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Something that I always had great success with was hosting an end of the summer party. I really didn’t call it end of the summer party because that’s kind of a negative name because the kids have to go back to school soon and especially in the north where the crappy weather is coming. I pretty much called it a different name every year. Just pick a really cool name that sounds fun and go with it. There are many benefits of running such a party.
During the summer many of your students take a break. The summertime is a very active time for families and they do many things which does not allow them time to participate at your school. The longer someone takes off the greater chance is that they don’t come back. So you want to get them back to your school and you want them to be excited. So running this party is a great reason for them to come back to your school. And what a fun time it will be. This gives you a good reason to get on the phone and call every student that has not been coming to class. You can really hype up this party and how it will be great to have them back and what a fun time it will be.
This party can also be used as a great recruiting tool. I make this party a big bring a friend event. So all the students can bring one or more of their friends, which is highly encouraged. Now your students are there with their friends having a great time. It is a great opportunity to get their friends to sign up at your school. I don’t try to actually sign them up at the party but what I do is I offer all the friends a free two-week. I have a high success rate of these friends coming in. This is mainly because they have such a good and fun time at the party. Most sign up for my regular program. So I highly recommend this party so you can bring in new students.
With all this being said the party that you create better be a fun time. I suggest that you get with some friends, family and maybe some of your closer students to come up with a plan to create a fun event. Maybe even a different location than your school. Sometimes I run it at a park.
Another good idea that you can do to help offset some of the cost of this party is to partner up with some of the local businesses in your shopping plaza along with others in the community around you. I go to my fellow business people in the neighborhood and I tell them if they can contribute to my party that I will promote their business to my students. This is appealing to many different businesses because I am a family oriented martial arts school. These businesses are highly motivated to connect with families in the community. I have them supply drinks, food, party favors, coupons and all kinds of different things to help make the party great. This process may take you a little while to get going at first. You may only get one or two businesses to work with you. This is an event that you run every single year and every single year you will add one or two businesses to help you. So eventually you have many businesses that come out to your party and it becomes this really big event for the businesses, your students and you.
This may not sound like a real beneficial tool to motivate your students and to get new prospects but it really is and it’s something that you need to do. It is extremely effective.
As always, good luck to your school.