Marketing
Is All Inclusive
Pricing the
Future?
H
ow does a studio go from a $500
black belt testing fee to no testing
fees over night? For good measure,
no equipment fees or event fees either, yet it still manages to generate over 500K
per year per location?
Three years ago my daughters were enrolled
at a private school here in the Silicon Valley of
California. The tuition was high for this school
(even for private school standards). In spite
of the high tuition, the administrators were
consistently and constantly asking for donations from the parents of the student body.
They would host events every other month
to “raise money for this and raise money for
that”.
I approached the director of the school with
the idea of a studio partnership by having
the school sell our guest memberships and
they can keep 100% of the money (kinda like
58
Dojo Nation • March 2015
By Kevin Waldsmicht
a Groupon). This offer was rejected, as they
only wanted to receive donations from families and not from businesses. This was frustrating because I believed that I was looking
for a win/win. I suggested that they should
consider raising tuition, as I hated being constantly asked for money and being nickeled
and dimed to death, but it continued and got
worse.
For Mother’s Day that year, I flew my family
to Cabo for a vacation. It was our first time
to Cabo and we loved it. You see my wife
was able to purchase an all inclusive package
including food and drinks. It was GREAT! My
daughters wanted a hamburger, no problem
they got a hamburger. Bucket of beers and
BOOM there it was. Yes, it was slightly more
expensive than the NOTELL 6, but I actually
got the opportunity to enjoy my vacation and
not reaching for my wallet every 4 hours. I