Community Outreach · Partnerships · School Owners

Tougher Than a Board... Scared of a Secretary?

How to Walk Into a School, Church or Business and Leave With a Partner

Dr. Greg Moody · October 15, 2026

I know a lot of tough martial artists. They've sparred Black Belts, broken boards in front of a crowd and run a mat full of four-year-olds. Then I ask them to walk into an elementary school office and talk to the principal for five minutes, and they find a reason not to go.

I see it all the time. I have school owners with a great marketing opportunity sitting right in front of them.

AS AN ASIDE

One could make the case that connecting with schools may be the best marketing opportunity “fishing where the fish are”. 80% of the market is kids and well… that’s where they go! Not to say we can live off only one marketing activity, just that this is a big one.

Schools aren’t the only places to connect. They can visit five or ten businesses nearby and set up cooperative marketing with them, which I'll facilitate. Rev Marketing builds a Community Connections page that links to every partner's website, and their pages link back. Both businesses get found more easily online, and both get a new neighbor who sends people their way. It's a win for both businesses.

All these plus churches, hospitals, media outlets, scout troops and many more can be incredible partners to work with… with benefits to them and marketing opportunities (low cost or free) for your school.

Yet most school owners still haven't made a first visit!

Read this and find out why and what to do about it.

The problem

In the presentation I use for School Domination training, the first slide after the goals asks why we aren't in all the schools. I list two errors.

Error One: they don't know how to talk to the schools... meaning the people in the schools.

Error Two: instructors try to work with schools and only have one thing to offer. They're not prepared with a menu of ways we can work with them.

It applies to more than elementary schools. Charter schools, private schools, Montessori schools, churches, Scouting America (it was the Boy Scouts until 2025), youth sports leagues and the business owners on your Community Connections list all work the same way. Whoever represents these groups needs you approaching them with confidence and knowing what to say and how to say it. It also needs you offering a “menu” of options.

Yet you’re still not doing it…

Why it feels scary

The easy explanation is that these school owners are lazy, or they're "just not salespeople." I do not buy either one. These are people who train early and teach classes every night. Laziness has nothing to do with it.

The diagnostic manual for mental health draws the line clearly: fear is the emotional response to a threat that's here right now, and anxiety is an emotional response to the expectation of a threat (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Nobody in the principal's office is going to hurt you. Your brain is reacting to a threat it expects, before you ever get in the car.

When I talk to owners about it, the expected threat comes down to three things:

1. Rejection. "They're going to say no, or not even see me."
2. Not knowing what to do. "I'll get in there and I won't know what to say next."
3. Looking bad. "I'll look like a salesman, or like I don't belong there."

Rejection deserves a little respect, because it really does hurt. In a brain-imaging study, people who were left out of a simple ball-tossing game on a computer showed activity in a region of the brain also tied to the distress of physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003). Some people also run hotter on this than others. Researchers call it rejection sensitivity: anxiously expecting rejection, seeing it quickly and reacting strongly to it (Downey & Feldman, 1996).

That explains how someone who has been kicked in the head for a living can freeze at a front desk. Getting kicked in the head and talking to a principal use different skills, and nobody ever trained you on the second one (yet).

What the emotion gets wrong

When you're anxious your mind is predicting what's going to happen, and in these studies people usually predicted wrong.

What the fear says	What the research found
"Everybody's going to notice how nervous I am."	Students who wore an embarrassing T-shirt into a room guessed about half the people there noticed it. About a quarter did. People overestimate how much others notice their appearance and actions (Gilovich et al., 2000).
"They didn't like me."	After talking with someone new, people consistently underestimated how much the other person liked them and enjoyed the conversation (Boothby et al., 2018).
"They're going to say no."	People who had to ask strangers for help guessed they'd need to ask about twice as many people as it actually took. We underestimate how often others say yes to a direct request (Flynn & Lake, 2008).

In other words, it's usually going better than it feels like it's going.

