The Shintaro Higashi Show - Seminar Economics

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

In this solo episode, Shintaro dives deep into the economics of hosting martial arts seminars, drawing from his extensive experience as both a clinician and a gym owner. Shintaro breaks down the various pricing strategies, including flat fees and percentage splits, and discusses how to evaluate the value of a seminar, not just as a moneymaker but as a long-term investment in gym growth and marketing. He also shares personal stories and lessons learned from hosting high-profile athletes and lesser-known but highly skilled teachers. Whether you're a gym owner or a martial arts enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights on how to make seminars work for you. (00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:02) Flat Fee vs. Percentage Splits (00:05:30) Structuring Seminars for Maximum Value (00:07:02) The Role of High-Profile Clinicians (00:10:23) Balancing Marketing and Profit (00:17:30) Using Seminars as Retention Tools

So you have to have clinicians that come in that are good teachers, not just great athletes. Some athletes are freaking great athletically, competitively, but they're not good teachers. It's not a one-off event, do I make money or not? You have to look at it as a portfolio of events that will help you grow the gym or not grow the gym. But then I've also had seminarians or clinicians who aren't as well-known competitively, but they were just great teachers. Hello, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. A solo episode today

about seminar economics. Now, I used to sort of have a thing about seminars, you know, and I kind of went through the whole rigmarole of like what should i charge for the seminar what should i teach it how should i do it and then on the dojo owner side how do i host certain clinicians and such and you know this podcast episode is basically going to be about that so i sort of started entering into the seminar game again. I used to do a little bit more as like sort of a competitor because I really needed the money. And some gyms would give me a flat fee.

You know, I've done seminars for as little as 500 bucks for an hour. I've done seminars for $1,000 for like a one-hour segment as part of like a training camp. I've done, you know, $2,500 a session. I've done 50, 50 splits where nobody came and I made no money. I've done 50, 50 splits where tons of people came and I made a lot more money. You know, who knows? And there's all these different ways you can kind of sort of position yourself from a pricing standpoint. And, you know, pricing strategy is a big thing in, you thing in all of business. So it's good

to kind of understand what your value is first and foremost, understanding what other clinicians are charging out there, et cetera, et cetera. So let's talk first about flat fee versus percentage and then the combination of both of those things. I've seen both. You can do, hey, my flat fee is $3,000 for the session, right? And that's what I do now most of the time. It's $3,000, two hours. I'll go teach anything and everything that you want. I will most likely gauge the room first to see what the skill level is and then teach from beginning to end where everyone's moving. I don't usually do randori with the people that's kind of my thing right if it's closer i'll do it a little bit cheaper

if it's farther away and if i can get two or three gyms together then they have to all split the cost of my flight my hotel etc etc and then maybe if I could chain two or three gyms back to back, you know, in the course of two or three days, then I could kind of reduce the cost too. So some people were like, Hey man, can you do a seminar at my gym? Sure. My rate is $3,000. Hey, can I get you two other gyms in the area? Can I do it for 2000? I'll say sure. Right? So these are the kinds of ways that's sort of the flat fee structure. I've had guys say to me, hey, man, can you do a 50-50 split, which is generally not favorable. A lot of guys don't usually take on this just a plain old 50-50 split because if that gym doesn't market for you, then you're just not going to have anything. It's going to be very low split.

I've done this before. They brought $800 in at the door. They charged very little, and now we're splitting $800 in at the door. They charged very little and now we're splitting $800 and there's $400 and I flew all the way there. Not really worth the time. I'm not saying it's not worth the time, but you go all the way there. You want to teach as many people as possible. You want it to be worth your time because there's an opportunity cost of leaving your home to not work to work over there for the weekend right so the 50 50 split generally doesn't work for most people i've heard people say

hey i charge a 70 30 split so you know i get the majority of the money the gym makes money it's in the gym's best interest also to push this thing and if you have a big following you could also push it through your side and you could talk with other gyms and say, hey, give me the link to Eventbrite or whatever it is and I'll make sure that I post it on my schedule, on my Instagram. So now I'm also gonna promote it as you are too. So now we're both gonna have a lot more

because we're gonna both put marketing muscle behind it, et cetera, et cetera. So that could potentially work. I've seen splits like 70, 30, 60, 40. Um, yeah, et cetera, et cetera. Now the combination of both is a nice idea too. They say, Hey, I want to be guaranteed a thousand dollars at the door, you know, and then whatever that after that's paid, whatever that comes in above that, we're going to split that. So it's 50, after the flat fee i've seen that work wonders too i've done you know there's just so many different uh leverage points where you kind of like go back and forth you know so that's sort

