Is your academy trending up, or are you a few months from being in serious financial trouble?

Can you tell the difference?

This is the first thing we want to know when we start working with new martial arts school owners.

We want to see your metrics.

You might be shocked to find out that most people we work with don’t have any formal metric tracking in place.

They usually know their revenue, because they definitely know their expenses.

After the bills are paid, what else is there to know?

Yes, revenue is important. But it is not the most important indicator of your academy’s health.

We generally don’t even need to ask about it.

Because we know if you are tracking 5 key things and showing positive trends in all 5, your academy is in a great position.

What are these metrics we’re focused on?

Appointments Set 

This is the number of people you book for their first class in a week and month. You need a constant influx of potential students if you want your academy to grow. 

Appointments Shown 

This is how many people show up to the first class you booked with them. If you can't get people to walk through your doors the first time, you aren't going to sign them up. 

It's also important to understand the percentage of people who book their first class who actually  show up. If you can't get leads to show up, you will need to deep dive into how your booking their first class and following up with them. 

To understand the percentage of shows you have, divide the number of set appointments with the number of people who actually showed up.

Appointments Closed

This is how many of those appointments ended with a sale.

We like to know the Set to show and Show to Closed percentage because it gives us important information about where exactly our sales process is breaking down.

If Show to Closed is lagging, we’re dropping the ball on the sale or the first class is mediocre.

If Set to Show is low, we know that our follow up process to confirm appointments and get people in the front door needs work.

In both cases, tracking these metrics helps us quickly home in on the issue and begin to implement changes.

Cancellations 

This is how many students canceled their memberships this month. Comparing this to your number of closed sales in a month lets you know your  "churn.”

Keeping churn low is one of the most important initiatives you can take on in your academy.

It costs dramatically more to get a new student than it does to keep a current student.

If you’re seeing a lot of cancellations, most likely the in-academy experience is lacking.

Classes may be boring or lack structure, people may not feel welcome when they come in, or the academy may be a dirty mess.

Attendance 

We want to know our students are attending class. Our baseline is 2 classes per week per student. This is the minimum necessary to start improving in our experience. It's also what we base our prices on. 

We know that students who don’t show up twice a week are much more likely to cancel.

Again, low attendance across the board tells you that your classes and in-academy experience are lackluster and indicates you are going to get more cancellations, increasing your churn.

If you’re not consistently tracking these metrics, you need to start today.

These 5 metrics will give you an honest assessment of the health of your academy.

They will also inform your approach to marketing, sales, and how to predict fluctuations in revenue throughout the year.

Once you track these metrics, the next thing for you will be to implement the changes necessary to get to healthy numbers in all 5 categories.

We’ve created systems and processes that will give you all the information and tools needed to make these changes and more.

If your metrics are healthy, your revenue will be as well.