The Value of Statistics
Posted on | March 15, 2010 | 1 Comment
Every well run business, regardless of the industry, has specific methods for tracking the trends of their business. It is their way of keeping score, letting them know how they’re doing and where they can improve. The martial arts industry is no exception. Keeping solid statistics is vital to the growth of your school. Although there are more statistics than those listed below that you can track to help grow your school, these are the one that you absolutely must track to achieve success. My brother, Tim, and I were taught this by Mr. Nick Cokinos, CEO of EFC over 20 years ago and it has proven to be one of the most important lessons in business that we ever learned.
Advertising costs
Knowing how much money you spend on advertising allows you to calculate the cost of acquiring a new member. Example; if you spend $1,000.00 on average per month on advertising and enroll an average of ten new members a month, then the cost of acquiring a new member is $100.00. As a general rule of thumb, most successful schools will spend at least 10% of their gross on advertising.
Info calls
Knowing how many times the phone rings with an inquiry allows you to know how well your current marketing campaign is working.
Appointments
Knowing how many appointments you make from the inquiry calls let you know how well trained your staff is on answering the phone. The goal is to turn 80% of the phone inquiries into appointments.
Tours/First lesson
Knowing how many tours/first lessons show up helps you to track the quality of the leads that are being generated and how well your staff is following up on the appointments being made. The goal is to have 80% of the appointments show up for their tour.
Second lesson
Knowing how many potential students show up for their second lesson lets you know how good of a first impression that you made and how solid your first lesson was. The goal is to have 80% of the students that showed up for their first lesson to come back for their second.
Extensions
This is quite possibly the most important statistic you track. If you are not enrolling new members you will not be able to stay in business. The goal is to have 80% of the people that took their second lesson enroll into your program.
Renewals
The number of students that renew onto a second program is a direct indication of the quality of your program. If very few are renewing then it would probably be wise to take a look at your basic program. The number of renewals that you are shooting for is based entirely upon when you do the renewal conference. If you renew students within the first two or three months of training your percentages should be very high. If you wait until the first year is completed then your percentage will be much lower. As a general rule of thumb, 90% of your students should make their first belt promotion, 90% of those students should make their second belt promotion etc.
Active student count
Your active student count is simply a reflection of the number of new students enrolled at your school along with a number of students that have renewed onto another program. There are various ways to track the active count. You could track how many people are on agreements, how many people have been in class in the last three months, one month or week. Any method is effective as long as you’re consistent with that method. Most schools get their active count by tracking how many students have been in at least once in the last month.
Quit rate
Your quit rate is the number of students that formally discontinued their training in any given month. For example; if you have an active count of 100 and eight members quit that month, your quit rates would be 8%. The goal is to keep your quick rate at 3% or less. This might seem easy but don’t kid yourself, its harder than you think.
Keeping these statistics allows you to see clearly where your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can adjust accordingly. If you are already keeping track of these statistics then you understand. If not, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is a hard habit to get into, but it will be well worth it.
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About Dave Kovar
Mr. Kovar has been teaching Martial Arts professionally since 1978. Dave is a multi-style Black Belt who has been committed to ever-improving his Martial Arts skills. He updates this blog to provide tips and insights to martial arts instructors around the country. To learn more, click here.
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April 8th, 2010 @ 10:14 pm
Stats are crucial to remembering what you did to check what you are going to do in the future. Without it, you are kind of guessing.