk about, you know, I think this is a really good system thing, is what's your cancellation process? And we have a question about this as well in the chat, so… Sure.

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Omar Kadi: So the cancellation process is we have a, basically an exit interview.

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Omar Kadi: We first, we send them the cancellation form, we let them fill it out, we don't have a cancellation, we don't have a contract, anyone can cancel at any time, and people are like, why? Because I'm confident in my product.

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Omar Kadi: You know, I don't need to… I don't need to hold someone

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Omar Kadi: In if they don't want to be there.

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Omar Kadi: Life happens to people. People don't want to be there. They don't want to be forced to be there, and they don't want to pay these cancellation… I don't know anybody that wants to pay a cancellation fee.

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Omar Kadi: Right. I know for sure everybody in this call will probably agree with me and say, I don't want to pay a cancellation fee.

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Omar Kadi: what I always do is I'm like, hey man.

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Omar Kadi: can you fill this out? And I look at the cancellation form, and some of the questions we asked was, was the class, good? Did you feel part of the community? Did you feel welcomed by the instructor?

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Omar Kadi: Was the instructor easy to, communicate with and understand? Did they teach a class that felt

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Omar Kadi: like, you know, like, you were able to keep up with the level, right? Because we have different, class levels. You know, we have guys that are starting at day one, and we have guys that have been training for 7 to 10 years. So, did you feel comfortable in the class? Were you able to absorb what the knowledge that was being given to you?

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Omar Kadi: And what, you know, we have a scale of 1 to 5.

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Omar Kadi: disagree, and then strongly agree. And Bain, they fill it out, and then they put their reason for cancellation. We read that.

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Omar Kadi: And if we ever, which I think…

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Omar Kadi: Maybe one of my managers might be on the call, but I would say she would have a better feel on this. I think we've never gotten…

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Omar Kadi: Anything below 4s and fives being strongly agree that we're doing a good job, strongly agree with this or that.

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Omar Kadi: And part of that reason is because I always communicate with my instructors, everybody's running on the systems that I've built, and on the culture of…

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Omar Kadi: community first.

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PushPress: For sure.

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PushPress: Dammit.

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PushPress: And that can… no, you're good. And that can kind of fill in those gaps, you know, this itself is a system of feedback, you know? You can glean a lot from those numbers, but let's say, you know, you're always going to potentially have that one member who

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PushPress: maybe you can never please, right? There's always one or two, right? But in that, you know, let's say we get that Kansas State form where it's ones across the board, yes, we could throw out and say, okay, this person was not a right fit, you know, something happened where

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PushPress: maybe we're not able to mend that relationship, but in there, there might be a grain of truth that we can then take to our staff and, like, and coach them on, right? So, like, you were saying, you know, Sally was coming to the beginner class, and she just felt like it was way over her head. You know, that could be great feedback for one of our coaches who's teaching that beginner class.

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PushPress: Now, make sure we're looking out whether Sally comes back, or in the future, another Sally of.

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PushPress: hey, maybe we are going a little bit too fast for these truly day one people. Now, if you see someone struggling in class, make sure you're helping them in particular, right? Which, because it's hard as a coach, you know, you guys sometimes have 50 people on the mat. Now, it's hard to hit every single person sometimes.

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Omar Kadi: Absolutely, absolutely. And now, going to touch on the retention process and what we do to keep them coming back, is once we get all those fives, the first thing I say is, hey man, you know, it's usually a 30-day cancellation, which what we have is on our thing is, like, 30-day cancellation notice, but I'll call the company, I'll call my push press.

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Omar Kadi: And, because, you know, we say, oh, they control everything, and we'll get it canceled for you.

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Omar Kadi: But can you do me a favor, just give us a 5-star Google review?

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PushPress: Oh, great, yeah.

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Omar Kadi: So, we use it to get a good review out of the customer when… and we take care of it right away, but it's only if we deserve it. Like, so if I…

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PushPress: Sure, right.

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Omar Kadi: all across the board. I'm like, do you mind sharing this with everyone? Do you mind sharing? And if they say yes, yes. If no, I'm like, I'll still take care of it right away. My staff right away cancels their membership and makes sure that they're happy or whatever.

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Omar Kadi: And, you know, we have a… it's kind of like a… like a full-scale retention,

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PushPress: 100%.

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Omar Kadi: I don't know if you want to share it now, or save it for later.

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PushPress: Let's go, let's talk about your staff first. Okay. So, leading across locations, so talking about hiring, how to develop that staff, and kind of how to enforce that accountability.

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PushPress: I think you have a really unique, outlook on how

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PushPress: you hire or bring in staff and how you characterize them. I think, again, in jiu-jitsu and fitness as a whole, staffing is always a hot-button issue, you know? Where do I find staff? How do I retain staff? You know, where are you guys finding coaches? Where are you guys finding instructors?

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PushPress: So I think if you could just talk a little bit about how you look at your staff members and how you characterize them, I think you guys do it in a really unique and powerful way.

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Omar Kadi: Sure. I mean, there's a couple of different things that we do, but one of the major things is, everyone that I work with

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Omar Kadi: everyone that I work with, has direct access to me.

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Omar Kadi: All the time. They can call me at 9 o'clock at night, they can call me at 6 AM,

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Omar Kadi: And, they're family. It's a community. We're part of a team. And we work together. They don't work for me.

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Omar Kadi: You know, and that's something that I communicate with my training partners, I mean, with my, with my partners at work, like, so I have my… my…

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Omar Kadi: black belt that runs the Brooklyn location. I have a black belt that runs the Staten Island location, and then the other location. So all of our locations, we have guys that, we communicate almost every single day.

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Omar Kadi: And we talk every single day, and when we're… when we hire people, normally,

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Omar Kadi: if I'm not the one who's training them, it's someone that's been indoctrinated into the system, and that knows the operating, tools that we have, and they have all of the, you know, the operating manuals, and they have all the SOPs,

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Omar Kadi: And then we, you know, we, again, we spend time coaching them. I coach them, I talk to them on a daily, on a weekly basis, and I reward my… my staff on performance.

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Omar Kadi: And the way… the way the reward system works is, you know, I set goals.

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Omar Kadi: So, my goals are do or die.

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Omar Kadi: Home run and a Grand Slam. Bases loaded, we bat it out the park. Do or dies, 15% increase over last year's numbers.

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Omar Kadi: So, if, you know, especially if the business has been operational for a while, I think that's, like, that's a non-negotiable for me. 15% is do or die. Anything over that, every $1,000 that we do over that, they're gonna get rewarded.

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Omar Kadi: And the more they… the more that they do, so they… and then it's, like, 20% for the home run, and 25% and above for the Grand Slam.

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Omar Kadi: The more they do, the more they make.

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Omar Kadi: As managers.

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PushPress: Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing you've said to me, is even though they're your managers, and they're your employees, you look at them more as partners, and

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PushPress: A payment structure like that, where you're incentivizing them to grow the gym itself.

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PushPress: versus potentially taking on, you know, a few more privates here, or trying to go coach a class across town for 25 bucks, or whatever, right? Their incentives are built in-house, and that's gonna just continue to build your community, build your loyalty to the brand and the business and the community, and that's how you're gonna retain people, is these, you know,

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PushPress: Creative, but also, a rewarding

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PushPress: structures for these employees, you know? How many…

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PushPress: guys and gals do we know who are running, you know, any kind of gym where it's just, oh yeah, show up, put your class, here's your 40 bucks, your 20 bucks, whatever it is, and go home, right? They might be great instructors, but are they bought into the process, the program, the community, the brand, all those things, you know, that's huge.

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PushPress: I'd love for you to talk about, obviously, you have a fourth location opening up relatively soon, and kind of how that conversation got started with your new partner who's going to be helping you open that location. And I think this speaks to…

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PushPress: again, in both CrossFit and Jiu-Jitsu, we see a lot of parallels around

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PushPress: Gym owners are really scared about their head instructor, who's gonna leave and go open their own gym, right? We see it time and time again, and I think the first step of that is making sure, one, they're compensated fairly, right? So, obviously a model you guys run, where it's like, hey, if the gym continues to grow, you will make more money.

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PushPress: Right? So I think that's step one. But I think step two, you know, talk about, you know, opening this new location and kind of how it came to fruition, with that member of your community.

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Omar Kadi: Sure. So, one of… one of my purple belts, this is actually the location I opened up. The one I didn't.

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PushPress: Oh, okay.

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Omar Kadi: fourth location, so I'll go… I'll tell you a little bit of both. Cool.

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Omar Kadi: one of my purple belts, he's an accountant, and one day we were sitting down, and like, you know, I could tell he was down. Like, I could tell his energy was a little bit off, and I said to him, like, hey man, like, what's up, you okay? He's like, bro, my vacation's ending, and I gotta go back to my shitty-ass job.

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Omar Kadi: I'm sorry for cursing and swearing, but yeah.

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PushPress: Okay.

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Omar Kadi: He's like, I gotta go back to this crappy, job, and I'm like, wait, I thought you, you know, he's like, man, my parents, you know, they pushed the accounting thing on me, and made me become an accountant, and you know, it's not what I want to do. I just want to do jiu-jitsu. I love jiu-jitsu. I can't wait till I get a black belt to open up a gym one day.

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Omar Kadi: I was like…

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Omar Kadi: like, do you… are you financially in a place to open up a gym? And he said, yeah. And I was like, so why don't you open up a gym now? And he goes, wait, I could do that? I'm like, absolutely, bro, like, you know, I do the consulting, I can, help you and guide you and, you know, be there for you, and, you know, you've been… you were my first student since day one.

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Omar Kadi: So I'm… I wanna give that back, you know, in a way… any way I can.

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PushPress: Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: and support you. And, he said,

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Omar Kadi: He's like, man, he was so, like, he went from, like.

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Omar Kadi: like, looking, like, super depressed, like, super excited. I'm like, and then, you know, the conversation carried on, and, he asked me, he's like, he's like,

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Omar Kadi: He's like, oh, what do you think about this area? And it's like an hour away, and a state away from where we are.

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Omar Kadi: And I'm like.

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Omar Kadi: Like, why would you want to pay, like, $60 in tolls every day to go to work there? Like, what's the… are you thinking of moving there? He's like, no, I would never move from where I'm at. And I'm like, so why would you go there? He goes, because I don't want to open up

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Omar Kadi: like, there's nowhere… where am I gonna open up here in Staten Island? I said.

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, he goes, but you have a gym there. And I said, okay.

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Omar Kadi: Like, that… what does that have to do with my gym? Like, you're not…

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Omar Kadi: opening up next door, right? He goes… and I said, you know, Staten Island's big enough, especially during traffic, it takes, like, 45 minutes to an hour to get from one side of the island to the other. I said, I'm on the North Shore, why don't you open up on the South Shore?

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Omar Kadi: And he's like, what? No way, that's so cool. He's like, man… he's like, can I still train under you? I was like, yeah, of course, bro. I'm like, if you want to even open a Glory, like, we could do a glory, but you don't have to, like, no pressure.

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Omar Kadi: Man, he goes, oh my god, bro, like, he's like, I feel like I'm dreaming. Long story short, we opened up the gym, he's doing really, really well.

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Omar Kadi: another one of my students, who's also a Purple Belt, before I even had gyms, same thing like this guy, when I was just teaching at the local community centers.

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Omar Kadi: he also, like, like, oh man, I want to open up a gym, it's my dream, you know, like, I want to be, like, there's nothing that I would rather do than this, blah blah blah blah, and then, you know, the opportunity came along, he's now a purple belt.

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Omar Kadi: And then we have a black belt partner in that new location that we're opening in Queens. And, these guys are, like, you know, super excited to be part of the Glory family, and they're like, man, like, I don't want to try to figure things out by myself.

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Omar Kadi: Let's work together.

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Omar Kadi: I made it super simple for them, and they're super excited about this location that we're building out right now.

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PushPress: Yeah, it's incredible. And again, I think it just goes back to…

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PushPress: you don't… when you… when you trust in your product, and you have your SOPs in place.

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PushPress: you don't have to be scared about that instructor leaving you, because they're going to look to you, because you run an incredible business already. They want to stay a part of your business, even if it looks a little bit different, right? So now, instead of…

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PushPress: maybe they just wanted to come, and you were going to open up a gym, and now they're just gonna be the head coach over there. Instead, like, hey, I want to get involved here, I want to be a business partner here, or I just want to fly the Glory flag and be an affiliate, right? But you're still going to support those guys, because…

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PushPress: you know, at the end of the day, you're just building the glory name in the community, which is huge. Yeah, I think a lot of gym owners get stuck in that scarcity mentality of.

