#36 | The Fastest Growing Schools Have One Thing In Common

Previewing ASA Summit and Episode's Core Topic 36 locations, not 36 students, 36 schools. Most school owners spend their entire career trying to get one location to run without them. Sensei Solomon Brenner built Action Karate into 36, serving more than 50,000 families. And at the ASA Summit, he's breaking down exactly how he did it. The hiring pipeline that made expansion possible, the systems that kept quality from slipping, the decisions he make again, and the ones that almost cost him everything. This isn't theory from someone who's read about it. This is the actual playbook from the man who did it 36 times. He's also answering questions live from ASA Summit attendees, including the one every growing owners runs into. How do you grow without watering down? What made your school special in the 1st place? 36 locations, 1 standard. Solomon is showing you how to scale without losing your brand and here are the details. The ASA Summit October 1st through 3rd Planet Hollywood Las Vegas and after more than 20 years of running ASA, this is our final Las Vegas event. There won't be another one. Hotel room sell out, seat sell out and this one doesn't come back. If you're serious about growing past wherever you're stuck right now, be in that room. The registration link is in the show notes. Click it before the seats are gone. ASA Summit Las Vegas one last time. Speaker 2 In this week's episode, we'll discuss the topic the fastest growing schools have one thing in common. Welcome to Blackpool Panther, the best podcast to help your Marshall school increase profit and generally substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hall and I'm joined by my Co host, Master Chun Lee, who is well renowned and highly respected by his peers for his business acumen in operating Marshall Arts schools. Our guest today is Master Jay Lee, a logistics and operations expert who owns and optimizes large martial arts schools, spreading 9000 square feet and 7500 square feet with precision and efficiency. And Master Philip Jung, a second generation martial artist, 6th degree cookie One black belt and Fordham University's Gabelli's School of Business, combining elite curriculum expertise with world business strategy. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Let me throw this right over to Master Chan Lee. Welcome, Sir. The One Thing Fastest Growing Schools Have in Common What is this one thing in comment that we're supposed to be talking about tonight? Speaker 3 I think the example that you see here is 2 guys I met 20 or 25 years ago and at the beginning stages of their career. And I'm also trying to figure out how to like grow my operations in schools and so forth and run it better. And I think one thing we all have in common is we have work ethic. We go, we got to work hard, OK. And, and that's how it the type of people I align myself with. But along with working hard, you got to have the right strategy. So I remember Master Jay Lee just out of college, right? He is a comes from a very famous family within Taekwondo. And his father was the former president of USTU. And I used to work for Jay's father at massive Taekwondo events, at the nationals and so forth. And when we get a chance to meet Jay to help him grow their operations, they already had successful schools, but they want to take it to the next level and to see where he's at today. And that growth is pretty phenomenal. And then Phillip, I don't know if you remember, do you remember the first time we met? You know where? Speaker 4 I think it was at all AMS seminar Sir. Speaker 3 That's right. It was the AMS conference and I remember you were like 2122. I don't think you've even been to Fordham yet, right? You were still undergrad, or maybe you just graduated. Speaker 4 Just had graduated and it was one of my first seminars that my father just set me off, he said go learn something. Speaker 3 And I met you there. I'm like, who's this young buck? And and he looked at me as one of the old dudes and we got the talking and what he's decided reminded of me when I just left college and I and got into this as a career. And also Philip comes from a very famous family of Taekwondo. His father is the first graduating class of Jungian University in Korea, which is one of the famous universities of Taekwondo. So both pretty heralded guys that came from families that love Taekwondo and comes from a martial art background. We all have a similar background because we all grew up in a Taekwondo school. And to me, the secret is networking, I think because of the fact that you guys were hungry and you networked, and then on top of that, you educated. And I think the third part of that formula is taking massive action. And the amount of action that you guys took in the education that you got just meteorically rose to where you're at. Jay, your school is probably one of the most beautiful schools in the country. I know you don't talk about it, but it looks like a museum, Philip. You guys are on your second commercial building. You guys have built a school and a beautiful facility that also looks like a museum and so forth. And you've got a great following in the cities that you're at. Would you agree with what I just said, the secret to your meteoric rise in the industry? From where you guys were 2520 years ago to where you are today and even now, Master J, you and your daycare programs and your summer camp programs, you're constantly learning. It's quite remarkable considering where you are today because I know you're not the smartest guy in the room. And you've would you agree with what I said in terms of what has been the secret to your meteoric rise in this industry? Speaker 5 But I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Is that the part? I think everybody walking in the room knows that room. Speaker 3 Not only are you not the smartest guy, but I would say you are the least smartest guy in the room. But anyway. Not the Smartest Guy: Learning from Others But I think there is that phrase, right? You don't want to be the smartest guy in the room. And I think that's a really critical mindset. Speaker 2 Is that I have never heard of that phrase what I don't want to be. Speaker 5 You don't, you don't want to be the smartest guy in the room. You want to go into the room where you have people who are way ahead of you so you can learn from them. So I think that I was very fortunate in that regard. As Master Chan Lee said, I'm lucky that my father was a grandmaster in Taekwondo, so he created a good foundation for me. But when I was in college, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And I majored in history. And I think I majored in history because it didn't require me to do as much work as some