Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast

George Fourie
  • 5.0 (2)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED BIMONTHLY

Tune in as George Fourie from Martial Arts Media™ covers Marketing Tips and Strategies for Martial Arts Business and School Owners. Get modern ideas from the digital world for lead generation and retention. Guest interviews with successful industry experts.

  1. MAR 3

    How Robbie Built 3 Successful Martial Arts Schools Working 2-3 Days a Week

    From multiple martial arts schools to semi-retired: How Robbie built systems that run his IMC martial arts business empire while he works just 2-3 days a week. IN THIS EPISODE: Why Robbie deliberately stopped being "the face" of his schoolsThe 5-year instructor-to-owner career path system revealedHow 80 students earning $2,000/month exposed the #1 business killerThe conversation that unlocks team freedom: "Do you want this job?"Inside Robbie's Level Up Summit with Australia's top martial arts minds"Those who want something find a way, those who don't find an excuse"And more *Bring 50 Enrollments Into Your Martial Arts School Every 90 Days Need help growing your martial arts school? Watch Training + Take The Assessment

    27 min

  2. FEB 18

    How This Martial Arts School Owner Grew 127K Instagram Followers

    168 - The 5A Content System: How This Martial Arts School Owner Grew 127K Instagram Followers Alan La from Invincible HQ™, grew to 127K Instagram followers using his 5A Content System,without fancy equipment or viral stunts. In this episode, he breaks down how martial arts school owners can escape the "instructor trap" and create content that actually converts. IN THIS EPISODE: Why the martial arts industry is falling behind in marketingWhy "fly on the wall" content beats produced videosThe $20 tool that makes the biggest differenceHow to turn existing classes into weeks of contentThe 5A Content System (Authority, Access, Applause, Ascension, Action)Making martial arts less intimidating through behind-the-scenes contentAnd more *Bring 50 Enrollments Into Your Martial Arts School Every 90 Days Need help growing your martial arts school? Watch Training + Take The Assessment TRANSCRIPTION ALAN: So I literally started on the streets and, you know, really just trying to find enough students to keep the dream alive. And I’ll be honest, like back then, I didn’t have a massive marketing budget. I didn’t have money, pretty much, but I was fortunate enough to be starting my school right when social media was beginning. And I took that as an option. I saw social media was this thing where it gave me the ultimate kind of equaliser with other massive schools that have been established for like decades. GEORGE: Hey, it’s George. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today I’m joined with Alan La from Invincible HQ. How are you doing, Alan? ALAN: I’m good. Thank you, George. Just want to say again, thank you for having me on and look forward to see how I can help school owners and coaches. GEORGE: Amazing. So a little bit of context that led to this interview. So I met Alan at one of our Partners Intensive events in Sydney, and we just had a brief little chat, spoke marketing, spoke ads. It was in between sessions. And then I had a look at Alan’s socials and I was watching some of his Instagram stuff that he was doing. Firstly, if you want to be inspired as a martial artist, Alan’s skill and kicks are just bar none. But then together with that, just watching how he packaged everything and then just seeing the amount of mass following that Alan has, I think it was 127,000 followers on Instagram. So to learn here from Alan as what he does as a martial artist, but also from the publishing standpoint and growing a mass audience, which are three skills that you very rarely see together in the martial arts space. So thanks so much for jumping on, Alan. ALAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m grateful to be here. GEORGE: Awesome. So let’s just, I always like to just start from the beginning. What’s a bit of your background? What got you started in martial arts? And we can go from there. ALAN: Okay. Well, first of all, I’m Alan La and I’m the founder of Invincible Worldwide. And most people see me as the guy with a hundred K followers and 20 million views. And they assume that I’ve got some secret marketing degree or whatever. What a lot of people don’t know is that I started out as the furthest thing from what you call the influencer thing. I was a shy kid, just started teaching martial arts in the back of my parents’ house when I finished high school and eventually that grew and then I had to move out to local PCYCs and stuff like that. But then sometimes we’d get kicked out. So I had to teach in local car parks. And so I literally started on the streets and, you know, really just trying to find enough students to keep the dream alive. And I’ll be honest, back then I didn’t have a massive marketing budget. I didn’t have money. Yeah, pretty much. But I was fortunate enough to be starting