Archive for the 'dojo management software' Category

The Importance of Monitoring Your Stats…

Published on December 29, 2009 in dojo management software and martial arts software. 0 Comments

Today I want to share with you THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR to creating and then making a full time school a success…

But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane…

At this time of the year I like to give myself a report card, just like at school. And yes I still get butterflies in my stomach waiting for the results. For a moment I imagine myself sitting on my bed waiting for my parents to get home from parent/teacher night… ready to “have a little talk” with me.

Jump ahead 20 years and the folks aren’t there anymore to kick my butt when it needs to be kicked. Nobody is there to tell me that I better make some changes or real soon I’ll be flipping burgers at McDonalds, if I’m lucky.

Nope, as a business owner something you need to do constantly is to assess how you and your dojo are doing. It’s important to monitor certain factors, at minimum each quarter and preferably on a monthly basis, and then also do a 12 month comparison.

These are the stats I use to monitor the “health” of my school each month.

  • # active students, total, and by age group
  • $ total gross revenue
  • $ product sales
  • $ expenses
  • student attendance frequency
  • # new enrollments
  • # drop outs
  • % conversion from trial class to full student

Then every 12 months I ask:

  • Did we achieve the goals set for this year?
  • What improvements did we make for students, instructors and families?
  • Are my students still enjoying class?
  • Am I still enjoying teaching full time?

These key indicators help you keep your finger on the pulse and allow you to make corrections and improvements at the first sign of any negative trends. Without knowing your stats it’s impossible to know for sure what needs improving, and you can spend a long time chasing your tail or make changes to things that don’t require it.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from running my own business for the last 7 years is that EMOTIONS can tell you lies, but STATISTICS always tell the truth. So it’s critical to monitor those figures.

If you want to teach full time and open your own school, start treating it like a business from now on, and a hobby no longer. Get serious, invest your time (and maybe a little money), know your stats, continually make improvements and before you know it you’ll be sailing to the promised land…

To your success!

- Jason

P.S. I monitor the stats I talked about above using the KarateTools Dojo Organizer. You can learn more here.

Success Key #3

Published on March 9, 2009 in dojo management software and karatetools. 0 Comments

The final key I want to share with you for a successful martial arts school is to have…

A Good Record Keeping System!
I realized as soon as I got 20 students that trying to keep good records of who had paid, when they trained, their personal details, etc. was going to be a nightmare if I was going to keep paper records, or even electronically with MS Excel. Files accidentally get overwritten, lost, names get mispelt, computers crash, yikes!

That’s why I went and built the KarateTools Dojo Organizer that runs my dojo. It’s simple to use and keeps everything organized, secure in one place, accessible from anywhere 24/7, and is backed up daily.

Warning!! It doesn’t play happy birthday when your students arrive at the club, nor does it teach class for you!

It does the basics like student data tracking, student grading certificates, attendance tracking, emailing of receipts, etc. and it does them well to free up your time, and relieve your frustration.

Plus if you use some kind of credit card processor/merchant gateway/recurring billing company, the Dojo Organizer can now interface with them and insert your payments directly into the Dojo Organizer system (that means no more manual data entry for you), woohoo!

There are of course other products on the market that are great, like JackRabbit starting at $45/month. These programs are fantastic and can schedule instructors, keep inventory, etc, and of course you’ll pay for those added features (more than double the price for the KarateTools service).

These kinds of programs have everything you can imagine and they charge accordingly. Also be aware that many companies like JackRabbit charge you based on the number of TOTAL students, not ACTIVE students you have in there system. If you’re like me and like to keep your old student data, then it can get pricey quickly. For me to use their system it would cost me $155/month. With the KarateTools Dojo Organizer there are no restrictions on student count and you can get started for less than $20.

If you’re a small school owner and don’t need to schedule instructors, don’t need to keep masses of inventory, or have happy birthday played when you’re students arrive for class, but are looking for a solid program to reduce your headaches then I might just have what you’re looking for.

http://www.karatetools.com

Of course I’d love you to use my system, however the mesage I’m trying to get across is that good record keeping can be easy and is a critical factor if you’re looking to reduce your administrative tasks and grow your school.

Failure to get organized will lead you nowhere… yet so many instructors refuse to change their bad habits, yet expect to be successful and have a great karate school.

It reminds me of that famous Albert Einstein quote about the definition of insanity…

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”

Isn’t it time for you to get organized?

- Jason

Saved by the report…

Published on August 25, 2008 in dojo management software and martial arts software. 0 Comments

Summer is a particularly hard time for many schools with students taking time off. Personally this year we’re doing better overall than 2007 (up approx. 10%), however July was still our most challenging month.

We do our own billing but recently I’ve fallen a little behind on the administration side of my business, despite 90% of it being automated. When I ran my “Overdue Report” this morning, I just found an extra $1,104.00 which hadn’t been charged in August!

Yikes! I almost cheated myself out of $1,104!

Several years ago before I got organized with my dojo management software, I’d never have found that mistake. Granted back then it wasn’t that much, but still I’m sure I missed $100s with sloppy paperwork and hand written receipts.

  • Key Point: For long term success and rapid growth of your martial arts school you MUST be organized!

This one report today uncovered those students who hadn’t yet paid this month. If I missed that over the course of one year, we’d be talking about over $13,000 in lost tuition fees!

$13,000 lost is enough to sink many schools…

That’s why I built the KarateTools Dojo Organizer - to help me and you stay organized and keep our martial arts schools sailing smoothly. The small monthly price for the service in my case is 1.8% of the *recovered* tuition.

(Obviously I don’t charge myself for the use of my software, but I do pay the hosting company which works out about the same.)

In other words for every $1 I spend in staying organized, I recover $54 in lost revenue.

That’s smart.

How much are you losing in missed tuition fees?

Are you sure?

How do you really know?

How do you stay organized and keep your ship from sinking?

Don’t count on your students to keep tabs on their tuition payments. While some will be proactive and let you know if you’ve messed up, many think it’s your job to look after that. And quite frankly although some will know that you haven’t billed them they won’t say a word hoping to get some freebies…

Take control of your financial matters and your school will sail to the promised land. Ignore it and it’ll sink to the icy depths of the ocean floor.

- Jason

P.S. To learn more about the KarateTools Dojo Organizer, go here:

http://www.karatetools.com/