Achieving
yearly membership renewals can be a challenging task for
many schools.
When do you approach students? How do you bring it up? How
do you increase your chances to sign most students on?
We will consider all of these questions as we tackle a
critical challenge in your school’s sustainability – how to
keep your students for one more year.
Timing:
NEVER wait until the day a student’s contract expires to
approach them for renewal. This can be your biggest mistake,
as it takes away all of your options.
The process of renewal should be planned 3 to 6 months
before the expiry date. This means making sure that you KNOW
when 3 to 6 months before their expiry date is! You can use
ChampionsWay! MAS to keep track of this and it can even give
you an automated reminder when the time comes.
By planning ahead, you have the opportunity to create and
choose the best time to approach each student for optimal
results.
Approaching a student just after he or she has taken a new
job and is unsure about what the job commitments will be is
a BAD time. Approaching a student just after they have
decided they want to fight in the ring is a GREAT time.
State of Mind:
Check student’s state of mind before approaching them. This
means that you make sure that they’re excited to continue on
with their training when they are approached. If they’re not
attending classes and seem disinterested in class, they are
NOT in the right state of mind to ask them to renew. If they
have just passed their belt test and are training to
compete, they are definitely in a GREAT state of mind to
renew.
Most times, your students will be somewhere in-between those
two states of mind, so make sure to find a way to approach
them when they’re keen on Martial Arts!
One tip on how to increase their positive feelings towards
renewing is to set up feedback appointments with them so
they can tell you how they feel about their training. These
can be scheduled in MAS .
The feedback meeting should be your first point of contact
regarding renewal, but you should not bring renewal up in
the meeting. For you, this is an important opportunity to
learn from them and to work towards satisfying their needs.
For them, this is a personal progress and feedback meeting
to help them set and achieve their goals.
You can also check their state of mind with the MAS
Attendance Reports to determine their training patterns.
Students rarely go from training every day to completely
quitting. Their attendance slowly tapers off. If you’re able
to bring them back when their attendance first starts to
slow down, your success will increase tremendously.
Basically, if their state of mind is not conducive with
renewing you can either give up and let them go, or do
everything possible to change it! Regardless of
whether you talk about setting and achieving goals, why they
joined or what they don't like, you’ll have 3 to 6 months
left in the existing contract to adjust their state of mind
and get them excited.
Action:
If you’ve done everything possible to make sure their state
of mind is positive towards continuing with their training
and your timing is right, having them sign on the dotted
line should be a breeze! All you'll need to do is make
sure you have enough contracts on hand to sign their friends
up too...
