Posts Tagged ‘Selling’

In the typical small school, the primary person responsible for scheduling introductory lessons, returning messages, and answering telephone inquiries will be you, the owner.

Therefore, it is your responsibility to turn a prospect into a student by getting them scheduled for an intro lesson the first time they call.

Just remember this: Before a prospective client actually sees your classes, and experiences the quality of your instruction, they have no reference by which to assess the value of your program. Knowing this, you can see how important it is to schedule that first lesson!

Although this sounds like a lot of responsibility (and it is), it is really not as hard as it sounds (remember, I did all this stuff by myself when I first started out).

There are three reasons why I say most people make appointment setting harder than it has to be: Read the rest of this entry »

Although most of the martial arts school owners and instructors I have coached don’t want to have a huge mega-studio, many of us would like to earn a comfortable living teaching between 150 and 200 students. While for some that may seem like an easy goal, for many others reaching 150 students seems near impossible.

The biggest hurdle to most school owners in hitting their enrollment goals is that they tend to look at different aspects of their business in isolated terms. Over here we have “curriculum”, here we have “advertising”, here we have “retention”, here is “billing”, then there’s “scheduling”, “pricing”, etc.

The problem with this is that it leads to a skewed sort of thinking – that is to say, you start to think that one part of your operations won’t affect the whole. And that can be hazardous to achieving your goal of having a small, profitable studio.

Let me explain… Read the rest of this entry »

The Key to Easy Upgrading – Stop Selling and Start Recruiting

It’s important to have the right mindset when you start offering upgraded student memberships. It has to be a privilege, something that a student earns the right to be a part of, instead of just a way to make more money. Remember that you are choosing students for elite membership upgrades on their merits, and they should be honored that you have given them the opportunity to join.

Once you adopt this attitude, upgrading students becomes much simpler. In fact, more often than not you’ll have students approaching you about joining, versus your having to approach them instead.

The Upgrade Process – Make Them Work For It

Here is the process we used to get students to upgrade their memberships: Read the rest of this entry »