The Educational Funding Company

Our Services

Collecting membership fees by Direct Debit

As an EFC member, we will handle all of your collections, contacting late payers, sending welcome letters and dealing with any paperwork and banking matters for you. This allows you to focus all of your energies on running a first-class School rather than sitting in an office dealing with paperwork.

Our highly trained staff are on call to handle any membership queries from your students via telephone, e-mail or letter. Because we are specialists in Martial Arts schools and leisure clubs, we know the best way to handle issues and provide a service tailor made to the industry.

Advice on running your School

We have been in the Martial Arts business globally for over forty years, and have a huge amount of information to offer you on growing your School into a thriving business. You can avoid making the common mistakes when building up your School. Joining the us allows you to tap into the vast network of EFC Schools, and exchange advice and new ideas. At the EFC we believe “the rising tide lifts all boats,” and the sharing of knowledge between schools helps everybody.

Your own personal Account Manager

Upon joining us, you will be assigned your own Account Executive who will be your first point of call when contacting us. They will track your progress, and pre-emptively handle any potential problems with your memberships, provide tailor made advice and information for you depending on your situation. We are always pleased to hear from you, and often arrange weekly catch up telephone meetings to keep ourselves appraised of your current situation.

This is just a brief summary of the advantages we can offer you as a member, please explore the rest of the site to find out more about our company, and tap into the information freely available on the site to get a taster of what else we can do for you.

If you have any questions, or wish to enquire about becoming a member, we would love for you to get in touch via the contact form on this site!

Billing

EFC are approved Direct Debit Originators sponsored by NatWest Bank in the UK and the Ulster Bank in the Republic of Ireland. This enables us to collect your student or client fees efficiently, saving you the time and inconvenience of collecting payments by cash or cheque.

All you have to do:

As an EFC client all you have to do is arrange for your students to complete and sign a Direct Debit Mandate and an agreement form which we will provide to you and on receipt of these we will do the rest.

Agreements are entered on our database on the day they are received and you will be able to track all of your student accounts on our real time client web site ‘Aquila Connect’, using your IPhone, Blackberry or PC at any time 24/7/365.

Payment to you:

At month end we will issue a comprehensive report to you detailing the fees we have collected during the month and the full amount collected less our commission will be paid directly to your account. This will ensure that you have a consistent monthly income, which is essential for any business to operate profitably.

Your Account Executive:

As an EFC Client you will be assigned an AE (Account Executive) who will monitor your account, effectively becoming part of your team. Your AE will rapidly follow up on a default payments, keeping you advised of progress. Whilst communicating with students your AE will always work in the best interests of your school, reminding students of the values and benefits of your programs.

Growing your Business

EFC have been helping our clients to grow their businesses since 1967 and we do so through introducing you to tried and tested techniques for marketing your school in order to gain new students and most importantly how to retain them.

Meetings and Seminars:

We hold regular meetings where you can learn cutting edge business development ideas from top school owners. Our Annual International EFC Summit is attended by nearly a thousand school owners every year and it is an essential opportunity to learn from the best business people and school owners in the martial arts field.

Support materials:

Your AE will notify and remind you about EFC events and meetings, as well as helping you to use the EFC on-line services and support material, which includes Audio CD’s, Graphic CD’s, Eagle Express magazines and a library of on-line materials.

EFC Connect:

Your AE will also connect you with any resource, networking relationship, or martial arts support materials you may need, either directly or via our email help service EFC Connect.

Elite Consulting Group:

Being an EFC client will allow you to join our elite consulting group MAUI (Martial Arts University International) led by top EFC client Kyoshi Steve LaVallee.

Online Tools

Aquila Connect is a real time client web site that enables you to look at your account anytime 24/7/365 using your PC or Smartphone.

You can look at your student records, download your monthly report and much more. Aquila Connect keeps you completely in touch with your account at anytime, all the time.

Existing clients can access their online services here.

Gold Package subscribers can access their online services here.

Shihan Dave Kovar

EFC champions martial arts professionalism, not just from the business standpoint, but from the viewpoint of the ethics behind martial arts. There is no better place to be to help your school grow, to take your school to the next level. EFC has moved with the times as far as technology is concerned, but quality student service remains the core principle. EFC has never advocated getting rich quickly. It’s about teaching better classes every day and running your school professionally, and doing so will ensure that your business will grow with time. There is a reason why a majority of the top schools in the country have been with EFC for decades!