Why does the worst case get so much weight? Researchers call it negativity bias. Across many kinds of studies, bad events, bad feedback and bad first impressions had a stronger and longer-lasting effect on people than good ones of the same size (Baumeister et al., 2001). It starts early in life, too. Babies and young children pay more attention to negative information and learn from it faster than from positive information (Vaish et al., 2008).

It's built in for a reason. Think about a smoke detector. One that goes off when you burn the toast is annoying, and one that stays quiet during a real fire can kill you, so smoke detectors are set to be oversensitive. Our alarm system evolved the same way. For our ancestors, reacting to a threat that wasn't there usually cost a little, and missing a real one could cost everything (Nesse, 2005).

That wiring kept people alive when the threat was a predator. Today the threat is a principal who might say "Not right now," and the same alarm goes off anyway.

Knowing this helps, but you still have to go do it, the same way your students get through their first sparring match: prepared, and ready to let the result prove the prediction wrong.

What to do about it

Make the unknown known

Two of the three threats (not knowing what to do and looking bad) go away when you have a plan. Researchers call one version of this an implementation intention, which is a simple if-then plan: "When X happens, I will do Y." Across many studies, if-then plans made people noticeably more likely to follow through on their goals (Gollwitzer, 1999).

For a school visit, it looks like this:

• If the secretary says the principal is busy, then I ask for the best five minutes this week and leave the packet.
• If they say "We already work with a karate school," then I ask which programs they use and offer one they don't have.
• If I can't get an appointment at all, then I pop by the next day (straight from the School Domination training: don't give up).
• If the principal says "Just send me an email," then I say I'm happy to, and ask which day this week works to drop the booklet off in person.
• If they say "We don't allow outside groups," then I offer to help with something the school already runs, like the fall festival or a PE day, at no cost.
• If they say "We don't have a budget for that," then I let them know everything in the booklet is free.
• If they ask "Is this a sales pitch?" then I give them the three reasons, including the third one.
• If I get nervous and lose my place, then I hand them the booklet and ask the first question from my list.

Write out your if-then lines before you go. You'll walk in already knowing what to do next.

Know the room before you get there, too. Before you approach a single school, build the book: every school inside five miles (public, private, charter, Montessori), and for each one the principal, the PE teacher, the PTO president, the date teachers come back and the date kids come back. Our School Recon prompt for AI research and the School Information Sheet do most of that work for you. It's a lot easier to get the meeting when you already know who you're asking for.

For other groups it’s the same, just replicated for that organization.

Treat it like a drill

Your students don't get comfortable sparring by thinking about sparring. You don’t start out by punching a white belt in the face. They get comfortable through reps, starting with easier drills and building up skill and confidence. That’s how learning works.

Calming anxiety works the same way. In exposure therapy, the most effective work is built around testing the feared prediction, so the person learns firsthand that what they expected didn't happen (Craske et al., 2014). Every visit where the principal smiles, takes the packet and says "Let me think about it" is one of those tests.

Most school owners (business owners) won’t invest the reps. Practicing talking to an organization leader is the same way. Whether that’s in staff training with others or if you’re a one person show practicing in front of the mirror. Do this enough till you have repped enough (like it’s a drill) that you’re ready… at least for the first one!

Start with the easiest one. A business owner you already know, or the PTO president whose kid trains with you. Then the friendly church office. Then the principal.

Look the part and keep it short

Dress shirt (your school's logo is fine), dress slacks, nice shoes and perfect grooming. Maybe a uniform or maybe not depending on the group.

Ask for “less than five minutes” and keep it under five minutes like you promised, so the principal is happy to see you next time. The presentation’s phone script is in the appendix.

Bring a partner

If you can go in pairs the first few times. One of you talks, the other one watches the room. It makes the whole thing a lot less scary, and the second person almost always notices something the first one missed, like the book on the shelf.

Don’t forget the recon

You can find a ton about the organization, leaders, what they have going on, what they care about and everything they are about BEFORE you approach. That also helps build your confidence.