of the other majors and so. Speaker 3 So let me get this straight, you were forced to do Taekwondo because you majored in history because there is no job that you could get majoring in history? Well. Speaker 5 No, I was concerned anyway. Speaker 3 You had no options, true. Speaker 5 You know, my options were limited, There's no doubt about that. But my, I was thinking, hey, do I go to law school? And when I went in college, I started coming back in the summertime and I started training back in Taekwondo. And my father said, Hey, why don't you go to Korea and start training? So I went a couple summers in Korea. I trained in Kyung University. I went to Yonsei University. No, not Yonsei University. I went to Kyungi. I went Hanche de and some other universities to train. And then after I graduated, my dad's like, hey, why don't you come back and do it? Speaker 3 Why not young in? Why not? Speaker 5 The the standards let's. Speaker 3 Hear the sands old. Speaker 5 Wow. After I graduated, my dad said, hey, why don't you come back and work at the dojong with me? And I said, OK, I'll try. But in my mind I was like, let me maybe study for the Lsats, let me see how it goes. I just really wasn't sure. And so when I went back and worked with my father, he was a unique time for our schools where we, my my father was very involved with politics and he was traveling still a lot for the Olympic Taekwondo movement. And he was kind of like trial by fire. Like I grew up in the dojang. I was always watching classes, but I never saw the business side of it. And for me, the first time I ever took an information call was my dad was standing right behind me and I had no idea what I was supposed to say. And then after I got off the phone, then he had a lot of things to tell me. So my education was just kind of like trial by fire. I was just thrown into it. And then my father said, hey, I have one of my friends. He has a son who operates a really successful school in Southern California. I'm going to send you out there. And that person that was sent out to was Master Jimmy Hong. And I remember him picking me up. He was in this convertible and we picked me up in the airport. And then he really took me under his wing and showed me a lot about how to run a martial arts school. But he had systems in place to help educate me on how to really take the business from just us running the school to having employees and having better systems involved. And so by being Master Hong, he really helped me feel comfortable. And then he introduced me to you, Master Chun Lee, Master Dehun Lee, Master Chung Park, and that really helped me take it to the next level because I got to learn from people who are out there in the field doing it. Speaker 2 I remember that. Speaker 4 Day. That's a great story. I had no idea. I had no idea what all these that Master Jimmy Hong was your first big school that you went to go see and learn the system. This is all new to me. Wow. Speaker 5 Yeah, it's shocking that I'm actually doing well because that was the first one I saw, you know what I mean? It's like. Speaker 2 I remember that day so clearly because that was the first time I've met Jay, Pastor Jay Lee and it was just that it was so great. And one thing about Master Ji we all joking aside, I remember doing an intro on one of these days. I don't know if it was that trip and Master Jeely was just he was just writing notes and consuming everything he could, the information and he wasn't there to just party or play or have a good time. He was there to really focus and learn about the school and the system. So is even at that young of an age, he was, he's always been focused. And that's one of the things that I knew right off the bat, oh, this kid is going to do well in life, in any business endeavor, not just more shorts. Speaker 5 It's a good thing this is recorded because I think that's the nicest thing I've ever heard him say about me. From Elite Education to Taekwondo Master's Legacy But I think beyond just learning the business systems, I think that for me, I grew up in Colorado Springs, where there's not a whole lot of ethnicity here. And a lot of my friends growing up, we're not in the same background as I am. And you guys all know growing up to be the son of a grandmaster, there's just different expectations, right? Like our families, we work seven days a week and there's no such thing as vacation and there's no such thing as not doing your best. And when you've grown up, you don't have those same kind of people to rely on, that same live, that same experience. And so #1 being Korean #2 being a Korean grandmaster's son and having those expectations, having being around someone like me, what that was really the first time, right? I have three brothers, but none of them are in the technical industry. And so Master Hong really helped. Speaker 3 Speaking of your brothers, right? Your father, your family, your mom, they produce some really big winners. Your oldest brother graduated what undergrad? Speaker 5 When my mom was pregnant with my son or with my oldest brother, my father. Speaker 3 'S that would be really weird, but anyway. Speaker 5 So when my mom was pregnant with my oldest brother, my dad said to everybody, he said, my son is going to go to Harvard before he was ever born. And so my oldest brother ultimately did end up going to Harvard. He took a different career path. He was going to try to become an an actor after he had graduated from Harvard. And then he went on to go to law school at Columbia Law School. He was the editor in chief of the the Law Review. And then he's now director at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC. And so my, my oldest brother really set the bar for us with education. So my second brother also very well educated. He went to Tufts University. He graduated soon will come loudy in engineering. And then he got a full scholarship at Tufts to get his master's in engineering. And then after he got his master's, then he got a full scholarship ride at Stanford to get his PhD in engineering. And then he said, wow, Stanford's paying for this. I might as well get another one. So he got another master's degree. And then my younger brother, he went to University of Pennsylvania and then he after that he worked several years and then he got his MBA from Upenn Warden as well. So all my brothers have really strong background in education and we really. Speaker 3 And and where did you go to college? Speaker 5 I I just got my GED last week. Speaker 2 I know this is. I know this is. He What? Speaker 5 It was actually ESL. He just passed his ESL, no English. So, yeah, I went to Boston College and we're we're just lucky because my parents really stressed the importance of education and my brother's always worked really hard. And