my school right when social media was beginning. ALAN: And I took that as an option. I saw social media was this thing where it gave me the ultimate kind of equaliser with other massive schools that have been established for like decades. So I decided I’m going to go all in on trying to figure out this social media thing. And I thought that was my way to kind of be heard and get my name out there. I remember then this was like early stages, once a couple of our YouTube videos took off and went viral. I thought, oh, this is amazing, seeing the results. And then I thought, all right, cool. I’ve got this kind of formula and I’ll start playing around with this, experiment with it. ALAN: And then as you know, social media evolved and changes. So I’ve seen it from the early days of YouTube to now Instagram Reels, Instagram carousels and Stories and it’s constantly changing. But what I’ve noticed is that yes, these things change and it’s not about luck, right? I’ve actually realised it’s actually systems and principles. And so I’ve used the same principles to go viral on Instagram as well. And it’s just systems. ALAN: So what I’ve realised is it’s not luck and don’t chase luck or trends. So I’ve used the same principles to now run a seven figure school in Sydney and also be able to help school owners to install the same proven systems to build and also build their team. So they can stop trading hours for dollars and finally build a business that kind of supports their life and do what they want to do. ALAN: Because when I look at a lot of school owners, I feel like particularly in martial arts, we tend to get stuck in our old ways and we like to just stick to tradition. As much as we try to keep up with the pace of where the modern world is going, I feel like as an industry, we’re not enough. You know, there are a lot of industries out there where things have moved so fast, but in martial arts, I don’t know, we’re a bit slow. So I’m passionate about really helping school owners and coaches to push forward and yeah, that’s why I’m grateful to be here with you, George and share whatever I can. GEORGE: It’s interesting you mentioned the level playing field because that now again is actually just levelled again. And I’d love to dive into your systems and principles because that’s sort of the language that I resonate with and then everybody can adapt and add their own unique ability to it. But if you think of you saw social media as this opportunity, I can kind of recall when I started this podcast, I also saw it as an opportunity to just, well, nobody’s really doing these kinds of things and it’s good to just use it as a platform. GEORGE: But the old model of you needed all these followers was like, that was the method. And for anyone paying attention to social media now, there’s been this shift of social to interest-based where the algorithms go by interest. And so I guess if you think of what makes this chat with you today relevant is you’ve got all this experience and you’ve got this mass following, but for anybody that’s maybe not there and starting out, adapting principles and being able to produce good content can actually get you the same virality now without the mass following. And so that’s where the algorithms have evolved to. GEORGE: So I would like, and if you could share whatever you feel comfortable sharing, but you mentioned the systems and the principles. How do you go about that? How do you look at content in a way, in a system that gets you the visibility that you’re after? ALAN: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s always changed. For example, Instagram, when it first started, I remember hitting over just 500 followers. I was like, oh man, I got so excited. And then you get to a thousand, you get really excited. And back then it was about the followers. The more followers you had and the more likes, you felt good. And you’re absolutely right, just probably a couple of months ago, Instagram now is all about the views. No one cares about the likes or the followers anymore. And they’ve kind of levelled out the playing field where someone who has fewer followers might actually get more reach than someone who’s got hundreds of thousands of followers. So it’s actually levelled the playing ground really, really well. ALAN: So what that means now even more is that the content that you’re creating has to be even more interesting. Whereas in the past, you just kind of create your own content and if people like it, people will follow. But now you’ve really got to have the ability to capture people’s attention really, really fast, within three seconds. So I think that’s a big thing. ALAN: Going back to principles, I always believe in principles, same thing growing my martial arts school. I don’t believe in following trends. I think you have to be different. Being different is what captures people’s attention. If they scroll and you look the same as every other martial...

    30 min

  3. JAN 19

    How A BJJ School Owner Escaped Manual Lead Follow-Up Hell (And Improved Conversions)

