We've been discussing scheduling and curriculum design this week, and yesterday I spoke about keeping your clients happy. Specifically, I wrote about knowing what the consumer wants, by understanding demographics and targeting a large market that you can serve with what you offer.
- Giving them what they want,
- How they want it,
- And at a price they are willing to pay.
Today I'm going to talk about the second factor... how they want your services delivered.
How Do They Want It?
We already talked about what people are looking for in a martial arts program yesterday, with regards to program content. Now, let's take a look at how they want it packaged and delivered.
The main keyword to remember here is "convenience." It's as simple as that. People want convenience in the services they purchase, and they don't want to have to be inconvenienced in order to enjoy those services.
In fact, convenience is probably more important to consumers now than it's ever been. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers' 2016 consumer survey, 58% of respondents said the main reason they shop online is for convenience, and 46% said ease of checkout was the number one influencing factor in how they perceive an in-store shopping experience.
Combine that data with Millennials (who have grown up enjoying the immediacy of digital technology) becoming a much more dominant consumer block, and what you have is a market full of consumers who want the ability to buy everything, everywhere, and right now. Furthermore, they are not accustomed to being inconvenienced in order to enjoy their purchases.
What This Means To You, The Dojo Owner
It means the same thing it has always meant... that you need to schedule your classes at times that are convenient for the majority of your members. This means scheduling kid's classes at times when parents are able to bring their children, and scheduling adult classes at times when they are able to attend class.
I know it's obvious, but it takes some thought to work this out properly. For example, in my first commercial school I initially scheduled classes at the same times my instructors had scheduled their classes. However, I didn't take into account that I was living in a "bedroom community," where the majority of my clients had long commutes home after work.
First, I noticed students were showing up late to class. Of course, being the idiot hard core instructor I was, I gave them push-ups. Then, after a few students and parents explained to me that they had to drive home 45 - 90 minutes in traffic to get to my school, I realized it wasn't their fault, but mine for scheduling my classes too early.
That led to my scheduling evening classes slightly later to accommodate those clients. It also led to my adding an entire block of kid's classes earlier in the afternoon (specifically for the children of work-at-home and stay-at-home parents) because I could fit them in now since I had moved an entire block of classes later in the evening.
The key point to remember in scheduling is that your schedule will be dictated by the demographics of your target market, the location of your school in relation to where they work and live, and the length of your classes.
Make Sure You Get Class Length Right
Also, another factor in creating a schedule that your clients find to be convenient is setting class times that are the appropriate length. Meaning, appropriate to your clients, not you.
The tendency I see among instructors is that they want to give clients a lot of value for their money. So, they offer classes that are longer than they need to be, and longer than the majority of their clients want.
Consider that children have short attention spans. Consider also that they can expend a great deal of energy in a short period of time, and they experience mental and physical fatigue more quickly than their adult counterparts.
And while you might think a 60-minute or 90-minute class for children is a great idea (because think of all that you can teach in that time), it's actually a horrible idea and it will cause you to lose students.
Same thing goes for adult classes, but for different reasons. Adults schedule their day in blocks of 30 and 60 minutes. And, most of your adults will consider their martial arts training to be a workout as well as recreation. For this reason, they are going to want to get in and get out of your school in under an hour.
Sure, you might want to train them for 90 minutes a session, or even two hours. But, most busy adults today can barely carve out an hour twice a week for recreation, much less 1.5 to 2 hours two or three times a week.
And while they might initially say they'd like to train for 90 minutes, in reality their attendance is going to be dismal when your classes are that long. It's easy to rationalize zipping down to the dojo for an hour to workout, but 90 minute classes mean that they'll spend two hours at your school, what with changing and getting in and out of class.
Bottom line? It's just too much time for most adults to spare.
Coming In The Next Installment...
In the next installment in this email series, I'm going to talk about how price influences your schedule. Stay tuned...
