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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Push Start webinar. I am very excited for this one, because.
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Dave Kovar: I think in today's day and age, with a lot of boutique fitness or martial arts businesses, you have a lot of gym owners who think that they have a marketing problem, right? They typically don't necessarily have a marketing problem, they have a consistency problem, they have maybe a proximity problem. A lot of cases, they're…
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Dave Kovar: ignoring the easiest growth opportunities that are right in front of them. Everyone seems to be…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: chasing funnels, chasing ads, like, the fancy smancies kind of stuff. Everyone wants a hack, right? Everyone wants a
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: a hack that they can easily take from Instagram or TikTok and use it to get 20 leads. Meanwhile, there are probably 20.
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Dave Kovar: 30, 50 businesses within a 1-mile radius of your gym that you've never even walked into, you've never spoken to.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: there are former members who would probably come back if you just reached out or messaged them in the right way.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: You probably have current members.
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Dave Kovar: who have never once been asked to bring a friend, or you've never once asked them for a referral. And that's not a… so that… those aren't funnel issues, that's… those are system issues, right? Systems.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And today, we're going to talk about grassroots marketing.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Not in a nostalgic, just hustle-harder way.
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Dave Kovar: We're going to talk about systemized organic growth, and I can't think of a better person to unpack this with than Mr. Dave Kovar.
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Dave Kovar: Right? Dave has built a $6 million organization focused on relationships, community presence, and delivering a phenomenal product. Not gimmicks, not hacks from TikTok or Instagram, whatever the kids are watching today.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, Dave, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. I'm excited to dig into this.
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Dave Kovar: Oh, it's my pleasure, happy to be here, thanks.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Awesome. So, I know when we were speaking a couple weeks ago, I kind of broke these things into 3… we'll call them three buckets, very practical buckets, right? We have our neighbors, how to actually build real relationships in…
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Dave Kovar: I think you said a 1 mile radius, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And then we have our graveyard, which we'll talk about here in a second, our former members and leads, and then referrals or community presence, getting people in our gym to recommend,
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: their friends, basically, right? So, I want to be very tactical, and I want to jump right into it. When I say tactical, I'm hoping that everybody listening is able to walk away with things that they can implement immediately in their business. That's fair to say, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Right, Dave? Absolutely, 100%.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Awesome. So, let's get into a real quick share.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Where did my tools go? There they are. I'm… I… one day, I will get better at
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: like, actual Zoom.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Alright.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Can you guys see my screen?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Everybody's good? Awesome.
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Dave Kovar: So, talk to me about this, because when we were…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Dave, sorry, when we were discussing this a couple weeks ago, you used the term grassroots, and I haven't heard that term in a long time. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that you're out walking on pavement, hanging door flyers, and, like, hangars, right? What does it mean?
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Dave Kovar: Well, it's interesting you say that, because I remember doing that, right? Yeah. That was, you know, pre-internet, that's what you did. Well, I want to start out, just kind of preface that grassroots marketing, especially with referrals, it's really based on this assumption that your business is rocking, and you're doing great, you know, customer service, right? Because I think everything else really stems on that, because if your product is only mediocre.
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Dave Kovar: you're gonna have a hard time, you know, getting people to refer. And the second thing, with everything that we're doing.
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Dave Kovar: is it's not as much as what you say is how you say it, and what I mean by that is the human mind is easily influenced by anything spoken with conviction. So we're gonna talk about going out and meeting your neighbors, but if your spirit isn't present, like, if you're really not really intentional about what you're doing and why you're doing it, then it's not gonna have the same effect, right? So that… That was…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: What was that? Say that again, that was like gold right there. What did you say? Go back to that line, I want to write that down.
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Dave Kovar: if your spirit is not present, then nothing else really… nothing's gonna work very well for you, right? The conviction, yeah. The human mind is easily spoken by anything… the human mind is easily influenced by anything spoken with conviction.
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Dave Kovar: So when you really believe in what you're doing, that's half the battle, and that's what I see, like, when you're promoting events, whatever it is, if you're up there just kind of announcing it, just to announce it, you're not gonna have much of an effect, but man, if you believe in what you're doing, and I think, first and foremost.
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Dave Kovar: just in general, wherever you're at, if you're going to approach a person that's gonna be a potential customer or student of yours, and if you're… it's just about the numbers for you, like, oh man, I really need to get 5 more, you know.
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Dave Kovar: I need to enroll 5 more members this month, and I'm talking to someone in front of me, and maybe I get them, maybe I don't, but if I'm looking at them and I'm thinking.
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Dave Kovar: they need this program. I'm gonna change their life if they can get involved in this. Then what happens, the words might, you know, be the same, but it's gonna feel completely different on the other end. So, just super important with everything we do today is that your intention is going to make the difference.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That's awesome.
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Dave Kovar: So, starting right there with having a good product and having
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Dave Kovar: you said intention, or a conviction, right? Yes.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That's awesome.
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Dave Kovar: And then… Alright.
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Dave Kovar: So where do you want to go? You want to talk about the neighbors? Is that a good place to start?
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Dave Kovar: Well, I had right here that…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yeah, and I think you already covered it. I had right here that most people think that they need to do more ads, or they need to…
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Dave Kovar: push a hack or something like that, but you already touched on this. Let's talk about the neighbors. If… and you said this, I took this quote directly from our conversation.
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Dave Kovar: A few weeks ago. If your gym can't grow from the people who live within a mile of you.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: It's like, what are you even doing, right?
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Dave Kovar: 100%. You don't have a marketing problem, you have a relationship problem. That was the quote.
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, and it's so… it's so, what, easy nowadays to kind of just throw more money at marketing. And by the way, you certainly should do that, right? But I remember going back, I've been in business for almost 50 years, like, I opened up my first martial arts school 6 months out of high school in November of 1978, right? And there was…
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Dave Kovar: you know, how we got around, we… first off, we just kind of waited for people to come in the door often, right? But then the other thing that happened was, is that we would, you know, do parking lots, we would
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Dave Kovar: we would, whenever we're going out in the community, we are always trying to think, you know, how can you help me, community? And then somewhere, something shifted for me, and we changed our focus completely, so…
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Dave Kovar: For example, if you're gonna meet the businesses in your neighborhood, and we've all had someone try to sell us something, right? Chances are, every day, you guys get some, you know, spam call, right, that's trying to sell you on your phone, right?
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Dave Kovar: But imagine if today someone came into your gym from the pizza parlor across the street from you and said, hey, how many people do you have in your organization?
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Dave Kovar: Because I'd like to give everybody guest passes or free lunch on me. Here's 200 free lunches for you.
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Dave Kovar: to give to your team. You would be ecstatic about that, right? And oh, by the way, at the same time, let me back up, how many… can you give me flyers for your business that I can put in my pizza restaurant?
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Dave Kovar: Okay? All of a sudden.
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Dave Kovar: man, that's more exciting to me. So, the point is, when you go out to meet your neighbors, most people don't do it. So, first off, if you run a local business, the more people you can know in your community, the better, right? So you frequent the restaurants and the service establishments in your community. But imagine if you went into the pizza parlor across the street, and instead of saying, hey.