    David Jenkinson reveals how his BJJ school automated 50% of lead follow-up while improving conversions. The system that handles price objections. IN THIS EPISODE: Why David was "worried about bothering people" (and how it was secretly killing conversions)The automation breakthrough that handles price shoppers better than humansHow BJJ leads actually prefer talking to a bot first (the psychology behind it)The two types of prospects every BJJ school gets (and how to automate for both)Why 50% of leads now book trials without any human interventionThe follow-up sequence that works while you're teaching classesHow to balance automation with personal touches that close enrollmentsFrom manual follow-up burnout to systematic conversion: What changedThe "guinea pig" experiment now transforming BJJ lead management TRANSCRIPTION George: Hey, it's George. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today, I've got David Jenkinson from Hawkesbury BJJ. How are you doing, David? David: I'm good, mate. How are you? George: Good, good. So we talk a lot in the Partner’s call. I wanted to bring you on. You've been in the group for quite a long time. I like these calls to sort of capture where progress is at, but also really get to know you better and have a conversation. See where the martial arts came up and take it where it comes. David: Sounds good. George: Cool, cool. Fill us in. Fill in the gaps, I guess. Where did martial arts all start for you? And what's the journey? How did the journey evolve to where you are today? David: I started later in life, I guess you could say. I started training at 22. I've always been interested in martial arts. Growing up in the 90s, you watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and all this sort of thing. Mum actually went to sign me up for karate when I was younger, but I chickened out. So it wasn't until a little bit later when I started to get interested in mixed martial arts. I discovered the UFC through a Smashing Machine documentary. Not the Rock one, the original one. I was just super interested in watching these fights. And one thing that really interested me was whenever Joe Rogan was talking about a specific style, he'd always bring up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. That was the black belt that he held up really highly. I was sort of curious about what it was. I learned a lot from his commentary. I learned about how you could win a fight from the ground. And not just from the ground, but off your back from what would normally be considered an inferior position. And it would just seem like in 2005, just a crazy strategy to take the fight to the ground and strangle somebody. This is mainstream ideas now, kids doing martial arts. But back then, it was quite a wild concept, right? So I decided to take a class. I took my first class at a gym in Liverpool, Sinosic Perosh Martial Arts. And at that time, there weren't many schools. So I was really lucky that I had those guys there, high-level black belts. Elvis competed in the UFC himself. I trained there for a little bit and loved it. It was a little bit far for me to travel from my place in Mount Druitt. So I stopped going there and then found another gym a bit closer in Penrith with the Te Huna Brothers, EFG. And from there, picked up Jiu-Jitsu again with Fabio Galeb. He opened his school, and I got my black belt from Fabio—sorry, blue belt from Fabio. And then he moved up to Surfers, and I started training with Chris Sales and went through to black belt with him.

    33 min

  4. JAN 12

    7 Martial Arts Programs, 1 Small Town, World Championship Results

    Craig Harmer discusses operating multiple martial arts programs in a small town while balancing a full-time law enforcement career and competing at world championship level. IN THIS EPISODE: How to successfully operate Taekwondo, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, and 4 other programs simultaneouslyFrom 50 struggling members to 150+ profitable studentsWhy world championship success matters for small-town business credibilityThe challenge of competing with rugby, cricket, soccer, and every other local sportHow law enforcement skills create better martial arts instructionDoubling revenue without doubling membership — the exact strategy TRANSCRIPTION George: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So today I'm with Craig Harmer and I almost want to say you're probably the busiest guy on the planet, right? Craig: It seems like it sometimes. As we were talking offline, I went to the world championships recently and some of the competitors were talking about how busy they were. One of the other coaches said, busy? You don't know what busy is. Talk to this guy. So I went through my timetable during the week and they were like, yeah, I'm going to shut up now. So everyone's busy. Everyone's got stuff to do. Just get it done. George: A hundred percent. So let's, well, let's dive into that, right? You're a lifelong martial artist. You are still running a full-time job. Craig: Yes. George: And you're running a super successful dojo. Do you refer to it as a dojo, school, academy? Craig: We call it, because I guess we have a number of different programs, I like to call it an academy. George: Academy, cool. Craig: I stole that from our head coach, John Will, as well. It's a place of learning. It was designed to be called Goulburn Martial Arts Academy. I want it to be ownership for everyone that walks through the academy. I didn't want it just to be Craig Harmer's or whatever. I want everyone that walks in to feel as though it's their place to be able to come and learn. So yeah, it's an academy, I guess.

