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| Last month, despite half the club being away for a competition, we were still able to have a great session back home. |
Building up a judo club is tough because when you first start out, you will naturally have very few players. And in such a situation, you are in a vicious cycle. When new prospective members come to your dojo, they see very few people training and are reluctant to join. Because they are reluctant to join, you continue to have very few players. And the cycle goes on.
It's like that classic employment vicious cycle for fresh graduates. Nobody wants to hire you because you don't have experience. Because nobody wants to hire you, you can't gain experience. But as long as you don't have experience, you won't get hired.
So, what you've got to do is to break that cycle. In the case of employment, it might require working as an intern for a very low salary or even for free just to get that experience and break that cycle.
In the case of a judo club, I wouldn't recommend offering free training though. That's not the right way to build a membership as you will attract the wrong type of members. The cheapskates who want everything to be free. No, that's not how you break the vicious cycle.
What you do is focus on a particular segment and gradually build it up. In our case, it was the working adults segment. There were other judo clubs around but they were catering to kids and young teens, not late teens or adults. So, we filled that niche.
It wasn't easy. Anyone who's involved in judo will tell you building an adult membership base is probably the hardest thing to do. Some people thought we were mad. "Why don't you just open up a kids class instead?" they would ask rhetorically.
But we stuck to our guns and we gradually built up a small but dedicated adults group. Growth was slow and as to be expected, people came and people went. But a small core stuck with us and in time that core grew.
It will take time but if you stick with it, eventually you will reach a tipping point where the vicious cycle suddenly turns into a virtuous cycle. When newcomers drop by and see a sizeable number of players on the mat, they are encouraged to join. And when they join, that critical mass grows, which further attracts new members who like seeing so many people on the mat. Thus, the virtuous cycle.
To get to that point though is not easy, of course. I earlier mentioned that our target market was working adults. That's a rather broad classification though and it actually has to be segmented further. Not only do you want to get a critical mass of adults, you also need to get a critical mass of:
a) each gender
b) age groups
c) experience levels
d) sizes
e) player expectations
Generally, it is said that it's harder to attract women to judo than men. We have found that to be the case as well and it's something we are still working hard on. When you have just one or two female players, it's a turn-off for new females who come in and see so few female players on the mat. But if you have a few core players who are dedicated, you can slowly build up the numbers until you reach the tipping point, where it becomes a virtuous cycle.
The same for age groups. You need a critical mass of kids and early teens, late teens, adults in their 20s and 30s, and those who are 40 and beyond. If you have very few teens, very few teens will want to join. And the same for each age group. So, build up each segment so that you can break free of the vicious cycle when it comes to age groups.
Experience levels is important. If everyone is a beginner, and experienced player who checks out the club will not be excited at the prospects of playing only with beginners. Similarly, if all your players are experienced, beginners will be intimidated. So, you need to have a good mix of beginners, intermediate and experienced players. All are needed.
Size is a crucial thing. There are clubs where most of the players are small. A big guy over 100kg will feel out of place in such a club. Or if you are a club full of heavyweights, a small player will not want to train there. So, you need to get all sizes.
Lastly, player expectations. Do they want to do judo to compete and win medals? Or do they want to do judo as a recreational activity? Or is judo just another form of exercise for them? Again, you must have a bit of each. If everyone's a competitor, you won't be able to attract any recreational players. If everyone is a recreational player, a competitor will not want to join. So, you need to have all types.
If after reading all this, you realize that it's damn difficult to build up a judo club, you're right. It's damn difficult. But it's worth it and it can be done if you are willing to grow each segment of your target market, bit by bit. It requires a tremendous amount of perseverance and also confidence. You have to believe you can break that vicious cycle and turn it into a virtuous cycle.
So, in 2020, which of our target segments do we still need to grow? The answer is all of them. We cannot rest on our laurels and take it easy. Only the paranoid survive. Yes, we do have a critical mass of players now and yes, for many segments we have entered the virtuous cycle zone. But all this could disappear very quickly if we should ever become complacent. You can be sure we are always cognizant of that.
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