Retain Students Longer with 2020 Armor
We like to analyze our Martial Art schools and see where we can make improvements to impact more lives and grow our bottom line. We would like to share with you a few student retention tips that can help grow your martial art business.
The founders of 2020 Armor run 6 successful Taekwondo Dojangs across the United States and Canada with over 1,500 students. When we wake up in the morning we each feel privileged that this is what we get to do every day. In order for us to impact students, we have to be able to retain our students.
Student retention and new student acquisition are two core elements to your bottom line. When we built the 2020 Armor Recreational model chest guard, we wanted to ensure we directly address these two needs. If we can retain one student for just 3 months – that will pay for one 2020 Armor unit, making a very quick return on investment.
In this post, I will discuss how 2020 Armor can address 3 main reasons for why students leave (i.e. retention). By having a strategy for each of these reasons why students leave, you can retain them longer and increase your bottom line.
The Student Is Bored
The Recreational Chest Guard ships with 10 Game Modes, each providing instant feedback, gratification, and entertainment. These 5 two player games and 5 single player games and training tools can be used in hundreds of ways within your class, keeping the students engaged which fights against boredom. You can put a training program based on the students belt level, for example white belts play game modes 1 and 2 and use variations A, B and C. You can leverage the instant feedback gratification and entertainment that comes with 2020 Armor, which has been proven to work in video games to fight boredom in your classes and keep your students longer. Students learn best when they are engaged and having fun.
The Student Does Not Feel Progress
The taekwondo belt system is a way to show that a student has made progress in their training. It is what keeps us motivated to stay longer and achieve our black belt. However, an objective, more finer level of progression needs to be shown, especially in the intermediary stages when a student is most likely to quit. Students are usually committed at the beginning because everything is new and exciting. However, our data shows that students tend to feel no improvement or see a lack of improvement after they have received their first few belts. One of the game modes for the Recreational Chest Guard is “Hit Meter”. This mode is like the game at the arcade where you hit the punching bag and it shows you the power of your hit. With this mode, you can share with the student on a weekly, daily and kick by kick basis their improvement in technique. You can objectively say “When you first started, you were hitting at 5% and now you are at 10% because your technique has improved”. This objective feedback shows the student and the parent directly the progress of the child and can also immediately show where they need to make adjustments to improve.
The Students Parents No Longer see any Value in your Program
The development of character is a large factor that makes a parent decide whether they want to keep their kids in your program or not because this is the value they see in paying for your classes. Not all children like sparring, but as instructors, we know the value that sparring can bring to a student’s confidence and self defence, which are two key aspects parents look for in their child’s development. By framing sparring as a video game, it is easier to get children involved since kids are taught from a very young age to learn by playing games. We can encourage them to spar, learn how it feels to hit, but more importantly to get hit while having fun. This builds core character in a child that a parent will see transfer into the child’s daily life.
We hope you will take the next step and invite 20/20 Armor into your clubs and experience the difference and see how the above 3 retention strategies has an impact on your business.