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PushPress: you know, there's only so many people in my town, or, you know, the other gym opened up down the street, you know, my town isn't super big, you know, we had another CrossFit gym here for a while for, you know, to compete against my CrossFit gym, and it's like…

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PushPress: you know, a lot of my members are just like, oh, are you… are you upset? Are you scared? It's like, no, I know her, she's super nice, like, she's a great, great lady, like, if I can support her, I will. Like, we'll do our own thing over here, she does her own thing over there, and…

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PushPress: you know, every school and every gym is not a fit for every single person, so if you do your thing extraordinarily well, your people will find you, you know? And I think same thing comes with the opportunity to open schools and find new partners, so that's incredible.

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PushPress: I want to say…

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Omar Kadi: thing, right?

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PushPress: Oh yeah, hit me, dude, for sure.

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Omar Kadi: You know, and this is… I'm sure you, like, you're familiar with this, but for people that aren't, people at the top don't compete. They collaborate.

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PushPress: Yep, 100%.

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Omar Kadi: People that are, you know, at the bottom are usually competing.

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Omar Kadi: You know, when you're… when you get to a certain place, you don't want to compete, you want to collaborate. And people are like, oh, but, you know, if he opens up a gym, he'll take 20 of my members.

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Omar Kadi: No, but actually opens up your brand. It makes your brand stronger and bigger and better, and now people will say, oh.

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Omar Kadi: we have a glory on the North Shore, we have a glory on the South Shore. If I'm ever stuck in traffic on my way from one to the other, I can go here or here. The world's a big place, and there's plenty for people to eat. And that scarcity mindset is what holds a lot of people back.

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PushPress: Yeah, 100%.

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PushPress: Yeah, 100%. I think, kind of where I want to go next, you touched on this a little bit in terms of talking about your metrics and your systems and your funnels, so obviously you guys do, a good amount of marketing, and you do it well, but I wanted to kind of pivot a little bit and talk retention. I think, especially for some of our smaller schools.

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PushPress: or schools who are going from one to two locations. Obviously, when you're doing that, like, marketing expense is gonna go up.

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PushPress: So, what I wanted to talk about, because we're huge proponents of this here at PushPress, is, you know, what does retention look like for you guys? You know, something that we say a lot is, you know, one student kept is worth more than three acquired, just because you have to pay so much to acquire those three new students, right?

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PushPress: Talk a little bit about, you know, what policies do you guys have in place, for potentially new students or existing students? Do you guys do any checkups on them? Do you do, you know, calls before belt promotions to check in? You know, what does that look like for you guys?

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Omar Kadi: So, retention is… isn't one thing.

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Omar Kadi: Like, just like success. It's never won.

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PushPress: Is that fair?

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Omar Kadi: cycle, right? And the cycle starts as soon as your student walks in the door and signs up.

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Omar Kadi: That cycle never ends, right? And for us.

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Omar Kadi: It starts with positioning ourselves in a strong way, so that the student always feels like he's part of a community.

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Omar Kadi: touched on this yesterday, and I want to bring it back up.

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Omar Kadi: Or, I'm sorry, the day before.

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PushPress: Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: What it is, is when you sign up, you're joining a community. You're joining a team.

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Omar Kadi: And I'm not one of those guys that forces you to purchase a uniform.

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Omar Kadi: But we have it there. Merchandising, for,

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Omar Kadi: You know, for us, it's about 25-30% of our business.

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Omar Kadi: So if you don't have merch, you're kind of, like, shooting yourself in the foot.

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PushPress: Leaving a lot of money on the table, for sure, yeah.

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Omar Kadi: The number one reason is retention.

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PushPress: Yeah, sure.

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Omar Kadi: You own a gi?

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PushPress: Oh yeah, I had a lot of geese.

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Omar Kadi: You own… you own a Nogisat?

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PushPress: Huh?

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, every time you own a gi, every time you own a no gi set, every time you look at your gi, and it's sitting there in the corner, and it says Glory Martial Arts on it, or it says, you know, Fuji.

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Omar Kadi: Fuji, I can go anywhere and train with a Fuji gee.

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Omar Kadi: Wario Martial Arts is a reminder that I'm part of this team, I'm part of this community. And again, I don't force it on my students. I tell them, look, you don't have to purchase the gear, but here's what we have. We have the gear, it's fairly priced. If anything goes wrong with it, we back it up 6 months.

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Omar Kadi: No, like, anything, anything happens. Wear and tear, blah blah, throw it out, give you a new gi. Throw it out, give you brand new shorts.

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PushPress: Fair.

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Omar Kadi: But this is a reminder for them to come back into training, and they're most likely, if they ever quit.

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Omar Kadi: They're gonna look at that gi, and they're gonna say, you know what, I had a great experience at this place, the teachers were cool, the gym was cool, they never pressured me into anything, they didn't, you know, they weren't pushy salesmen, they weren't pushy, you know, or they weren't mean to me when I quit, which I've had happen to… to…

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Omar Kadi: people, kind of touched on that the other day. So, that's part of one of the things that you could do for retention. Also, calling in and checking on your student, understanding their goals. So, usually with the sales process, when people first walk in.

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Omar Kadi: One of the questions that we ask, a probing question, is like, what brings you in?

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Omar Kadi: We want to know what… what is your why. I can sell you a lot easier if I know your why, but if I don't know your why, how am I going to sell you a membership? So for me, my why was I wanted to lose weight.

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Omar Kadi: a good instructor, or a good, you know, a good team, you know, will understand, like, hey, you know, Omar Man, I know you're thinking about quitting, but do you remember when you first signed up here? You know, you were 250 pounds, now you're, like, 160, 165. Has jiu-jitsu not given you

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Omar Kadi: your… why? Has it not given you the goals that you set out? Is there anything that we can do to help you better? Is there new goals that we can set? And understanding and having that conversation with your… with your students,

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Omar Kadi: You can do it on a monthly basis, you can do it on a biweekly basis, you can do it on a quarter. But have these conversations. You need to have these conversations. You need to connect with your students. If there's no connection.

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Omar Kadi: There's no community, there's no reason for them to stay.

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PushPress: Right.

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PushPress: Right, because they can… they can learn jiu-jitsu from any… no, you're good. They can learn jiu-jitsu from anybody. You know, you guys might be the best instructors around, but if they don't feel like they belong there, there's a reason to go back. Anyone can teach them jiu-jitsu. And most people don't know good jiu-jitsu from bad jiu-jitsu.

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Omar Kadi: Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, I can tell you for sure, you know, unless you've been training for a while.

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Omar Kadi: you're, you know, like, there's… let's… I'll give you an example.