Who you'll be talking to

Every one of these people has a job, a calendar and a problem you can help with. Figure out what they care about before you walk in.

Person	What they care about	What to lead with	A good first question
Principal	Test scores, attendance, behavior, a calm building	Top Student Awards, character talks, the Teacher Breakfast	"What's the one thing you'd love more help with this year?"
PTO or PTA president	Fundraising (you say “donation”), volunteers, events that families show up for	Enrichment class, raffle donations, a booth at the fall festival	"We’d love to help at [EVENT YOU KNOW ABOUT]. What does it still need?"
PE teacher	Fresh activities, kids who are moving and engaged, a day off from planning	Guest PE teacher, Show and Tell	"What unit do your kids get bored with?"
Front office staff	A smooth day and no surprises	Being polite, quick and remembered	"What's the best way to get five minutes with the principal?"
Superintendent or district office	District goals, community relations, safety	District board meetings, community programs	"Which schools in the district need the most community support right now?"
Pastor or church staff	Families, youth programs, community	Character talks, a kids' safety class	"What do your families with young kids ask you for most?"
Scout leader	Merit badges and rank work, fun meetings, parents who help	A safety or fitness meeting, help with badge requirements	"Which requirements are hardest to cover in a meeting?"
Business owner (Community Connections)	Customers, reviews, being seen online	Cross-promotion and the link on your Community Connections page	"Who's your best customer, and where do you find more of them?"

Learn the front office person's name, write it down and use it next time. A lot of the time they decide whether the principal ever sees your packet.

The Partners In Education conversation

Here's the five minutes, straight from the School Domination training:

1. Summarize Partners In Education (hand them the booklet, don't read it to them).
2. Schedule what you’ve identified together (your recon will suggest something).

The goal is two programs scheduled. Walk in with two specific asks, like being at their next event and an After School Enrichment class. The booklet shows them everything you can do, but if you only hand them the booklet they'll just say they'll think about it.

Leave with a date, too. On a call, an owner told me he had a great meeting with a principal and left with nothing scheduled. The principal liked the idea while they were sitting there, then got busy, and the program never happened. Put the date on the calendar before anybody stands up.

IMPORTANT: anchor that in. Learn the skill of setting the next appointment. Meetings like this often end with “This sounds great! I will talk it over with my leadership team and we’ll reach out to you.” That’s usually the end of it. You always, 100% of the time, want to schedule a next appointment. Whether they agreed to do something or not. Whether they need to think about it or not, whether they told you to get lost or that they love you. Set the next appointment. The next step is to

• acknowledge what they said,
• suggest a follow up on a date and time for a reason,
• and schedule it (like right there and then)

It might look like:

“Sounds fantastic – I’ll look at this and get back to you. Thanks for coming”

“I appreciate that! Let’s follow up in a couple days after you do so we can get this in our schedule before it gets booked up. Same time Thursday or I can do earlier in the day”

And put the agreed on specific time in a reminder system so they get texted and emailed.

…and how do you get their cell number? Before that

They will want to know what’s in it for us?

They're going to ask why you're doing this. Memorize the three reasons:

"First, our instructors are required to do community service and we'd love to help your school with some of these programs here for your kids. Second, martial arts sometimes gets a bad name because of movies or MMA we want it to get a good image in the community and third, of course if someone would like to try karate we’d love it if they come to us."

When a family from that school comes in for a first lesson, the enrollment conversation takes over from there.

When it comes time for a real event, get permission slips every time. If they push back with "We don't want to give out parents' info," the answer is: "Of course we would never ask you to give out parents information. We are asking the PARENTS to provide us their info for safety and liability purposes."

Notice what they love

This is a great time to read the article Like a Human… and learn how to connect.

While you're talking, look around the office. The photo of the boat. The fly-fishing calendar. The book on hang gliding or stamp collecting on the shelf. The kid's soccer team picture.

