The ‘Signal’ Mistake – and signing up for Mailers

Something that many of you may not realize, is that MVT went ‘silent’ for a couple of years because we introduced the Signal Chat (on the Signal App). This was something that I initially did to create a difference between students who simply showed up and never came back, and students who were regular attendees. I even had a cool name for those students.

I have now deleted that chat.

It appears the world has ended for guys on the chat. I can’t say anything to convince some of those guys that will make them understand why I did that.

For those on the chat, it did give some of them a sense of belonging to a group and did generate a certain amount of community. That was for those who were actively engaged, which wasn’t the case for most of the participants. The actual sense of belonging comes from showing up at an MVT class and training with your buddies. Nobody said you couldn’t keep in touch or have Signal. I still have Signal, if anyone wanted to reach out to me.

The main problem, from a business perspective, is that comments that would have been posted on the forum or on the blog were instead dropped into the Signal chat. Not only that, but disappearing messages was turned on. Which meant that content went to a limited number of participants and then disappeared. I also believe that because the chat was running during explosive times such as COVID, the resulting disrespect that I saw, and my ban hammer in response, removed many students who would now never come back for a class. It effectively became too personal. Familiarity breeds contempt!

If you have been paying attention, I have have restarted my blog and the mailers that I send out. The purpose of this is to reach a wider audience, and not get sucked in by Signal.

You may have also noticed that I have created a blog post to generate interest for a Defensive Handgun Class. You can comment on that to display interest. There is also a Signal group (independent from MVT) for the same purpose. I would simply ask that you use the blog post to display interest. I can also do the same for any other classes that people are interested in organizing. And it keeps me informed about who is trying to organize MVT classes.

For those who read my blog posts, you can get an email version into your inbox by signing up on the website. On the home page. If you are a fan of MVT, please do so. This is also how you will get news on MVT.

What and where does this sign-up thing look like?

Desktop, scroll down to the bottom:

Phone, scroll down to the bottom of the homepage:

Thanks.

Max