1. Open House
Summer is a great time of year to plan an open house with some dynamic demonstrations. Make it an all-day fun event for all your students, along with their friends and family. Try to have some carnival-style games, face painting, raffles, demos, and anything else you can dream up that is fun and exciting.
2. Buddy Weeks
Have a Buddy Week in early May, and then again in late June. This will help you bring a steady flow of prospects into your school during some typically slow months. Be sure to work these leads immediately. The quicker you’re on it, the better chance of enrollment you will have.
3. Mother Only Day
The week before Mother’s Day we have a special Mother’s Day class where all the students can bring mom with them to class that day. Offer all the moms a free month of classes just for coming. Be sure to offer them the free month in front of their children. There’s nothing like a little positive pressure from the kids.
4. Fathers Only Day
This year, Father’s Day is Sunday, June 20th. This is the same event as the Mothers Only Day only it’s for Dads.
5. Summer Training Camps
An intensive 2 or 3-day training program, each session lasts 3 – 5 hours. Give attendance credit to everyone who participates and allow the students to test right in the camp if they are ready for promotion. We hold these camps during school vacation weeks as well as in the summer. That’s July and August. We charge $99 per session and they sell out quickly! Max the training camps out at around 20 students to ensure personal attention. I typically gross around $4,000 per week when they sell out.
7. Record Setting / Breaking Day
Record-Setting/ Breaking Day is a great way to get your students and parents together for a fun-filled afternoon. Also, you can use this as an opportunity to target parents for renewals or perhaps even get them involved in the lessons too.
The first year you do this, it should be called Record-Setting Day. Then it becomes Record Breaking Day every year after that. The record holders’ names go on a large (2 ft x 2.5 ft) plaque in the waiting area and remain there until someone beats their record. So a name could stay there for as little as a year, or forever.
Some examples of records could be: punches per minute, kicks per minute, number of push-ups, distance of long jump, power pad reading (measures pressure), belt tying (speed), cone gathering (speed), and anything else you can dream up.
But most importantly, remember to have a fun lesson plan that can compete with the nice weather. Your facility has to be more fun than the beach and more exciting than the amusement park. Not only do you have to excite the students, but you have to excite the parents too. Good Luck!