If it comes up naturally, ask about it. People like you more when you ask questions, especially follow-up questions. In one study of conversations and speed dates, people who asked more questions were liked more, and follow-up questions had the biggest effect (Huang et al., 2017). "Is that you with the fish? Where was that?" followed by "How long have you been doing that?" starts a real conversation.

Common ground counts too, even small common ground. In one experiment, people were far more likely to do a stranger a favor when they found out they shared the same birthday (62% said yes, compared with 34%) (Burger et al., 2004). If you also fish, say so. If you don't, ask them to teach you something about it.

If you don't get to talk about it, that's fine. Remember it anyway. Write it in your notes as soon as you get to the car (this is where your partner earns their keep, because they were watching the shelves while you were talking).

That one detail becomes one of your best follow-ups. Later on, you send them a book about their hobby with a short note. "Saw the fly-fishing book in your office and thought of you when I found this one. Thanks again for your time."

Get the contact information

As you build a little rapport, it's OK to ask for their cell number. You'll want to text them about a follow-up time, and you want to know who's calling when their number shows up on your phone.

The easiest way to do it is to give first. Have your contact card ready to share. You can use a tap card like a Dot card (dotcards.net) or a similar device, but you don't need one. Your phone already does this.

On an iPhone (Android is similar):

1. Open Contacts and tap the school’s contact card at the top (or yours: My Card).
2. Scroll to the Bottom and Tap Share Contact.
3. Choose Messages.

Then the conversation sounds like this: "Mr. Jones, I wanted to make sure you had all my information, so let me share my contact record with you. What's your cell number?"

Even better: get to the Messages screen with your card attached, and hand them your phone so they can type their own number in. They put in their number, hit send, and now you both have each other's information. Nobody had to spell anything out loud, and their number is right there in your phone.

If they'd rather not give a cell number move on. Never push it… however 99% of the time this works. If you’re having problems… reread the above process. You’re probably ASKING if they’d like the contact card instead of GIVING it to them. These are completely different strategies (and only one works).

Follow up in layers

It usually takes several small follow-ups to build the relationship.

The thank-you note. Send it soon after the visit. Handwritten is best. People are bad at predicting how much a thank-you means to the person getting it. Writers of gratitude letters underestimated how surprised and happy the recipients felt, and overestimated how awkward the recipients would find it (Kumar & Epley, 2018).

The text. After that, a short text to confirm the next date. "Hi Mr. Jones, this is NAME from [Your School]. Great meeting you [DAY]. Does [DATE] still work for the Teacher Breakfast?"

The hobby book. Get in the mail that evening (Amazon will ship in a day), as above. Note: I like this idea the best rather than a gift card. Gift card can be taken as a bribe.

The small favor. Ask their advice on something small: which teacher would love the character talk most, or when the PTO meets. It sounds backwards, but asking a small favor makes people like you more. In a classic experiment, people who were asked to return the money they had won liked the person who asked more than people who weren't asked (Jecker & Landy, 1969). Ben Franklin used the same move by borrowing a book from a rival.

Show up again. People rated things more positively the more often they'd been exposed to them (Zajonc, 1968). The doughnuts at teacher prep week, Meet the Teacher Night and the fall festival booth are all chances for them to see your face again. There is NO LIMIT to the number of times you can visit.

Let me repeat:

There is no limit to the number of times you can visit!

Don’t forget: Set The Next Appointment: always plan the next one before this one ends. Before you leave any meeting, put the next date on the calendar and into your reminder system.

Questions that build rapport

Here's a bank of questions to pull from. You don't need all of them. Two or three good ones and a real follow-up beat ten in a row.

Category	Questions
Their story	"How long have you been here?" "What got you into education?" "What did you do before this?"
Their job	"What's the best part of your week?" "What's the hardest part of this time of year?" "What do you wish more parents knew?"
Their goals	"What would make this a great year for your school?" "What's one program you'd love to bring in?"
Their kids or families	"What are your kids into right now?" "Are your families doing a lot of activities this year?"
What they love	"Is that your boat?" "How did you get into stamp collecting?" "Where's your favorite place to fish?"
Getting help	"Who else here would want to know about this?" "What's the best way to stay in touch with you?"