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Dave Kovar: Can I, can you pass out guest passes, for my, my business? Instead, if you walked in and said, hey, how many,
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Dave Kovar: I have 200 members in my organization across the street, my gym across the street. Any chance that you can give me some coupons that I can give to my clients, so they can have a reduced price on their pizza? Guess what? That guy's gonna be nuts over that. They're gonna be happy with that. And then it's, oh, by the way, how many staff members do you have?
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Dave Kovar: 12, great. Here's 12 guest passes for a month of training. All of a sudden, now, what happens is, is that the people in your community are happy to see you, because you're interacting in a little different way than they're used to. And in the long game, by the way, if I pass out 12 guest passes for their whole team, are 12 people gonna enroll? Probably not. But guess what? Now they… I'm kind of on the map in their mind. And so many of us got away with, especially with COVID, we got away from doing
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Dave Kovar: any personal stuff.
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Dave Kovar: That I think grassroots marketing is now more powerful than ever, because nobody's doing it.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That makes a ton of sense to me. Just being…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: not even… not even cordial. The word's not even cordial, but it's… it's, I guess the best word is neighborly, right? With the other small business owners in your direct vicinity. So…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: what's… what's actionable here? I… I kind of get put off by the idea of cold walking into a business. So if I go out to meet the new neighbors at this… my new neighbors at work ethic, because there's…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I can't imagine… I can't even count the amount of small businesses a block in either direction on this street right here. What… what can I say to break the ice?
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Dave Kovar: This is what my intention would be when you walk in there, you think to yourself, you're thinking, what can I do for them?
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Dave Kovar: That's what you're going into, not what can they do for me? Understand that it's a really important difference there. And so, what I would do is I would literally say, hey, we're gonna have 300 members in our gym, I would love to pass out, and maybe you have a community bulletin board, like we do in our locations. I'd love to put, you know.
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Dave Kovar: some information about your business on our community building board, right? So you're not even really asking for anything, but there's the law of reciprocation, right?
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Dave Kovar: chances are, they're going to be way more receptive to, you know, posting stuff in their business for you. But initially, your intention is going in there and just letting people know you're there, what you do, and how your business can help their business. And then, it's the start of a relationship. And this is why it's really important, like, if there's a local coffee shop, that that's where you, you know, that's a good place to go, so they know who you are, and over time, now you've got some event.
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Dave Kovar: You're more likely to be able to get some joint marketing going.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So the icebreaker is literally, hey, I want to help your business.
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Dave Kovar: Absolutely.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: who can I talk to about hanging your information in my space? Or, hey, how can I get my members over here to help you? And that's pretty potent, because, like you said, they're probably going to want to reciprocate. So, the ultimate goal of these visits, or walking around.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Isn't to develop, like, any contractual partnership or anything, it's just to start the conversation.
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Dave Kovar: And imagine you have a CrossFit gym, you know, down the street from them, and you get to meet this business. And guess what? Next time they hear somebody talking about fitness, guess what? They remember you, right? It just makes you kind of top of mind. It makes you the… like, put it this way, pretty much everybody has, like, they know the best mechanic in their community. You know, I don't know about you, I know a guy, his name is Steve. Unfortunately, he retired, I'm looking for a new one, who's just an amazing mechanic, right?
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Dave Kovar: Now, the reality is.
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Dave Kovar: Is he really the best mechanic in the area? I don't know for sure, but I've got a relationship with him, and I've referred 100 people to him, right?
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Dave Kovar: And so, you want to be that person in your community, and if they don't know who you are, how can that happen, right? So that's why it's being out there and introducing yourself to people, and how can I help your business, or you personally? That's really the opening. And then from there, the law of reciprocation, it's gonna come back your way. It may not come back the first week or two, but over time, man, you're building your name in the community, and that goes a long way. That gives you…
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Dave Kovar: Success over the decade, not necessarily over the year.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: you're building the goodwill, that makes absolute sense to me. And most people get into these types of businesses in order to
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: help people, like, service and build relationships in that way. So, what would you say to a business owner that wanted to systemize this action? Like, it's easy to say, hey, just go out and walk, walk around for 2 hours. Like, what… what can I put on my calendar to do on a regular basis that turns this into a system?
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Dave Kovar: It's so important, such a great question. You know, it's… this is simple, but it's not necessarily easy, and it's really a scheduling thing. Most people do not really block out… I consider what there is, is there's prime time. Doors are open, people are there, the place is busy. But the time that most people really don't take advantage of is what I refer to as prep time. And that's the time…
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Dave Kovar: Like, for us, I run martial arts schools. During the day, we don't have much going on, right? And so stuff really starts rocking for us about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
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Dave Kovar: 4 to 8 is kind of our sweet spot, so daytime for us, we have… we have space available, but what most people do is they don't actually budget their time. So what I would recommend people do is you… is you can get as complicated as you want with this, but I… I kind of like ready, fire, aim concept here, not… and that is…
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Dave Kovar: You, don't spend too much time. I literally knew a guy that would just open up a gym, and I'm trying to get him to do this, and I call him one day and ask him how he's doing. Yeah, well, he's putting together his map, and then number two, the next day, yeah, I'm figuring out the order I'm gonna go. Basically, he wasted friggin' 15 hours trying to come up with a plan, never really got around to it, versus, like, getting in your car and saying, alright, every Monday between 1 and 3, that's grassroots marketing, that's… I'm gonna go out there and meet my neighbors, right?
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Dave Kovar: And I remember going into one of our businesses one day, and it was in the afternoon, and I was talking with the head instructor, and the program director came in, and she looked over, and she said to her partner, who was the head instructor.
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Dave Kovar: 7 businesses in 10 minutes. And I go, I'm sorry, what's that? She goes, I just VIP'd seven businesses in 10 minutes. She came in with all these flyers that she had from their businesses to put on our bulletin board, because she just kind of, you know, executed. So what I would say is budget a certain amount of time, then take a grid of the businesses in your community, and based on the density, it might be more than a mile. If it's really dense, it might be less, and then just…
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Dave Kovar: Figure out, alright, on Monday, I'm gonna work on Main Street. I'm gonna go from, you know, 1st in Main to 10th in Maine. I'm gonna meet every business in that area, and then next Monday, you've got another game plan.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Wow, so it's… that… that…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That's a lot of time wasted. You said 15 hours planning, and they never got around to it.
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Dave Kovar: I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you get kind of the idea. It was like…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Oh, absolutely! That sounds exactly like myself on a Monday. And so, what I'm planning on doing… Dave, I'll be honest, I… like I said, I just opened up, I'm gonna be stealing this, and I'm gonna be doing this, probably next week, so I'm gonna time block an hour, and I'm just going to say, hey, within this hour, my goal is to get X amount of businesses, or I'm just gonna go for the full hour, and then I'm gonna make sure to document the businesses that I hit.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So I don't repeat them when I… when I…
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Dave Kovar: percent.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yeah, when I try and do it in again the next week.
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Dave Kovar: And I can say one thing about this, right, is that,
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Dave Kovar: So many people are one conversation away from getting involved. Like, alright, I teach martial arts, and how often do I meet somebody somewhere that says, oh, I always wanted to do that, right? And so, it's kind of like this. I'll give you a scenario here. I've always wanted to scuba dive, okay? To learn how to scuba dive. I've never actually scuba dived. I'm not bad enough to actually do it, but let me… here's the point I'm making.