Contact Us

Positive Energy Trumps Negative Attitude

Francis Fong

Talent is not everything. If people have negative energy and a negative attitude, they never will succeed, no matter what they do in life. They blame other people for their failures, or blame it on something instead of taking responsibility for their actions. Your enemy is your own self. Control your temper, selfishness, attitude, and discipline. Martial arts will help to ground you and understand who you are. You have to keep your balance.

It is very important to have positive energy. Attitude will determine your behavior. I always tell my students, “trying doesn’t work.” “Trying” never works, because when people try, their mind is set on trying and not doing. When you try, you don’t put 100 percent effort into what you do. When someone asks you if you can do a job, do you say you’ll “try the best” or do you say you will “do the best”?

The Famous Extension Conference

By Nicholas Cokinos, EFC Chairman

Let’s assume you’ve already conducted a highly motivating and energy filled intro class and you are now at the point of doing an extension conference.

First, is the analysis of the strong points or weak points that the intro lesson reveals. Coordination, learning speed, physical condition and flexibility are revised to establish a beginning and generally outlining a path of progress.

Now we turn to the 7.5 Magic Questions. The phrase is introduced by merely saying, “We need your cooperation answering questions so that we can qualify you for any of the programs you may be interested in.” The scene is now set.

Keep in mind that the questions are very carefully outlined, in specific order so that very quickly the receptivity of the student can be determined. It doesn’t make any difference whether we are talking about an adult or a child with a parent present. This is not a selling session. This is not a sales talk. Rather, it’s to be considered a low-pressure approach to affect a sale.

The beautiful part is that it is a series of questions allowing the student to respond and to express his own feelings. The interviewer needs to be listening carefully and asking questions to determine if this is the right activity for the student. All questions require a yes or no answer, with some discussion on the part of the student. The first four questions are:

* Will you be living in this area for at least the next year?
* Do you have any physical problems or take any medication?
* Do you have a place to practice what you will be learning in class?
* Is your schedule such that you can arrange to take your lessons at least twice a week?

When receiving the answers to these questions, do not take “maybe” as an acceptable answer. Any question answered, “no” terminates the interview, since a considerable amount of work is required from both parties. If the answer to all the questions is, “yes,” then you can proceed. As you can see, the answers to these questions indicate to yourself that you have an eager and cooperative potential student.

By what means do you follow up with new members during the first hundred days?

Teri Lee

We have used most of the EFC principles for following up with our new students. The most important thing is to consistently communicate with new students and their parents. Communication means they know and understand what to do before they have to ask. It means you have policies and procedures in place to guide them from their first class to their first test and on to their next program. That communication could be via your program director, website, signs, phone calls, emails, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever means of communication you have in place for your students and parents.

They must feel they are part of the community.

They must know you care about them.

They must also feel successful.

This excerpt is from an interview scheduled to appear in the next EFC Allstars Journal.

Two Most Important Numbers for Growth and Prosperity

Kyoshi Steve LaVallee

For many years, Mr. C. has reminded us to stay focused on the two most important numbers there are to run a highly successful martial arts school. Do you remember them?

1. Exam Numbers. This is the measurement of student progress. Said another way, this is your QQS, or Quality-Quantity-Spirit. When your QQS is up, it’s a sign of progress-oriented teaching and it’s also a sign of great retention and overall communications between you and your student body.

Whether you test every month, bi-monthly, quarterly or otherwise, your goal should be to continually increase your overall QQS factor. Progress leads to high interest and interest leads to attendance and attendance leads to examinees. This always leads to retention, referrals, renewals, reactivations and revenues.

2. Contract Amount. Your focus to the area above automatically leads to the second most important number, which is your Contract Amount. Look at the combined total between new members and renewals for your total contract amount. Whatever your average was for 2010, you should aim to increase that number by 10%-20% or higher for 2011.

An intense focus on these two areas will allow you to increase your monthly gross revenues, your monthly billing check and your accounts receivables.

Hi Matt, everything is great.

