The Business of Jiu Jitsu

JP Levesque

0.0 (0)
Entrepreneurship
Updated Weekly

The business behind the gentle art - Conversations with gym/academy owners and industry leaders who are doing something unique and special to stand out.

3d ago

Ep. 122 - Fun First: How East Austin Jiu Jitsu Won Best Gym in the City - With William Watts

My guest this week is William Watts, co-owner of East Austin Jiu Jitsu. Two years open, several hundred members, 250+ five-star Google reviews, and voted best gym in Austin by the Austin Chronicle readers in their first year. Not best jiu jitsu gym. Best gym, period. And they haven't spent a cent on ads. William learned the business side before he ever opened. He helped a wellness brand open 165 locations in seven years, then worked in small business lending. Now he's put it all into a book. We get into how they make it fun without making it soft, how their 12-week fundamentals cycle works, actually coaching instead of just demonstrating, and the do's and don'ts of opening and running an academy. Why "fun" wins best gym in a city full of serious fitness peopleFun isn't goofy. Swap in "enjoyable." Solving problems and getting better is enjoyable. Being called stupid is not.Instructors demonstrate. Coaches adjust for the person in front of them. Most gyms don't coach.The 12-week fundamentals cycle, built around submissions and scoring positions, not guardsWhy beginners need an objective: what's the point of the game?Specific warm-ups tied to the day's technique, and telling students who the drill is actually forWhy black belts should partner with a business-minded purple belt instead of doing it all themselvesWhy most owners skip the business side: it's boring, they're tired, and they don't see the valueThe biggest don't when opening: never put anything in writing you're not 100% sure will happenTime blocking. Do one thing at a time. Put the phone out of reach.Ask students what they're working on, and connect members to each otherPaid ads are the last thing you do, not the firstBefore you open: what your gym is, who it's for, and why it needs to exist. One sentence, then one page.Make it fun. Most people want to train 2.3 times a week. Build the gym for them and the hardcore people will still work hard.Coach, don't just demonstrate. Bodies are different. Adjust the technique for the person in front of you.Say what you'll do, then do it. Schedule, opening date, all of it. If it's not certain, don't write it down.East Austin Jiu Jitsu: https://www.eastaustinjiujitsu.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eastaustinjiujitsu/The Jiu Jitsu Gym Operations Manual: How to Run the Best Gym in Your City Without Spending a Cent on Ads: https://a.co/d/0dBvuXG3 Want help growing your BJJ academy? Fill out the short form below and we'll hop on a quick 15-minute check-in call to see where your business is at. 👉 https://bdmlrby8e2s.typeform.com/to/aKsaYCA5
Sep 19

Ep. 121 - Paid ads waste money, organic content wastes time

Hell of a click bait title I know but there is A LOT of truth in it for most academy and gym owners. Tell me if this sounds familiar... "I post all the time. Why don't I have more students?" Or the other one: "I tried ads once, they didn't work." This episode is my whole philosophy on organic and paid for a jiu jitsu academy. Short version: organic is a vibe check for people who already found you. Paid is how strangers find you. Follow-up is what puts new students on the mat. Organic Don't hire someone to run it. Put that money into ads or retention.Organic is a store window. Do people see regular Joes having fun, or blast doubles and staph?Easiest content: belt promotions and stripes. Photo every time, quick five-question interview on every belt promotion.Also good: what a class is like, basic positions, how to tie your belt.Why your posts don't bring in leads: organic only reaches people already following you.Three posts a week, Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Viral reach doesn't help a local business.Get comfortable on camera. Ads need a face and it should be yours. Wear a rash guard.Attribution isn't worth chasing. Separate forms per lead source, and watch leads, trials, and sign-ups go up.Paid Nobody has ever come to me happy with their agency.Don't run ads until follow-up, a simple sales process, and onboarding are built. Six to eight weeks for most.Budget: about $30 a day, $1,000 a month. Less than that, don't bother.The offer: free class. Put a seasonal wrapper on it (back to school, bullyproof, no wasted winter). The season is the reason.The ad: you, selfie style, in a gi, walking your mat. "This is JP from ABC Jiu Jitsu, come try a free class, book below." That 24-second ad got me $5 leads for years.Three to five of those a week. Use the Edits app. Buy a wireless mic. People tolerate bad video, not bad audio.Why your leads "suck": Google leads were looking for you. Ad leads were on the couch scrolling. They're colder. Call them the minute they come in, or at least 10am and 3pm.The math: you lose about half at every stage. Reply, book, show, buy. That's the game.Agency or DIY? Invest 20 hours and run your own. If you go agency, $1,500 a month tops, by referral, and expect some months to flop.Keep lead nurture in-house. Not staff, not a third party, and not an AI robot.Timing: July and August are bad. Right now is great.Organic builds trust. Paid buys attention. Follow-up gets students on the mat.Your offer is a free class in a seasonal wrapper. Film it yourself, good audio, done.Don't spend on ads until you're willing to play the game. Call leads, book trials, sell, onboard.I've got room for two or three more academies looking for growth. Fill out the short form below and we'll hop on a quick phone call. No pitch, just a conversation. 👉 https://bdmlrby8e2s.typeform.com/to/aKsaYCA5
Sep 10

