Right, It's simple, My sensei and his wife, also a sensei are, in my opinion, no good at selling their club. On the one hand that is good, I get far more attention, thus my abilities grow faster. However, they hardly bring enough money in to pay for the hall we use (a church hall).
Now, I mean them no disrespect with this, what-so-ever. I love them to bits and will fight their corner, no matter what. But.... No, a big BUT. It is my opinion that they are not doing enough to reach Joe Public. After all, I found them by pure chance, I could walk to their house from mine in no more than three minutes! thats how close they are, so surely I should have heard about them beforehand? Mustn't forget that they also have family life as well as employment, themselves
Obviously they can't do the old GKR stunt, door to door. But how else can we sell this club?
Personally I love it, and my own experiance of GKR tells me that this is far, FAR better. I mean, look up Shing Ohgami, we are directly under his instruction, along side Leo McDermott and Tracy Foster Sensei's.
Jiriki Karate is not a crappy club at all. Yet we fail to sell it. I have never worked in any form of advertisment other than telling work-mates and a couple of posters in take-a-way shops.

How else can I improve the public interest in the club.

All serious responces are indeed welcome. even if they are quite odd. If they sell, they cant be bad...

Si.

Have they tried doing a simple pamphlet mail drop?

Does your instructor want to advertise? or want a big club with many students? many traditional instructors don't. for the reason that they don't want to teach to the control of the almightly dollar. If you start advertising then you have to say something catchy right? something to help a prospective student decide your club over the MMA or GKR club down the road. You have to SELL yourself. Most traditional instructors dont like to do that. They dont like to harp on about the qualifications etc..

Word of mouth is the best way to advertise in this sense, and when new students do arrive the other students should make them feel welcome.

Apparantly thay had done, long before I joined. I've suggested it again. But they insist that it did not work. I think perhaps it might just need to be worded in a special way to reach the locals. I'd drop leaflets gladly, on my own, too.

That is exactly what they are like, Gojo. They are fine with a small class, as am I. But it comes to something when, about two weeks ago, I was the only male adult in a class of about eight students!
Most of the adults get so far in, say, third kyu and drop out?

To be fair Si, i think theres a lot of clubs out there as GojuSeishinseii says who dont like to advertise themselves as such, and those that do, usually havnt a clue, how to go about it, there are lots of ways, ive actually been involved helping my friends clubs get off the ground so to speak, we have been reasonably succesful.Please feel free to pm me for more info.


How many students do you think the average club has? anyone? i reckon its only about 20, no where near the numbers people think they can reach, when they look at GKR.

There are so many options around nowdays, i have around 10 clubs available with 10 mins drive of me, of course you would have to sort the wheat from the chaff, but they are there competing for students.

It doesnt matter how good the sensei are if no one has heard of them, the kids current instructor is a 20 min drive away, and id never heard of him until a mate reccomended him.To be honest, he struggles to keep new students, because most feel its just to hard, and sensei doesnt and wont compromise his standards, fair enough.

Best of luck mate your sensei is lucky to have you to help, if you come across any great ways, let me in on the secret.