The Back Stage

In order to have a successful Performance, you must have a Back Stage that’s capable of supporting the quality of experience you want to create for your students. The stronger your Back Stage, the better the Performance experience for your students. Back Stage activities exist solely to support and create the Performance. If they do not relate in any way to the client experience, they should not exist.

The Back Stage develops in three distinct areas:

Skills

The skills behind the scenes create and support what is presented to prospects, students, and customers. The more the team develops their strengths and skills, the more the Performance can grow and flourish.

All Back Stage activities are based on the best use of each person’s job skills and strengths. As a team, you want to get the best combinations of the team’s unique strengths. The best staff experience and school growth is achieved when people are in roles where they are successful, enthusiastic about the work, and always striving to get better.

Teamwork

Along with individual unique strengths, there also has to be a focus on continually increasing the quality of teamwork within each of the Back Stage teams and systems.

To create great Performances, there is an even greater need for regular communication between team members. They all must have their ladders on the same wall. This means they must understand and speak the language of your Back Stage and its goal of creating a unique experience during the Performance.

All team members must have a deep understanding and appreciation for one another as individuals with unique strengths and roles to play. Everyone needs to be focused on working together toward a common goal, with a spirit of constant learning and progress. People collaborating, contributing their talents, and regularly communicating with each other combine on the Back Stage to create a powerful and memorable Performance.

Coordination

Coordinating each team member’s efforts is the other key aspect of a successful Back Stage. Developing and documenting systems and keeping these systems current is another ingredient of success. It’s easy for a staff member to focus on delivering their result without necessarily understanding their impact on the rest of the team. The more teams coordinate their activities with one another, the better the Performance experience.

By looking at all the activities in your school from the context of Performance/Back Stage, you and your team can start to see ways to enhance and better protect your client experience. The unique advantage of using this model lies in the fact that you know that you are selling experiences, while your competitors think they’re selling lessons or classes. What people really want is to have a relationship with you, not just to learn martial arts. This focus on unique experience will take you out of the typical mindset of who you are in competition with.

Assignment One

  1. What kind of Performance experience do you want your students to have?

    • a. What are the contact points that can create this experience?
    • b. How will you create the experience at each contact point?
    • c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

  2. What kind of Performance experience do you want your prospects to have?

    • a. What are the contact points that can create this experience?
    • b. How will you create the experience at each contact point?
    • c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

  3. What kind of Performance experience do you want your student’s families to have?

    • a. What are the contact points that can create this experience?
    • b. How will you create the experience at each contact point?
    • c. How will you know if you are being successful in creating each of these experiences?

Systems – Month Two

Establish a Student Service Policy

Phase One: Many owners think that to attract more students they need to first increase their marketing and promotions.

While it is true that better marketing can generate more traffic, if you don’t provide your students with an excellent program, you’ll lose them as fast as you can enroll them. All growth starts with a focus on the students’ experience, and creating quality control systems for every step of the way to black belt and beyond is central to that goal.

Establishing an all-encompassing student service system will be a work-in-progress project that should be done in phases. You and your team should always review ways to improve the student experience. But the first step in establishing consistent student service is to create some guidelines.

Your team will meet to define and document the following components of your student service system:

  1. Greeting Procedure:

    • Making sure your students feel welcomed as soon as they walk through your doors is a must.
    • Use the “Three Step Rule.” A student or visitor is greeted with enthusiasm within three steps of entering the school.
    • We believe that class actually begins at that moment for the student. A nice greeting works as a mental and attitude warm-up for a great class.

  2. Seek the Silent Students:

    • Some students just quietly come to class until one day they are not there and not missed for a few weeks.
    • Teach your team to seek out the silent students for an “atta boy” and give your team good open-ended questions to ask like: “How are you enjoying your classes?”
    • “What do you think you need to do to prepare for your next exam?” “I see your sidekick is looking better. Have you been practicing?”

  3. Exit Strategy:

    • Just like you want students greeted upon arrival, you want them to leave with some recognition.
    • Teach your team to say, “Nice work today (Student Name). See you next class!”

  4. Two Emails Per Day:

    • Have each one of your team send encouraging emails to students, parents, and prospects.
    • Between you and one staff member, that’s about 40 emails per month. .

  5. Advancement Process:

    • Every staff member should be aware of the belt cycle for students.
    • Belt requirements, time in grade, and technical requirements are too often left to subjective criteria rather than clear technical requirements.

  6. Establish Benchmarks:

    • Regardless of style, your school should establish benchmarks for each student and rank.
    • For instance:
      • a. 70% class attendance for promotion.
      • b. Students missing class on Monday or Tuesday are called either during the class or by Wednesday at the latest.
      • c. Students at xyz belt must be able to punch with a flat wrist 100% of the time in kata for promotion. (Be careful creating too many specific rank requirements as the more you require, the more admin and maintenance you create for yourself.)

  7. Handling Student/Parent Complaints:

    • No matter how good your school is, you’re going to experience complaints from time to time.
    • Contrary to popular belief, you don’t lose students every time you make a mistake; you lose them when you don’t properly handle their complaints.
    • Think of complaints as an opportunity to impress your students.