for me, that was just an expectation, right? And as a grandmaster's son. Speaker 3 So as you can see, like he had to work at Stanford, Harvard, Boston College, you can see the degree of education and intelligence there. And then J History had to get into the Taekwondo industry, right? And now we're here today, right? But here let me as I'm joking. Speaker 2 I'm not joking because as a Virginia Tech Hokies alumni is much higher than Boston College. As everybody will know, Virginia Tech is just the greatest school in the history of schools, and everybody knows that it's so much better than Boston College as. Speaker 3 But here, let let me tell you this great story. I'm at a Taekwondo Masters Grandmasters meeting and we're in the room with all these Taekwondo who's who. And I'm sitting there and one of the things that Grandmaster Lee, the Grandmaster Sane Lee goes up there, talks about his his family. And he goes, hey, my, my celebrated accomplishments are my children. And he talks about my oldest son went to Harvard, my other son went to Stanford. Lay lays out all the all his kids. And then he goes, I am most proud of my son Jay, because he is a Taekwondo master. And the whole room erupts like, yeah. And, and this is not a flex, but I just want to, I just want to say this right out of let's just look at income, right, Jay? If you compare yourself compared to your brother's, income wise, are you the 1 making the most income out of your brother's? Speaker 5 I don't know if I would say that, but I'm fortunate. Speaker 3 You're doing OK. Speaker 5 I'm doing OK for myself, but I think that's one of the things right in this podcast, we talked about the business side of it, which we all want to make sure we're successful. But for me, I'm grateful that I get to do something like Taekwondo where I get to impact kids every day. And you really see a difference in the kids lives in the family's life. So in addition to being in a good professional field, we get to do something truly impactful and meaningful. And it's important also for me to carry my father's legacy of Taekwondo. And I think that's one of the rare things that we all share is that we have that opportunity to take what we were taught by our fathers and modernize it and make it the right thing for our society today. And, and I'm just excited to always be able to collaborate with people like you. Master League Master Hong, Master John, who really think outside of the box because as we evolve and grow, that's how their industry grows. Maximizing Time and Building Efficient Systems for Growth Absolutely, absolutely. But and what's great is you guys had some property in in, in Colorado Springs, but you know, in terms of like where your schools were in operating at its full potential, what were like the biggest pieces of advice you heard? And you go, I got to implement this right away and this will make a huge difference. So if you go out, there are these leaps that I took to get where I'm at today. What we're like, there's people listening to this podcast right now and they're like, man, I'm struggling. I got a good base business, but I haven't been able to break the hundred student mark or I haven't got the 200 or maybe someone's plateaued at 200 and they're like, gosh, I haven't gotten to 300 or man, I'm just making revenues of 15 or $20,000 a month. How do I get to 25? How do I get to 30? How do I get to 40? How do I get to $80,000 a month? What are these? What are some of the things that you think that was part of the formula in your education to get you where you're at? Speaker 5 I think that grown up, we always worked hard and that's just like a given. And I would work seven days a week and there are times where I still working seven days a week. But what I, I think one of the big paradigm shifts for me is there's that expression don't step over dollars to pick up pennies. So an example of that is when I first started working for the dojang, I'd arrive at 9:30 in the morning and then my job was two. First two hours I cleaned the whole school by myself. I'd mop the floors, clean the toilets, vacuum the whole school. Then the next couple hours I'd do the admin. Speaker 4 Work that. That's what I thought. Speaker 3 You had to do. Speaker 5 That's what I still do. Speaker 3 Man, Oh, OK, all right anyway, but. Speaker 5 Yeah, so my first two hours was cleaning the school and then the next couple hours doing admin work. And then you're planning for the day, and then you have the evening class and then you teach class, and then you just do it all over again. And I've never shield away from work. But I think what I realized is that my time is valuable. You can't spend your time doing everything by yourself. So don't step over dollars to pick up pennies where you say, hey, I'm not going to pay a janitorial service to clean the school. I'm going to do it to save some money. That's kind of one of those things that you have to figure out ways to utilize your time and energy in the best possible way to help grow the dojang as opposed to trying to save on paying for janitorial service. And there's other ways that you can do that, whether that's paying minimum wage to instructors or finding people who are volunteering, things like that. But as I started learning that philosophy is that you have to spend your time where it's best needed to help grow the school, or your time is better used by going out and bringing new students in or your time is better used on building systems. So building systems was the next thing is that we had to have scripts, we had to have standard operating procedures on learning how to do things because like I said earlier, when I took my first information call, my dad was like behind me. And then he's you got to do this and this better. But for me and we trained staff like we had to give them the training in advance and then put them out there. And so just learning how to create processes and procedures for everything that we do so we can duplicate the work that we're doing. So that was really how we started to grow is by creating methods, creating procedures and then getting help in the areas that we could afford to take some staff. Speaker 3 That's really awesome advice. I think so many, Jay. I remember my dad wakes. He woke me up on Sunday and he goes, hey, get up. I go, Dad, it's Sunday. He goes, we need to shovel the dojong. I go get a plow service. He goes, no, we can do it. Literally, him and I were shoveling the whole parking lot and I was like, Oh my God, this, this generation that was before us. That's just the way they did things, you know, I mean, I remember and we had our first roof leak or whatever. My dad would go on the roof and get some tar and put it on there. And I'm like, Oh my God, what am I doing on the roof with