Ep. 120 - Keep students longer, build a better team with a SIMPLE onboarding process

Onboarding: The 90 Day Process That Turns a New White Belt Into a Long-Term Student Back to school season means new students walking through your door. This episode is about what you do with them once they're there. Onboarding is the piece in the middle. Lead gen and sales get people in the door. Retention is what you do with them week after week. Onboarding is the bridge between the two, and it's the part most academies skip entirely. I walk through the BJJ Retention Pyramid and the 90 day process that sits on top of it: safety and help, clarity and expectations, community and belonging, then the cycle of improvement that turns a member into a super fan. Then I show you how to actually run it, which is three sheets of paper and a couple of reminders in your CRM. Also worth doing this month if you run kids classes: an anti-bullying campaign. Good for enrollment, and it's a genuinely good service. Where onboarding sits between lead generation and retention, and why the middle is where you're losing peopleThe BJJ Retention Pyramid: safety and help, clarity and expectations, community and belongingDays 1 to 30 is safety and help. You're not going to get wrecked, and there are no stupid questions.Days 31 to 90 is a heavy dose of expectation setting plus communityWhy clarity and expectations is the biggest lever of the whole thingLooking at a client's churn report and finding the saveable losses hiding in itInjured students: most of them can keep training, and nobody ever told themThe homework sheet for students who can only watchSetting expectations around slumps and the blue belt blues before they hitScorecards for adults, report cards for kids, on a 90 day cycleWhat comes after 90 days: the cycle of improvement, then super fans who recruit for youThe actual system: three sheets of paper at day 1, day 30, and day 60Keep it to one page front and back, and bring a pen so you can personalize itWhy you need two versions, one for adults and one for parentsPutting a flagship event in every quarter so new students hit one inside their first 90Attendance is the number one predictor of retentionBuild the 30 day welcome sheet first. Five minutes after their first class, sit down and walk them through what the early days look like. It's the easiest win in your business and there's no excuse not to do it.Tell them what's coming before it happens. They can train through most injuries. They're going to hit a slump where they feel like they suck. Say it out loud on day one and you save people who would have quietly disappeared.Put the 60 and 90 day touch points in your CRM. You'll remember the first one. You will not remember the other two.Grab The Unstuck Academy, my free ebook. Quick read, goes deeper on retention and the systems behind it. There's also an episode where I read the whole thing if that's easier. 👉 https://growjitsu.com/free-book/
Aug 28

