We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicklaus Suino a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nicklaus, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

Running businesses means consistently and authentically asking for people to support your business. But pivotal moments make the “ask” more urgent and urge us to share our most compelling reasons for supporting what we do.

In late 2005, I found myself in job that I hated (and that hated me), and I started considering going to back to my roots – to open a dojo teaching Japanese martial arts. During the holidays I gathered 4 friends at a PF Chang’s in Lansing, Michigan, and shared my dream of a new dojo in Ann Arbor. The vision was to teach superb, world-class Japanese martial arts in positive, inspired atmosphere. Before we left the table, each of those friends had pulled out their checkbooks and written 5-figure checks. We had our start up fund!

Fast forward 5 years, and our now 100-person dojo was forced to move. Our landlord was selling his land to make way for a new Costco, and he asked us to find a new location. Between the urgency and the need to rebuild and expand, we estimated that we’d need around $53,000 to make the move. Digging deep to understand why our students should consider supporting our next step, I wrote and rewrote an email that would end up going out to all our students. Within three days, we had pledges of $67,000 in annual and multi-year dues payments … more than enough to build out our new location!

Nicklaus, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

For over three decades, I’ve worked very hard to guide thousands of people to become more centered, happier, and more successful. I’ve been called “one of the leading martial arts instructors in North America,” but my goal is to have a positive influence far beyond the dojo. I’ve made it my life’s mission to learn the fundamental principles of success in many different fields, apply them, and share them with people.

I’ve authored ten books, including THE FLYWHEEL, LOOK UP! and BUDO MIND AND BODY (named “Essential Gear” by Black Belt Magazine), and have helped transform professionals, business owners, athletes, martial artists, and ordinary people with my presentations, group training and coaching. My book PRACTICE DRILLS FOR JAPANESE SWORDSMANSHIP spent many weeks as the #1 selling title in the Fencing Books category on Amazon.
I own all or part of successful businesses in diverse fields like martial arts, marketing, publishing and law. I’ve been lucky enough to have been honored by the University of Michigan–Dearborn as “Mentor of the Year”; by the Bluewater Chamber of Commerce’s Business Expo for advancing entrepreneurship; and by the International Martial Arts Federation for supporting traditional Japanese budo. My story and my work have been featured in a wide range of publications, including Black Belt Magazine, The ANN Magazine, and the Journal of Asian Martial Arts.

I and my teams have a commitment to support worthwhile causes – it’s an essential part of our mission. We’ve donated to dozens of organizations in the past decade, including Fisher House of Michigan, Boy Scouts of America, Alzheimer’s Association, SafeHouse of Ann Arbor, Center for Independent Living, Wounded Warrior Project and Blue Star Service Dogs.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

After starting JMAC in 2006, I spent several months attending business networking events like BNI, Caerusnet, and many others. Each time we’d go around the room to explain what we did, I found myself urging business people to take up martial arts. No matter how compelling I thought my explanations were, I had no takers.

But I listened carefully to what was being said by the others. There was a common theme – “how do I get more business?”

It finally dawned on me. I had spent the first three months of JMAC learning digital marketing, and had built a solid dojo on the basis of what I had learned. I knew what needed to be done online to build awareness, leads and sales.

Little by little, I started meeting with other business people and sharing what I knew. Little by little, those who took the steps I recommended started to see more leads and sales. A few found the work daunting, so they asked if I would do the work. Soon, my business partner Don Prior and I were handling a dozen accounts. 16 years later, we have thriving digital marketing agency that has done several millions dollars in sales.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

It’s amazing how simple it is to do a decent job on social media, and how hard it is for people to do those simple things consistently over the long therm.

The key is … wait for it … to provide interesting content on platforms that your target clients use. That’s it!

Well, sort of. You start by posting about things that you (and hopefully they) find interesting. You keep doing it, probably a lot more often than most people think you should, and pay attention to the results. The first place people fail is that they post a couple times, or for a week, or a month, then get busy with something else and stop posting. The second place people fail is that they fall into a rut and keep posting without taking notice of what’s working and what’s not working.

It can be a lot of work, which is why a lot of small businesses hire an agency. But whether you do your own posting or have someone else do it for you, the recipe is the same – compelling content, posted consistently on platforms your target clients use, with careful attention paid to what works and what doesn’t.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nicklaus-suino.com/about
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/japanesemartialartscenter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Japanese.Martial.Arts.Center
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/japanese-martial-arts-center/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jmacannarbor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtui7W52umFhCBktBCRdpoA