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Dave Kovar: is that if I was in the mall across the street from my grocery store, and I was, you know, picking up, you know, something, and I saw, oh, there was a guy with a table.
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Dave Kovar: or, you know, or there was a business that… the guy that was saying, yeah, I'd learn how to scuba dive. I walk up and I find out that they've got a scuba program starting next Tuesday at the local pool. I would sign up. And here's my point. A lot of people…
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Dave Kovar: They're not actually actively reaching out to you, looking for your products. They want to do it, but maybe not bad enough, but they're one conversation away.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: if they knew you from getting involved. And that's where we have to be a little more proactive. The people that are coming to our business, that are responding to ads, that's one thing, but there's a whole other level.
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Dave Kovar: of people that are one conversation away. We just have to go find them.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Everybody's busy, and you're just making it an opportune time for them to get started, by making them aware that you're right there and easy and convenient. That's the conversation that you're talking about. Okay, cool. I love that. So…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: What about, this concept of the graveyard? You brought this up where it's like, hey, we should be talking about, we should be talking to our old leads, or our former members, and it's such a… it seems like such a simple idea, but why doesn't everybody do this?
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Dave Kovar: Well, what most people do, I think now, everybody has software that sends stuff out, right? An email that, you know, a campaign that's… we try to do it 3 times a year for us, the best 3 times to do reactivation campaigns for the first of the year, the beginning of summer, and the beginning of the school year.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Because psychologically, I don't care how old you are, what your age is, kind of September's kind of getting back into the groove time, right? Yep.
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Dave Kovar: And so, and that's great, there's nothing wrong with doing that. We should do that. Have an email or a text campaign, but you understand that,
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Dave Kovar: that people… if I look at my phone right now, I've got, as you guys do, a bunch of, emails that I'm gonna look at, and I'm gonna take one quick look, and I'm gonna delete, delete, delete. And chances are, a lot of the stuff that you're sending out, as far as reactivation, if you're just… have your… it's automated, most people aren't even looking at it, right? And so, there's nothing wrong with doing that, but don't think that's enough. The key thing to remember is, let's talk about… I'm gonna separate old leads and former members. I'm gonna look at it a little differently.
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Dave Kovar: differently. Old leads.
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Dave Kovar: I bet you everybody on the call had someone that tried out your program and didn't enroll, and came back a year and a half later and enrolled.
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Dave Kovar: And why they didn't…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I've had that, yeah.
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, well, why did… why did they not enroll the first time? The timing, who knows why? The timing just wasn't right. You know, maybe, in the process, the spouse lost their job, right? Or…
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Dave Kovar: or something happened to keep them from being able to enroll at that moment. Maybe money was tight, or maybe it was right in the middle of the vacuum, who knows? But the fact that they were interested at one point.
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Dave Kovar: It means they still could be interested again. I have a partner on the East Coast, her name is Nancy Walzog, and she runs 9 martial arts locations in New Jersey, and I call her on New Year's, in the afternoon, New Year's Day. And I go, Nancy, what are you doing? She goes, oh.
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Dave Kovar: I wasn't happy with my numbers for December, so I am… I'm trying to get 10 members to enroll online today. I'm at 8. So, basically, what she did is she was just reaching out to old leads with a text, and the text is really simple.
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Dave Kovar: Are you still interested in martial arts? That was it. And just looking for a response, right? And, you know, it's really a numbers game. If you reach out to 100 people, you're gonna get 6 or 7 people that said, yes, I am, and you're gonna be able to get, you know, 3 or 4 of them to show up. So, it's just a matter of putting the time.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yeah, I think, I mean, depending on how long you've been in business, you've been in business 3, 4, 5 years or longer, you're gonna have a list of… of…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: people that, at one point, like you said, were interested, and something happened, and they just dropped off. And so what you're saying is the automated
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: drip campaign is… they've gotten that, and they've pro… they've received it, and they're probably blocking that out. Like, they kind of just brush it off, but you're suggesting a personalized text to these old leads.
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Dave Kovar: Yes, and as a matter of fact, even one step further, you know, it doesn't matter what phone platform you have, if you do a video that's shorter than a minute.
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Dave Kovar: You know, it doesn't matter if you have an Android or an Apple, right? So I can literally take my phone, and I can put it on the video screen, and I can say, you know, I can say, hey, Greg.
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Dave Kovar: I know you tried out our program a year ago and it didn't quite work out. I'd love to have you back. Let me know. We've got a special going on. Thanks a lot. And you actually, like, that's not AI, you understand that?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: pushing these.
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Dave Kovar: his name. And it doesn't take long at all.
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Dave Kovar: And so that's the kind of… with old leads, it's just… and you guys, this is very cliche, but how long do you keep on, you know, reaching out to old leads until they tell you no, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Oh, boy.
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Dave Kovar: Can I share a quick story? So, I had, this has to do with following up on people that don't show up to their first appointment, which we've all had, right? It's still connected. I have this gentleman, he's still with me, his name is Ken Gruby, and he's like the Terminator, he was one of the best salesperson we ever had, a great instructor, and good at everything, but…
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Dave Kovar: We have this gal, Gina, who doesn't show up for her first class.
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Dave Kovar: And he calls her back, and she doesn't show up for the second, and she reschedules. Finally, she shows up on her seventh appointment. Now, I don't know about you, I would have given up after 2 or 3. Yep. She ends up enrolling and being a paying student for 7 years, and then she ended up being an employee for us for 3 years. Met her husband at our school, and ended up moving away, life is good. Well, she told me…
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Dave Kovar: about, 3 years into her training, she said, Mr. Kovar.
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Dave Kovar: If it wasn't for this program, I would probably be dead. This saved my life. And here's my point of this. What would have happened if Ken Gruby had stopped after 3 calls?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Right.
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Dave Kovar: So I'm always reminded about, you know, it kind of goes back to what we talked about, the human mind is easily influenced by anything spoken with conviction. If you believe in your product, you owe it to these people to bug them until they say, don't bug us anymore.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: explicitly, like, they use that… they use that phrase, or they use words that…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: say, hey, no, I specifically want you to stop contacting us. So… Is there a specific win-back?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: like, an offer, or a specific message outside of the video text, or do you just go in and be like, hey, do you want to try it out, or do you bring an offer to the table that might bring, like, former members or these leads?
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Dave Kovar: So, we have done, of course, through the years, we've tried everything, right? What we're finding now with shorter introductory processes is really good, so it'll vary. We will usually double-bind test. Right now, what we're doing is we're doing two lessons and a t-shirt, a complimentary.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Oh!
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Dave Kovar: It seems to be working pretty good. Now, by the way, people say stuff's not… you're supposed to pay for stuff, free doesn't work, it's worked for us pretty good. So, we tried it both ways, so that's kind of the incentive right now. And I'm going to talk more about that when we talk about getting out in the community for events as well.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Okay, cool.
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Dave Kovar: And it's a little different with former members. It's similar, but it's different. And every one of you guys on the line, if you've been in business for any amount of time, has actually had someone that was with you for a while, maybe months or years, and then…
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Dave Kovar: you know, quit, and then came back later on. And so, there are a bunch of former members that are one conversation away from getting back into your school, right? Getting back into your gym. And I think the key is simply, making… so what I would recommend you do is, if you have been in business for a while, and you have a list of old members, just go through that list.
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Dave Kovar: And identify, first and foremost, people that you remember that you had great rapport with.
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Dave Kovar: And start there, because those are the easiest calls. And really, it's just a matter of just checking on an old memory. Imagine if you had a high school teacher that reached out out of the blue and said, hey, just checking on you, man, how you doing? You'd appreciate that. And so, if you call somebody, and you get on the line with them, you find out they moved, you know, to another state, and, you know, they're going to med school, then you're probably not going to ask them if they want to come back, but…
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Dave Kovar: How many times have I had somebody say, oh, yeah, man, it's great to hear from you, you know, my best days, years were when I was training at your school. Oh, really? Would you like to come back? Oh, man, I thought about that, you know? And then we'll make them an offer they can't refuse. With old members, we'll give them a month and a uniform.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Oh, wow.
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, like, we're really generous, because either they're gonna come back or they're not gonna come back, but that extra little incentive can go a long ways.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely.
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Dave Kovar: And by the way, it's worth every penny of that. A uniform costs us $30, right? And they're not gonna… nobody never said… I've never had anybody that trained for the whole month and uniform, and then quit on day 31. It never happens. If they're gonna come back, in almost every case that we do our job right, that we've got a, you know, a member back again.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yep, if you do your job right, that's important. If you are… if you are putting out a good product, and you are taking care of your members, your customers, absolutely. So, what's the system? What does a gym owner need to do in order to hit the ground running with reaching out to the leads and their former members, like, on Monday?
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, so what I would strongly encourage is, like, I'm guessing most everybody has a software that does reactivation already. I would continue that going, right? Of course. But I would be mindful of the fact that the easiest system would be, especially if you've never done this before, is that…
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Dave Kovar: text… depends. Some people like texts. I actually like the phone, right? And what you can do, if they might not know who you are, and no one wants to pick up the phone with somebody to know, you could text them, letting them know who you are and that you're gonna call. So now the number's a little bit more familiar for them, right? Because they may not still have the number.
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Dave Kovar: And then from there, you're simply going to start with people you have the best rapport with, that you remember the most, and you're simply going to call and check on them, and the conversation will organically go. You'll know very quickly if the person's interested in training or not. You know, I just enjoyed having you as a student, yeah, it was great. And hey, have you ever thought about considering getting back into school? Yes or no, right? And by the way, a line that I use, yeah, but we're kind of busy, I have a line that I've been using for
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Dave Kovar: decades, and I'll say, it is permission to bug you.
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Dave Kovar: Meaning, if they don't want to do it right now, I ask if I have permission to bug them going forward. In almost every case, they say absolutely, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And then, and then once you've gone through this list of people you had great rapport with, what's gonna happen is.
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Dave Kovar: I promise you, you're gonna hear so much good stuff about how much they enjoy training with you. It's a fun conversation to have. Once you've kind of developed that confidence, then you go… you kind of go down the tier a little bit to maybe people that you don't recognize.
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Dave Kovar: But you try to get through the whole list before you start the list over again.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, this is what I'm hearing, and let me know if you think this is a good idea, because now I'm thinking about doing this next week, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I actually have to have members in order to have.
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Dave Kovar: Right, right.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So I get this, but,
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: if I were a business owner, like, either in CrossFit, or functional fitness, or MMA, or traditional martial arts, anything like this, right? I would sit down with my team, with a master list of
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: all my former members. So let's say I have 200 names on this list, right? And I'm gonna give that master list to each person on my team, and we are going to huddle. And we're gonna be like, okay, who has the best rapport? Like, here's name number one, Sally Jo. Who has the best rapport with that? Okay, Greg, you take Sally Joe. I'm gonna go down the name, okay, oh, I'm gonna take Tim. Okay, Dave, you take Alan, or whoever it is, and you just divvy up the list.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And then, cool, that's day one's work. Day two could be, hey, let's start our list, let's try and get through our list by the end of the week, right? And it's just like, we do that. You said you do it 3 times a year?
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Dave Kovar: You're right, 3 times a year is when we focus on reactivation.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Wow, so, I mean, if you just did that breakout session with your team, or yourself if you're a solo operator, every trimester, right, or even quarterly, you could just look at your former members from the previous quarter, and just do that quarter.
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Dave Kovar: Dick.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: 100%.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That would probably be a huge impact on someone's ability to generate new members.
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Dave Kovar: You know, there's something magical that happens when you're actually out in the community and you're on the phone asking. They don't always come from where you think, but they always show up. You know, one of the things that it does, it gives you, like… when you're just, you know, throwing some money out on ads and hoping people show up, there's, like, a sense that I don't have control of what's going on. But when you're doing this stuff, it does… it's very motivating. And I think motivation follows action. You're taking action, and once you get that momentum going, it just becomes easier to continue this trend.
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Dave Kovar: And then, by the way, just a little interesting stat, 54% of the people that actually inquire about are like a…
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Dave Kovar: on some kind of an intro program are referrals, grassroots, all the things we're doing.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: For you guys, or just in general? What do you mean?
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Dave Kovar: Oh, no, I'm sorry, for our schools, I apologize.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Oh, wow.
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Dave Kovar: And 46% are due to our online presence, all our social media, okay? Which is still important, but over… we would be… we would get half as many inquiries. But here's what's interesting. The people that actually enroll, 63% of the people who enroll are from our grassroots.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: only 37% happen from our, you know, our paid advertising, so to speak. I love how you have it broken out. So you've been tracking, hey, these people are coming from these certain efforts versus the people that are coming from our ads, versus referrals, which is what I want to talk about next.
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Dave Kovar: Yep.
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Dave Kovar: Absolutely.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, I… referrals, I mean, everybody talks about referrals, and you've systemized it, and it's a big pillar in your marketing efforts.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: But I'll be honest, I know a lot of trainers, instructors, coaches, they feel awkward asking for referrals, so how do you…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: How do you… how do you create a referral culture, quote-unquote, in… in your school or in your gym, so that it feels… it doesn't feel salesy or like you're trying to pull something out of your current members?
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Dave Kovar: Yep, yep, I think it's a really good question, and… and it kind of… one of the things, and this is really good for, like, you running a… opening up a new facility, I just wanted to be… I wrote it down so I don't forget it here real fast, and that is, is that it's super easy to ask for referrals in a new business, because they get it, they want to help. So I would remind you that your gym's only going to be new for a few months.
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Dave Kovar: And so those first, you know, 50 people that come in, those are your founders. I would double down on making them… you guys understand you're part of something, we're gonna be here for years. I would… I would really make them feel a lot of pride in being the founders, and I would be pushing them really hard, and I'd have a bunch of referable events to bring them to. But…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Put that down.