my dad? In fact, 10 years ago, we had to take all the ladders in the Dojiang and hide them because my dad would still go up in the roof to check on the quality of the roof. So it's just part of that generation. And I get it. And I think that's a really strong message. Do not step over dollars to pick up pennies. And a lot of school owners do that. And your biggest time that you can spend to grow your dojong is get new students, right? And the second thing is keep new students, right? That's the name of the game. Get new students, keep new, keep your students and making sure your policies and your procedures are always working on that. That's really great advice, Sir, really awesome. Choosing the Right Direction with Good Mentorship And Master Philip, when did your family come here? What was the year that you guys came so? Speaker 4 Our family came here in my opinion pretty late compared to all their families or other masters second generations. We came here in the late 90s, so we. Speaker 3 Oh wow. Speaker 4 My father, my mother decided in 1998, they wanted us to pursue a better education, better opportunity for a living. So we had a very good life in Korea, but they decided that, you know what, there are more opportunities here in the United States and look for her. Speaker 3 Also very well educated family. Your sister graduated and also is an attorney in in New York. Speaker 4 Yes, she does practice law. She went to school in DC and actually the person who gave her the advice to go to law school was me. But I didn't end up going. I did pursue the same very similar route as Master Jay Lee. I majored in politics and undergrad. Speaker 3 And. Speaker 4 I thought about going to law school, so I took the L side. I applied to law school. Speaker 5 Score. Speaker 4 It was in the 160 range, so it wasn't, it wasn't that good. It was. It was below 160. Speaker 3 So So what I'm hearing is when you do and get subpar degrees in college, you have no choice but to run a That's kind of the you know what? Speaker 5 This is that's the best thing I learned from Master Jimmy Hall. What do you expect? Speaker 4 So one of the things that I see so many students are coming out of school trying to get him to law school is some I, I was, I was at that point, I was like, am I going to law school to become an attorney or am I going to law school because I just want to go to law school. And that's all that that was a question that I'd answered to myself was like, do I really want to become an attorney or am I going to law school because all my friends are going and this is the next route that I should take because my parents told me. And then a couple years went by and I said this wasn't for me. And that's when I started to explore going to seminars like where I met Master Chumley, going to visit Master Jay's Lee School, which is a wonderful school. He had built it from a ground up, which is very unheard of. And I was just mesmerized by the by the limit. There is no limit to this. I can grow this as big as I want to. And then from there, my just ambition took over. Speaker 3 Same question, if I said there is some great magic, like what was the great first advice that kind of changed your business or mindset shift? What was something that you guys did? Like I said, you guys started late in the game, right? You came to the country limited English skills, right? You know, for me. Speaker 4 When I looked at yourself and I, when I looked at Master Jay Lee and Master Jimmy Yong, Master Tony Chong, I saw myself. Oh, wow, I'm so far behind. They already have multiple properties. They're already running multiple locations. The first thing that I had to tell myself is don't measure your life with someone else's ruler. They might have gotten there faster. Sometimes it's not speed that will get you there faster. It's choosing the right direction. Now, how do you choose the right direction? With good mentorship and advice, right? So if you have the right people that are surrounded by you and they can give you the right advice. Sometimes it's not about a how fast you get there, but the choosing the right path to get to the right destination and of course enjoying the journey as well. From Seminars to Action: The Power of Implementation It's awesome. That's awesome. Would you say then this is directed to Master J and and Master Junk? It is. You've gotten better advice from the hallway conversations or at a restaurant or having a conversation with someone or at a seminar or both, or it's a combination. Would you say Master Ji? Speaker 5 Think it depends on the seminar, right? And there's no knock on any seminars, but some some seminars that I had travelled to, you know that there's only sharing a little bit and then they're going to say, hey, by the way, if you want to learn more, buy this product. I think if you go to a different type of seminar, if if you meet the right people, you can gain a whole lot more. But for me, I always took a different approach, right? I would go to the seminar to hear the speaker, but my goal was not just to go to the seminar is my goal is to meet the speaker and then go visit their operations, which is what happened with you. Master John Lee is that within the first comma after we went to comma like I, I was able to get a relationship with you and then I went out of visit your school. And so I think understanding that we often get stuck on a day-to-day basis inside of our own martial arts school in our own community, and we think that this is it. But you have to continue to grow and educate and open your eyes to see what else is out there. And so I was out lucky to be able to go visit people like you and other school owners across the country to really get an idea of how they're doing things. And there's only so much you're going to learn in a seminar. It's really the relationships that you build and the next piece of accountability. But it's also up to you as a person because we've all been to so many seminars, but what do people do with the information once they leave? Because taking action is critical and deciding how you going to move forward. Because I went with Master Hall, when I visited Master Hall the first time, there was another master that came with us. And like he, I continue to educate and I don't know how he continued to educate, but I took it upon myself to to take it to the next step and really go out and meet people and travel and learn a lot from other people. Speaker 1 Most martial arts school owners don't have a marketing problem, they have a thinking problem. You listen to your podcast, you get fired up, you try a few ideas and a month later, nothing's changed. Not because the ideas were bad, but because you didn't have the right mindset and the right execution plan at the same time. That's