Really impressed with your service, a massive personal thank you to you for all your help and support.

Kind Regards

Linda and Steve
Weir Black Belt Academy

New Ideas for Mother’s and Father’s Days

Mother’s Day Roses. Buy real (or if you prefer, artificial) roses for mothers who drop off their kids. You can also send these home with kids to give to their mothers. Attach a VIP pass to each rose, inviting moms for a free set of lessons.

Father’s Day Boxing Glove Keyring. Give dads coupons or VIP gift passes for free martial arts lessons along with a cute Boxing Glove Key ring in a small gift box.

Kung Fu Panda 2

“Kung Fu Panda 2″ is scheduled to be released on May 26, 2011. The film features the voices of Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan and Seth Rogen. We bring to you to the blueprint of what a school owner did with “Karate Kid,” for you to plan your “Kung Fu Panda 2″ promotions:
Debbie and Mike Garelli, co-owners of Carolina Karate in South Carolina, promoted their school in different ways during the release of the “Karate Kid.” After learning about promotional ideas from Tatyana at EFC, Mike went right to the local cinema and spoke to the Promotions Manager. This was back in May–five weeks prior to the film coming out. They were given a huge space to set up a promotional booth, complete with raffle and informational flyers about the school. They were given full access to the whole cinema. They set up a karate school in the center area, where people come in to purchase treats and tickets. All classes for the day were taught there and the demonstration team did several performances. The entire cinema staff wore Carolina Karate t-shirts and everyone buying a ticket for any movie that day was given a VIP 30-day free trial pass. The school was allowed to leave their booth up for the week after the film started as well. It was a great promotion for the Garellis. The cinema management said it was the best they ever did and even sent photographs of the demonstration to Sony Theaters in Los Angeles.

An Interview With Sheeba Lee

Bob and Sheeba Lee run the Black Belt Martial Arts Centre in Maryland USA grossing £38K ($60K) per month. They own their own building and they are very focussed on student service.

Who is the biggest martial arts influence in your life?

That’s an easy question to answer. It’s Mr. Cokinos. He has been with us since day one. He hired my husband for his first job in the martial arts.

What is your thinking regarding loyalty?

Like respect, loyalty comes from the top down. If you show loyalty to your staff and students, they will be loyal to you.

What is your school’s philosophy about classroom instruction?

I’d like to break it down into three parts:
1. There’s a lot of student contact. We make sure students know we’re paying them a lot of individualized attention.
2. All the reinforcement we do is positive. We never point them out and say negative things in front of other people. All private communication is also very positive.
3. Finally, as Kyoshi Steve LaVallee says, “Make sure students leave you sweaty and smiling.” Because this means they’ve had a great workout. So whether students are leaving the school sweaty and smiling is a great tool to see how well instructors are doing their jobs.

How do you keep your students motivated?

Motivation, like a smile, is contagious. If you’re leading by example and motivating yourself as well as others, it becomes contagious.
We also help students establish short-term goals that are reachable. So when they achieve their goals, they feel good about themselves, and we can go ahead and set up some new goals for them. Ongoing progress helps them feel motivated.

By what means do you follow up with new members during the first 100 days?

When they walk in, they’re greeted. Whether they enroll or not, we’ll send them a postcard saying, “Thank you for visiting.” We do 2-4-6 calls. We do continuous attendance checks. When students are absent, we send postcards or make phone calls. Even when students are good about attending, we still make personal contact so they know we care about them. And we don’t end the personal attention in the first 100 days, but keep it going for the entire enrollment period.

What do you do to ensure your high student retention percentage?

The main thing is to ensure students are happy. If they make progress, they’ll keep attending. We make sure that the examinee numbers are up and the contract amount is up. Those are two great reflections of how our school is doing. It’s like taking the temperature of our school to see how it is faring. And it all depends on how our student service is.

How was your 2010 EFC Summit experience?

Phenomenal! We’ve been going to EFC Summits for many years, and it gets better and stronger every year. This year we took 12 of our staff members with us. Afterwards, we found that each and every one of them was excited and energized. They had a list of ideas they wanted our school to try out. They also brought back ideas they wanted to adopt regarding personal development.

After a successful Summit experience, what are your plans for a successful 2011?

