An Interview with AJ Perry, owner of MartialGames4Kids.com
After spending six years studying architecture in college, Aaron J. Perry took his degree and found a good job, or at least what looked like one on paper. It wasn’t long before he found himself fully entrenched in a career that demanded 65+ work hours per week and left him hungry for a life outside the office.
After eight years of this, the Australian native made the life-changing decision to jump off the corporate ladder forever. That meant building a new income and life from scratch.
With a new, less demanding job that gave him more time freedom, he decided to revisit a lifelong dream that had been put on the back burner for years – becoming a martial arts instructor. Alongside a few friends, Perry opened a martial arts school and began designing a curriculum that included one-of-a-kind games to help kids have fun in class and stay focused. These games were such a hit, that before he knew it, Perry and his friends were getting such positive word-of-mouth advertising about their school that they had to start a waiting list.
Soon, he realized that other martial arts instructors could benefit from his unique curriculum. That’s when he created his first product and opened MartialGames4Kids.com. Today, he is enjoying the freedom to travel and spend time with his wife, Wynn, while growing his businesses.
When we contacted Perry, he was headed to the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia for the birthday vacation of a lifetime. He graciously agreed to share his story of how he built his first website, and what he’s doing today to make it so successful. His insights into starting and growing an online business offer powerful strategies for anyone who wants to do the same:
Q: What was your original career in the architecture field like?
A: I don’t regret my past but it seems crazy looking back. At 24-years-old I was working in an office with 75 staff and I was opening and closing the office most days of the week and worked nearly every weekend. Averaging 65+ hours a week, I had my music collection and dinnerware in the office because I lived there more than my apartment. I was in that particular office for three years then one Christmas holiday when the office was shut I realized I’d been so focused on work that I’d lost touch with all of my friends. It was a wake-up call to realize I had no life outside the office. The real kick in the face was being laid off with two hours notice when the market turned quiet.
Q: What finally made you decide to leave the architecture field?
A: I’d always planned to have my own business, but after eight years in different architectural firms I decided that it wasn’t the industry for me to sink my teeth into. I looked at the people above me and most of them were either divorced or on their second or third marriages. Most were still doing long hours in the office and worrying about landing the next contract for a building to keep the business running and cover their overheads. It just wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted for me.
Q: Where did you go after that? What role did martial arts play in getting your life back on the track you wanted to be on?
A: I took a job as an architectural rep promoting building products to architects which was easy given my background but this role helped convince me that marketing and sales was something I loved doing. All of a sudden I was only working 40 hours a week and had a great new bunch of friends. Once I had my nights and weekends free I started training Martial Arts again and got myself back in shape.
A year later I met an American Martial Artist named Jeff Speakman and started learning American Kenpo. This man and my new friends have had an incredible influence on the life I now have.
Q: When did you open a martial arts school?
A: A group of us started a Kenpo Karate school in 2004. There have been some great changes over the years and it is now a Jeff Speakman Kenpo 5.0 school. My role has changed focus recently to concentrate on Internet Marketing, building an Australian MMA brand and working with young fighters who want to break into the UFC.
Q: At first, what did you do to market your classes and what was the response?
A: The initial advertising was a mixture of traditional methods: leaflet drops, demonstrations, local newspaper articles and some community radio spots. The response was minimal. It was working but it was a lot of time, effort and dollars. We soon learned the most effective lead generator was unintentional word-of-mouth from the new students.
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