Many martial arts academies and chain gyms rely on an enrollment fee as part of their membership structure. 

Along with the standard price of membership, many often charge an additional, one-time fee to sign their members up. This has a few benefits for the academy owners, mainly its bargaining power.

When students push back on the membership costs – specifically the enrollment fee – having that additional cushion of money allows you as the seller of the membership something to leverage. 

If they sign up today, you say, you’ll cut the enrollment fee in half. If they push back further, a hard sell, you might slash it completely. 

While widely practiced, this sort of structure, in our experience, goes back to the mindset of fear, scarcity and, simply, a lack of belief in your product.

Instead of allowing the product, your class, to speak for itself, a flexible enrollment fee shifts the focus of your sale from the product to its finance imposition.

What is an enrollment fee?

If you still employ an enrollment fee in your academy, ask yourself: in your business, what exactly does it cover? 

Are there extra expenses associated with signing somebody up? Does it cost more to add another membership to your database, to your email list, to print a membership card?

Most likely, you can do all of these things without an extra $199 per person.

We’re not minimizing the effort it takes to launch and run a successful martial arts program. It takes time, dedication and heart to make money with a passion. We’re simply telling you what has worked for us, and what we’ve learned along the way of our 25+ year journey in the martial arts education industry.

Some people will pay the enrollment fee, afraid to push back or ask, but many question it. Some will question it very specifically. Set yourself up for success when it comes to these inevitable conversations. Eliminate them completely.

Often, unless you genuinely have a really good reason, there’s no straight-forward way to justify to somebody what the extra fee covers without digging pretty deep. Especially when you start to bargain with it, or cut it completely. 

If you truly do rely on the extra money to run your academy, take some time to figure out a way you can restructure your operations and improve the quality of your product.

The better your product is, the more students will want to join and stay with you. Invest in your employees – your front desk and your coaches – and they’ll invest back into your school by showing up as the best versions of themselves. 

Prioritize your program and get everyone on the same page by creating a curriculum that addresses various ages if you have adult and kid classes, and various levels of skill, giving students a measurable rate of progress.

When you have a product you believe in, you also don’t need traps like enrollment fees to lure people into a false sense of financial security by offering to cut it in half, or contracts to keep people locked in. 

When you believe in your product month over month, you don’t need to lock someone in who doesn’t see that value. At Easton, we even offer to give you your money back if you purchase the trial month and try at least eight classes! 

Next time you want to use money as a bargaining chip against a skeptical potential customer, try turning it around and using it the other way. Sell them a discounted trial month, and offer them their money BACK if they don’t love it!

Rather than raising suspicion, you’ll raise curiosity, trust and loyalty among those who step up to the challenge.