Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Wai. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi John, thanks for joining us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

We manage our own social media. Our entire team is trained to capture content each day for posting. Plus we have a team of videographers and photographers than come in weekly to focus on specific topics. Each week, our team comes up with content ideas and they will be implemented that same week.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My martial arts academy is celebrating its 25th year and we offer Muay Thai, Kickboxing, MMA, Kung Fu & Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for Kids and Adults in Plantation, Florida. I started training martial arts in my early teens to learn self defense so I could stand up for myself and it was never my goal to open my own martial arts academy. While I was training at another martial arts school, a new head Instructor came in and totally mismanaged the operation. It became a drama type of environment. This motivated me to open my own academy where it would be open for everyone and anyone, no egos, no cliques and high quality martial arts programs.

Our product is martial arts but what my business offers is a positive environment, camaraderie amongst is members and everyone is accepted for who they are.

After 25 years, we have over 400+ members training in over 70 classes per week. We have a family like atmosphere and everyone gets treated as part of the team. The goal is to promote a healthy lifestyle through martial arts training.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

The key to our success IS our team of Instructors/staff. It is important for our entire team to be on the same page and we achieve this with our weekly team meetings. During these meetings, we brain storm and listen to everyone’s input. We plan out our priorities for the week, what content we will create for social media, any special events and of course any issues that require our immediate attention.

It is important for us that all of our principles align with each other. That means we all love martial arts, we all have to train martial arts, and practice what we teach and that is to be open to everyone that walks through our doors.

Every one of our team members have to be rock star and be on point when they come to work. Our members expect the best and we have to offer the best class, every class.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Social media and PR plays an important role in our marketing mix. Because we are a community base business, we always need to connect with our local market. Our academy is involved with local community event plus we also offer free workshops for kids and adults. Two main topics that we have focus on is Kids Anti-bullying and Women’s Self Defense. These workshops are free to our local community and we have been promoting these events since we first opened.

We have extremely active in our social media and videos are our main medium. We focus on our members and how they have used martial arts to gain better health, lose weight or other challenges that they have faced. We highlight our team’s success and also show behind the scene activities which gives our audience a glimpse of the personalities of our Instructors.

Public Relations is high on our priority list. Our academy has been featured on tv, newspapers and magazines which is an important part of our branding process.

We are always in front of our local audience and at any time they develop an interest in training martial arts, we want them to think of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: johnwaimartialarts.com
• Instagram: @johnwaimartialarts
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnwaimartialarts
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnWaiMartialArts