Green set out wanting to make an impact in the area. He went to the first gym and asked the owner if she would consider having him teach karate lessons in her gym. The owner was definitely interested, but there was another exercise program that was great for children and teens as well.
What this program did was it whipped children into shape like a professional would do in training for any pro team of nearly any sport. The idea behind this exercise program was genius and effective. The founder of this program eventually sold this program to the female gym owner. This was the make or break deal for Green. She had to decide at the time to incorporate martial arts into her gym or this exercise program. She decided do the latter. This didn't phase Green though, he said to her "Maybe one day we can work together down the road." She said "Maybe" and Green left it at that.
(This is important to remember because this situation will come up in a later blog.)
Green then went ahead and set up shop in the other gym and it was a very nice and big gym. There were two levels. The main floor was nearly wide open and had lots of gym equipment from the 80's and 90's surrounding the area. There was exercise equipment on the second level and the second level wasn't all that big. It wrapped around the back of the gym and there was only about 15 feet of space on the top floor that overlooked the bottom floor.
The whole gym was around 5,000 square feet. The front desk was set up to where you walked in the main elongated desk that was about 3 feet deep and had and broken "L" shape to the design. You could walk around behind it. Not far from the front desk was two small offices. One was used as a storage closet while the other was used for another purpose.
Green secured the location, but not an office to offer his signups out of. The two gentlemen in their twenties as Green was in the same age bracket, ran the whole gym operation without the boss ever walking into the establishment. They had their own game plan about how to recruit customers and so did Green.
Green went to the local Kinkos print store, now called FedEx. He took nearly all the cash he had and went and made 10,000 flyers. Once the flyers were made, Green decided that he was going to do whatever it took to get the flyers out and he went up and down the street, went downtown, put the flyers on bulletin boards and even went to parking lots. When he went to the Walmart parking lot and put them on car windows, a manager came out and told him that he would have to take every single flyer off of the cars or he would prosecuted for each flyer. Back in that day and still now, businesses are very strict about where you can and cannot advertise your business.
Green got this idea of advertising from running his original school back in Alaska. The strategy worked very well and ushered him plenty of customers, at the time. Green realized he wasn't in Alaska anymore and he would have to find other ways of getting the word out. For a while there it was tough, but Green was able to distribute all of the flyers to everyone he saw. He spent two months of working hard each day to get out as many flyers as possible to create interest and excitement.
The result: One student. Green paid over $1,000 in flyers to gain only "one" student. This student was honored at Greens karate tournament called the "Chattanooga Karate Classic" that was held for it's 5 consecutive year at Lookout Valley High school. One student, Green couldn't believe it. Most people would have gave up right there, but not Green. Green used this situation as motivation for him to succeed. He had it within himself to want to do better. To do more and become something that he was destined to be. The students name is Aaron Massingill. Green saw Aaron at a network marketing group he has been part of. When it was time for Aaron to talk about his business, Aaron told everyone exactly what you are reading right here, that Aaron was Green's first student.
Green went back to the gym and asked the other two gym employees if he could clean out the small office used for storage as an office. All men agreed that it would be a good idea, seeing that Green distributed all of the flyers, so people were all going to come flooding in sooner or later. Green got to work and make the office very nice and cozy. Green continued to train Aaron in the meantime.
As the days past, no one was calling the number or coming by asking about the classes. Green put a banner by the road to gather more attention to his location and within 3 days the "sign police," from the city of Chattanooga came by and told Green to take his banner down because he wasn't authorized to advertise his business, even though it was a 3' X 5' banner and it wasn't obstructing anyone's view of anything.
One day, Green was inside the gym and he noticed that he was getting people putting down their name on the guest register by the front door. This was great news! Green had been patiently waiting for people to come in and there was names finally on his list! Green started to go down the list of names of people and started to call the names on the list. No one answered any of his calls and some were wrong numbers and some rang and rang.
There was one name that started off kind of different and Green decided to call the person. Green dialed the number and someone answered Green said "the gentlemen's first name" and the person on the other end said "You got the wrong number." Green called again the same number thinking he had miss dialed. (Green was calling from a landline number and had not picked up his new cell phone from Sam's club, as mentioned in the blog "First Newspaper Article In Chattanooga About Green's Karate)." Green dialed again and asked for the same person and the man on the receiving end said "Dude, you have the wrong number!" Green apologized for making a mistake and before he finished apologizing the phone was already hung up.
Green looked perplexed and started to view the names closer on the list and realized something he had somehow missed. He noticed that most of the names were made up and the owners name was put down as another name that is highly inappropriate to say in this blog. It was one of those "clever" names like "Ben Dover," but much more creatively disgusting. This was something that Green had never even imagined would happen. Maybe it was fun and games for the employees, but Green realized that he had been sabotaged from the beginning from people that appeared to be welcoming.
While this whole situation was starting to transpire he had just been informed, that his office, that he organized and cleaned was being taken over by the two gym employees. You see, Green was naive and gullible in the beginning to the point of a fault. He never would have guessed that people like these two employees would be so cruel and mean.
A fire that Green hadn't felt inside him in a long time started to burn again and now he was on fire. Green spoke with a fellow fitness instructor about the incident as it was unfolding and confided in her telling what was happening. (12 years later Green talked to her later on saying that the encouraging words that she had said was very important to him).
The moral of this blog is that when people put you down, stomp on your dreams, belittle you, don't believe in you and are just plain mean. All you have is yourself and yourself alone. A person that you don't know from Adam, can make the world of difference in the outcome of your life. Having someone to listen to you at the right time and encourages you, can go a long way and change the direction you take in your life. Do not let people like this bring you down but instead, lift you up in life. You are better than that and do not ever forget this. Be that person, like the fitness instructor that listened and helped Green by just being there for someone is so important. You never know the impact you make on peoples lives until they come back and tell you what you did for them.
While Green was at his house, he called the YMCA and set up a meeting. You can read what happens next in the blog mentioned above.
You never know where the road will lead you. You have to dig down deep and work hard if you want to achieve anything in this life. On one of the back of one of the save flyers was the message below. It will be uploaded at a later day as proof. Until then read the message below and think about it!
Thanks for reading! Please share this story and inspire others to not give up on their dreams no matter what happens.