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Dave Kovar: But one of the things when it comes to referrals and referral culture is good news, bad news. The good news is there's a lot of different ways to do referrals. The bad news is, is which way should I do it, right? And for us, I don't ever want to come off salesy or gimmicky, okay? And,
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Dave Kovar: I think the most valid reason, important reason, like… like, we've tried all kinds of stuff back, you know, you bring…
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Dave Kovar: six names into, again, you get your, you know, of your friends come in, you get this and that, and it kind of becomes kind of like a carnival thing, and it just… and I found that that doesn't really work that well to actually generate real good, you know, members. What works the best, the best referral is a one-on-one ask, and when you're doing that, by the way, if I ask you, if you're not enjoying my program, it's okay.
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Dave Kovar: then you're not a raving fan, I'm not gonna ask you for a referral. But there's an assumption here that you're loving my program, okay?
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Dave Kovar: You understand people, they want to help you grow. They want to help you grow if they're loving the program. But if you do a massive, like, if you have a sign on your wall that says the biggest compliment you give is refer a friend, that's great. Or if you announce that, hey, we're having some event coming up, it's a referral event coming up this Friday, bring your friend, there's nothing wrong with that, but let me tell you.
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Dave Kovar: The best results are when you ask one-on-one. And here's an example. I have a…
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Dave Kovar: all of my head instructors at all our locations, where there's a text thread, and let's just say I have a special early morning Saturday training that I need someone to cover this Saturday at one of our locations, and I set out this text thread to everybody, hey, who can help me out on Saturday?
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Dave Kovar: I may or may not hear from somebody, but if I reach out individually to them, I get almost 100% response.
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Dave Kovar: a lot of help. And so the deal is, whatever you're announcing from the floor or in a group, that's great, but the power is in your one-on-one interaction, you know, that that's when I, you know, hey, how's training? Oh, man, I love this place. Hey, you know what? I'd love to have somebody else just like you. Do you have any friends that could benefit from the program?
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Dave Kovar: Right? And that you have an event to draw them to, okay? Something, you know, some kind of a reason, an open house, you know, special fitness event, a self-defense event, something that you give your people a reason to attend. And then the key thing, because you don't want to come off salesly, but I would remind you also that
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Dave Kovar: The key thing to remember is that what you're giving, you're not selling some used car or some worthless trinket. What you do has massive value, and you really, you know, you owe it to your community to, you know, get more people in. Put it this way.
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Dave Kovar: You know, I've been meaning to get to the gym for years, I haven't enjoyed… I finally, my buddy bugs the heck out of me. He gets me to the gym. I've been training for 3 years, I lost 40 pounds, I'm in the best shape of my life. Am I gonna go to my friend? Darn you, I'm so mad at you for getting me in the gym. I'm in the best shape of my life, I've got all these great friends.
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Dave Kovar: my momentum is different. No. You're gonna thank your friend for bugging them, right? And so I think it's an important distinction, is that it's… maybe your gym, maybe your martial arts program isn't for everyone, but let them tell you it's not for them, right? Yep. Assume that… and if you do this, all of a sudden.
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Dave Kovar: it's amazing the difference that's gonna be. And what we do as far as referrals, we will give, we give $100 off the second month of membership for the referrer, the person that comes in, and the… both people, for the person that referred and the new member. And we just found that works really well. So we do give incentive, but we don't lead with that incentive.
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Dave Kovar: You know, we lead with, you know, do you have any friends that could benefit from the program? And, by the way, I don't even think you need to do that. I think just, you know, a nice thank you note, and or some gift for, hey, man, Bob just came in, and he… I understand you referred him. Thank you for that, you know.
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Dave Kovar: You know, here's some gloves. I appreciate that. I mean, that… just a sincere thank you is the most important thing you can do when someone gives a referral.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, it's… it's interesting, I want to touch on this, because in… I'm not sure how in tune you are with the CrossFit or the functional fitness, world, but there is a…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: there is a referral event that is extremely popular, it's called Bring a Friend Week, or it's something like that. Like, there are variations on that name, and gyms will do it quarterly or biannually, where they… it's just a week
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: where members can bring in their friends and family for free to try out the gym, and I think a lot of gym owners depend on…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: that to capture the majority of the referral business, and I don't think that's bad, and I don't think it's ineffective. For a lot of gyms, it's going to be very effective. I wonder if, one, martial arts, traditional martial arts might benefit from doing something like that, but two.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: If gym owners, functional fitness owners.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: would benefit from, in between those bouts, doing what you're talking about, and having personal conversations with their raving fans, asking them in between the Bring a Friend Week. Do you feel like there's something there?
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Dave Kovar: Oh, 100%. We do it, we call it Buddy Week, right? We do it… Oh, Buddy Week. Every quarter, sometimes we do it more often, right? And but I… absolutely, it's great. But that's something that we might push as a group, but the one-on-one conversation, ongoing, and by the way, the real easy…
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Dave Kovar: a strategy for this so you don't keep going to the same person, because you don't want to bug somebody all the time, especially if you have a staff of 3 or 4 people, and.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: you know, Bob's shown up to do his workout, and this week, 3 different people have asked me what's… you know, it's kind of… that's annoying, right? Right. So, the system is… and it can be really… I'm an old school guy, so I like paper and pencil, so imagine you have a list of all your… all your… every one of your gym members, you know, on a… on a clipboard somewhere with a yellow marker. And after I ask Bob for a referral, I put a yellow marker through his name.
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Dave Kovar: So, people can go over, the other team can go over and go, oh, Bob's already been asked. And you basically, you go through the whole list at once before you start over again. But I don't think it's inappropriate a couple times a year to ask for a referral. I think that's just fine on a one-on-one.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I love that system, though. It's like, cool, just get a name of all your members, post that in the office, and just make it…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: make it part of the coach's system, where it's like, hey, every week, your goal is to cross off 3 of these names.
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Dave Kovar: 100%.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: 3, and start with the people that you think are the most invested in our program.
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Dave Kovar: Yep.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And then the coach will go up there before they teach the class, be like, okay, cool, I'm gonna hit up Sally Joe today, or whatever it is. That's… Exactly. And it's super, it's super simple. It doesn't have to be complex, and every coach is gonna understand the purpose.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And can you… can you say the phrase again, what you say to someone when you have that one-on-one conversation?
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, you know what? How are you enjoying the program? There's some conversations, oh man, I love it, this has been amazing, and I'll say, you know, I'd love to have another member just like you.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That.
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Dave Kovar: Do you have any friends that could benefit from the program?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I'd love to have another member just like you. I love that. I… that's gold right there. I love that. I'm gonna be using that. I'm stealing all this stuff, Dave.
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Dave Kovar: No, it's all good, man, all good.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I know you touched on this at the beginning, and this is something that, at the beginning of the webinar, but this is something that we also spoke about in our conversation, you and I, Dave, a couple weeks ago, and it…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: it aligns… when I say this aligns dearly with my own personal philosophy, that's not an understatement. I am a quote-unquote product guy through and through. Like, I don't think you can out… well, you probably could out-market a bad product, but the foundation of any business's success is going to be how well they run their program, or how good their service is, or how good their product is.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Can you… can you touch on this and what your philosophy is behind this?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: to your product versus, like, any marketing strategies.
