Today I want to share with you THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR to creating and then making a full time school a success…

But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane…

At this time of the year I like to give myself a report card, just like at school. And yes I still get butterflies in my stomach waiting for the results. For a moment I imagine myself sitting on my bed waiting for my parents to get home from parent/teacher night… ready to “have a little talk” with me.

Jump ahead 20 years and the folks aren’t there anymore to kick my butt when it needs to be kicked. Nobody is there to tell me that I better make some changes or real soon I’ll be flipping burgers at McDonalds, if I’m lucky.

Nope, as a business owner something you need to do constantly is to assess how you and your dojo are doing. It’s important to monitor certain factors, at minimum each quarter and preferably on a monthly basis, and then also do a 12 month comparison.

These are the stats I use to monitor the “health” of my school each month.

• # active students, total, and by age group
• $ total gross revenue
• $ product sales
• $ expenses
• student attendance frequency
• # new enrollments
• # drop outs
• % conversion from trial class to full student

Then every 12 months I ask:

• Did we achieve the goals set for this year?
• What improvements did we make for students, instructors and families?
• Are my students still enjoying class?
• Am I still enjoying teaching full time?

These key indicators help you keep your finger on the pulse and allow you to make corrections and improvements at the first sign of any negative trends. Without knowing your stats it’s impossible to know for sure what needs improving, and you can spend a long time chasing your tail or make changes to things that don’t require it.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from running my own business for the last 7 years is that EMOTIONS can tell you lies, but STATISTICS always tell the truth. So it’s critical to monitor those figures.

If you want to teach full time and open your own school, start treating it like a business from now on, and a hobby no longer. Get serious, invest your time (and maybe a little money), know your stats, continually make improvements and before you know it you’ll be sailing to the promised land…

To your success!

– Jason

P.S. I monitor the stats I talked about above using the Dojo Organizer. You can learn more here.