HOW MASTER GARTH COOLEY INCREASED HIS SCHOOL’S EFFICIENCY
Master Garth Cooley has been practicing Taekwondo for more than 30 years, is a two-time United States National Champion and in 2008, he was voted “Taekwondo Master of the Year” by Taekwondo Times Magazine. Currently, he is the owner of Korea Taekwondo Academy in Indianapolis and is in his 18th year as senior master instructor, but with all of these qualifications, Cooley still struggled to run an efficient martial arts school. However, like many martial arts school owners, he didn’t realize quite how much time he was spending on everyday tasks, like tracking attendance and belt promotions.
Inefficiency led to problems at school
Master Cooley was using student cards to record attendance, he didn’t have a Web platform for school management and wasn’t able to send automated text messages to his students and staff members. These antiquated processes were a major time suck and hindered Master Cooley’s potential to grow his school. Because he was spending so much time tied up with slow processes, Master Cooley was left with little leisure time. He needed to free up time in his day and figure out a better way to stay in communication with instructors and students. At the end of each day at KTA, he was left with little time to achieve his goals of supporting kyoroogi to become an Olympic sport and develop poomsae internationally. Once he found a solution that allowed him to streamline tasks and save time, he knew that he couldn’t go back to his old ways of school management.
“With Kicksite, I have a better vision of my student body — as well as patterns and trends — that I can track through the software,” Master Cooley said.
Master Cooley now has better flexibility and efficiency
A desire for greater efficiency was one of the main things that drew Master Cooley toKicksite. He estimates daily efficiency has already grown 10 percent since investing in the software. He now spends fewer hours each day tracking belt promotions, student attendance and membership rates, giving him more time to spend with family and friends, as well as on his hobbies.
Saving all this time has given Master Cooley the chance to focus on other tasks outside his school, but a chance to focus on critical work tasks, too. He now has an opportunity to look at the school as a whole and get a more accurate feel about processes he can improve down the road, which will give him the ability to save more time and money in the long run.
“With Kicksite, I have a better vision of my student body—as well as patterns and trends—that I can track through the software,” Master Cooley said. “By that feature alone, I believe it’s better, and it’s been saving me and helping me generate more revenue because I’m spending more time with prospective, as well as new and existing students.”
Plenty of martial arts school owners aren’t interested in efficiency solutions that are overly complex and only result in more time wasted trying to figure out a complicated system. Master Cooley found Kicksite’s Web-based system had features that made his job easier and allowed him to build better relationships with students and their parents. With greater efficiency, martial arts school owners can spend less time on the job and more hours on the things they truly enjoy, all while making their school a place they can be proud of. Master Cooley, for instance, is reaping the benefits of improved efficiency by speeding up everyday tasks and spending more time becoming a bigger advocate for Taekwondo.