This week I am directing my thoughts to dance teachers, especially those that would like to increase their business. When you have a successful class, that is well planned and with a winning formula, it makes sense to be able to reproduce it. This means travelling a little further to reach a new audience. Imagine that you have a successful class with 20 people. Imagine multiplying this class 5 times during the week. If you had several people who were able to teach the class you could free your time a little. Streamlining planning and repeating the same class makes excellent economic sense and increases your turnover. Any teachers could also come to your initial class to pick up teaching tips, music advice etc.
Of course the big worry for all dance teachers is that the teachers will then leave you and take the group over as their own. This happens many times in our business and is very annoying to the original teacher who provided them with an opportunity to build up the group whilst paying the necessary insurances, licences, advertising costs and provided back up support and teaching advice. Of course the person who does this takeover would be considered highly unprofessional within the business, however some people are happy to live with this reputation.
So what can we do to stop this?
Firstly my advice to principals is not to put all your eggs in one basket. If you have 10 teachers working for you then if they steal your pupils then they only take a small percentage of your business.
Secondly, you have to make your own classes and school better so that students do not want to leave you for the imitators.
Thirdly, you have to provide something for the teachers which they would miss and which they value. This could be the correct pay, respect, support and reduction in their professional training costs. The most important of these is respect.
I have heard it said that we do not own our students and I fully believe this is true. The customer can spend their money where they wish to. However, if dance teachers behave so unprofessionally as to effectively take students from another school in which they have been working they diminish the profession as a whole.
I recommend you consider multiplication.
So now to diversification as a means to increase business turnover. This does not mean that you should run with every new trend in dance. However who knew that Zumba would be so sustainable let alone Saturday Night Fever leading to the global business of Freestyle. We are as dance teachers in a unique position of being able to offer a wide range of classes for fitness and fun. This week I will be spending my time thinking of ways in which we can increase our offering by diversifying.
Any ideas anyone?