of the way that clinicians are kind of asking for the money you know i generally like the flat fee like i said um if there's someone that can coordinate all the gyms in the area, like the one in Netherlands, I have a guy, Norman, who's doing all of it. I'm going to give him 15% of all the revenue that comes in. So now the gym has a flat fee, and now there's one person organizing all this stuff, and he gets 15% on the top. It's kind of like the Airbnb co-host model uh that's also a nice thing too okay so now I'm looking at it from a gym owner's standpoint when I run seminars at my gym that's not me okay obviously my guys are sick and tired of me ranting about Taitoshi sometimes they want a fresh

perspective sometimes they want a young champion to come into the room. Okay, how do I get those guys in the room? Sometimes, sometimes if a clinician's asking for three grand, four grand, I know my gym. I know who's willing to pay for what. My gym is not full of fanboys. So when those guys see sort of a jujitsu champion or whatever it is they're not going to fanboy and go nuts and pay a hundred dollars to see that person they're just simply not it's not in the culture even if i got an olympian from another country to come it's not going to really create big waves and vibes because they're kind of they're just not you know so you got to know your your clientele you know what i mean but there's some gyms that are just diehard fanatics and every single one of them is bought into the community the culture the people that are at the top and it may be worth to pay that

three four thousand dollars for that clinician to have an association to make your athletes happy and then if you're coming from a gym. Sort of in the middle of nowhere. You don't have a lot of champions. Maybe you yourself as the owner of the gym. Is not a champion also. Maybe you didn't compete a lot. That's not to say that you're not a good coach. You can be a freaking great coach.

A lot of best coaches that I know. Weren't competitors at all. So in those cases. It may help the gym. To an association oh man chantar was here oh man this guy was here oh man we're gonna get an olympic champion oh man we're gonna get the adcc champ over here and do a seminar so now all of a sudden that three thousand dollars or four thousand dollars that you're shelling out to these guys it's a marketing expense now you're not trying to make a margin on it you're not trying to to these guys, it's a marketing expense.

You're not trying to make a margin on it. You're not trying to say, I'm spending three grand. I'm charging $100 at the door per student. I'm trying to get 50 guys in there. This guy makes three Gs. I make two Gs. Now, you're not really thinking of it that way.

You're thinking of it as a marketing expense. Like, look at the gym. All these champions are walking through the door. And now, look, I'm friends with them. And this is the thing. If you host somebody for a session for two hours and you give them four grand, that guy is going to be pretty friendly and likable to you. You know, they're not going to be shitting on you or your competition record.

You develop a friendship and a relationship, a working business partnership there. Hey, will you come back every six months? Hey, man, we'd love to have you again. The guys get to take pictures with you we get to put it on instagram you know and then you know if you're doing like uh if you get jt torres in the room and you pay him for a seminar he's gonna take pictures with you he's gonna repost your thing you get a little bit of clout it puts your gym out there you know what i mean so that's one way to look at it another way to look at it is getting a seminar person that sort of resonates

with your people, resonates with your people. For instance, I'm getting Megumi Ishikawa, who lives in Chicago now, to come to a seminar at my gym, and that's going to really resonate with my female athletes in the room, because I'm really trying to build the women's program. with my female athletes in the room because I'm really trying to build the women's program. It's very difficult because it's majority dudes. You know, people call in to do judo. 97% of the time, they're dudes calling in to do judo. Okay. I saw your YouTube, bro. I love it. I do jiu-jitsu already. I want to learn some stand-up. 97% of the time, it's dudes. So, as you can imagine, it's very hard to keep the women because it's just such a male-dominant industry.

Not male-dominant. I didn't mean like that. Just population-wise. You know what I mean? So, Megumi Ishikawa does seminars, lives in Chicago, from Japan originally, was a champ, Asian champ. I think that's gonna be

great for my women athletes I think it'll be great for them to see you know so that's the reason

why I did it it's not really much so like oh let me take a margin on this freaking thing I really like that you know but with that being said

I can't just be throwing money away on marketing you know uh not throwing away money i'm saying like keep spending on the marketing with no direct roi if you're looking at it from a business standpoint so you have to have clinicians that come in that are good teachers not just great athletes some athletes are freaking great athletically competitively but they're not good teachers right so that's why i love seeing people who have a following on

the YouTube and the internet already, who are good technicians, who have had some competition training. So I see what they're capable of doing. I can reach out to them and say, hey, this is what's going to make sense for me. And usually for, to do a seminar at my gym, it's a flat fee plus split, right? And the flat fee is lower because majority of the time, you know, I want to make some money on this too. You know what I mean? Like I'm not in a place where it's just like, oh, I need a so champions walking through to associate myself. Oh, it's a marketing expense. I'm not really in that place anymore with my gym. Also, like I said before, my guys aren't like this, like wide eye, like, like oh my god it's this champion from the youtube

and the they're not really like that because they already interact with me all the time not to sound like an arrogant prick you know what i mean most of the guys who come through my gym have seen me at some point through the internet or this or following me so now you know they get to work out with me there's really not much need for me to prove my status in the community by bringing other guys in if that makes any sense you know but with that being said some gyms have that need you know some gyms you know oh i just loved it so much i had to start a gym i don't really have a competitive background. I really want to be in the know of the stuff that's going on current in the international circuit.

