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!

Just a quick email to say thanks from both me and Jayne for all the help you and Steve have given over the last year.

I have just done some calculations on how the School is doing in total, the main school plus the Taekwondo class etc and since the end of March we have grown just over 40%, monthly revenue increase of £1395 per month, as a yearly figure that is £16740. That is truly amazing from our side, the Spring Fling really had a major impact and was the best investment of £25 this year.

We still have another 3 2nd intros lined up this week of which I am sure we will sign up a minimum of 2, and a good set of intros lined up next week.

Again thanks for all the help and support

Regards

Dave and Jayne Pawson

Dear Mike and the fabulous EFC team.

We’re open! And we own it!

Buying a commercial building in the UK is one of the toughest obstacles we have faced.

First of all it was nice and easy, we found a building we could afford and arranged a commercial mortgage to buy it. Like I said nice and easy, just like purchasing a home.

The obstacle was the planning application. Our local council has stringent rules for what the building is used for and has certain policies regarding it.

Our Building was categorised as SUI GENERIS. This means that the property has been vacant for some time and has not been assigned a commercial USE.
We quickly submitted our planning application and which was refused on the grounds that we are not community orientated, and that we did not fall into the planning office guidelines. Martial arts, not community oriented! We couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it.

We had several meetings with the planning office and finally hired a planning consultant and submitted another planning application for change of USE.

This time the planning office submitted details of the planning application online on their website. We noticed that people could leave comments on the application, supporting or rejecting it.

We rallied our student body to leave positive comments on the website. A few weeks later we received a phone call from the head of planning, stating that they had received over 150 comments from the community supporting this venture, and that the application was going well this time round. He also stated that he’s work load has just increased as he has to respond to every comment giving them the decision on the application.

This made me smile. Later that week the planning application was approved.

Virginia and I would like to thank you Mike for all the effort and support you have given us. EFC has been the cornerstone of our success and we are very grateful.

If anybody wants more information we can be contacted through the EFC.

Kind Regards

Chris & Virginia Ellis

I am pleased to have the opportunity to thank everyone for the help I have received in starting up my school. I have trained with master Ken Pankiewicz at the Kickfit Academy for almost 8 years and was privileged enough to be accepted onto his instructor training program and worked my way from SWAT team member to qualified instructor, although Master Pankiewicz gave me the opportunity to work full time, I was held back by my loyalty to my parents, as I worked in the family business.

This situation changed three months ago when I moved to Cornwall with my partner and young son. This was a difficult decision as I was not only leaving my immediate family, but also what I saw as my extended family at Kickfit Academy. With the encouragement of Master Pankiewicz I decided to start up my own school.

Obviously as an instructor I was aware of the EFC, but it wasn’t until I joined as a school owner that I understood exactly what it was all about.

From the first call with my account executive Katherine, I was impressed with the level of professionalism and advice.

Katherine gave my number to some other school owners and the next few days were spent talking to these over the phone. Everyone from Ken Robson to James Towill who was about three weeks ahead of me in opening his school gave me invaluable advice and encouragement.

Although Master Pankiewicz has been in regular contact and of huge help, I still felt quite isolated being so far away. Then I spoke to Mr. Andrew Spink and Mr. Paul Drury who are located close by in Devon. These guys went out of their way and as true martial artists went that extra mile and offered to come down for my open day. This changed my open day from just me chatting to a few people, to a fantastic evening of awesome martial arts displays in front of about 30 people, and the displays were awesome from their students doing kicking demonstrations and bow staff routines to Mr. Spink performing a black belt form and kicking routine that left the audience gob smacked. To finish with Mr. Drury showed immense skill and control slicing a cucumber in half off of Mr. Spinks stomach with his sword display.

I am writing this after returning from doing my first intro lessons, because of the help I received my only problem now is how to handle all the enquiries. Tonight I have done 15 intros (with more still booked). I only had 14 intros booked for tonight and 3 off those did not show up, but because of children and parents going away raving about what they saw 4 extra people showed up wanting to see what it’s all about. All of these are now booked in for 2nd intros.

This would not have been possible without the help I have received from others, so a big thank you must go out for Master Pankiewicz whose training has set me in good stead, Mr. Paul Drury, Heather Drury and Mr. Spink as well as their students whose helped make my open day a great success, and just as important have made me fell less isolated knowing I now have good friends close by.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and all these guys have helped make that step a big one.

I started training at the age of seven in Shuckokai Karate. The reason I started to train was because my school friends had already joined at a local school and so I tagged along, all my friends gradually stopped in the first year, but to me karate had become much more than a hobby and I continued training there until I reached the level of black belt at the age of fifteen.

My instructor at the time decided to leave John Lynn’s Academy and go solo, and therefore resulted in me having to stop training as the nearest John Lynn’s academy then was at Rhyl, 30 miles away. As soon as I got my driving licence I made two weekly journeys to Rhyl for my training sessions and quickly got back in to the swing of it. The Rhyl Academy were already members of the EFC at that point and I was the 25th member as a student, The school kept growing from strength to strength.