exactly why we created the perfect combination, Black Belt Banter and ASA Live. Black Belt Banter is the free podcast that shows you how successful school owners think. Real conversations, real school owners, real numbers. No fluff, no theory, no motivational nonsense. But thinking alone doesn't grow your school. That's where ASA Live comes in. ASA Live is a monthly workshop where we show you exactly what to do, what promotion to run, what to say to parents, how to increase revenue and how to actually execute without guessing. And the crazy part? It's only $97.00 per month, which makes it one of the lowest price coaching programs in the industry. Mindset from black Belt banter execution from ASA Live. That combination is dangerous in the best way possible. Listen free at [email protected]/live. Speaker 4 That's so 100% true. And then when you attend these seminars and when you attend these events, the relationship that you build from face to face is the foundation that you can start visiting their schools, learning their systems. And when I realized is attending all these seminars and summits is like every school owner is addicted to education, but they're allergic to execution, right? So I stop taking notes when I go to seminars. I just stopped couple years ago. I think this is ridiculous. I'm taking like 10 pages of notes. I'm not going to execute on any of these. This is they're just notes after notes. So I stopped taking notes when I go to seminars and I just get one idea, whether it be from the inner circle, whether it be from a talk on the hallway or from a summit, and I just implement that. And where I learned this is actually the the best executor of the game is Master Jay Lee. He takes an idea, he implements it, and then a week later, it's already functioning and running it like a gear in his school. Wouldn't you say Master Chan Lee? He's one of the best executors in the game. Speaker 3 Is unbelievable. I go hey Jay, I got a great idea what if we do this and what do you think it goes that is a really good idea and I'm still formulating into my brain and then he goes hey young Sir, what did you do it I I was like, not yet I'm still kind of like working out the kinks. He goes, Oh no, it's already done. I'm like, Oh my God. And he put his little twist in. Speaker 4 There he put his, and then. Speaker 3 He just did it right away and it and then or even worse, he just does it and doesn't tell any. Oh yeah, right. That's one thing about Jay I hate he doesn't share. Speaker 5 I'm allergic to sharing, that's why. Speaker 2 I have, you know, so many more than one things I don't like about Master J, but I'm sorry, go ahead. It's not just one, there's many. Speaker 3 There is tons, but he's so quiet about his success and then you're like, hey, and he goes, oh, by the way, we we just built a 10,000 square foot school next to Walmart. I go what huh. When when did you purchase the property? I didn't. I had no idea. It just just one of those things where the kid is a quiet monster, but he doesn't. He's not a braggart. He's not a braggart. Speaker 2 Can I add that all this networking and learning is very obvious and but it's just not about starting off anymore. It's not just about masters and school owners that are beginning in their stages of operating Marshall School. It's these established schools that have been around for many years that constantly needs to learn and evolve because especially now in this day and age, the marketplace in our industry is instantly changing. That's why Master Jay Lee, Master Chumley, Master Tony and Master Phillip, we're not just doing the same thing that we did 10 years ago. Every year when I talk to you guys, you're tweaking, you're adjusting, you're evolving. And I noticed from knowing so many school owners in our industry, the ones who don't do it, they don't just get stagnant. Once you don't evolve and learn, you get left behind. You're not the same because everybody else is moving. So this podcast and this topic isn't just for school owners that are starting off. It's for established school owners. That's even more importantly because there are 200 students is going to be 150 in a year and a half from now because they're not implementing what they need to know what they need to do to a evolving landscape of our industry. So. Why Even Top Performers Need Coaches and Inspiration Let me just tell you this quick story. 20 years ago I met Sensei Solomon Brenner and we were around the same size in, in, in organization. I had four schools. He maybe had six or seven. He brought his staff. He did a ninja visit, like literally flew into Wisconsin, calls me and says, Hey, I'd like to visit your schools. And I said, you know, sure. I said when he goes, I'm here at the airport. I said, I, I cleared my schedule. I said, let me show you around. So I picked him up and he went to our staff meeting. We did everything right and he established we're in the similar path of growth and so forth. And then he's in the karate world, I'm in the temple in the world. I got busy with getting married, having kids, growing my family. I grew to one or two more locations and I just forgot about Master Brenner because we just are in different social circles. And then I reconnected with him and say, what are you up to 1520 years later? I hate what you been up to. He goes, yeah, I got 36 schools, how about you? And I went, I've got 6. And he goes, oh, OK. And how many buildings do you own? I have 3. How about you? I have 18. And I went, wait, in that same time frame, where you choose this to focus your time is where you will grow. And I got the opportunity two weeks ago to go to Philly, not to just visit him, but my daughter had a lacrosse tournament there. So I said, let me double do a visit. And he returned the favor, spent three days with me and I became inspired. He is doing a lot of steps different than where I am at. And I went and said, you know what? I think I can open another three to five there. There's some ideas there. Or I there's a way to kind of making me more efficient. Now, if I came with the mindset of complacency and go, yeah, I'm happy with where I'm at, whatever and so forth, then you shouldn't come. You shouldn't go to seminars, you shouldn't educate yourself. But being inspired, even I've been doing this for a long time. I came away inspired because of the fact that he changed so many more lives than I have doing martial arts. And Master Hong, you're right, you've got to like you. You can't just have this like I've arrived mindset. As they always say, getting there right is easy. What's difficult is staying there right. Look at the Denver Broncos. They haven't won a Super Bowl in so long, right? And and if you see the sustained success of the Green Bay Packers, it they're constantly