Ep. 119 - Staffing: Who to Hire, How to Manage Them, and When to Let Them Go

This episode is about staffing your academy, start to finish. I break it into three parts. First, who to hire when you're still wearing all the hats, and why your first real hire off the floor is an admin, not another coach. Second, how to actually manage staff once you've got them: roles and tasks, SOPs, objective standards, incentives, and quarterly reviews. Third, hiring and firing, how to grow coaches from inside your own room, how to onboard them, and how to know when somebody has to go. The through line: if your staff is underperforming, it's usually because you never made it clear what "performing" looks like. That's on you, not them. Why an admin is your first hire, not a coachThe math on paying somebody $1,500/month and what you have to go generate to justify itHead coach + assistant for every program (two layers of redundancy, always)Roles and tasks vs. SOPs — two different documents, and why you need bothTake a picture of the clean front desk. Seriously. Put it in the SOP.Making everything objectively measurable so reviews aren't "I feel like you're not trying"Bonuses and incentives that get profiles filled out and waivers signedQuarterly reviews as a relationship deposit, and knowing each person's actual motivationReviewing coaches by walking a student's experience through the classHow to give feedback without making somebody cry (learned that one the hard way)Gino Wickman's GWC screen: do they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity? Run it. You'll find a lot of people in the wrong seat.Farming your own coaches with a paid "how to teach" courseOnboarding staff the same way you onboard students — 30/60/90 with real touch pointsHire slow, fire fast. And a don't-shit-where-you-eat policy.Roles, tasks, and SOPs. If it's not written down, it's not their fault it didn't happen. It's yours.Buy back your time. Read The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Audiobook counts. Just do it.Onboard and review your staff on a cycle. You don't find your best staff members — you make them. Same as your students.Grab The Unstuck Academy, free ebook, quick read, goes deeper on a lot of this. There's also a podcast episode where I read the whole thing to you if that's more your speed. 👉 https://growjitsu.com/free-book/
Aug 14

Ep. 118 - What BJJ Academy owners about increasing revenue, and how to fix it.

If your adults program and kids program aren't where they need to be, adding a fitness kickboxing class or a kettlebell program isn't going to fix your revenue problem. It's just going to split your attention. This episode is JP's breakdown of where academy owners actually need to focus to grow monthly recurring revenue and why the answer is almost never "start something new." In this episode: The unfinished wheel analogy and why adding new programs before your core is dialed is a losing moveWhy fitness kickboxing, yoga, and extra class types almost always fizzle out and what to do with that time insteadThe front end offer that works: a paid intro program that charges $500+ upfront and gives new students a clear outcomeWhy confidence in your offer comes from reps and how to get there fastThe full student journey broken down: leads, trials, onboarding, retention and what needs to be in place at every stepWhy the sales conversation isn't scary when you prefame it before class even startsThe 30, 60, and 90-day onboarding handouts that build trust and set realistic expectationsThe student scorecard, a 90-day check-in that coaches your students through their own progressWhat at-risk student follow-up actually looks like when it's documented and done consistentlyWhy word of mouth is a gift, not a strategy and what dependable lead generation actually requiresThe reactivation bucket: what to do with leads who didn't join after their trialWhy most gyms aren't doing any of this consistently and how one Google Drive folder changes thatWant to go deeper on all of this? Download the free Unstuck Academy ebook at -htts://growjitsu.com/free-book or listen to the audiobook version right here on this podcast. Link below. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3XrZoaKELM5gSrrsnpcrRo?si=vhJvpSdgQ8uF7sHE6jAXYA
Aug 7

Ep. 117 - Systemize Your Academy Before September

JP's back after a big move from Calgary down to the Coeur d'Alene area and he's got a timely reminder for every academy owner heading into the back half of summer. The jiu-jitsu side of your business is the cart. But without wheels and a track, you're just pushing a heavy ass cart at a snails pace. Now is the time to fix that. In this episode: The minecart analogy, why your coaching ability alone isn't enough to create growthA real gym JP is working with right now: best July on record, no paid marketing, just systems built during the summerWhy you should NOT start paid ads for the first time in June, July, or AugustThe QR code system that answers your most-asked questions so you don't have toHow to build a leave-behind for prospects who say "I need to think about it"The full student journey broken down: lead → trial → onboarding → retention — and what needs to be documented at every stageWhy you make great students, you don't find themWhat onboarding actually looks like — and why one bad roll can lose a white belt foreverThe retention cadence: what you should be doing daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly to keep students engagedWhy following up with your own leads is still the highest-leverage thing you can do (and why nobody else will ever care as much as you)Google reviews: the most underrated free marketing move most gyms are leaving on the tableHow to use AI to format your SOPs without letting it write them for youWant a head start on building the backend of your academy? Download JP's free ebook — The Unstuck Academy — https://growjitsu.com/free-book. It's the starting point for leaning into the business side of your gym and getting those wheels on the cart.
Jun 18

Ep. 116 - Chris Haueter - "It's not who's the best, it's who's left" applied to business, life, and training as you age.