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Omar Kadi: when we first opened up the gym, I had, like, the, you know, the meows teaching at my gym, which were, like, really, really, really well known in the jiu-jitsu community. The Meow Brothers are, like.

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Omar Kadi: Like, superstars.

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Omar Kadi: Nobody was coming in for the meows.

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Omar Kadi: Right. 99% of the white belts don't know what I'm… like, who's… who are the meows? They're coming here, they're signing up, they don't care that these guys have won multiple world titles, they don't care what their… they're coming in there for their reason, and you gotta understand their reason, and that helps with the retention cycle. If you don't connect with them on their why.

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Omar Kadi: You're never going to be able to keep that part of your community.

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Omar Kadi: And nor should you… you don't deserve to be a part of their community and a part of their journey. If I don't understand what your journey's about.

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Omar Kadi: Why am I even on the same journey with you?

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PushPress: Right, there's gotta be some back and forth. You can't just throw jiu-jitsu at them and expect them to keep showing up. You have to invest in your people as well, for sure.

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PushPress: Kind of last thing I think I want to talk about in terms of retention is kind of the little… we… at PushPress and then cross what we call the peak end hack.

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PushPress: So in CrossFit, they say in any experience, you kind of remember two things out of every… in any experience. So in CrossFit, it's usually the most… in the Pecan theory, it's the most intense part of the…

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PushPress: Experience, and the last thing you experience. So in CrossFit, it's kind of built in, right? You are gonna remember how hard that workout was and how it smashed you, and you're gonna remember how you felt at the end when your instructor came up and gave you a fist pump and said, hey, good job, man, we'll see you tomorrow.

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PushPress: And I think you guys kind of employ a pretty similar system at Glory in terms of how you set up your class structure to make sure people are coming back. So could you talk about that a little bit?

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, we call it the three S's. Sweat, smile, and strive for more. And, you know, sweat and smile is pretty basic, you know, you just gotta get them to laugh, get a good sweat, and strive for more, as I always leave them with a cliffhanger.

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Omar Kadi: People are always asking me, like, man, like, your classes are so well attended. I'm like, yeah, because I live in with a cliffhanger, you know?

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PushPress: Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: Everybody, especially in the jiu-jitsu community, has a what-if.

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Omar Kadi: What if the guy turns this way? What if he does this? And what if he does that? Hey, tomorrow we're gonna answer the what-ifs. Hey, and even if I don't get the what-ifs, I'm like, hey guys, tomorrow we're gonna go over the second part of the system, which is gonna give you the full scope of the system. And then they're like, shoot, I can't miss tomorrow's class.

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PushPress: Right, that means I better be here tomorrow, right?

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Omar Kadi: Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, man, I got some really… and I was telling him, I'm like, man, I got some magic, I got some secret sauce to show you guys tomorrow.

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PushPress: Heck yeah.

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Omar Kadi: And we'll have some fun, and you guys will get to figure it out. Coach, coach, can you tell us now? I'm like, you gotta come tomorrow, we'll see. Oh, I got work tomorrow.

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Omar Kadi: We gotta figure it out, I guess.

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PushPress: Right? Yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, like, the retention in the community, there's such a back and forth there, and then, you know, your systems that you have in place are just backing that.

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PushPress: What I really want to do, since I think this has been an incredible discussion, we'll do a little bit of housekeeping, then I want to open up the Q&A a little bit. So, obviously you spoke about many, many things today. Metrics, systems, retention, community, and kind of how to

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PushPress: put it all together, right? Just some takeaways for you guys in the chat. You need to build your systems that can work when you're not in the room, especially going to a second location. Like, you're not going to be at both places 24-7. It's not possible, right?

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PushPress: You need to focus on your retention. Some of the tactics Omar uses are huge. You know, a few other tactics he talked to and, like, I've used myself are…

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PushPress: just, you know, check up on your people. A story I tell is the first jiu-jitsu gym I was ever a part of.

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PushPress: I was there for about 3 years. I never missed a day of practice. I would train Monday, Wednesday, Friday, every single week, and then I was gone for about a month.

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PushPress: And nobody from the gym reached out to me. I was gone for a month. I was like, that's kind of weird. And the reason I was gone is I had had… my son was born, and he had to stay in the NICU. Luckily, everything was good, we're good, whatever. I had a couple of my training partners reach out to me, but then I was really personally hurt that, like, my professor or my gym owner never reached out to me, and as a business owner myself, I understand, like.

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PushPress: Things fall through the cracks, you know, it's hard to be on top of everybody.

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PushPress: I was like, hey man, I was such a consistent member of this community for so long.

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PushPress: And, you know, I looked up to him as a businessman, and I was like, man, you really dropped the ball here. So that's something I took away from that experience. For me, personally, I brought that to my gym, is like, hey.

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PushPress: somebody's not here for this amount of time, we're calling them. We're telling them a text message, right? And that's a little stuff that I think, as gym owners.

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PushPress: You're in charge of so many people, it's hard to stay on top of them, but you have those systems in place, and you have that staff to back you up, where you can hit on that small stuff, because that's going to be, you know, that's going to make the difference to somebody one day.

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PushPress: Other stuff, guys, to keep in mind as you're potentially looking to open your first school or your second, you know, make sure you're building that community so people will want to come back. I think Omar's, talk about the uniform of, we don't force the uniform, but when they know it's picture day, and they can't be in the pictures, because

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PushPress: We gotta have our Glory Ghee in the pictures, because it looks incredible for branding and marketing. You know, they get a little bit of FOMO, maybe they go buy that gi eventually, 6 months down the line. Then if, potentially, they leave, that Glory Ghee's looking at them.

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PushPress: You know, day in and day out, and when they're coming back to train, you know, we've told them they're welcome, and they're gonna come back to glory.

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PushPress: Hire and develop your coaches, you know, make them partners in your process, like Omar has done at his facilities, I think is huge.

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PushPress: That's how you're going to retain those people long-term, and potentially open these doors to second, third, fourth locations with people you already have in-house. And the last thing I wanted to talk about, I think this goes to all gym owners, whether you have one location or two.

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PushPress: Fix what broke fast. Especially when you are not in the gym day to day, it's very easy to let stuff slide. And I think Omar talked about this a little bit with

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PushPress: looking at the numbers. Maybe you're looking at the numbers every day, and you're like, man, our conversion rate isn't very good, but if you just sit on that for 3 months, and it just keeps creeping down and creeping down, now you have a much bigger problem to fix. If you just jumped on it in the first place, maybe it's an easy tweak, and you guys could have had

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PushPress: 10 more members a month for the last 3 months, right? So, be on top of your stuff as gym owners, make sure you're finding those things that are breaking and getting on top of them quickly.

