Some keys to having a professional atmosphere:

• The Building: Simply put, if people drive by your karate school and see a dump, they won't want to step inside. That means clean the trash and leaves that may blow around your property. It also means sweep away any cigarette butts that are scattered outside. Make sure the paint on the front is not dirty or dingy. If you have to, repaint, but at least wash it down if its dirty.
• The Inside: This can cover a large part of this article, and probably will. First off, get familiar with the vaccuum cleaner. You will need to use it often. People continually track in debris and dirt. With winter, snow, ice melt products, and other debris gets walked inside. I created a duct tape path that went around my classroom floor. That way people walked around it to the seating / changing area and did not track up the class floor. Use glass cleaner on the outside windows to get rid of the finger prints and nose prints and breath marks. And make sure there aren't streaks. Clean the bathroom. That means swabbing out the toilets and sinks (and showers if you have them). Use some anti-bacterial cleaners to get it really clean. Mop if you have a tiled floor. If a bathroom smells like a rest stop restroom, people are not going to want to stay. If you have an untidy office, try to at least keep it out of site. Keep all visible areas clean and organized-- that way if you aren't organized, at least you can give an appearance that you are to outside visitors. For the areas outside of visibility, try to keep it as clean as possible. You may have a visitor at some point that needs to go in there or may simply see you in there.
  If you have a computer, make sure you don't have a bikini babes screen saver or anything. One thing to think about that my instructor often did: he called it Miyagi-do; and had his students clean the mirrors and vaccuum before a seminar weekend or whatnot.
• Openings: When a phone rings in the school, or if your cellular phone is published as a possible contact number, do not answer the phone with a "'Sup" or "'Ello." All major business use name branding and greetings to get the person comfortable. Answer the phone with a "Kenpo Karate, this _______. How may I help you?" Learn this opening phrase and use it often.
• Closings: A tough choice. If it sounds good, do it. Something like "Thank you for calling Tom's Karate." places that brand as the last thing they heard. But if your school is Universal Kenpo Karate Dojos, a branding like that could be a pain to spit out every time; in that case maybe a "Thank you for calling UKK" would suffice."
• Your Actions: This is by far the toughest one. You will probably have to change some of the things you do. And many of these you won't want to do or like to do. But think about it. Let's say you are running a new school and have just hit 30 students and are still climbing. You have new prospects sitting in the room watching when an adult student catches you on a brief break and asks if you are going to be at the keg-party this weekend. How many parents will be a bit shocked? Some mamy not come back to your school. Why? It's not professional to be discussing those topics in a classroom setting. You should also refrain from inviting students to your house to have drinks with them unless you know them very well. Try to keep some of the teacher-student relationships distant. You are the role model now. Act like one.