winning, it's. Speaker 5 Just two different types of organizations. No doubt. There's no doubt. Speaker 3 Yeah, but you can see but. Speaker 5 Master Lee I I think that's a great metaphor of sports, right? Even the highest level athletes, Olympians, professional football, basketball players, they all have coaches. And a lot of times I think people have the mentalities that like, hey, once I get to this level, I'm good. But the most successful people that I've seen, once they get that level, they're spending more money on education, more money on coaching to help take their things to the next level. So I think that mentality is so critical. Like I, I've spoken with people, I say, hey, why don't you come to the s s seminar? They're like, what am I going to learn there? And I think that you're exactly right, Master Lee, if you have that mentality, you're not going to get anything out of coming to a seminar or going to visit somebody else's school. But if you're like Master Phillip and you have this ambition that you want to gain everything that you can and take it to the next level, you should absolutely been going out there and learning more. Learning from Mistakes and Preventing Disasters with Protocols Right. I have a question for you. What's the most expensive, less expensive lesson you've learned from someone in your network that could say saved you from if you asked earlier? Speaker 4 Oh wow, that's a great question. That is a great question. It was. It's somewhere along the line of building the right culture, right, Because if you look at all the problems that occur at the dojong, it all based upon human to human relationship, right? It's not because your your software went out or some technical issues of this and that. It really is all the issues that deals with human relation, right? I think this is something that Master Conley does really well is he has such a great culture in his dojong that when I see his staff, when I see like Master Ian Glazier, I can see how his leadership impacts so greatly. I know this is a very broadly that I'm talking about building the right culture at your dojong to me is the one of the most important lessons that I've learned. Speaker 5 But I think kind of piggybacking on that, I think that some of the most expensive lessons is learning from other people's mistakes. And I think that's why it's important to speak with people who've been there, done that before. Like why do you want to reinvent the bill? Why don't you learn from other people's mistakes? An example being is that when you operate multiple locations, you ultimately you're going to have a lot of people around. We've had, we've all dealt with situations where maybe a student made a mistake, a staff member made a mistakes, and if you don't have the right systems and protocols and trainings in place, it could become disastrous for your school. You're just looking for the next headline. And I think that's a great thing about learning from others is watching the procedures and policies that they have in place to prevent stuff like that. Speaker 4 Of course 100%. A great example that just popped up to my head is running in house tournaments. When I first started running in house tournaments, I had no idea. I had no idea where to start. I had no idea how to set the rules. I had no idea. Do I follow the USA take on the rules? Do I implement my own rules right? I look at how Master Conley operates his in the house tournament. I look at how Master Jay Lee operates his in house tournament. Compile it together and I make what fits my culture right, my venue. Speaker 5 But which parts were better? Speaker 4 You know what? Both had very good points. Speaker 3 You have to ask why you been asking? Jeez. Speaker 4 Both had very good points. Boston College, but I made it my own. That's the most important thing is that I took the best from everyone. I was able to make it my own and that that is not just with take take one of those tournaments, but that's what curriculum, employee manuals, sales protocol, onboarding procedures, right? What do you do when a kid gets injured in class? Do you have a pro quorum procedures for the injury? Do you have a do you have a sheet that kind of logs in and everything like all these little things that add on, right, which would for me if I were to do it by myself would take a ton of time, but I pick ideas. I gain what is best from others and we share. Speaker 3 Yeah, these are all little things you think until it happens. And you're like, Oh my gosh, right. We had a kid. This just happened a week ago. We had a kid jogging around the school and we were like running, running, running drills. It's like warm up 5 minutes before class starts. We play music and everybody's warming up and and we get it. This e-mail that says that someone shoved my child and he broke his arm and we're at the ER and we're like, what? So we pulled out the foot footage, the camera, we're buttered up. The kid tripped, the kid tripped right and saved of headaches and so forth and everything kind of worked out. But just little things like that within your school, you just don't know. Just the weirdness of our current climate in the world and things like that really make a a big difference. Bridging Generational Gaps in Leadership and Staff Couple things I also want to talk about too, is you guys were in already an established school and then you were able to piggyback off of what your father's have done and you've got into this next level, right? And then now, Jay, you're getting to that age or succession planning what you've learned about taking over from your father and now looking forward, because now we have seniors that have slowly have gone on to the retirement side and so forth. What, what would be some key things that they're like? How would you develop a successor? What's your exit strategy? What's your kind of idea in terms of of getting there and so forth? Speaker 5 I think that we spent a lot of time talking about the business side of things and I think that's often what's lacking in our education system right now is the human in a relation and communication skills. So I'll give an example. When I first came back from college and I started learning things from Master Hong and other things and I wanted to implement them at the doujiang and I went to my father and say, hey, we should be doing XYZ. And I realized that even if I was right, the way that I communicated that was wrong. And I think that people often forget that when you're, whether you're trying to take over school or you're trying to communicate that to a supervisor or bosses, that you have to present it in a respectful way, in a way that people can receive it. And I think that's what's lacking in our education is that people need to learn how