    34 min

  5. JAN 7

    Building A 250-Student Karate & BJJ School In A Tiny Town

    Frank Cirillo teaches both Kyokushin Karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in a town of 26,000 people. Here's how he built 250 students and achieved financial freedom by combining traditional and modern martial arts. IN THIS EPISODE: How Frank started teaching BJJ as a white belt because no instructor was availableWhy combining hard-style karate with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu created unstoppable programsThe pricing mindset that transformed Frank's business after 18 yearsHow small-town dynamics actually work in favor of premium martial arts programsWhy parents said "it's about time" when Frank finally valued his expertise properlyThe business advantage of being a multi-disciplinary martial arts expert TRANSCRIPTION George: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So this episode is one of my favorite episodes to do, which is a bit of a blend of a case study, but then also a deep dive and getting to know some of our Partner members a bit better. So, welcome to the call, Frank Cirillo. How are you, Frank? Frank: How are you, George? Great to be here. George: Awesome. Cool. So, I was just looking, we started working together back in October, and I wanted to bring you on. You've had some great success and achieved some great milestones in your business, but I want to, I guess, have the conversation that we don't typically have on the calls and get to know the entire journey, how this all began and so forth. So we can just kick it off right at the beginning. Who is Frank Cirillo? Frank: The deep question. George: The deep one. Frank: Well, mostly Frank is a family-orientated person. Everything I do is for my family. And now we've got a granddaughter in the mix who's a week old as well. George: Congratulations. Frank: Thank you. Thank you. That's a bit of a life changer right there. When it comes to martial arts, I've been doing it. I started kind of late because I started in my teens, and I've been doing it ever since: judo, karate, and then much, much later into my adult life, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. We are from an isolated area in country New South Wales. So, it had its challenges as well. The information that we sort of were taught from my past instructors was, I won't say limited, but it took a long time to get any updated information, which I was hell-bent on fixing when I took over; I was hell-bent on fixing that. So lots and lots of travel and trying to work with some of the best in the country and overseas so I could bring, to become more well-rounded for myself and to be able to offer much better services, much better martial arts here in Griffith and surrounds. And it's been a really long journey, but it's finally starting to pay dividends. We didn't have any Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu anywhere near our area. So that's a crazy story in itself. Well, I don't know how many people out there, I'm sure there are, but there are instructors. I went through two or three instructors till we found coach Anthony Perosh through a mutual friend. He was fighting in the UFC at the time, and a mutual friend contacted him and then asked me to contact Anthony. And he started off as we do as white belts, but we were instructing here as white belts as well and travelling back and forth to Sydney, following a syllabus, a little film clips, etc. So yeah, it was very strange to be offering classes as a white belt, but there was no one here. So we, there was a group of us, 10 or so people. And what it is now is a whole bunch of us; like anyone that walks in now, they don't know the difference because we've got our black belts. So no one asks anything now. And now we have little kids' classes, intermediate classes. I have an instructor who runs classes 50, 60 Ks out of town himself. It's just been a real eye-opener that if you stick to things, it's amazing how things tend to pan out sooner or later. And I'm so glad that we stuck it out. It hasn't been easy. It's been very hard out here and balancing two martial arts, very different from one another. And they're hard, hard, hard martial arts. I couldn't do it any other way after doing Kyokushin karate for so long. It had to be something equally as hard and realistic. That's really important to me.

    32 min

  6. 12/15/2025

    164 - How 1 Pricing Shift Let Daniel Quit His Job & Build a Profitable 500 - Student Martial Arts School

    Lifelong martial artist Daniel Jancek shares how fixing pricing and surrounding himself with growth-driven school owners helped him step away from his job and go all-in on his martial arts business. IN THIS EPISODE: How a simple pricing mistake kept a 500-student school stuck.Why shifting from pay-as-you-go to real memberships created instant stability.The fear every school owner faces when raising tuition and what actually happened.How to identify the families who truly value your program.Why premium pricing increases commitment and reduces afterthought attendance.The power of building decisions inside a room of growth-driven school owners. TRANSCRIPTION George: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to the Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. Today, I am with Daniel Jancek. How are you, Daniel? Daniel: Good, George. How are you? George: Good. Did I say Jancek? Did I say it in the proper accent? All right, cool. So I'm going to give a brief intro, but I'm going to let Daniel tell the story. This is sort of a cool part where I get to interview people that are in the Partners group. We tell a bit of a case story, but I also get to chat about things that just probably don't just come up in conversation. So it's a great opportunity for me to get to know Daniel better and just talk about his journey in martial arts. They've had great success in martial arts over the last year, especially going full-time. So we'll dive a bit deeper into that. But yeah, welcome to the call, Daniel. I appreciate it. Daniel: So thanks for having me. George: Cool. So I guess just start right at the beginning for those of you that don't know who you are. Just give us a bit of background on you, your journey, martial arts, and where you got started. Daniel: Yeah, No, love to. So yeah, I basically was a bit of an energetic kid. I suppose you could say when I was really young, I had a lot of energy that I needed to release. I'm a little bit aggressive at times. I was not the most well-behaved kid. So I got into football at a really young age when I was four years old. And when I was about five and a half, yeah. My mom and dad thought it'd be really good to get me into martial arts once a week. So I brought a newsletter home from school. It was like a newsletter pamphlet drop that I got in school. I took that home to Mom and handed that to her and went for our first lesson. And yeah, really never looked back. So I'm 35 now. Well, yeah, going close to 36. It's been a good 30 years that I've been doing martial arts nonstop for. I started as a five-and-a-half-year-old kid that thought it looked pretty cool. I liked the logo. That's what sort of got my attention. It was a boxing kangaroo. The rest is history.