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, well, like I said, I… you know, in my business, in my industry, I've seen people come and go, people have these amazing years, and, you know, everybody in the industry's talking about this guy, and he did so much in his school, etc. And… but the people that are here.
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Dave Kovar: That are here decade after decade, not just year after year, right?
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Dave Kovar: are the people that remember why they're doing what they're doing. And so, the way I look at this business, and for me, it's… it's martial arts first, teaching second, business third, and let me explain what I mean by that. For me, it's living the lifestyle. For me, for martial arts, that means training on a regular basis, keeping fit, making sure that my skills are up to date.
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Dave Kovar: that I still have passion about what it is that I do, right? Because when that's the case, what happens is that, you know, in martial arts, it's all about what happens in instructor-student relationship. And so, you know, what happens during that class, right? That interaction. And so, that makes me a better teacher, just by the fact that I'm passionate about my… what I do.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: 100%.
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Dave Kovar: And then…
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Dave Kovar: So I'm passionate about what I do, and I'm going out of my way to make sure that my product, my classroom, is rocking.
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Dave Kovar: Then.
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Dave Kovar: guess what? Now, it's not that business this is important, it's super important, but now I build a really strong business foundation. But if I switch the order, what happens is that I'm focused more on, okay, how can I generate more money for my members, as quickly as possible, right? What happens, you tend to maybe take some shortcuts that give you a big, like, the one example would be doing, like, highly, you know.
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Dave Kovar: highly discounted to long-term membership, just so you can get as much cash in this month as you can. You guys know what I'm saying? And that's gonna be a slippery slope, right? That's people I see a lot of gym owners fall into, actually.
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Dave Kovar: 100%, 100%, right? And so, the deal is, is that, you know, if you are, you know, if you… the key thing to me is, for a good business model, is get them and keep them. It's not sexy, it's not exciting, but it's a good way to live your life, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely.
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Dave Kovar: And so, you don't need to refer… like, our quit rate, what we strive for, we're not there, is 3% per month, which means the math on that is that out of every 100 members, I'm…
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Dave Kovar: I'm trying to not lose any more than 3 members. So if one of my schools has 400 members, that means I… 12 members is… I'm going to expect to lose 12 members. So now I… to break even, I only need
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Dave Kovar: 12 new members to come in, right? And so, the key thing on this, if my quit rate is 5%, or 7%, or 10%, all of a sudden, I'm churning. I'm always focusing on these new members, I'm hustling all the time, and just replacing an old body with a new body, and I'm burning myself out. But if I can get somebody in and keep them, and that's really about, you know, a really good product.
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Dave Kovar: Then…
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Dave Kovar: it's way easier to sustain, and I don't have to be pushing so hard on the front end. And it's… I've been both places, and let me tell you, when your quit rate is really low, and you're keeping members, it's a way better lifestyle.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, is that how… because this was a question I wanted to bring up, but I think you answered it.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Is that how you would suggest a business owner diagnose their service or their product?
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Dave Kovar: 100%, 100%.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: their churn. So if their churn is above 3%, they have room to improve their product and their service.
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Dave Kovar: And that's in the martial arts world in general. You know, that's in jiu-jitsu schools, Muay Thai schools, MMA schools, karate schools, Takona schools, that's a good thing to shoot for. By the way, most people aren't there. The industry, and I couldn't tell you what, you know, I couldn't tell you in the gym world, in the.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: It's very similar. The numbers that you're talking about are very similar. Like, 5% is, like, but 3%, I think, would be the gold standard. You're right.
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Dave Kovar: There you go. So in my world, most people don't even know what it is. That's a real problem. Most people don't even know what their quit rate is, okay? So that's where you… that's which is measured, improved. Once you know what it is, it automatically gets better, okay? So that would be the first thing to figure out, but most… in our industry, it's 5 to 7, is kind of what I see out there.
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Dave Kovar: But there's guys that have a 2% quit rate, and let me tell you, you know, you…
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Dave Kovar: You don't have to worry… I mean, you should always be out there promoting your business, but when your quit rate is good, life is good. You know, organically, people are coming in enough, and you almost don't have to… you're spending your time servicing your people versus worrying about getting new ones, and that's a really good place to be.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So your overall philosophy is on this, just to summarize, is that if you have a quit rate that is above 3%, or definitely above 5%, that the grassroots marketing effort, or any type of marketing system, is only going to be a band-aid on a much larger problem, and that should be addressed
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: First, primarily.
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Dave Kovar: First thing… first thing that I do when I'm gonna coach somebody in their business, I'm gonna take a look at their quit rate. That's the first thing I'm gonna do, and if I get a chance, I'm gonna watch, you know, I'm gonna watch what they do. And I'm amazed by how many people…
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Dave Kovar: you know, have these beautiful facilities, right? But then their coaches and their teachers are just mediocre. You know what I'm talking about? It's like, it's like, you know, that's where you start, you know, is your product. And in the fitness industry, in the martial arts industry, it's all about the relationship. That's it. And if that isn't strong, then nothing else is gonna friggin' matter. I don't care how slick your ad is. I don't care… none of that matters, man.
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Dave Kovar: You know, you're not gonna keep people. As Stephen Covey says, you can't talk yourself out of a situation you behaved yourself into.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: I like that, that's a good one. Write that one down, too. That's good.
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Dave Kovar: And if you… so if you're only pretty good, it's… that's… you're gonna have to be busting your butt to get new members in all the time.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yep, I mean, this makes… you're preaching the choir with me, like, this makes perfect sense, and like I said, I'm a stickler for when it comes to the product, the service that we give, because I don't want to invest in marketing if I know it's just going to end up… my business is a leaky bucket, and all those marketing dollars are going to go to waste if I churn members out, or if I have people that quit. So, to recap.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Real quick, we have, visiting your neighbors, the one-mile… the one-mile relationships, you know, get…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: systemize, time block your Monday out so that you can visit a handful of businesses every month, or excuse me, every week, is what you were saying, and make sure that you go in with an offer that is of value to them. Be like, hey, what can I do to get my members over here, or my client base, and
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: build a reciprocal relationship, is what you were saying, correct? Yep. Then we have the system for winning back old leads, or winning back former members, and then we have the referral.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: system where it's like, I love that list that's up on the wall, and the coaches can just cross off maybe 3 names per week until you guys go through the entire list, asking your most high-impact members for referrals.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: And the phrase was, hey, do you know anybody… I want more members that are like you. Do you know anybody that could benefit from the program? Man, that's… I love that.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Can you talk to me a little bit about community presence real quick, and what you meant by that?
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, so I would say that this is… it's coming up on spring, right? And if you're on the East Coast, of course, right now you have a Northeast, you've got a lot of weather, right? So maybe you're not ready for that, but right now, there are a bunch of community events coming up in your community, and how you figure out which… where they are is you simply type in your
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Dave Kovar: You Google your zip code and community events, and watch what happens. A million events will pop up, you know? And let me give you an example. We have this thing called the Chicken Festival, okay? And it's between two of our locations. And and what we do, it's an all-day thing where they have chicken, and, you know, you guys get the idea, right? And there's booths.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: A chicken festival, I'm imagining it's just a bunch of chicken.
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Dave Kovar: Well, actually, it's food, right? It's a food festival, but it starts centered around that, right? And there'll be, you know, a thousand people that show up, and, you know, it's your classic park, you know, park event. Well, last September, we scheduled 62 appointments in one day at the Chicken Festival.
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Dave Kovar: And by the way, that's… and out of that, 42 showed up. We ended up enrolling 28 members in one location, because of one day of the Chicken Fest.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So wait a second, so you went to a food festival, not… probably not the typical place
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Was it… is it, like, healthy food?
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Dave Kovar: No, - it was like a… it was like a local little fair, like a community fair. Just the people are gathered, you know, they're there looking for something to do with their family that afternoon.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Okay, so tell me how you made that a success, because I have a lot of school owners, or gym owners, or business owners that'll just… they'll go to a fair, they'll just sit up a table, and they sit back.
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Dave Kovar: Nothing happens.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: They complain about getting… exactly. Nothing happens.
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Dave Kovar: Let me give you a story, if you don't mind. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: No, you're good, you're good, do it.
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Dave Kovar: Years… Years ago.
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Dave Kovar: I show up, there's this event like this, and there's not a lot of people there, and it was actually at my kids, the grade school that they went to, and so I went, and there was… my competitor, there's a guy in town who's had a bunch of schools for a million years, I've been competing with him for 40 years, they've got this massive, their big booth up, and they've got 3 really young, fit athletes that are sitting behind the counter with their arms crossed, bored out of their mind. I show up, we've got a table event, it's just a table
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Dave Kovar: cloth, and one of my guys named Paul Duarte, who's this…
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Dave Kovar: rock star booth, he runs a booth, and I'm gonna actually apologize to him, because I'm thinking, this is kind of a waste of his day, man, there's not many people here today. And I walk up, and I go, hey, Paul, and he goes, hey, man, I just want to let you know, I love events like this when there are not a lot of people, because I get a chance to really talk to people. I scheduled 3 appointments.
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Dave Kovar: And I promise you, the other guys went back, told their boss, that was a waste of time. So the first thing when you're doing community events is.
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Dave Kovar: Is you have to have people that want to be there. That, that's absolutely… if you don't, it's a waste of time.
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Dave Kovar: Okay? And so, and then something that draws people to the booth, and it could be a wheel, the spin for a wheel, spin for a prize, a t-shirt, you know, two free weeks, that kind of thing, okay?
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Dave Kovar: And then you gotta have people that are willing to interact. And by the way, when we used to do community events, what we learned the hard way is we would look for leads. We would want phone numbers and emails, right? And then what happened is we'd come back and we'd celebrate at the next staff meeting, hey, somebody… you know, Bob was at the pumpkin festival, and he got 142 leads, every platform, yay! And guess what Bob has to do now?
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Dave Kovar: call those 142 leads, which is very disheartening. Half the numbers aren't right, you know what I'm saying? It's like some people don't even remember doing it, etc. So instead, what we do is, we have no problem gathering information so we can put them on our, you know, email campaign, but we're all about making appointments that day, and so we offer some incentive.
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Dave Kovar: Like, for example, if you make a scheduled appointment today, we're gonna give you two lessons and a t-shirt for free.
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Dave Kovar: Right? And so, the most important thing about doing events like this is knowing that they're not always gonna kill it. Like, I mentioned the one
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Dave Kovar: 62 leads to the chicken fest. I didn't tell you about all the other ones we didn't have as that big of a turnout, but it's kind of like fishing. If you're going fishing, the only chance you have of catching a fish is putting a worm on the hook and throwing it in the water. And sometimes you're not going to catch them.
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Dave Kovar: But if you don't put the hook, the worm on the hook and throw it in the water, you're never gonna catch him.
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Dave Kovar: And so, it's one of those things that absolutely, if you have the right people, and you're very intentional, and you're professional, and you're interacting with people, they can be incredible. Like, we're super excited, we've got so many events this spring, and this is the really thing that gets us through, really sets us up for a successful summer, is our spring events.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So it sounds to me like there are
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Two things that you're gonna need in order to have a successful table, booth.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: whatever it is at a community event or fair. One is your best people people, right? Like, someone that is outgoing, extrovert, and that wants to be there. They aren't sitting back in their chairs with their arms folded.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Okay, and the second one is a proper incentive to book an appointment, or book an intro session, or book a whatever the call to action is. So, if you have people that are excited to be there, and you have a solid offer, in your case it was 2 free lessons and a t-shirt.
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Dave Kovar: Yep.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That… those are the minimum requirements for a successful event.
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Dave Kovar: Yes, and the one thing I would add on to that is something that draws people to the booth, right? So in martial arts, we might have a bag that they hit, right? Or there might be a demo going on, or we might be teaching someone how to break a board, something like that, right? So there's actually some kind of action going on.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: What about concrete cinder blocks that are… that have been set on fire? I don't know if you ever saw that movie, but, what was that?
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Dave Kovar: actually done that.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: You guys remember that Chuck Norris movie? Anyway, anyway, sorry.
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Dave Kovar: Run there.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: about?
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, oh.
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Greg Buck: Yes.
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Dave Kovar: Yeah, yeah, I've actually broken concrete bricks before.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That would draw me to your booth! Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of old school. That was a different generation.
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Greg Buck: Dave, I've got a… I've got a… Dave, I've got a quick question from you, for you from the chat. So someone had asked about your… your intro offer, and we just touched on it here again, with the two free lessons and the t-shirt. Do you have a cadence of when you give that t-shirt? Is it, like, something you're giving right as they walk in the door? Is it after they complete the lessons? Can you speak to that?
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Dave Kovar: It's a great point. It's definitely not at the booth, it's when they actually show up, and then we'll give it to them when they first show up. Because we want… we want them to be… to feel like they're part of the team. Do you guys remember when you… you got on the… you know, my generation was more baseball than soccer, right? But you got your uniform? What a big deal that was? I mean, you wore it around the house, right? And so, you know,
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Dave Kovar: We want them to feel like they're becoming part of the team, so, you know, the t-shirts. Sometimes we even do a martial arts uniform. It depends on the event that we'll give those away as well. We usually go, like, a t-shirt in the summertime, more of an MMA look.
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Dave Kovar: Wintertime, more of a traditional martial arts look, that's how we run our school, so that will determine what we're giving away.
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Greg Buck: Yeah, I have a question for you around, uniforms, more in the martial arts vein, Dave. Obviously, it's very school-to-school, but do you see, a benefit of a set uniform for your schools, in terms of having members feeling like they're belonging, they're part of the team, things like that, or do you guys kind of let everyone wear whatever they choose?
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Dave Kovar: We're pretty strict. We're pretty strict. I'll tell you, if you look at a professional football team, baseball team, basketball team, and you go to their practice, they're matching.
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Dave Kovar: You know what I'm saying? And there's something about it, and, like, you see it, you know, we do a lot of jiu-jitsu in our schools. We are not exclusive to jiu-jitsu school, but we have a lot of, you know, several locations have a standalone jiu-jitsu program, and I know in, like, in the jiu-jitsu world, you'll see… and in karate and taekwondo, you've been seeing it forever, how everybody matches, but even now, most of this, not all, but you see a difference. If you go online, you see…
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Dave Kovar: most of, really successful jiu-jitsu schools, everybody's wearing matching uniforms, right? It's just, there's something to be, there's something, even in MMA schools, you know, there's not always, some people… and I don't think it's a game… it's not a game changer. Like, you can let people wear whatever they want, and you can still be successful.