I need to bring someone in to teach us. And there are teachers who are humble enough to say, you know what? I've never been on the international circuit. I just want to learn too. And I've had guys who say to me when they hosted me for a seminar, this seminar, Shintaro, mostly for me when they hosted me for a seminar this seminar shintaro mostly for me

mostly for me so i can learn from you face to face be your friend get your ideas and then it's a bonus that my students get to learn alongside me and i was like wow that's a very interesting way to put it you're awesome you know but so there's many different reasons to be able to do seminars uh i think it's important to first know your people know why you want to do the seminars and then build around that and then if you have a direct idea of what you're willing to spend for who now all of a sudden you could have a very direct conversation with a clinician with a clinician say hey you know and of course i've hosted jimmy pedro at my gym and that was pretty cool because he brought his olympic medals and you know it's oh my god and he was my coach and so it's like there's a little bit more of a reason to do something

like that Travis Stevens came to my gym you know because we're also friends right so it's like it's a chance for me to get my friend paid and then he comes in and we get the bullshit for a little bit right so that's kind of a cool reason to do that but then I've also had seminarians or clinicians who aren't as well known competitively, but they were just great teachers. I even one time had my best friend from college. He was a great wrestler. He took fourth at world team trials, which isn't like a huge accomplishment.

I mean, it is huge for the US, but it's not like an Olympic medal. It's not like, you know what I mean, Jimmy Pedro or Travis, like the accolades like that. But I know him personally very well. And he's very, very, very good at teaching takedowns. Just very, very good. And he could teach a slew of takedowns in a very short amount of time. And people can pick and choose which takedowns that they want to add to their game.

So I really like that method. And then he taught like a gut wrench that may or may not be useful in judo because he did a little bit of judo he was able to like kind of make that connection it was very different very refreshing for a lot of my guys you know i just recently did a leg lock seminar at my gym we're a judo gym we do 95% of the time we do gi but Rene Souza who's a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy who specializes in leg locks and stuff and the buggy choke I got him in he's also my friend you know we train a lot together we you know chit chat and send each other reels and things like this but that's so far from like what we normally do but it was very refreshing and for something

like that you know because he's very good uh and you know we have this conversation we have this back and forth thing it's like hey man can i give you a smaller flat fee and then split the difference whatever comes the next show we'll split that he's like cool i'm okay with whatever you know what i mean so that's the way i'm starting to think of seminars little by little um and you got to look at the entire calendar of seminars sort of like a portfolio you know i'll give you another example favio basile olympic champion from italy right someone reached out to me and said hey you want to host them i was like that could be a marketing thing you know i mean like i won't make a profit on it probably but it

would be good to have an olympic champion there who's also red and white belt mind you who's young he's one of the best in the world he's one of the most famous guys and now he could come in and we could make some youtube content together. You know, I could also provide value for him because I have sort of a platform with a lot of reach. But I'm not going to make money on that. And if he quotes me at, let's just say, five grand for the session, I'll probably lose money on that

because my gym doesn't have that many students. You know, our gym is probably split 50-50 kids and adults. Maybe he doesn't even want to do kids. You know, and I don't really want the kids learning the Kataguruma stuff that he's doing because it's very dangerous. They're going to hurt the other kids. So it'll mostly be for my adults, which is pulling from a very small group. And yes, I could advertise outside to the other dojos,

but who has time for that? Maybe I'll ask Hudson Judo to send it out on the mailing list but then there's also a capacity issue too because we're in manhattan you know but even if i were to take a loss on that it will offset it it will be offset by the other seminars that are coming by and i've been doing sort of nogi workshops in my gym free to my members you know charging the outside members so it's like that's also like a seminar you know so we're trying to do once a month open mat once a month some kind of event always on friday at 6 30 so there's no confusion right and that's kind of the way i'm kind of approaching seminars open mats events it's good to kind of mix things up and when you have people who are sort of getting into a funk

a little bit of a rut ah you know i missed two weeks now it's a good reason for me to like reach out and then to hey come back you know come by we have this guy come to you have guys who are in certain financial positions that they cannot afford it or they just had a baby or they're just kind of not in the game right now because you know for whatever reason they just don't want to commit to a you know weekly membership where they're coming in every day you know once you have an open mat once a month you could always reach out to that guy say hey dude we're doing an open off month open mat it's free, you can always reach out to that guy and say, hey, dude, we're doing an open mat. It's free. Just come by and bullshit with us.