"I can tell almost instantly if an academy is going to be successful or not, and it almost rarely has to do with the aesthetics." — Chris Haueter In this episode I sit down with Chris Haueter one of the original American BJJ black belts and a coach who's taught at academies all over the world, from packed warehouses to hole-in-the-wall strip malls. We get into what actually separates a successful jiu jitsu academy from one that folds: healthy leadership that still rolls and competes, why "location, location, location" only half-applies to a BJJ school, and how a welcoming room quietly absorbs students fleeing toxic, culty academies down the street. Chris breaks down how to give white belts the best shot at surviving the early humps, why one unchecked person can poison a mat, and his rules of engagement for keeping people healthy and coming back. Then we go deep on training for the long game, what jiu jitsu feels like through your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, and his "relax, frame, flow" and "dance, don't fight" approach to rolling for decades without breaking yourself. Chris is a true pioneer of the art, one of the famed "Dirty Dozen," the first generation of Americans to earn a BJJ black belt, on the mats since the sport's earliest days outside Rio. He's coached black belts who've gone on to build successful academies of their own, and he carries the kind of perspective you only get from 30+ years of doing this and watching schools rise and fall around him. When he talks about what makes a room work, it's worth shutting up and listening. Connect with Chris here: Website: https://combatbase.com/ Instagram Combat Base Club: https://www.instagram.com/combatbaseclub/Combat Base Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/combatbasepodcast/Chris Haueter (main, "Dirty Dozen" account): https://www.instagram.com/chrishaueter96/Chris Haueter (art): https://www.instagram.com/chrishaueterart/Combat Base Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0oEX16lMu5v9AVRUA7d2nt Free resources for BJJ Academy owners:The Unstuck Academy (free book): https://growjitsu.com/free-book/BJJ Business Scorecard (free metrics sheet): https://growjitsu.com/bjj-business-scorecard/
Jun 12

Ep. 115 - If running your BJJ Academy feels like a gamble listen to this.

"Opening a jiu jitsu academy is a gamble." Students come, students go, and you never know what's going to happen — at least, that's the story a lot of academy owners tell themselves. But if a skilled operator took over your academy tomorrow, would it still be a coin flip? If they could grow it with 100% certainty, it was never a gamble. It's a skill deficit. In this episode, I break down why "it's a gamble" thinking keeps BJJ academy owners stuck — and lay out an eight-week summer plan to take back control before the July–August slump: metrics, pricing, website and Google reviews, lead follow-up, the trial and sales experience, onboarding and retention, internal marketing, and running your own paid ads. There's no magic bullet — it's a hundred golden BBs. Stack enough things in your favor and you're not gambling anymore. You're the house. Three to four hours a week, working ON the business instead of in it. My name is JP, I'm the founder of Grow Jitsu. I help BJJ academy owners clean up their business model, student journey, and simple owner-run marketing so they can grow past the 80–150 student ceiling without selling out the art or burning out. Links mentioned in this episode:The Unstuck Academy (free book): https://growjitsu.com/free-book/BJJ Business Scorecard (free metrics sheet): https://growjitsu.com/bjj-business-scorecard/ Want help applying this to your academy? Book a free BJJ Growth Plan Call: https://growjitsu.com/call/

Trailer

Welcome to the Profitable Gyms Podcast!

Here is a quick run down on the show!

The business behind the gentle art - Conversations with gym/academy owners and industry leaders who are doing something unique and special to stand out.

Creator

JP Levesque
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

122
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© JP Levesque
Show Website

The Business of Jiu Jitsu

Health & Fitness

Health & Fitness

Updated Biweekly
Wrestling

Wrestling

Updated Jul 8
Wrestling

Wrestling

Updated Weekly
Sports

Sports

Updated Weekly