    24 min

  7. 12/10/2025

    163 – How Horizon Taekwondo Scaled From 40 to 250 Members Within 4 Years

    Tom Lowe grew Horizon Taekwondo from 40 to 250 students after a year-long plateau at 200. In this episode we discuss how he broke founder-dependency, and rebuilt the school with stronger systems and support. IN THIS EPISODE: The long plateau around 200 students and what helped shift momentum againThe identity change required to stop doing everything aloneHow building an instructor team opened space for growth and balanceHow conversations with other school owners fast-tracked decision-making and confidenceThe value of shared insight from a community of school owners facing similar growth milestones TRANSCRIPTION George: Hey, it's George Fourie. Welcome to another Martial Arts Media™ Business Podcast. So today I've got a guest with me that we've probably got a long overdue catch up. We have been working together for around four years, I think I looked earlier, since about August 2021. So Tom's come a long way with Horizon Taekwondo. And yeah, we just want to go back on the journey. How it all started, who Tom is, and where he's at right now in his martial arts journey. So welcome to the call, Tom. Tom: Thanks George, nice to be here. George: Good stuff. So we've got to start at the beginning. Who is Tom Lowe? Tom: I'm Tom from Adelaide in South Australia. I've got a wife and two kids; one's 10, one's 3. And I've been running my own martial arts club for about four and a half years now. George: Four and a half years, cool. So we didn't actually then start working; we started working together pretty soon after you opened up, right? Tom: Yes, correct. George: Cool. Okay. So let's, before we jump into the business and the nuts and bolts, give us some context. Like how did the martial arts journey happen? What made you decide on going ahead with the school?

    24 min

  8. 12/02/2025

    162 – Martial Arts Marketing: Why Your Leads Ghost You (And The Automation That Fixes It)

    Getting martial arts leads but they keep disappearing? You're not alone. Most martial arts school owners blame "tyre kicker" leads, but the real problem is your follow-ups. Here’s the exact automation system that fixes it. IN THIS EPISODE: Why calling leads "tyre kickers" kills your martial arts business growthThe 60-second automation system that stops lead ghostingHow Amanda turned 11 martial arts leads into 7 premium signups ($83 cost per student)The martial arts marketing follow-up sequence that works across email, SMS, and voicemailWhy Facebook's Andromeda algorithm changes affect your martial arts school adsThe content strategy that creates higher-quality martial arts leads TRANSCRIPTION The world of martial arts marketing, marketing your martial arts school. So let's say you're running ads at the moment; it could be through Facebook, through Google. They typically take a different pathway or a different strategy. So maybe we'll lean into Facebook for now. But regarding leads in general, let's say you are running a campaign and you've got lead enquiries coming in and they just ghost you. So you're all excited, you get a lead notification, see the phone number, and perhaps you pick up the phone and call them. No answer. You try to message them. No answer. So what's the deal? Are all these leads just notoriously bad? Is it just a distraction? Is it too hard to get hold of people? I'm recording this close to December right now. Are people just more distracted than ever, and it's hard to get hold of them? Or are they just all the leads, martial arts leads, just tyre kickers? There are a few things that we can consider here. And if you are in the scenario where you're getting leads and they are ghosting you, there are a few things that could be wrong. Number one, I think I want to address the mindset around leads. And a lot of times I hear school owners talk about how leads are tyre kickers, and it's not typically their fault. Because let's say you're running a campaign and you've got one lead notification, two, three, four, and you can't get hold of anybody. And four leads in, all of a sudden your entire mindset is shifted. You feel here's another time waster.

    14 min
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Tune in as George Fourie from Martial Arts Media™ covers Marketing Tips and Strategies for Martial Arts Business and School Owners. Get modern ideas from the digital world for lead generation and retention. Guest interviews with successful industry experts.

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