Do you remember the day you decided to open your studio? Close your eyes and think back. I can imagine you were filled with excitement, energy, nervousness and even a bit of fear. Now think back to why you chose to open your studio. Was it your love of dance, love of kids, love of teaching, love of the independence and thrill of entrepreneurship? It may be a little bit of all. Over the years of owning your own business, you have had to learn a lot of things, maybe even the hard way, about hiring and managing staff, dealing with parents, collecting payments, budgeting, taxes and the importance of effective planning. These things were most likely NOT why you opened your studio but are an integral part of running a successful studio. And perhaps along the way, these “tasks” got in the way of your love of dance, love of kids, love of teaching and love of independence. The good news is, we are here to tell you that you can keep the love and joy in your work and still have a successful studio. It’s all in the planning and the implementation.
Keep reading for the Top 5 Tips other studio owners have shared with us on “Raking in Enrollment”, “Harvesting Your Growth” and “Falling in Love with Dance” all over again, year after year.
Tip 1 – Keep up the energy to enroll new students well into the fall and winter. Kids are very scheduled these days with many after school activities. Some of those activities will end in October, November and December and it is a great time to sign them up for a dance class. Keep reaching out through programs such as Bring a Friend, We Want you Back, Free Dance Days and even Dance camps on school holidays or around school holidays. Halloween Hip Hop Camp was a great success at one of our studios that brought 5 new kids to their Hip Hop program in just one day.
Tip 2 – Online Registration has been a tremendous help to us this year. Not only did we save money on printing registration forms, it saved our staff so much time in data entry. The parents created their accounts, typed in all their info, saved their payment method on file and selected their class. We received notification when it was done! It was great to come into the office each morning and see the registration emails in our inbox. Our report for the day shows us all the details of the registration so it’s easy to ensure the students are in an appropriate class! An ipad at our front desk helped parents register right at our window. It was a huge success for us.
Tip 3 – Share your love of your art every day with your students Bring new ideas into the classroom to keep your students motivated and YOU motivated! Show them pictures and video of you when you were a young dancer. They can see firsthand how your hard work and dedication got you to where you are now. A great idea was to host a bonding event at the studio on a Friday night to watch old competition and recital videos together. It is great to see the growth in 2 -3 years time. Students sometimes have a hard time recognizing their growth but looking back on old dances highlights that growth.
Tip 4 – Although it is important to know what your competition is doing, it is more important for you to keep focused on your path and your growth with your studio. Trust yourself in making the decisions that are right for your studio. You know the answers. You showed your strength when you made the decision to open your studio, so stay strong even when things get tough. Know and trust that you can falter and possibly even fail, but you will get back up and be stronger than before. As Virat Kohli says – Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.
Tip 5 – Offer a new type of class or a twist to an existing class every year. By adding new options, such as Acro or Funky 4’s you can encourage students to take more than once class per week. You can harvest your growth not just by adding students. Increasing the number of classes each student takes is a great way to grow as well. If you can’t add a new type of class into your regular schedule, offer it a few times a year on a Saturday or Sunday. In many parts of the country winter is a great time to have some extra Saturday and Sunday classes – when the weather may not allow outdoor activity, a special weekend dance class can be just what your community needs!