You might be wondering why I think that media training is so important.

It's just as important as any other training.

You wouldn't recommend that someone get into a fight without martial arts training, or make a latte without being taught to work an espresso machine, or get on the basketball court without learning how to dribble the ball, hit a jumper, and a basic understanding of the rules, right?

Yes, some people are naturals and can hit the ground running at any task based on having watched people do it on tv or something. But they are the exceptions.

Without that training, you might not have the confidence to pick up the phone to call a reporter. Or you might do that, and go about it the wrong way, ending in rejection.

You might call the paper, and never get a reporter on the line. Or get the wrong one. Or get the right one, but they might feel you are wasting their time, and so the time you spend talking to them is wasted.

Or you might get them on the line, and they might come to your school, and they might write an article – and then they might get important details wrong, possibly doing more harm than good. If they write that you are teaching your students to engage in a bloodsport, that may or may not help you, depending on who you are trying to attract.

Ads are good but they're expensive. I'm not saying to skip them altogether. It always helps to have more than one tool in your tool box, right? You wouldn't go into a fight planning only to punch and not kick or throw, right? Isn't one of the most common criticisms of fighters that they failed to evolve their skills and keep up, whether its a BJJ fighter who never learned takedowns, or a wrestler who didn't learn submissions?

Getting a story placed in a local paper can do great things for promoters and fighters. The same skills apply dealing with reporters whether you are trying to promote your academy, a fighting event, or a specific fighter. For the moment, let's just limit ourselves to the example of someone running an academy.

Having a story placed conveys authority -- YOU'RE not just saying that Joe's BJJ academy is great, the local paper is the one saying it.

The presumption of the reader is that the paper had a lot of different businesses that it could have covered, and it chose yours. Or that it chose yours after reviewing many other options that were not worth writing about. The reader doesn't know that they covered yours because you put in the hard work to bring a reporter over; they assume that the reporter found you him or herself.

Why is it important to get these stories placed?

You can never have enough students.

Sure, you may feel that you have a pretty good group of students. You like them. Everyone gets along well. It's paying the bills. No need to bring in outsiders, right?

Wrong. How long does the average person spend training in martial arts? A few months to a few years, right? What happens when they get a new job that doesn't allow enough time in the day to train? Or they move? Or have a kid and decide they don't have enough time? Or they are sick of being injured? How many times have you looked around your school and thought "where is so and so? And that other guy he used to come in with?"

Even if you lose only a few students a year, that is significant revenue. If you're already so successful that you're turning away students because you're classes are becoming too big, congratulations. Maybe you don't need to attract anyone else to your school.

But most schools are not lucky enough to be in that position. Even some of the most prominent academies in the United States – even ones that have tons of students posting on Internet forums about how great their school is – spend tens of thousands of dollars on advertising annually.

So if placing a few stories in local publications can bring in even a few extra students –at $100 a month each ($1200 a year), or whatever you may charge, you'd take it, right?

So do just a little hard work and get these stories placed.