We will be focusing on our basics. Student service is our greatest priority. We also want to implement some ideas we picked up at the Summit and integrate them into how we run the school. In 2011, we will keep an eye on our statistics on a daily basis, and not just on a weekly or monthly basis.

Do you have any advice for clients reading this interview?

Just follow what EFC says. The “Take a Minute” booklet featuring Mr. C. that EFC sent us is like our Bible. We use that each and every week at our staff meetings, following through with what it recommends. These are systems that have been tried, tested and proven. Don’t cut out anything! If you stick with it 100%, you will definitely see improvement. Our school is proof positive. We’ve shown a lot of improvement in the past few years. We are at the highest level that we’ve ever been in terms of student count, contract amount and collections. And it’s all because we’ve been sticking with the basics and following every single step that EFC has recommended.

EFC Summit 2010 Shao Lin Institute performance

Summit 2010

Laurence Sandum

Dear EFC clients,

This is the honest truth about the summit. Its going to cost you about £1500 all in. However, if you attend and you apply a few of the ideas your school will grow by at least £1500 in just a couple of months and then you will be getting that increased income everymonth there on after as long as you service your students correctly.

If you can’t afford the £1500 start saving the money monthly now.

It really is very easy to grow your school. Just apply what’s in the manuals, attend meeting of minds and network meetings and apply what you are told. You don’t even need a big advertising budget as you can generate new students internally.

EFC methods and systems work for any style in any town or area in the world. It works so why not apply it……

I am looking forward to the next summit.

Best wishes,

Laurence Sandum

Ken Pankiewicz

I’ve just returned from the EFC Summit in Washington DC. I wanted to share some highlights with you and give an insight into why you should travel to next year’s event in Nashville. There were over 800 school owners, programme directors or instructors eager to train and improve their business knowledge.
Mike Allen did an excellent job of making sure all the UK visitors met-up several times a day to exchange notes plus introducing them to US school owners. At night we had dinner together and a drink in the bar to continue the networking!

Day 1
Thursday started with registration then four great breakouts. I went to Paul Garcia who gave valuable information on retention. I came away with info on running a “coach’s day” and father and son “punch and lunch.”
Next-up was Steve Doyon who focused on low cost marketing ideas. He handed out a folder with samples of all his internal marketing that he is doing in his school of 700 students! In his 60 minute presentation there was enough info to enrol at least 15 students each month for very little cost.
The other 2 speakers were Charles Chi on Social Media Marketing and Dave Kovar on Mastery Mindset
The evening workout and the Martial Arts being shared were outstanding too. Sifu Luigi Cuellar and Sifu Alex Chan did an awesome six station/six art workout on Thursday night. Followed by the amazing Kyoshi Dave Kovar with his never ending blend of skills and drills.
The evening finished on an emotional high as several high ranks were presented between Hanshi Greg Tearney and Grand Master Fred Degerberg. Multi-styles, multi-generations all demonstrating great respect and support of each other…an awesome start!

Day 2
Friday morning started with us all together. It was a great feeling joining 800 fellow martial artists in the same room. We were asked to think about this year’s theme “the turning point”; how can you make a difference in your martial arts school and community. There were several speakers giving their personal thoughts on the theme backed up with videos. Mr Nicholas Cokinos gave his Chairman’s speech and offered valuable insights and wisdom from his experience in running EFC for over 30 years.
The main martial arts display was headed up by Sifu Dennis Brown; it showed his personal journey from 30 years of Kung Fu training and included a display by the Shaolin Monks. It was great. Then Ernie Reyes the head of West Coast Tae Kwon Do gave a dazzling display with his 3 kids. (I want to look like him, when I am 63 years old!). It was a world class line-up of stars and performers.
The afternoon featured a choice 25 different seminars. The UK group spread themselves out to get to as many as possible. We then will exchange the notes amongst everyone from the group
The evening awards banquet and dinner was an excellent time to see everyone dressed up. Again Mike Allen had organised a table for the UK and Australian clients at the front of the hall. It was great to see many of the awards going to UK clients and staff. I was proud to collect Instructor of the Year on behalf of KickFit instructor Richard Parks.

