The first impression you make on people in their initial look into your martial arts academy will make or break your ability to sign up new members.

That’s why we call our front desk staff First Impression Specialists (FIS).

They’re the ones who greet everyone as they walk through the door. 

Ideally, with a smile on their face and using that person’s name if they’re a member. 

Our First Impression Specialists are responsible for setting the impression of our academies for everyone–new leads and members included. 

We believe that we need to make a great first impression for everyone who walks through the door. And every time they come in, we need to make a new first impression.

Our academies live and die by the people who work the desk. These people are the true front line of each school. 

However, the front desk staff can’t do everything when it comes to making the first impression.

In fact, it’s pretty rare that the first interaction a potential student has with us is when they walk into the academy for the first time. 

Most leads that come in are from a form submitted on our website.

Which means that the true first impression we have to make is on our website. 

How do you make a great first impression through your website? You need to do a few things right to: 

Have an easy to navigate, clean homepage: 

Don’t make it confusing or messy for people who want to sign up. 

Your sign up form should be front and center and follow people wherever they go

Make sure it’s well designed: 

You don’t have to be an expert, but if you have no design skills at all you need to find someone who does. 

Your website represents you, if it’s a mess and looks hideous, you’re going to lose leads

 Pictures or videos should reflect your ICA (ideal customer avatar): 

Competition wins and fight victories are cool, but competitors and fighters don’t pay the bills. 

The images on your website should have people that look like your everyday members so that potential students can see themselves training at your school. 

Your website is responsible for a lot of first impressions, but especially these days social media is responsible for plenty of first impressions.

Like the website homepage, there are some things you should consider when it comes to your Academy's social media.

Keep it up to date:

The biggest problem we see with social media is schools that don’t keep their profiles up to date.

You should be making daily posts, ideally multiple posts per day.

These posts can be about upcoming events, schedule changes, and lots of photos of people in class and training.

Profiles that don’t post regularly seem as if there isn’t much going on at the school. 

Especially if your last post is from months or even a year or more ago. 

A dead social media makes it feel like your school is dead as well. Nothing going on, no one training, and a poor community.

You know this isn’t true. Make your social media profiles reflect the liveliness and character of your school. 

Keep your ICA in mind:

Like with the website, you should keep your ideal customer avatar (ICA) in mind when posting, but don’t be afraid to celebrate a competition or fight win. 

Just keep in mind–if you only post about competitions or fighters, the impression you make is that is all your school is about. 

If that’s the case, it’s fine. But your ability to grow and be financially successful will be very limited by such a small population of potential customers.

Once your online presence is making the right first impression, you should be pulling more people into your academy for the first time. 

This is where your First Impression Specialists (front desk staff) get to show their value and represent your school. 

Keep in mind, your FIS is a huge part of the first impression, but not the only part. 

If your academy is messy, unorganized, or dirty, the initial impression new leads will have is that your school is gross.

Likewise, if a new lead comes in and there’s a bunch of shirtless dudes milling about, your school is going to seem like an uninviting bro-zone, instead of a place where people can try something uncomfortable for the first time and grow personally.    

How you make a first impression matters. Most people are going to struggle to come into your academy and try martial arts for the first time.

They’re scared, nervous, and doubt it will be for them.

The fact is that it was like this for many of us. 

However, many of us are still here because of the first impressions we had on day one. 

Don’t let factors outside of the martial arts you teach on the mat be the deciding factor for potential students.