Then listen! If you're talking more than they are, you’re lecturing not connecting. Ask another question. (time to suggest again: read Like a Human…).

The Community Connections ask

Business owners are easier than principals in one way: they understand marketing. You can be more direct.

Walk in, introduce yourself and say something like: "I own the martial arts school down the street. We're putting together a Community Connections page on our website for local businesses we like and recommend, and I'd love to include you. It links straight to your site, and we'd love a link back to ours. It costs you nothing. How's that sound?"

If they say yes, if you’re getting The Rev Marketing Community Connections page, you’ll have a link to setup an appointment to get this connected. You could email them…. It will NOT work. A person talking with them gets it done on the spot.

Then ask about their business, their best customers and how they find more of them. Rev Marketing builds the page from the list you put together, and I'll help you set it up. Every business you add is another link, another neighbor who knows your name and another place your families might see you.

Five to ten businesses is the goal! Start with the ones your students' families already use.

What to say and what not to say

DON'T say: "I'm sorry to bother you, I know you're busy..."

SAY: "Hi, I'm NAME from [Your School]. I'd like a maximum of five minutes to show you what we can donate to your school."

Which one would you give five minutes to?

If you've been putting this off, that is OK! Start with the easiest visit on your list.

The summary

Step	What to do
What’s the emotion?	It's expectation of rejection, not knowing what to do, and looking bad. Social courage is a skill you can train.
Are you predicting? Probably wrong…	People notice less, like you more and say yes more than you expect.
Make a plan	Write your if-then lines and memorize the three reasons.
Start easy	Business you know, then PTO, then church, then principal. Go in pairs.
The visit	Five minutes, dressed right, Partners In Education, two programs scheduled.
Notice	Look around the office, ask follow-up questions, write down what they love.
Contact	Share your card from your phone and hand them the phone.
Follow up	Thank-you note, text, hobby book, small favor, show up again.
Next date	Always plan the next one before this one ends.
Community Connections	Five to ten businesses, linked both ways on your Rev Marketing page.

Anaïs Nin put it this way: "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

Pick five organizations, book five visits and count how many of them say yes to at least one program. My bet is it's more than your anxiety predicted! If you want help building your Community Connections list or planning your school visits, reach out and we'll set it up together.

Appendix: scripts

Calling for the appointment

From the School Domination training we do:

"Hello, I am NAME from [Your School]. I'd like to talk to principal NAME for a maximum of 5 minutes about what we can donate to the school. I am available after 9am and before 2pm tomorrow, what time is best?"

If you can't reach the principal, ask for whoever is in charge of Partners In Education. If you can't get an appointment, pop by and visit the next day.

The three reasons

"First, our instructors are required to do community service and we'd love to help your school with some of these programs here for your kids. Second, martial arts sometimes gets a bad name because of movies or MMA we want it to get a good image in the community and third, of course if someone would like to try karate we’d love it if they come to us."

Sharing contact information

"Mr. Jones, I wanted to make sure you had all my information, so let me share my contact record with you."

Then hand them your phone on the Messages screen with your card attached and ask them to enter their number so they can have all your info.

The permission slip question

"Of course we would never ask you to give out parents information. We are asking the PARENTS to provide us their info for safety and liability purposes."

The follow-up text

"Hi Mr. Jones, this is NAME from [Your School]. Great meeting you [DAY]. I am looking forward to [NEXT MEETING]!"

The hobby book note

"Saw the fly-fishing book in your office and thought of you when I found this one. Thanks again for your time."

The Community Connections ask

"I own the martial arts school down the street. We're putting together a Community Connections page on our website for local businesses we like and recommend, and I'd love to include you. It links straight to your site, and we'd love a link back to ours. It costs you nothing." Set Appointment

References