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PushPress: As you guys are listening today, obviously we're lucky enough to host this for PushPress.

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PushPress: If you are ready to scale your business, or you're looking to open a gym, and you have questions about how PushPress can help you in that process, feel free to scan this QR code to book a demo with us.

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PushPress: If you're not aware, here at PushPress, all of the people on the team who you'll be speaking to are current or former gym owners. Some of us jiu-jitsu, some of us CrossFit. We really believe in walking the walk over here, so you're not going to talk to just some tech guy who doesn't know what you do day to day. If you're on another system already.

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PushPress: Feel free to jump on, give us a look. If you're not on the system, feel free to jump on and give us a look as well. And then we'll open up for Q&A.

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PushPress: Pull up my chat here.

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PushPress: So… I had one that I wanted to call out for sure.

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PushPress: Any advice for somebody who's looking to open their first school? Obviously, that's a pretty broad question, but is, like, there a top one or two things you'd say, like.

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PushPress: hey, as a new school owner, maybe this is the mistakes I made, or these are the mistakes I see over and over again. Guys, if you didn't know also, Omar is a coach consultant for Legacy Martial Arts Consulting. They're a great, great…

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PushPress: business that we work with as well here at PushPress, so if you're looking to get help with running your martial arts business, I highly recommend Omar and Nick and their team. But yeah, Omar, any, like, one or two big mistakes you see on a brand new gym, like, over and over?

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Omar Kadi: So, I was… literally, as we started the conversation, I was hoping somebody would ask how to start your own school.

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PushPress: Okay.

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Omar Kadi: touched on this, and I didn't really, like… like, I was like, oh, maybe if somebody will ask, I'll answer this question. But the number one thing that you want to do when starting a school.

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Omar Kadi: is test the waters. And how do you test the waters for free? Or for very, very low, low overhead?

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Omar Kadi: Sure. In your community centers.

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PushPress: Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: Build yourself in the community centers. People are like, you know, I want to go, and I want to open up this $10,000, or rent this $10,000 spot, and blah blah blah blah. Man, there are so many community centers.

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Omar Kadi: And it doesn't have to be, like, a religious community center. People are like, oh, you know what, like, I'm not religious. I don't go to the

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Omar Kadi: I go to the church, I don't go to the temple. Cool, no worries.

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Omar Kadi: The gym?

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Omar Kadi: Like, there's a local gym down the street, maybe across the gym or something, that is already open, that would be willing to connect with you and let you, you know, rent out space part-time, especially during the dead hours, to see what.

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PushPress: Right?

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Omar Kadi: what you can do. And that's a very good way to start.

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Omar Kadi: To see if you are gonna be able to do this. And it's also a good way for you to test without having to sign a 5- or a 10-year lease.

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PushPress: Right.

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Omar Kadi: That's one. Two, I always recommend this. I have a friend yesterday that was sitting with me, and we were talking, and he said to me, you know, he's like, man, I'm almost done with the pharmacies, you know.

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Omar Kadi: pharmaceutical school, and he's, you know, he's gonna become a pharmacist, he's taking his exam, and this, this, and that. And, one of our other friends is like, what's your, what's your path? He's like, man, I want to open up a pharmacy.

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Omar Kadi: And he's like, coach, you got any advice for me? I said, yeah.

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Omar Kadi: Hire a consultant.

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Omar Kadi: He's like, what do you… like… like you? I'm like, no, I'm not a… I'm not a…

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PushPress: I don't know how to open a pharmacy, right?

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Omar Kadi: I don't know anything about a pharmacy, I can tell you the basics of business,

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PushPress: Right, right.

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Omar Kadi: Part of what we do is we help people negotiate leases, so on and so forth, and if anybody wants to feel free to call and ask my gym partners how much money I've saved them on lease negotiations alone. I can tell you a horror story on that later, if you like. But,

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Omar Kadi: So, I told them to hire someone that is in the pharmaceutical business, and that has done it, owns, you know, and I said, I said, think about it this way.

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Omar Kadi: When you're teaching, whether it's CrossFit or Jiu-jitsu or whatever, you're teaching a technique.

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Omar Kadi: you've seen 50 people.

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Omar Kadi: To that technique, and every single one of them

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Omar Kadi: Or maybe a lot of them, I would say a good majority of them, are gonna make the same common mistakes.

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Omar Kadi: And it's the same thing with business.

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Omar Kadi: Right? In business, when I'm consulting people, I deal with probably, like, 30 people.

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Omar Kadi: on a bi-weekly basis, you know, 15 clients every week, that I talk to on, you know.

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Omar Kadi: I see… I get a lot of reps. They're not getting the reps because they're not doing the consulting. But I see these common mistakes over and over and over again. And what I do is I take that experience and I pass it on. I'm like, hey.

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Omar Kadi: I've seen that before. Don't do that. Do this instead. Don't walk down this path, walk down this path.

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Omar Kadi: And I always give them the why.

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Omar Kadi: look, I've seen 30 other school owners try this, you know, thing.

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Omar Kadi: And that's not the way to do it.

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Omar Kadi: They've all had bad experiences.

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PushPress: Right.

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Omar Kadi: So, I think hiring a consultant is really, really big.

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Omar Kadi: As far as opening up a gym.

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Omar Kadi: the CRM that you start with.

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Omar Kadi: And, like, PushPress is a great one. We send you guys clients all the time, especially when we get new school owners.

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Omar Kadi: starting with the right CRM is probably one of the biggest things that you can also do.

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Omar Kadi: Because now you have a system that works.

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Omar Kadi: Right? That is the tool between you and your client, that when Greg hasn't been to the gym for a month.

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Omar Kadi: system alerts you, Jim hasn't been, Greg hasn't been to the gym in a month.

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Omar Kadi: you set those parameters. For me, it's… 7 days.

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PushPress: Sure.

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Omar Kadi: If I haven't seen Greg in 7 days, and I know he's not on vacation, I'm getting an alert from PushPress saying, Greg hasn't showed up in 7 days. And it sends him an automatic text message, an automated text message that says, hey Greg, we miss you, hope all is well, is everything okay? We haven't seen you in class in 7 or 8 days.

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PushPress: Yep.

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Omar Kadi: So, I think that's also a really big one.

