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Post by powerof0ne on May 31, 2011 13:45:02 GMT -5
Considering all my students right now are university students and only a couple of them even live in this state my drop out rate for the summer is huge. I can't be mad at them, it's too be expected however even when I've been involved in commercial schools that aren't primarily uni students the drop out rate is always big during summer.
What are some of your drop out rates?
I figure I went from about 12 students to 2-3...possibly 4 at the most for this summer. A couple of them will probably only be able to make it once a week, too. I might only have one student this Wednesday and it's a little bit discouraging to me but I know in September it will pick right back up again.
Once the details are ironed out on my insurance issue I'll bring another website about and start advertising to hopefully get more students.
Osu!
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curlbroscience
Member
Testing the waters. Thanks for the forum MMX!
Posts: 1,517
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Post by curlbroscience on May 31, 2011 14:58:33 GMT -5
Osu!
My previous shotokan dojo was run out of the university and I imagine it has a similar model. If your university is not a commuter college where students drive to school every day it will also hurt attendance due to lack of students on campus.
Attendance always faltered in the summer, but our sensei used to make up for that with trips to the beach for gasshuku and seminars.
Have you tried to run another advert for the kids hitting summer school?
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Post by MMX on May 31, 2011 15:31:54 GMT -5
We get a bit of a drop off in the summer too. We generally get an influx in the fall term and then another drop at the holidays. Maybe a few new people for a New Years resolution but most of them split too.
It is hard to get people to work for something..
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wullie
Member
I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, there's no way you can prove anything!
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Post by wullie on May 31, 2011 16:24:33 GMT -5
same over here, my kids classes drop by half over the school summer holidays but the adults are usually not to bad just taking a couple of weeks off if their away on holiday. BUT that is my core class, there are folks that join for a few weeks then drop out all the time after they find out it's not tae bo or boxersize  |
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Post by yoshukai on May 31, 2011 19:35:18 GMT -5
Our dojo's attendance rate does seem to go down in the summer. I think this happens for a couple of reasons. Kids always slack off in the summer. I think they have more imporant things to focus on like swimming pools and baseball.
Usually the only reason we see a drop in adult attendance is due to vacation for a few weeks.
I understand your situation PO1. While I was in college, I usually stayed in town for the summers. My hometown is only around 2 hrs. away from my college alma mater. However, the vast majority of students do tend to leave school for the summer. The summer was always when I got my best training, though.
Osu!
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Post by powerof0ne on Jun 1, 2011 1:56:41 GMT -5
Once I get the insurance situation sorted out and possible business license, LLC set up, and extra "LLC insurance" in case I'm ever sued (really hope I don't have to go this route but may have to  ) I'm going to start advertising to get non university students. My situation is currently for possibly the next month is university students only...well, it's a private university and I'm getting the impression it's too expensive for a lot of students to also be doing classes in summer so most of them move back home for the summer. Next summer I don't plan on having this same issue or not nearly half as bad. Osu! |
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Post by senshido on Jun 1, 2011 4:09:08 GMT -5
It is a common problem, kids see the summer break as a break from everything. Only the very dedicated show up
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Post by gotapex on Jun 1, 2011 5:20:21 GMT -5
Not an instructor, but have you guys ever considered running a kids "camp" for the summer?
A local school ran a kids camp. 8:30am to 12pm every day (3.5 hours). Light snacks included. Mon-Fri (5 days total). They charged $199 for early signup or $250 for for signups after the first month they announced it.
They got roughly 50 signups relatively quickly.
That's $10,000+ for that one week.
One smart thing they did was announce it early, so a lot of parents signed their kids up for it before other things (soccer, summer school, etc).
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Post by seattle on Jun 2, 2011 17:13:54 GMT -5
I teach at a university gym, but only have 1-3 univ students at any given time, out of a registered 15-20 students.
Summer attendance becomes more sporadic, last year was the worst I have ever experienced. Many classes I had one student, a couple time nobody showed. At first I was bummed out, but then I realized when I was alone I could work on what I wanted to work on that I don't get to work on in regular class.
