62 – Robin DePalma-Rowe from MA1st – Opening & Operating Multiple Martial Arts Schools

Robin DePalma-Rowe from MA1st shares key preparation strategies when preparing to open multiple martial arts schools.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:How Robin learned the ropes of running multiple schoolsThe advantages and challenges of running a family martial arts businessRobin’s tips for martial arts school owners who are planning to open multiple schoolsHow to develop a strong team of workforce to achieve your school’s growth goalsHow to prevent the common risks of entrusting your business to othersAnd more*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.TRANSCRIPTIONWe have it set up with the high performance stay skill. We set this up as a career job. Where they’re going to make more working for us then if they went out on their own, because we do all the business side for them. They get to do all the fun side of just teaching, but we pay them well for it. And they see that. They see it, they appreciate it, they see the value and why would they go?GEORGE: Hi, this is George Fourie and welcome to another Martial Arts Media business podcast. Today I'm speaking with Robin DePalma Rowe. And Robin is the wife of Kyoshi Fred DePalma, who's from DePalma's Karate and MA1st, also hosting The Main Event in San Diego in April next month. So we’re going to have a bit of a chat and we had a bit of a laugh before starting this conversation. How would you refer your position in the organization Robin?ROBIN: I call myself the vice president of the organization. And my husband is the president and then, we all know that the vice president is the one who does all the work, so we laugh, we say he married well.GEORGE: Married well, all right. All right, and Fred's of course in Thailand right now, so he has no way to defend himself in this conversation. So this will be fun! All right, look Robin, I guess we should start right at the beginning – who is Robin DePalma Rowe?ROBIN: So, I started in this company or in this business 21 years ago, that was actually when I met Fred. A month before we got married, I thought, you know, I don't know anything about martial arts. I should probably start training and at least have an idea of what martial arts is all about. And when we got married, he didn't want me to have anything to do with his school, he wanted to be able to come home and when he came home, he could leave work behind, dinner would be on the table, house is spotless – you know, that perfect fairytale wife and the joke was, within the first two months, he married the wrong person.So I think it took about two months to start working at the school, but I started as janitor and gopher. And so I was cleaning the school and running errands, go for this, go for that. And then I think what made us both realize what my potential was, was when I started the cardio kickbox program. So we’d been married… it was within the first year of being together and I’d been training martial arts, I think I was a purple belt at the time and Tae Bo had just come out. And I was always into fitness, I wanted to be a personal trainer, I was on the fitness side and I said, you know what? I think I could do that cardio kickbox thing. Would you let me try it? And he was like, OK, give it a shot. He knew I had the fitness background for it and could run with it. And boy did I run with it!..