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PushPress: Yeah.

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Omar Kadi: I think those are, like, if I had to give advice for a beginner, those would be, like, the 3 major things.

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PushPress: I think that's huge. I love, I love what you said there about…

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PushPress: testing the waters a little bit. We connected with this couple, it was probably, like, 2 or 3 years ago, at a jiu-jitsu event with PushPress, who didn't have a school yet, and it was funny enough, we knew where they were looking to open a school, and I happened to have a connection with a PushPress client around that area, who's a CrossFit gym owner.

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PushPress: And they ran their school out of his gym in the off times for about a year to, like you said, test the waters, and now they have their own facility, and they're doing great. So, tried and true practice there, so I love that. I think that's really cool. Yeah, that's great.

419

00:55:15.470 --> 00:55:30.759

PushPress: Another big question's coming up. This is, since I've been more in the martial arts field, I'm seeing this as kind of a recurring question and issue for a lot of gym owners. Any tips around the summer months?

420

00:55:30.890 --> 00:55:45.739

PushPress: So questions about specific programs or camps, because we see in our data sets, and also just myself talking to gym owners, a big summer slump for a lot of martial arts gyms. Anything you guys do at Glory.

421

00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:50.180

PushPress: or Legacy would mentor people on to combat that.

422

00:55:50.680 --> 00:55:57.879

Omar Kadi: Yeah, so, I, you know, typically June, July, August are really the slowest months. Yeah.

423

00:55:58.030 --> 00:56:12.530

Omar Kadi: July, my manager from the Staten Island location texted me, hey, coach, congratulations, we just hit our biggest month in, you know, and that location. And I just said to him, I said, oh, awesome!

424

00:56:12.870 --> 00:56:15.470

Omar Kadi: I said, he's like, man, that…

425

00:56:16.350 --> 00:56:19.900

Omar Kadi: Deal that you guys did was so huge for us.

426

00:56:20.500 --> 00:56:24.979

Omar Kadi: And every single summer, we have a retention event.

427

00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:44.640

Omar Kadi: One, so I'll tell people about this retention event. You could do this for a grand opening, you can do this for an annual… creating rituals that people are accustomed to. And here's what I mean by ritual. Every single summer, we have our summer barbecue and our belt promotion.

428

00:56:44.740 --> 00:56:52.059

Omar Kadi: And this happens every year. I don't charge a penny for it, but we always end up making 20K.

429

00:56:52.310 --> 00:56:52.810

Omar Kadi: Every single.

430

00:56:52.810 --> 00:56:54.100

PushPress: That's awesome.

431

00:56:55.260 --> 00:56:57.050

Omar Kadi: an extra 20K.

432

00:56:57.050 --> 00:56:57.769

PushPress: Yeah, yeah.

433

00:56:57.770 --> 00:57:12.119

Omar Kadi: recurring billing. So it's a huge way for us to combat, you know, the summer slump. In August, we have back-to-school specials, so those are, like, you know, from August 1st to…

434

00:57:12.230 --> 00:57:31.480

Omar Kadi: mid-September or late September, we'll run… we'll run a back-to-school special, and there are so many other things that we do, to bring in money, but I think the summer barbecue, having something in the summer that you do every year, where it makes it a fun event, is really big. Like, we have…

435

00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:42.360

Omar Kadi: a dunk tank, we have a bounce house, we have an axe-throwing bounce house, so it's like a bounce house, essentially, but it's fun for kids and adults.

436

00:57:42.640 --> 00:57:43.340

PushPress: Yeah, for sure.

437

00:57:43.360 --> 00:57:45.310

Omar Kadi: Okay.

438

00:57:45.310 --> 00:57:45.760

PushPress: And it…

439

00:57:45.760 --> 00:57:46.370

Omar Kadi: Giveaways.

440

00:57:46.370 --> 00:57:59.200

PushPress: It builds that… it builds that community and that FOMO. Like, oh, if I'm on pause, if I'm canceled, like… I know you guys, you guys would be like, yeah, you can still come to the barbecue, but they're kind of like, oh, I'm paused right now, I can't go to the barbecue, you know? Yeah.

441

00:57:59.200 --> 00:58:00.439

Omar Kadi: Yeah, and…

442

00:58:00.620 --> 00:58:11.019

Omar Kadi: Like, again, structuring your business in the correct way is really important. I'll give a free giveaway here from consulting.

443

00:58:11.260 --> 00:58:24.190

Omar Kadi: We charge bi-weekly, we don't charge monthly. And, if any of you guys do the math, you'll understand why. I'm not gonna go into the math breakdown of it, but, you make a lot more money that way. Also.

444

00:58:24.360 --> 00:58:28.040

Omar Kadi: it's a lot more fair for your clients. So if they do go away.

445

00:58:28.660 --> 00:58:33.169

Omar Kadi: Instead of them pausing and you losing out on a full month, just lose out on two weeks.

446

00:58:33.620 --> 00:58:34.180

PushPress: Right.

447

00:58:34.590 --> 00:58:39.800

Omar Kadi: And if they're not using it, why are we gonna charge them for it? I don't know. I don't think it's fair, you know?

448

00:58:39.800 --> 00:58:43.159

PushPress: I'm gonna have to… I'm gonna have to pitch… I'm gonna have to have you pitch that to Dan.

449

00:58:43.200 --> 00:59:00.360

PushPress: He's a… he's a monthly billing guy. I… I charge every 4 weeks, versus every 2 weeks, but I like your positioning around that with the two-week, billing. That's really good. And, like, I think maybe we talked about this, is, like, people generally get paid every 2 weeks. I like to see it come out every 2 weeks.

450

00:59:00.580 --> 00:59:01.890

PushPress: So that works for people.

451

00:59:02.020 --> 00:59:02.960

PushPress: Fine person.

452

00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:03.680

Omar Kadi: L2.

453

00:59:03.820 --> 00:59:04.720

PushPress: Yeah.

454

00:59:04.790 --> 00:59:07.370

Omar Kadi: So, our memberships are about $300 a month.

455

00:59:07.770 --> 00:59:11.479

Omar Kadi: What sounds better to you, $300 a month, or $150 biweekly?

456

00:59:11.860 --> 00:59:12.500

PushPress: Rush.

457

00:59:12.860 --> 00:59:15.190

Omar Kadi: It's a lot easier of a pill to swallow.

458

00:59:15.190 --> 00:59:15.700

PushPress: Goodbye.