Day 3
Saturday morning started fast & furious with former Dalai Lama body guard and World renowned Ninja, Stephen Hayes. Plus, Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee along with a brief Demo by Garland Johnson and his wife Bridgett.
Then we had Steve LaVallee presenting his keynote speech on “Learn from the Past…Prepare for the Future.” He always generates great excitement and gave out some real gems of information based on his experience. He had 60 members of his staff at the event!
The three breakouts were divided for Programme Directors, Instructors and Owners. In the owners seminar Mr Cokinos gave plenty of excellent reminders and the weekend came to an exciting Grand Finale with the talented Gabrielle’s Martial Arts Demo Team. What an excellent weekend of bonding, learning, sharing, training and inspiration.

How to Get to Next Year’s Summit
I have been a member of the EFC since 1997, this summit rates as one of the best. I urge you to make the effort and join us for next year. You will be surrounded by world class martial artists and have the chance to add to your business network. Attending each year has helped me grow the KickFit schools to their current level
Rules of 3 to Get to Next Year’s Summit
•   Call your account executive and book your place – consider monthly payments to make it easier to budget
•   Book your flights to Nashville early next year to get the best price. Use a good travel agent eg: Trailfinders or on-line booking eg: Skyscanner or Opodo. Also watch out for airline seat sales, British Airways usually has one during January or February
•   Pay a monthly amount from January, into a separate account to cover your hotel and living expenses. Mike Allen can give you more details on how much
I too would be happy to help with any questions you might have about attending the Summit.

Ken Pankiewicz

Mike Allen, EFC UK General Manager

Good morning everyone!

We have just returned from the Annual EFC International Summit which just gets better every year and this year everyone said it was the best one yet. The only regret that the UK attendees had was that there were not more of us at the Summit to gather the wealth of information available and to enjoy networking with the most dynamic schools in the Martial Arts field.

Ken Pankiewicz has kindly forwarded me his thoughts and I will forward others to you as I receive them.

Chris Ellis said to me that from the breakouts he and Ginny attended on Thursday afternoon they got so much good information that if they got nothing else over the next two days their trip would still be worthwhile.

This Christmas give yourself and your school the best present you will ever have, by booking your place at the 2011 EFC Summit to be held on the 10/11/12 November 2011 in the stunning Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville Tennessee, please click on the link: Gaylord Hotels

I guarantee that you will be stunned by the information and camaraderie that abounds, so call your AE today for more details.

Regards

Mike

EFC Drills & Skills Workshop

The EFC Drills & Skills Workshop run by Ken Pankiewicz and his staff at his Kickfit Academy HQ in Slough was an outstanding success. Twenty six clients and staff from all over the UK enthusiastically arrived bang on time, in uniform ready for what proved to be one of the very best ‘on the mat’ Workshops we have run so far.

The meeting started with an actual Little Champions class with ten small children being taught by their regular Instructor Richard Howton. The class started with the children bowing to the parents who all stood up and recited the Student Creed with the children. Richard then skilfully worked through his lesson plan, handling the ‘spinners’ and ‘chatterboxes’ with great skill. The children were kept busy throughout and they thoroughly enjoyed the class.

Once the parents and children had left there was a very lively Q&A about the class. Everyone then got on the mat and Richard took them through some additional Little Champions Drills with the attendees as the students.

Kickfit Instructors Richard Parks and Sarah Davis then took the attendees through Junior Class drills including warm up routines, message of the week and pad work drills. The class was followed by a Q & A and general critique by Ken.

Ken then covered some Adult Class Drills before running through the Instructor Reference Guide that he uses to train his instructors, concluding the meeting with another Q & A session.

The workshop then closed and after some general networking the attendees left with many of them having very long journeys back to North Wales, Cornwall, the South Coast, the East Coast and the West Country, but all of them were looking forward to the exciting changes they were going to make in their school.

The Workshop was very good and we have received excellent feedback. Every one was very appreciative of the information they received and the enthusiasm and time that Ken and his Instructors gave us so freely.

“EFC has allowed me to do what I do best… teach! The mat is my office. It has given me
the peace of mind to explore my creative side as a martial artist, grow as a martial artist,
and give my students what they deserve—the best instruction in the world!”

Joseph Gregory – World Karate Academy