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Dave Kovar: Right? There's a lot of different ways to do it. But I know there's something, especially if you're catering.
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Dave Kovar: to, the youth market whatsoever, right? Is that there's something kind of cool-looking about everybody walking and everybody matching, you know, and being a part of the team, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely.
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Dave Kovar: So that's… we're not anal about it, but we're pretty consistent about… about everybody… this is a, you know… and I think, to me, that's the difference between doing someone that's
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Dave Kovar: you know, it gives a more professional vibe when everybody is closer to matching, and that's my opinion. Like I said, I have friends that don't care what their team wears, but that's important for me.
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Greg Buck: Yeah, I think another thing with that, outside the belonging of the members, on the push press side, we've seen, like, just looking through accounts of, like, this gym, and their marketing materials, and their Instagram presence, like, it just looks very clean, which I think puts a good outward image for your facility as well.
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Dave Kovar: 100%.
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Greg Buck: Nope.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Very cool. Greg, were there any other questions? I want to go to the live Q&A, and I know you already asked… you already threw a couple out there, but was there anything else that went through the chat or the Q&A that,
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That we need to address, that we need to get, Westerners got…
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Greg Buck: Yeah, those are the big ones off the bat. If anybody else has any lingering questions they haven't dropped in the chat or the Q&A that myself or Dan haven't answered in the chat already, feel free to do it now. I know we've got about 3 or 4 more minutes.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Yeah, feel free, guys, if you have, questions, throw them in. There we go. I'm just messing.
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Dave Kovar: So I would say while we're waiting, I would just remind everybody, it's not easy, man. It's not easy. You gotta put in the time, right?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely.
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Dave Kovar: Gotta be okay with that. You know, and I've heard this before, you know, you guys, very cliche, but you only have to work half days.
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Dave Kovar: The first 12 hours or the second 12 hours, you know? And they did off the ground.
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Dave Kovar: you gotta put in the time, man. You know, you gotta believe in what you're doing, you gotta pace yourself, you have to have a life outside your gym, certainly, right? You know, but at the end of the day.
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Dave Kovar: looking for easy, go get a frickin' job for somebody else. If you're gonna run a gym, there's gonna be… it's gonna… it's gonna take time. You're gonna have to put it in, you know? And… and if you can just kind of make peace with working hard.
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Dave Kovar: eventually, you know, I'm at a point in my career where I have this amazing team. I'm still… it's what I like to do, this is my hobby, right? But I don't have to work as hard if I don't want anymore, right? But to get that momentum going, man, you know, it takes some hustle, it's not easy. And once you understand that, it makes it, you know, because we always look at what other people are doing, like, wow, look at them. Well, guess what? They busted their butt to get there. They're probably still busting their butt.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Excuse.
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Greg Buck: Accept the fact that it's going to be hard work. Yep. Just accept it.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: All right, did any other… did any other questions come through? I didn't see.
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Greg Buck: No, I think… I think we're good, yeah.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: This is great. Well, hey, you know what?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: this was strong. This was super strong. I'm stoked with all the information and the stories that you shared with us, Dave. Grassroots marketing, like we just said, it's not flashy. It's not complicated, though.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: But, I would say this, when it's systemized and consistent, it's extremely powerful, right? So, real quick recap, the one mile radius, your old leads and your former members, your current community, right? Going to community events and then asking your members for referrals, that's…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: That's not… that stuff isn't small potatoes. Everybody should have that stuff as bare minimum, systemized in their gym, or their studio, their school.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So that they can develop new leads every month. If people are implementing these systems consistently, they're going to see movement. Would you agree with that, Dave? Is that pretty much like, hey, bare minimum?
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Dave Kovar: Absolutely, the thing to wear is they're not always gonna come when you want them to come. You know, sometimes there's a little bit of a lag, right? You know, you're busting, you're going, what's going on? Like, how many times in my career have I thought, doesn't anybody want to do martial arts anymore? What's going on? And all of a sudden, we get this flood of people. They're gonna show up, it's just not always exactly on your timeline.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely. So, real quick, Dave, huge thank you to you for sharing all your insight and being generous with the specifics. It's rare to get someone of your expertise and your experience in here just giving all this stuff away for free, so thank you so much for that. Where can people connect with you or find out more about Kovar Systems?
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Dave Kovar: So, you can go to covarSystems.com, we coach martial arts schools. You can follow me on Facebook at Dave Kovar, or on Instagram on Ahanchi Dave Kovar, and yeah, I would love to help anybody that might want some.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Awesome.
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Greg Buck: One last thing, Dave, I'd love for you to plug your ProMac event, since we'll be there this year for everybody.
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Dave Kovar: Absolutely, looking forward to having you guys as a guest. May 17th and… 16th and 17th of this year in Sacramento, California, we host our ProMac International, and it's,
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Dave Kovar: martial arts… an event for martial arts professionals, and we're very martial arts heavy with this, so we'll have
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Dave Kovar: Last year, we had John Hackleman, who's a good friend of mine, who's Chuck Liddell's coach, if you don't know who he is, he's probably gonna be back this year. We'll have a bunch of high-level, martial arts from all over the world of various arts, so we're very… we'll have, basically three different lines going. We have… you guys… you could train for both days, non-stop, if you wanted, in various martial arts, and then…
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Dave Kovar: Heavy on MMA, jiu-jitsu, also Filipino weaponry, some traditional stuff as well.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Wow.
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Dave Kovar: You can also, there's a whole business… you could spend the whole two days just focusing on business sessions, and there's also teaching sessions. I think that's…
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Dave Kovar: that's kind of our secret sauce, I think, that we really focus on ways with which you can really develop your skills to maintain a relationship and keep students for the long haul. So it's kind of like, there's something for everyone. It's someone that doesn't run a martial arts school, they run a CrossFit gym or a small fitness facility, 90% of the stuff is going to transfer over anyway, you know?
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: Absolutely, yeah, there's a lot of carryover. We were talking about that before we got on this call, how much carryover and parallel there is between the markets. So, very cool. I'm excited to have our team go to that event. I know it's going to be a blast.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: For everyone listening, as always, if you registered for the webinar, you'll get a follow-up email with the recording. However, I do need to make it a point.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: If you don't have it by tonight, please do me a favor and check your spam, or your junk promotional folder, whatever it is. We've recently had reports of some of the messages and the recording landing in there, so…
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: double-check those folders if you need it, and if you still don't have it, then absolutely ping me, zach at pushpress.com, and I will make sure that you get it. Also, in that follow-up email, there will be a link to register for our next webinar, which is on March 12th, where we're going to break down profit and loss statements to optimize for tax season. We're actually going to break down legitimate, like.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: real-world profit and loss statements. I think a lot of people will learn from that.
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Zach Forrest, PushPress: So, until then, go build something great. Appreciate it. Thanks for the call, guys.
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