to communicate effectively with others. And so that was for me, a big learning point is that I could have the best information, I could be right, but if I don't present it in a respectful way that my father could receive it, there's no way he could do it. And now I Fast forward, I've been doing this for almost 25 years full time as a profession. I have the same thing for my staff. And one of the big things that I always want to make sure my staff know is that I'm not looking for yes Sir or yes ma'am people. We are looking for people who are willing to help us grow and give us new ideas. But you can't just come to the table with a bunch of complaints. You have to come to the table with some solutions and some facts that will help drive those decisions. And so for me, it's how do you communicate with my father at the time. And then now I look down at my staff who are helping me grow the school that I want to make sure that they're very mindful of how they present it to me. And then I look at my son. And ultimately, I'd like my son to get involved with the dojong, but he's years away from that. And so for me, it's trying to cultivate the right environment and then. It was lucky in the regard that my father always taught us to be a landlord. We've always owned our real estate except for one location that we opened. And so my succession plan is to be able to grow where I can have our staff take over locations. We can be the landlord and help them continue to grow. So it's always about trying to help create an environment where staff have the ability to grow if they choose to. Speaker 2 Master Jay, can I answer your question on that? Yes, your staff have to communicate with you in a certain way, but do you have the other staff for younger and different generation? Do you have to communicate differently to your staff or are you just owner master telling their staff what to do? How does that work? Speaker 5 I think it's definitely, it goes to that whole time we talked about learning how to evolve and evolve and adapt. And I think that the way we communicate with our staff in this generation is far different than it was 1520 years ago. I think that people's goals and mentalities are a little bit different than they were. And I think one of the mistakes that people make is that you can't expect people to be like you. We're used to grow up working seven days a week because that's what our parents taught us. And I just think that's going to be very rare to find in the society. They said the COVID was the big resignation. People choose lifestyle over finances and they want to make sure they're not missing out on enjoying life. And that's factored into how we've operated our school is that we try to look at can we still have the same production of our school and same experience with doing less? And we started to eliminate more events and we've looked at reducing hours that our staff have to work. And I see a lot of successful schools are starting to operate five days a week rather than six days a week. So I definitely think that understanding what people's goals are, communicating what they want, is really critical. Speaker 3 Great point. That was really well done. Yeah. And I noticed, especially with the younger generation, you can't be like, hey, I noticed the lobby is a little bit dishevelled. You're like, yes, Sir, I know. And then they just, you got to actually tell them the lobby is, hey, it's messy, right? It's just way different. Hey, can you clean the lobby for me, please? You got to be a little bit more direct because they don't get those inferences. I noticed with the what's going on? Owning Property: The Foundation for Small Business Growth Master Phillips, same question. You you have rapidly just gotten super successful and it's really great to see and and now you're a leader of the next generation as Master Hong and I kind of get older here and generation out. What's your kind of like advice to how you helped your because your father's still involved? Speaker 4 Thank you for the the kind words, but I think I pale in comparison to Master Charlie and Master Julie and Mr. Hong and Master Tony Chong. And my my advice that I can give is for me it was always about taking care of my parents first because I know if it wasn't for them, I would not be doing Taekwondo or even be here in this country. So my father, he doesn't have 4 O 1K. You know, he rented a brick and mortar 1500 square foot toe. John said have a retirement plan. So my thing was, let me take care of my parents and how do I do that? Same answer as Master Julie real estate, right? Let's own all the properties that our Tojong operates in, right? So we invested heavily into owning our own property, right? And that side as a tenant to my parents, I can at least pay them rent, right? Take care of them, right? And as the business grows and expands, like Master Jay Lee said, give my staff the opportunity to operate the Torjan and for me as a owner tenant to take care of the property, right? So in my opinion, all small business at the end of the day is real estate. All right. You can run a coffee shop, you can run a take one of those school or you can even run a nail salon. At the end of the day, it's always at it for me, in my opinion and an advantage when you can own your own property. So if anyone was thinking about it, I'll say that's the steps that you want to take. Speaker 5 And I think Speaking of real estate, Master Hong, should we, we got to do another podcast with Master Hong. He's just created a real estate empire. I think Master Hong, you're going to speak on it. This year's I saw, right? Speaker 2 Yes, I will be there. I saw is I saw Summit for audience who doesn't know what an what we're referring to. Also, Summit is where we meet once a year and I will be speaking what's the topic. I'm not going to be speaking about Master J Lee. I have no idea. Speaker 5 You're going to be how? Speaker 3 To run a podcast. Speaker 5 Ineffectively I I think you're tough the. Speaker 2 Worst, worst guests and the worst host ever. Speaker 3 How to use ChatGPT for your intros in any podcast that you create? Speaker 5 No, Master Hong, you're talking about how you built your real estate empire. And I think that, Master Phillip, you said that and I think we all agree and most school owners aspire to own real estate, but how do you actually do that? And I think. Speaker 4 Different bowl game. Speaker 5 Yeah, and I think Master Hong can really speak volumes about that. Speaker 4 If you know you have at least touch the surface of trying to expand your into the real estate game, you know that this is like older from ballpark and I'm very excited to hear. Speaker 2 But yeah, yeah, I will absolutely be speaking have a seminar on on the OSSA Summit, that's October, the