In this episode, I sit down with Robert Bernacki from Island Top Team! You may know Rob from his work with Stephan Kesting and he's got a great perspective to share on academy ownership and Jiu Jitsu in general.

We get into:

• Finding a balanace when coaching students who are training for fun that helps them improve but not feel picked on

• How to stay passionate about teaching when your room isn’t full of competitors

• Finding other ways to fill your cup as a coach

• Other avenues of business to create a living from teaching Jiu Jitsu

I enjoyed chatting with Rob, my only regret in the episode is not having enough time to get into the endless rabit holes Jiu Jitsu conversations can take.

Check him out here:

📍 Island Top Team – Nanaimo, BC: https://islandtopteam.com📸 Instagram: @islandtopteam🧠 BJJ Concepts Online: https://bjjconcepts.net

In this episode, I go over the core framework every academy needs to grow: Invite, Enroll, Deliver, Retain, Grow

If you’re not putting time into these five buckets, your business is probably stuck.

I also talk about the actual time commitment it takes to see progress. While putting in MORE hours would be great the truth is, you just need to carve out SOME hours to work on the business side if you actually want to grow. I give various numbers during the episode but the one I keep coming back to is 4 hours per week to work ON your business is essential.

I walk through what each piece looks like and how to start building systems instead of putting out fires every week.

If you want help with this, grab a free copy of my book at www.Growjitsu.com/book

Jesse and I covered a lot of topics on todays show but here are some major topics and points of interest.

• How to run a good women's program without having to run a ladies only class.
• Using games to help students learn faster without changing your entire teaching style.
• Keeping new students longer with basic reach outs.
• Setting expectations with new students to keep your academy drama free.

It was great having Jesse on the show as he is a wealth of knowledge and runs a top notch facility. If you want to learn more about Jesse check out the links below:

Web: https://roughhandsbjj.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/roughhandsbjj/

Free BJJ Mental Models course access for our listeners: https://www.bjjmentalmodels.com/offers/yLg5LJyT/checkout?coupon_code=RHRBJJ

Hear me out here, I'm not here to poke the bear. What I am here to do is highlight that your BJJ academy has two totally separate sides. There is the fun side of "teaching, training, coaching side" which is why most people open gyms to begin with.

Then you have the other side of the business which is the "a bunch of shit I don't want to do like marketing, sales, creating SOPS, event promotion etc".

In this episode I do bounce around a bit because truthfully there is so much to talk about within this subject but it boils down to this. If most academy owners get skilled enough on the business side to be a "blue belt" in business, they'll be fine.

If you are looking for some help to level up your academy head on over to www.Growjitsu.com/demo to book a demo and see how you can get a website, automations and systems that make your business run as smoothly as your Jiu Jitsu.

This is an expansion on the onboarding episode from two weeks ago and through all my caffinated ramblings really asks one question of the BJJ Academy owner...

What could you be doing for your students to keep them on the path to success?

Easier said than done like most things. But these processes and systems start with the idea, then an outline and they become real with one single action.

You don't need a perfect system day one, just the drive to help students improve or get the most out of their time with you and build up a system to keep them on track over time.

If you want to take a deeper look into these systems and how to improve them in your BJJ business head over to www.Growjitsu.com/book to download a free copy of my book - The Unstuck Academy.

I'm excited to have Mike back on the show to talk about his first year in business. While this isn't his first dive into owning a martial arts school this is the first school he has opened in Calgary.

Anyone who owned a gym has had the thought, "if I startefd from scratch again what would I do to make my business successful?" Well Mike has been able to answer that question for himself and it has been awesome to see it in action. I should note that Mike owns SBG Calgary with his Wife Becca who is also an SBG Black belt.

If you are in Calgary and would like to train with Mike at SBG Calgary here is where you can go to find him:

https://sbgcalgary.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sbgcalgary/

If you've owned a Jiu Jitsu academy for more than a year you know summers can be brutal. Once students start to cancel and no one is coming into replace them you start to feel the financial squeeze. Well the good news is you can plan around it, you can engineer summer to be one of your most profitable seasons with kids camps, or just a great season if you plan ahead.

From one gym owner to another I hope this helps you not just survive the next summer, but actually enjoy it.

If you are looking for help growing your business and want to see what the Growjitsu Flywheel can do for you. Head on over to www.Growjitsu.com/demo and book a live call with me.

Think of this demo call like a first roll, we are feeling eac hother out to see what the other's game is. My game is helping BJJ academy owners without BS marketing tactics or anything sleazy, heck my pricing is even transparently on my website!

This episode is me speaking from experience on a few topics so hopefully you can avoid stepping on the same rakes as I did.

I start by talking about an IG post I saw where a gym was asking it's members if it "failed" by closing over the holdidays. The short answer is "yes" if that person wanted to come train. Then I go a little deeping into how to handle bigger policy changes and lastly not being afraid to fail when making new offerings/events etc.

If you're looking for some more information on how to grow your BJJ Academy head on over to www.Growjitsu.com/book and grab a free copy of my book 'The Unstuck Academy'.