We do it because it is hard

From the very beginning it was a deliberate decision to try to recruit adults for our judo club. Everybody told us what a challenge that would be or how it just couldn't be done. Adults are very busy, they have jobs and families and lots of responsibilities and thus would not have time for judo, the naysayers said.

We do it because it is hard.

All of what they say may be true but just because something is hard doesn't mean you don't do it. Sometimes, you do things because they are hard. Because the challenge is worth it. To quote JFK when he spoke about the USA's effort to beat the Russians to the moon in the 1960s:

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.
~ John F. Kennedy (1962)

Well, the USA did manage to get to the moon first and yes, we did manage to build a judo club for working adults. If you want to understand what NASA had to do to achieve that, you can watch the movie "First Man", starring Ryan Gosling which is in the cinemas now. And if you want to know how we managed to get a critical mass of adults to come together for judo training, you can read on.

Perhaps the most critical thing is awareness. People must know that your club exists, what it stands for, how you conduct your lessons and so on. In this day and age, that means having a strong online presence. For us, it has always been three key platforms: Website, blog and Facebook Page. Most recently, we added Instagram too.

Our website recently got an update!

Most people think having a FB is sufficient. It's free and it's easy to use which is why many prefer it over the other platforms. For sure, FB is super duper important but it's not in itself enough. I've always felt every organization, company and club needs to have a website that's a central hub for people to go to. In it would be information about the club, the instructors, schedule, fees, contact information etc.

To do a good website requires a bit of investment in time and money. You don't have to know how to write HTML code to create a website these days but you do need to have some basic sense of aesthetics, to choose the right template and to modify it to fit your club's needs. All that takes quite a lot of effort and time. And, if you want your website to look professional, you will need to pay a premium subscription. The free option usually features ads and other branding stuff on it.

If you want to convince someone that the club is what they are looking for, you'd better offer up something professional. So I invested some money in a website and spent considerable effort setting it up and fine-tuning it along the way. Was it worth it? Absolutely. The website is a crucial component of our online marketing mix.

The other thing I decided to do was set up a blog. Blogs are free platforms but you'll need to spend a lot of time on it because blogs essentially consist of articles. Most people don't find it easy writing articles. It just so happens I'm a writer by profession so the writing bit is not a problem. But nobody reads blogs anymore! (Or so everyone tells me). My instinct was that there will be people out there who want to know more about our club and what we are doing, etc. So, I decided to set up a blog.

To everybody's surprise, it was a hit. A typical blog entry doesn't get thousands of views but it does easily get over a hundred and the more popular postings will get a few hundred views. That's not huge but think about it, every time I post something new about our club, on average it reaches over 100 people. These people might be in other cities and towns. Or they might not be in a position to join us for whatever reasons but they are at least aware of our club and might tell their friends.

Then, there's FB. Everybody's on FB and many clubs have FB Pages. But ours is very active with lots of original and interesting content. We started the practice of posting group pictures on a regular basis. Very transparent. People can see how many members come for training -- sometimes it's a lot, sometimes very few. But it's all there for people to see. We also put a lot of effort on making short video clips so people can see the instruction and the randoris that go on in our club. Through our FB Page it will be very clear to everyone what a typical training session at our club is like.

I recently looked through our membership list and was not surprised to see that close to 70% of our members came to us through our online initiatives. The other 30% came through word of mouth. Some found us through the website and some through our FB Page. Most tell me: "I've read your blog".

The website is important because it contains all the essential information that a working adult would need to decide whether this club is worth giving a try. Our club philosophy, class schedule, pricing etc are all there for everyone to see. Everyting's transparent and professionally presented. And on the website are links to our blog and FB Page for them to investigate further.

The blog is our "killer app". It's what really differentiates us from the rest. Many people would opt to do Instagram rather than a blog. With Instagram you just snap a picture and that's it. Easy, simple. Don't have to compose an article. But how much can Instagram convey about a club? It's good for snapshots... literally. And there is some promotional value there (that's why we have Instagram too) but for those interested in a deep dive, a blog is where it's at.

I'm very outspoken and I have very strong views about judo, about training, about club culture, about how we should do things in a judo club. By reading this blog, the prospective member will be very clear about what kind of club KL Judo Centre is. We are most definitely not a very typical Malaysian judo club.

FB is great because postings can go viral very fast. If people Like your post or they post a comment about it or share it with their friends it can increase your readership very fast. And that has happened with a lot of our postings. Sometimes it's for something as simple as a quirky picture. Most of the time it's for a nice little video clip we've done of the technical segment. Randori clips accompanied by music are always popular. But even interesting little games that we play (yes, judo games are popular even with adults) get quite a lot of attention. What surprised us at first was that the livestreams are a hit. Even I was not so sure whether people would want to watch a livestream but those regularly get over 100 views per stream.

All these three online initiatives combined (website, blog, FB Page) will give a working adult a really good picture of what kind of club KL Judo Centre is. It will make clear what kind of coach I am (competition-oriented, not very traditional and doesn't just teach but participates in randoris as well).  It also tells them what kind of members we have (a melting pot of adults of different sizes, from different cultures, all keenly doing judo whether it's drills or randori).

Viewers will also know that we train for three straight hours (with only minimal water breaks) on a Sunday afternoon. Imagine that. Getting working adults to put aside three hours (and more, if you include travel time) for judo on a Sunday, which is really very much a rest day for many people.

Having all these online resources serves a dual purpose actually. Firstly, it allows us to reach out to our target audience: working adults (and working adults with teen children who want to learn modern judo). But secondly, it also serves as a natural vetting process. Our club has a certain ethos. Our members are eager to learn, train hard, like to randori. We don't want to dilute that by attracting the "wrong" type of members. If you are someone who likes to work only on techniques that you already know, do lots of mindless uchikomis of techniques that you already know, and then sit out the randori segment, KL Judo Centre is NOT for you. Please do not bother to apply. And many who are like that do not. Thankfully.

We want members who love to play judo, who are keen to learn new things and are not afraid to train hard. That's the kind of members we want. And I'm so happy that we have managed to attract people like that to our club. Our membership is not huge but we do have a critical mass -- a core group -- that anchors our club. We will continue with our online initiatives as we head towards a new chapter in the evolution of our club: moving to a new location. :Check back regularly for updates!