zone to be about seven minutes. How far away is seven minutes? That, too, depends on your area, the roads, and the traffic. Get in a car with a local map and a stopwatch. Drive the main roads that lead to your school, and mark off a seven-minute radius.
Then go back to your demographic sources. Within that seven-minute radius, look at average age, average income, disposable income, number of children. If you aren’t on a widely used public transportation line, look at the number of vehicles. The question you need to ask yourself is, “If I put my school here, could my target market get to it in seven minutes or less?” If not, either your location or your target market will have to change.
Beyond demographics, you will also need to check your competition before settling on a location. How close is the nearest martial arts school? Too many schools in a small area may decrease the number of students likely to sign up with you. While you’re checking schools in the area, look not just at martial arts school but at other sport schools—gymnastics, dance, swimming schools—aimed at your target market. They too are competing for the time and money of your potential clientele.
Find a Real Estate Agent
Once you’ve picked out a neighborhood, choose a real estate agent to help you find a space. Real estate agents serve two very important functions. Of course, they help you find a space that meets your needs. But they also can help sell the landlord on the idea of having you as a tenant. A real estate agent can be an important link between you and your landlord. But never forget that, though they serve you, they represent the landlord, the person who’s paying them.
Understand what you need before you engage the services of a real estate agent. Draw up a description of your business, including your marketing identity, a detailed description of your target market, and any special requirements you will have (high ceilings, ample ventilation, or floor space without pillars). A good real estate agent listens to you, finds out what kind of a space you want or need, and then helps you lease it. If your real estate agent skips the first two of those three steps, find another real estate agent. Although real estate agents’ fees don’t come out of your pocket, an agent can cost you if you let them talk you into a property that isn’t consistent with your image or your budget.
Look at several possible spaces. Even if you believe you’ve found the perfect space the first time you look at one, look at others. Contrasting several spaces will help you see what your first choice does and doesn’t have. It will also give you information you can use later in bargaining with your landlord.
Choose the Best Space
Once you’ve found a space you think might work for you, draw up a description of your business to give to the landlord or property manager. Include your marketing identity and the reasons your school will benefit their center. Also include reasons why your business is a stable one: cite contracts, long-term training schedules, other factors that increase student loyalty. Describe your target market, how they come to your school several times each week, how they get out of their car and walk past the other shops in the complex to get to your school. Talk about how students’ parents can be good customers for the center, how they bring their children to class and then often go to do errands or shop nearby. Describe how your cost per student decreases as your student population increases. In other words, make your landlord want you to move in. Doing so will put you in a better bargaining position when it’s time to negotiate the lease.
Once you and your real estate agent find a possible location, decide if it suits your purposes. Be sure your prospective landlord knows up front what you have in mind for the space. Then before making a commitment, be sure to check out zoning and legal requirements. Some cities have very specific zoning regulation limiting where retail and service businesses can be located. If you are looking at space in a shopping center, make sure your school will fit in with the overall image of the center. If your image is family oriented, you don’t want to be fifty feet from a biker bar or adult video store. If, however, yours is a kick-butt, kill-or-be-killed image, that location may work just fine for you. Consider how much walk-by traffic the center is likely to generate. Consider how many of the center’s customers will be in your target market. Consider how many of the store owners and employees will be in your target market.
Look, too, at access to the property. Can vehicles and pedestrians get to you easily? How is the traffic? Will your students be able to find parking during the hours you plan to be open? If people in your area use mass transit, how close are you to the train or bus stop? Is the walk to your school safe?
Then make sure the space is one that will draw people in. The key to drawing people is visibility, and the key to visibility is walk-by traffic. Do people walk past the windows? Driving by doesn’t count. People need to be moving past your school slowly enough to look in the windows, register what you are doing inside. Look at the other stores in the complex or the neighborhood. Ideally you want to be between locations people visit frequently—grocery stores, video stores, fast food restaurants. Granted, you will pay extra for a place with good walk-by traffic. But good walk-by traffic will bring people into your school. It may pay for itself and then some.
Look, too, at the size of the windows on the front of the space. A school with a closed-in atmosphere is forbidding. No sign or fancy window treatment will draw people in quite so effectively as the sight of people having a good time in an open, bright, clean facility. The front of your building, what people can see through the windows, should be able to reflect your image.
Find out about the size and kind of signs available to you. If you are looking at space in a shopping center, look at all the other signs in that center. It is not mere coincidence that they are all the same size, same color, same image. The shopping center will probably have restrictions on your signage. City or local government may also have restrictions for your area. Even if they don’t have restrictions, taxes on the kind of sign you’re thinking about may be prohibitive.
Once you’ve determined that the location works for you, check to make sure the space meets your needs. Look at the construction of the building. If the building is old and in poor repair, it will cost you. Look at the size of the space, not just the floor space but the ceiling height. A ceiling height that works fine for an empty-hand style may be too low if your style teaches long weapons. Trace the outline of the space on some graph paper. Carefully draw to scale not just your training floor but your office, dressing areas, restrooms, storage space, waiting area. Are there any pillars in the space? Draw them in as well. Draw in your furniture, your training equipment, your traffic patterns, your entrance and exits. Will your students have room to train freely in the remaining space? If you need more space a few months or years down the line, does the center have room for you to expand?
Think five senses: Can the ventilation handle a large number of warm bodies? Do you have adequate heating and cooling? Is the light adequate? While you hold classes, where will the sun be in relation to your windows? What is the air quality like? Is the noise level acceptable? Spend some time with the site, especially during the hours you will be holding classes. Picture yourself training there to see how it feels.
Figure Out How Much It Will Cost You
It’s crucial you find out exactly how much a space will cost you before you start making commitments and financial projections. Notice, we didn’t say how much the rent will cost you. We said how much the space will cost you.
The landlord will probably quote your rent in annual price per square foot. A simple formula can calculate how much that means in monthly rent.
The rent, however, is not the total price for the space. In a triple net lease—one of the most common commercial leases—rent is only one of three expenses you must pay monthly. The other two are rental tax and triple net.
Rental