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GJEC
Member
LOUGHBOROUGH ENSHIN
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Post by GJEC on Jun 5, 2011 2:21:57 GMT -5
The important ones make the effort.
I used to feel grumpy if not many came, but I try hard not to spoil it for the ones that DID.
Gary
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Post by powerof0ne on Jun 5, 2011 12:18:07 GMT -5
Not an instructor, but have you guys ever considered running a kids "camp" for the summer? A local school ran a kids camp. 8:30am to 12pm every day (3.5 hours). Light snacks included. Mon-Fri (5 days total). They charged $199 for early signup or $250 for for signups after the first month they announced it. They got roughly 50 signups relatively quickly. That's $10,000+ for that one week. One smart thing they did was announce it early, so a lot of parents signed their kids up for it before other things (soccer, summer school, etc). I was a hired instructor years ago by somebody who wasn't an instructor that got in over his head and his plan was to have a summer camp. Well, it didn't go over too well..I think only 1-2 kid's parents could actually afford it in the area it was at. It made me sad because every kid I taught wanted to but their parents couldn't afford it. The next step that this individual did was try to take the steps into making it into a "karate daycare" that welfare recipients could actually use for their kids (or some type of public assistance). He would have had to had a kitchenette that was up to code put into his building and better automatic fire sprinkler systems, etc..would have cost him a good $20-30k more to do but would have been worth it. Didn't work out because he had a domestic violence charge and couldn't pass the background check to their liking due to this. He ended up claiming bankruptcy soon after and I was dumb enough to quit a ft job thinking I was to be working for him FT and that fell through. Lesson learned the hard way. I joined the US Army (almost the foreign legion instead) not long after  . However, I learned what not to do if planning on opening up a commercial dojo by watching him and a few other's business mistakes. I'm no expert on what works on making money with martial arts but I have a fairly good grasp on what won't work. Not saying the summer camp idea won't work, it can work but you have to be in an area where parents can afford that. In all honesty I think a 6-8 week "summer camp" that's 24/7 would possibly be better but a lot more capital would have to go into that but the ROI could be great. Osu! |
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Post by Kurisu on Jun 9, 2011 19:24:34 GMT -5
Not an instructor, but have you guys ever considered running a kids "camp" for the summer? A local school ran a kids camp. 8:30am to 12pm every day (3.5 hours). Light snacks included. Mon-Fri (5 days total). They charged $199 for early signup or $250 for for signups after the first month they announced it. They got roughly 50 signups relatively quickly. That's $10,000+ for that one week. One smart thing they did was announce it early, so a lot of parents signed their kids up for it before other things (soccer, summer school, etc). We're thinking of doing something similar to this. What was a typical day like? |
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Post by gotapex on Jun 9, 2011 20:12:40 GMT -5
Not saying the summer camp idea won't work, it can work but you have to be in an area where parents can afford that. In all honesty I think a 6-8 week "summer camp" that's 24/7 would possibly be better but a lot more capital would have to go into that but the ROI could be great. Osu! Agreed, it definitely depends on where you are. However, I think that in most cases, people will skimp on other things before they skimp on their kids. A well planned program, timed properly, should be reasonably effective. For what its worth, the same place also decided to try social purchasing out last week. The two biggest are Groupon and LivingSocial, with Groupon being the bigger. Here is how they did with Living Social: livingsocial.com/deals/41512?ref=personalized-link-box-12622447&rpi=12622447&h=f6917Looks like they picked up 267 new students (though some may have purchased more than one). If they keep even a fraction of them, it'll be a huge success. That's just with 1 try. They can run that over and over, as well as run that on Groupon. We're thinking of doing something similar to this. What was a typical day like? I'm honestly not sure, since we didn't enroll our kid. However, they said they were going to try to do mostly training. My guess is they are going to do relatively short training sessions, punctuated by some "fun" time for the kids. |
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) I'm going to start advertising to get non university students.
. 