Right? And it's kind of a nice tool for retention. You know? I'll give you another one. We got Nick Newell coming in. He's the one-armed MMA fighter. He fought Justin Gaethje. You can look him up.

Nick Newell. He's a friend of mine. We wrestled at the same time in the same conference. Right? So, like, we, you know, it's funny because like we became friends like much later like pretty recently maybe like the last two years uh but like I sort of always knew of him and so like we've crossed paths so many times and now that we're friends I was like yo did you ever wrestle at the storm he's like yeah I was there Ihaca you know 2005 2006 and he wrestled 165 and i wrestled 184 so we must have been in the same gym

multiple times you know how cool is that you know but he's an mma fighter he wrestled he did bjj mostly nogi but he's an mma fighter with one arm super cool dude and now I'm gonna do like a seminar for my guys like all right you know street fighting stuff everyone has a little bit of wrestling everyone has a little bit of judo everyone has good good groundwork in my gym all right not that these guys are like superstar strikers that's probably the one thing that is more lacking than anything in my gym but nick is gonna say okay how to do like a grappling based fighting style you know and that'll be very very exciting um and it'll be very refreshing for a lot of these guys to meet somebody who's my friend and something a little bit

different on a friday night something to look forward to And that's sort of the way that I'm trying to approach these events and seminars now. So if you're listening and you're part of a gym, you have influence over the instructor, you should have these open conversations. It's not a one-off event. Do I make money or not? You have to look at it as a portfolio of events that will help you grow the gym or not grow the gym. This guy's expensive. We probably lose a little bit money on it, but it's a marketing expense. This guy is very, very good at teaching. He doesn't have a competitive record and his fee is very low.

His flat fee is like 500 bucks. We should get that person in the gym trying to make a little bit of money, you know, develop a relationship with them, see if they could come in over and over, right? Because there's sort of a sweet spot price. And there's many different ways to structure this stuff. And if you talk to your people, your staff, your clinician, the person doing the seminar, and then there can be sort of a meeting of the minds where it's like, oh, maybe this person's just starting off in the seminar space. They're completely happy with a $300 for one class kind of a thing or even like a $500 for one class kind of a thing. I've heard guys who reach out to me like, what do you charge for a private lesson? I was like, $300.

OK, will you come and do a private lesson for me? I was like, if I have to travel to your gym and it's local,'s 500 and they're like okay can you do it how many people can i have in the room for the private lesson you know like what are you getting at he's like can i pay for that private lesson and have 20 guys watch i'm like that's more of a seminar but you know what sure right i've said yes you know to that request i won't again because but like sometimes like you just kind of nail that sweet spot it's like all right it's a one hour private lesson i'm gonna be there it's five hundred dollars you know i'm not shaking everyone's hand taking pictures it's a private lesson i'm in and out because it takes time for me to go there come back i'm burning an evening having dinner with my kid, right?

This is what it's going to cost. Usually, it's for seminar. And so now, I've since then learned to cap the number of people in the private. But these are the kind of things that I'm thinking about when I'm kind of thinking about seminars, this, that. Kind of digressing a little bit. But knowing yourself, knowing your gym, knowing your demographic, knowing the clinician, talking and meeting that sweet spot where everyone's happy,

that's the thing, you know? So thank you very much for sponsoring us, by the way. Jason, Levon, and joe judo tv.com best ijf streaming platform ever discount coach and taro hegashibrand.com also we have gee pants with pockets we got gees now all that stuff thank you everyone for always. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you get up-to-date new episodes coming in and out. On YouTube, please leave a comment.

I do read the comments. I'm making more of an effort to sort of be a little bit more connected to the community. I do read the comments, so please leave a comment in the comments section. Suggestions are great. Suggestions are great. Suggestions are great. Yeah, these comments, sometimes they're hilarious, you know.

Yesterday, like I put up 10 ways to do Tobinage. This guy, just the first comment that like rolled in was like, oh, great, blah, blah. And then the third one was like, just boring, period. And then someone came to my defense. They were like, dude, he's not making this for entertainment. He's making this for information, you know. And I don don't know it's just kind of funny how that was uh but yeah leave it in the comments i do read them little by little i think as my time frees up i think i will try to respond uh but a great way to get in contact with me is through the patreon there's a discord that is monitored by

peter and he will answer all your questions what did you eat what are you wearing you know those things uh thank you very much again and uh see you guys on the next episode