459

00:59:15.700 --> 00:59:20.690

Omar Kadi: And also, I think it's way more fair, again, you know,

460

00:59:20.810 --> 00:59:26.120

Omar Kadi: Being honest and keeping yourself true to the words that you're saying.

461

00:59:26.120 --> 00:59:26.770

PushPress: I…

462

00:59:26.770 --> 00:59:42.839

Omar Kadi: I'm not gonna charge Greg for 2 weeks where he's away on holiday with his wife, or significant other, or whatever. And I think, like, I would rather make $150 than make $300, and I didn't earn it, because then you're gonna.

463

00:59:42.840 --> 00:59:43.250

PushPress: For sure.

464

00:59:43.580 --> 00:59:46.749

Omar Kadi: So, think about it from a retention point of view, right?

465

00:59:46.940 --> 00:59:51.420

Omar Kadi: Would you rather have Greg away for 2 weeks.

466

00:59:51.850 --> 00:59:56.139

Omar Kadi: Or would you rather have him away for a month, because he's like, oh man, I had to pause for a whole month, because I didn't want to…

467

00:59:58.200 --> 00:59:58.940

Omar Kadi: Simmons.

468

00:59:58.940 --> 00:59:59.940

PushPress: Yeah, that's great.

469

00:59:59.940 --> 01:00:01.860

Omar Kadi: It's a win-win for everybody, right?

470

01:00:02.920 --> 01:00:08.429

PushPress: You're building in flexibility for your clients, and flexibility for you guys on the billing side. That's huge.

471

01:00:08.690 --> 01:00:11.510

Omar Kadi: Have you seen why we do that? Do you know the reason why?

472

01:00:11.800 --> 01:00:14.000

PushPress: I'm gonna have to have you send me a breakdown one day.

473

01:00:14.340 --> 01:00:27.029

Omar Kadi: I can give it to you real quick. You charge $100, $100 a month, we'll just keep simple math. If everybody wants to take out the little calculator, you guys could do it with the calculator. It's $100 a month.

474

01:00:27.170 --> 01:00:29.029

Omar Kadi: And 12 months is 1200 bucks.

475

01:00:29.540 --> 01:00:31.320

Omar Kadi: How many weeks in the year do we have?

476

01:00:31.910 --> 01:00:32.580

Omar Kadi: 52.

477

01:00:32.580 --> 01:00:33.120

PushPress: too.

478

01:00:33.810 --> 01:00:35.150

Omar Kadi: 52 by 2.

479

01:00:36.640 --> 01:00:37.580

PushPress: 26.

480

01:00:37.580 --> 01:00:39.680

Omar Kadi: 26. So it's not 24.

481

01:00:39.820 --> 01:00:41.080

Omar Kadi: So how many payments?

482

01:00:41.250 --> 01:00:42.319

Omar Kadi: Are we getting?

483

01:00:42.960 --> 01:00:44.609

PushPress: Two extra ones, yeah.

484

01:00:45.970 --> 01:00:52.310

PushPress: Yep. Makes sense, yeah. And that's why, that's why a lot of gyms go to the 4-week, that's what I do. So I get one extra one. Yeah.

485

01:00:52.310 --> 01:00:57.599

Omar Kadi: Yeah, so we get 2 extra payments a year, which is, you know, $1,300 instead of $1,200.

486

01:00:57.800 --> 01:01:04.260

Omar Kadi: Right. So, but at the same time, the clients feel like it's fair. I don't…

487

01:01:04.380 --> 01:01:23.810

Omar Kadi: you know, I don't think that, it's fair for me to charge them when they're not there. They have the flexibility to pause when they go on holiday, someone gets sick, blah blah blah, and they don't feel like they have to miss out a whole month. Because that also puts them in a slump, like, I was sick for 2 weeks, I feel better, but I'm not gonna go back for another 2 weeks. Let me just pause that again.

488

01:01:24.040 --> 01:01:24.929

Omar Kadi: Or let me kick that…

489

01:01:24.930 --> 01:01:25.360

PushPress: Yeah.

490

01:01:25.360 --> 01:01:29.659

Omar Kadi: Kick that ball further down the road. Kick that ball further down, all of a sudden, you're losing clients.

491

01:01:29.990 --> 01:01:32.510

PushPress: Right. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

492

01:01:32.740 --> 01:01:46.879

PushPress: I know we're kind of time here, guys, but I definitely want to hit on these last two questions quickly, and Omar, obviously we respect your time, so we want to go fast here. Good question, I think, something very martial arts specific. Andre says.

493

01:01:47.110 --> 01:01:49.950

PushPress: They're very old school when it comes to belts.

494

01:01:50.050 --> 01:02:04.260

PushPress: Don't base it on number of classes or time, but instead on performance and growth. That said, they see the benefit of having kids and know that they are on a path and can work towards the next level. How do you guys manage belts?

495

01:02:04.350 --> 01:02:10.350

PushPress: I'd say if you want to break it to kids and adults, feel free. I know some gyms are different, both sides.

496

01:02:10.710 --> 01:02:25.630

Omar Kadi: Yeah, so if you, if you, ever get a chance, go on my Instagram, you'll see the… this probably happened a couple weeks ago during the promotion, my brother was a purple belt, or got his purple belt after, I think, 13 years of training.

497

01:02:25.850 --> 01:02:28.519

Omar Kadi: Yeah. So I'm stingy with the belts.

498

01:02:29.490 --> 01:02:32.500

Omar Kadi: with the belts. I don't give belts out. I've, you know, I've had

499

01:02:32.750 --> 01:02:42.799

Omar Kadi: I actually had a parent this last promotion, you know, kind of crash out and walk out of the gym, because one of the kids got promoted and not the other. I give…

500

01:02:43.270 --> 01:02:44.739

Omar Kadi: People what they earn.

501

01:02:44.970 --> 01:02:48.960

Omar Kadi: And what they earn has nothing to do with how many times they've attended class.

502

01:02:50.780 --> 01:02:55.560

Omar Kadi: But I always talk about consistency. The more consistent you are.

503

01:02:55.700 --> 01:03:12.689

Omar Kadi: in the gym, the better it is for you to get recognized. Also, making sure that you're signing up for promotions on time, so on and so forth. It's like a big thing, but I think one of the biggest things is I don't give out belts. We give out stripes, based on…

504

01:03:13.310 --> 01:03:21.080

Omar Kadi: like, you know, people showing up to classes and all of that stuff, but I've had people tell me, man, I've been a white belt for, like, 4 years. I'm like.

