Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 22 | Special Edition
The #1 Business Resource for the Martial Arts Industry
The #1 Business Resource for the Martial Arts Industry
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SCHOOL PROFILE<br />
A Solid Foundation: the House of <strong>Martial</strong><br />
<strong>Arts</strong> Karate Academy<br />
The Head Instructor Gino Bovo has built a home for a small community in<br />
Pennsylvania who can learn the principles for living well at the House of <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong><br />
Karate Academy. Since 1998, twenty-four years, the house has provided martial arts<br />
training benefits like self-confidence and tools to face bullies for the small town. The<br />
school has a great community reputation and a well-rounded active student body due<br />
to a combination of styles presented in the training.<br />
MAWN: What is the major contribution(s) that your school is<br />
bringing to its community?<br />
GB: Our dojo is located in a smaller town so bringing people<br />
into town helps other businesses as well as ours. We help to promote<br />
discipline, and respect daily. We also do a food drive for our<br />
local food bank.<br />
MAWN: What are the best producing marketing strategies<br />
you use?<br />
GB: I think the thing that works best for us is good old fashioned<br />
word of mouth, but social media gets the word out really well<br />
too, and we are on a main road with a large front window, so a lot<br />
of drive by traffic helps too.<br />
MAWN: What are the programs you provide and their benefits<br />
to participants?<br />
GB: Our main program that we teach is a Shotokan based<br />
karate system. In addition to the karate we also offer Jujitsu and<br />
Grappling, as well as a little bit of boxing. Our karate programs<br />
promote building self-confidence, respect, & anti-bullying. We also<br />
think that teaching a good combination of styles helps to create a<br />
more well rounded martial artist.<br />
MAWN: Do you have a lead generating website and what<br />
about it has been most productive regarding leads?<br />
Modern Approach to Traditional Karate<br />
GB: Yes, I do. Our<br />
website is set up so<br />
that the client can very<br />
easily sign up and<br />
pay for trial programs,<br />
tuition packages, and<br />
purchase directly from<br />
our online pro-shop.<br />
MAWN: Do you use<br />
a management software<br />
and what features<br />
are providing the best<br />
benefits for running<br />
your school more efficiently?<br />
GB: Yes, we do<br />
have a management<br />
software to run our<br />
school efficiently. The<br />
main thing for me is<br />
Head Instructor Gino Bovo is Dedicated to<br />
Serving His Small Community<br />
that it helps me to focus on teaching. It helps to take care of a lot of<br />
the business side of things for us. It tracks all of our sales. It does<br />
monthly and annual totals. It automatically contacts the<br />
client for declined or late payments. It lets us, as well<br />
as the client, know when trial packages are expiring.<br />
It also has a great communication system to contact<br />
clients individually or as groups.<br />
MAWN: What advice do you have for other martial<br />
arts school owners for having success in business?<br />
GB: I’ve been in business full time for 24 years. I<br />
would just say, be ready to adapt to change (because<br />
it will be required at some point). Know your students,<br />
care about what you teach them, and no matter what<br />
DON’T GIVE UP.<br />
50 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME <strong>22</strong> | SPECIAL EDITION
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