Locking a Steel Cage Around Your Student Body…the Keys to Ironclad Student Retention, Part 7

As a quick re-cap:The essential keys to “lock the back door” for long-term student retention are: 1. Over-delivering on the expectations of customer at every turn. 2. Clearly communicating the benefits of ongoing training at your school, not only to the student, but also the entire family unit. 3. Creating a positive community in your school. 4. Exciting, valuable and productive classes. (Classes that the client perceives to be valuable.)

Key 4: Exciting, VALUABLE, Productive Classes with High “Perceived” Value

It’s VERY important to understand that YOU are NOT one of your customers! You are NEITHER one of your STUDENTS, nor their family members! The principles and goals that YOU feel are valuable may not be valuable to your customers. It is important to take a long, hard look at your school and what exactly you’re selling and promising your students they will accomplish during their training! During this exploration, you’ll find that what the mothers of your 9-year-old students want and need from your program may be very different than the 24-year-old athletic adult or the 56-year-old overweight adult. It’s important not only to deliver actual value to your students and their families, but also to in such a manner that they see and perceive that they’re receiving that value. It’s not just enough to be a great teacher and motivator and teach great classes. Students and their families must perceive your greatness and are consistently receiving the benefits they really want. Understanding very specifically the needs and wants of customers and fulfilling those needs and wants in a way that the CUSTOMER feels is valuable is one of the biggest differences between schools that struggle and schools that are marvelously successful! Those successful schools also have many systems in place to make absolutely sure that customers experience those benefits and are accomplishing their training goals. What I’ve written in my recent columns applies here too: You must be using every media at your disposal, to inform continuously and constantly your students and educate them that they are actually gaining the benefits they want and need. Of course, this should include social-proof testimonials from students in class who are accomplishing those goals being used as examples as well as e-mail, voicemail, snail mail, postcards, newsletters, Webinars, teleconferences, CDs, DVDs, a video playing in your lobby, etc. etc. etc. For example, you should create a system in your classes that allows your instructors to be constantly looking for students who are making progress and present those students as positive examples to the rest of the class. We use a tool called a “High-Five Award” for children‘s classes. Each instructor is required to present a minimum of two High-Five Awards in each class, and at least one award must be “intentionally public.” The instructor must identify a student that is improving and displays good focus skills etc. The instructor then stops the class and awards the student, while describing why the students earned the award. This is a simple example of how to build a system that will guarantee that your students and families will “see” and perceive that they are gaining the skills and benefits they want from your training.

Related posts:

1. Locking a Steel Cage Around Your Student Body. The Keys to Ironclad Student Retention, Part 5
2. Locking a Steel Cage Around Your Student Body…the Keys to Ironclad Student Retention, Part 6
3. Locking a Steel Cage Around Your Student Body The Keys to Ironclad Student Retention, Part 4
4. What is this obsession that you have with making every student a Black Belt?

Category: School Growth Potential