505

01:03:21.610 --> 01:03:27.820

Omar Kadi: Dude, consistency, skill, coming in here with the right mindset to actually learn and develop.

506

01:03:27.820 --> 01:03:28.410

PushPress: roll.

507

01:03:29.350 --> 01:03:35.609

Omar Kadi: So I have a very, I don't know if it's a good reputation or a bad reputation for being stingy with the belts.

508

01:03:36.030 --> 01:03:43.590

PushPress: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that… that probably speaks to your upbringing in jiu-jitsu with Marcelo and whatnot, you know? It's a little bit more of an old-school mentality.

509

01:03:43.840 --> 01:04:00.100

PushPress: I've seen some hybrid models that I think work really well, and myself as a business owner versus myself as a practitioner, I feel kind of torn, because as a business owner, I 100% understand the schools where it's like, hey.

510

01:04:00.200 --> 01:04:18.000

PushPress: once your card's filled out with your attendance, you're getting your stripe. Once your card's filled out with your attendance, you're getting your belt. Like, as a business owner, I understand that carrot, but I think if you build a strong enough culture and understanding of, like, hey, you're gonna get it when you earn it, you don't necessarily need those tools.

511

01:04:18.090 --> 01:04:19.080

Omar Kadi: Absolutely.

512

01:04:19.250 --> 01:04:21.870

PushPress: Yeah, I do think there are some people who

513

01:04:22.150 --> 01:04:37.179

PushPress: will never fit that culture, which is okay, because maybe that's not the right culture, then your gym for that individual, but then I think you have to, as a gym owner, be okay setting that standard, which obviously you guys are, and are doing it well. Which I think is fine, you know?

514

01:04:37.460 --> 01:04:37.979

Omar Kadi: I, I, I…

515

01:04:37.980 --> 01:04:38.330

PushPress: I think…

516

01:04:38.330 --> 01:04:51.810

Omar Kadi: Both are okay. I think the biggest thing is understanding, your culture and understanding what your goals are, you know? Having a clear vision and direction at your gym. So, my vision…

517

01:04:51.920 --> 01:05:03.519

Omar Kadi: has nothing to do with, you know, keeping people there because I'm giving them belts. There are gyms like that, and I always tell, like, I make it as a joke, I'm like, man, if you want to get a blue belt fast, just go sign up down the street.

518

01:05:03.900 --> 01:05:05.990

Omar Kadi: There's a gem literally down the street.

519

01:05:06.210 --> 01:05:09.440

Omar Kadi: We get their blue belts all the time, and then they take them off and put white belts on.

520

01:05:11.130 --> 01:05:14.720

PushPress: Yeah, for sure. Last question,

521

01:05:15.580 --> 01:05:28.460

PushPress: Can you share what a typical tour for a new potential client coming into the gym would look like? Do you have any go-to advice for the tours, or anything you try to do to get them to sign up on the same day as that tour?

522

01:05:28.760 --> 01:05:44.770

Omar Kadi: Yeah, so, we have a tool, it's called the 4-Step Sales Process, that I train my staff on, and anyone that does consulting with me. And part of the tour is understanding what your client's why is, and how to ask those questions, and understanding.

523

01:05:45.540 --> 01:06:00.289

Omar Kadi: what they're… so, a bunch of things that you want to try to get out of that conversation while you're showing them the gym, showing them the amenities that you have. For us, they walk in, we show them the front desk, we let them know this is where we keep all of our merch, so if they ever forget anything.

524

01:06:00.360 --> 01:06:10.610

Omar Kadi: want to purchase anything new, this is where it's at. If they have any questions, the person at the front desk is usually like, come talk to me, I will help you out with anything you need.

525

01:06:11.190 --> 01:06:18.389

Omar Kadi: Then we walk them, we show them the mat space. I have a nice little CrossFit area with a bunch of stuff, which you helped me on, which I appreciate.

526

01:06:18.630 --> 01:06:19.410

PushPress: My pleasure.

527

01:06:19.410 --> 01:06:33.410

Omar Kadi: By doing that. And, you know, we walked around, we showed them the showers and the locker rooms and all that stuff, and we tell them, like, here are some of our policies, you know, no shoes on the mat, some of the things that a beginner would not know.

528

01:06:34.100 --> 01:06:39.129

Omar Kadi: At that time, I'm always asking probing questions. Greg, why are you here? What brought you in?

529

01:06:39.270 --> 01:06:40.650

Omar Kadi: Oh, Greg, what do you do?

530

01:06:41.150 --> 01:06:43.830

Omar Kadi: Craig, oh, you're a doctor? Okay, cool, so you work…

531

01:06:43.940 --> 01:06:59.599

Omar Kadi: office hours, or do you work, like, in the hospital, or… oh, no, I work, you know, I have my own practice. Okay, oh, so it's like the 9 to 5? Perfect. Now, I'm already kind of, like, understanding which schedule options to really focus on when I'm giving my salesperson.

532

01:06:59.970 --> 01:07:05.390

Omar Kadi: Right. And I'm also understanding what his why is, and how to connect it back to the sales process.

533

01:07:06.940 --> 01:07:08.309

PushPress: Yeah, yeah, it's huge.

534

01:07:08.310 --> 01:07:09.200

Omar Kadi: That question.

535

01:07:09.580 --> 01:07:10.960

PushPress: Yeah, no, I think it does.

536

01:07:11.120 --> 01:07:25.989

PushPress: That's really all the questions we have. The last question here is people are looking for a booking appointment with you for Legacy, so what we'll do, guys, is I'll get that from Omar, his booking link.

537

01:07:25.990 --> 01:07:40.890

PushPress: or for Legacy as a whole. We'll include that in our follow-up email from this webinar for anybody who's interested in talking more to Omar or Nick or any of the Legacy team. Those guys are great, we love working with them. You'll get a lot of value talking to those guys, for sure.

538

01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:49.479

PushPress: And last, obviously, Omar, I'd like to thank you for coming on today. It was a blast. It's always good to see you, my friend, and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us.

539

01:07:49.620 --> 01:07:53.450

Omar Kadi: Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you guys.

540

01:07:53.720 --> 01:07:55.490

PushPress: Yeah, thank you guys. Have a good one.

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Business of Fitness Blog

Resources

On-Demand Webinars

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PushPress Community

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Self-Serve Product Help

Running Multiple Martial Arts Schools: What Actually Works

Who you'll hear from

Watch the replay

Key Takeaways

Full Transcript

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