Yesterday I sent you a bunch of links to articles that I've written over the years around the topic of working smarter and not harder.

Well, for the rest of the week I decided it would be a good idea to delve a bit deeper into the central theme of each article I sent out yesterday, starting with the concept of working SMALLER and not harder...

Chances are good that if you're on this email list, you know I'm the Small Dojo, Big Profits guy. And even though it's sort of become part of my shtick, I'd like to remind you that it really isn't shtick at all - it's a business principle that I live and die by.

The reason for this is simple - size costs, size limits, and size kills. Let me explain what I mean...

I think it's apparent that the bigger your school is, the more it's going to cost to run it. But what's not apparent is all the reasons why this is the case.

The most obvious reason is that space costs. The bigger the space you rent or build, the bigger your rent or mortgage. Simple math.

But also, it costs more to heat and cool a larger space, it requires more man-hours to clean and maintain it, and maintenance costs are also greater for a larger space.

It also follows that when your overhead is higher, you need more students to pay the bills. So, when you rent or build a larger space, you are forced to get more clients to keep your school financially solvent.

That in turn leads to more staffing, because someone has to teach all those hundreds and hundreds of students and dozens and dozens of classes, and you can't do that all yourself.

Not only that, but all those hundreds and hundreds of students will have customer service issues. That means you have to hire more office staff, too. Not to mention the sales staff you have to hire in order to replace the students who drop out each month.

Size also limits your possibilities in your school, because tying up a lot of money in a monthly lease or mortgage payment limits the amount of discretionary income you have to use on other things.

And, size kills. When the economy goes south and recessions hit, large schools are often the first to fail. However, small lean schools are more likely to weather the storm.

And while the big school scenario I just described above may sound like the most desired outcome for some of you (big school with lots of square footage, hundreds and hundreds of students, a large teaching staff, and an office bustling with sales and service staff), there's a big huge fat elephant sitting in the room that none of those big school owners like to talk about.

I've spoken with dozens of highly successful school owners over the years, and let me share the big ugly secret that most of them never talk about in public...

To a person, every single large school owner I've known has said that their large schools are their least profitable schools. This is a story that I've heard time and time again.