first weekend of October 1st through 3rd in Las Vegas at Planet Hollywood. And my topic is going to be actually we're all going to be speaking on a, on a topic. And my topic's going to be about real estate and how real estate you can use the vehicle of real estate to grow your wealth and your operating of schools. So I'm excited for that as well. Networking, Friendship, and Growing the Martial Arts Industry And then Master Hong, Master Lee, Master Jung, we've talked a lot about about the industry, but I think one thing I want to add is that we are all human. And I think that people forget that as a technical master or an operator of a business, we're always have to be in charge. You have to be responsible. You have to have a certain kind of aura that you have, but ultimately we're still human and you need to have people that you can share those experiences with. You can share in the same challenges and just kind of let loose because there's that whole term. It's lonely at the top. As a school owner, you're at the top and you're expected to have all the answers. But sometimes you need an opportunity to just relax a little bit and speak with like minded individuals. And I think that's one of the things that's most valuable about the relationships that I've built through Kama NASA, is that, yes, of course it helped me take my business to the next level. But we have a common bond that we can share certain experiences and we can let loose and have a good time. And I think that's so important for people is that it's not just all about business, it's about gaining friendships and having a good time together. You have to have a good time. And I think that's what I really value about things like I saw is that it helps me take my business to the next level. But see my friends is really important. And as we get older, we have people parent people who are dying and passing away. And you just have to have an opportunity to to experience and have fun. Sometimes you just got to have fun. Speaker 3 So just to wrap this up, I, I will say that this is probably the most diverse and ambitious speaker group we've ever put together. We have a kind that has 75 locations. It's going to talk about how he built it and how he built something of that magnitude. We have another person that has 38 or 36 schools with 18 of their own buildings that they've have. We have a, a single school owner that has 800 members in one location in San Jose. She's going to come and speak and she has young kids. So how she balances all of that. We have another speaker that's about just running a small school and how we have small school operator success. What I want to say is how you run your operations is set on how you do things and you get these ideas and then you pick a path. So if you want to create 75 locations that you've had someone that's done it, that that's a person you can ask if you want to be more systematized and you don't want to be in your schools as much and whatever you have a person that knows how to do that right to, hey, I want to maximize profits and grow my school as big as I can. Just one location. We have a person that's done that. So not only will you be at these talks, but what I love about the Asah Summit is that you were you're able to go to dinner with the speakers. The speakers are all there. There are networking events in the evening until you have a personal question. And I think all the speakers and everybody that is there, there's no reason they should be there by the way, they're there to share their knowledge, their experience and help our industry grow because we're behind. We're still less than 1% of the US population that does martial arts, right? I think 3% I think. And we, we have not moved past that needle in the last what, 30 years. And we need to start growing as, as an industry to impact more lives. So it's a wonderful way to be inspired. It's a wonder, wonderful way to network and, and it's a wonderful way for us to find new friends like Master Young. I think you've just recently been a part of our friends group, right? And and. Speaker 5 Speak for yourself. Speaker 3 On one of these things and I really didn't like him and you kept forcing him to be a part of our group and I was like, what the. Speaker 2 Heck, we do. Actually, we do have to take Master J Lee for introducing us to Master Fellow. Speaker 4 So actually Master Conley wrote me a letter. Please join us all. I will give you all the advice and then you know what I said. OK Sir, I took the advice and wow, look at you. Speaker 5 But I think that Master Lee, what you said is that it's those times outside of the seminar that I have found to be the most valuable that having breakfast with a speaker or going to play golf. I think those are the really places where you're going to get the most information, most inspiration by speaking with people. And so I think this year we're allowing people to have dinner on Thursday night with all the speakers and the board, and then we have a golf opportunity on Thursday. So this is really one of those things where you can accomplish so many things in one trip, right? You gain experience with people who've done it before, but made new friends and really network directly with people, not just listening to a podcast or not just going to a seminar. Did This is a really unique group where we have people who are so willing to share what they've learned to help the next generation. Speaker 3 Absolutely my my favorite is the the success wins when you come back, we're like, Hey, we ended up buying the building we were in or hey, we doubled in size or you hear someone and they go listen, we just opened our third location. It just really awesome to hear just in one year's time from the previous, I saw where everybody's accelerated to right. Anyway that those are like my favorite things because it the people took the advice, learn something, pick a lane, worked hard and then they change their lives. Just absolutely incredible stuff. Speaker 2 All right, that's it for this episode. The schools growing the fastest aren't doing anything you couldn't do. They're just surrounded by people who already figured it out, and they're humble enough to ask and discipline enough to go and do it. If your circle hasn't changed in five years, that's the answer on why your school hasn't either. So do one thing this week, call a school owner you respect. Is it a school that's doing better than yours, and get in the room. If you got value from this episode, subscribe and leave a review and send it to another school owner who needs to hear it. And if you're done figuring it out alone, register at ASA Summit at asamartialarts.com/summit. Again, October 1st to 3rd played in Hollywood Las Vegas. Thanks for listening and see you in the next one.