In the year of 1999 I got my 2nd Dan and I also qualified as an instructor. I was already working full time at this point, stacking shelves in a supermarket, I wasn’t earning much money and didn’t have a sense of achievement in my life, except in karate. I decided I wanted to open my own club. I held my first class on 8th of February of 2000 at a school hall in my local town, charging £2.50 for an hour. I only had one class for children then on every Thursday evening but the class gradually grew larger and I decided to have another night for children. Although I thoroughly enjoyed teaching I never thought that it could become a career, so I carried on like this, with my two lessons a week for the next year.

At the beginning of 2001 Master Lynn approached me regarding the EFC, at that point I knew all about it as I was already a paying student and a fellow instructor had already joined. To be honest, my first instinct was “no way, it wouldn’t work in my town”, but over time I gradually got interested in the monthly billing procedure so I sat down with Master Lynn and he explained the values and benefits of the system and that I could make a career out of teaching karate. This all seemed very fascinating but I still didn’t believe that I could make it happen especially making a living out of it. I had reached a stage in my life where I was looking into making a career for myself, but I had also just bought a house with my girlfriend Gemma, so the idea of having a mortgage to pay made things look complicated.

At the time I was also going through the procedures of joining the police force, my application had been accepted, I passed the fitness test (obviously), two written tests, an interview and awaiting a date to start the cadet training. Although things looked promising I had what Master Lynn had said in my mind “ you can make a career of karate, earn a good wage and become a full time instructor”, if it would work it would be a dream come true, teaching a hobby for a living. I was in a state of confusion, becoming a police officer, a decent wage with a good pension and a secure career ahead of me, or take a chance and attempt to become a full time Academy owner. By now I had a gut feeling and something swayed me towards instructing. To make things more difficult my family and friends advised me to take the safe option, as I had a career in my hands, but with the inclination I had and the support of my girlfriend Gemma, I decided to look into the EFC further. I arranged for a meeting with Master Lynn and Lynne and invited my parents to come along and we discussed the possibilities. Everything became clear, Master Lynn and Lynne explained the process I had to take, that I already had my students all I needed to do was transfer from a cash club to a professional Academy, and with my existing students paying on a monthly basis I would automatically earn as much as I was at that point anyway. The only doubt now was that would it work in our town, it was explained that it’s worked in other places so with hard work and dedication why not. They persuaded me, I’d made my decision there and then and I had now also gained the respect of my decision from my parents, and as always had their full support.

Looking back we all laugh at the fact that the meeting ever took place, what was there to discuss? So there it began, I joined the EFC as school 221 and signed up 83 out of 84 of the existing students I had. Things looked promising, and it was, from then on I worked closely with Master Lynn and attended the EFC UK Meeting of Minds Seminars, gained knowledge of how to run an Academy in all areas, classes, marketing, finance you name it, I was told everything I needed to know and I quickly transferred from a karate club to a professional Martial Arts Academy.

By the end of 2001 things were on the up, the academy was growing nicely and I was earning well, I decided to give up my work and focus on my school full-time. I’ve never looked back I set myself goals and worked hard in achieving them, there is a great sense of achievement in seeing my name in the “All –Stars”. Master Lynn and the EFC showed me the way, but every instructor knows that it’s you that’s got to make it happen. You can get all the information you need on paper, but to make it work you need to put it into action. I believe I have done that and I have come a long way but I still have a long way to go yet to reach my goals. With the continued support of Master Lynn and EFC I will achieve it.

I am now the proud owner of two schools with 250 students, I have one full time instructor, and three part-time employees including my wife Gemma, I have classes running every day, teaching Karate, Kickboxing and Koshin ki to all ages from 4 to 57. I’m currently holding my classes in a rented room in the Leisure Centre, and my office is based at home, It’s sometimes quite difficult, having to carry all my equipment with me every day and it takes an hour a day to set up the room with my posters, notice boards etc. I’ve been looking for my own premises for quite a while, but there’s very limited places in the town and nothing with enough floor space, but hopefully with a little patience and positive thinking something will turn up soon. I can’t wait to hold the ‘Meeting of Minds’ at my own Academy.

As I stated earlier I feel I’ve achieved a lot since joining the EFC but there’s much more that I’d like to do in the future, get my own premises, hold more classes, employ more staff, hopefully taking on my wife full-time. I’m going to keep attending the meetings and summits, working closely with school owners to improve my student service and more importantly, Extensions, Extensions, Extensions!

As an Association all of the John Lynn’s instructors met our goal by becoming no 1 in the top team standings, as a single school owner I set a deadline for myself to reach a certain level, I made it into the supreme grand master in the summer as the no 3 single school and I’m working for that next slot!

“It’s going great, EFC is the best thing I have done since starting martial arts twenty years ago, I’m finding my school growing really fast and it’s giving me more financial security.”