As silly as this may sound you would be surprised at the little bit of thought that some people give to scheduling and I will admit it can be trial and error. I have been doing this for over ten years now and there is a bit of a challenge to it. When I started at the college we had classes in the evenings and most of the people who showed up worked a day job. A year later I went to work at a large health and wellness facility and our biggest classes were on Monday mornings. So how do you know when to schedule your classes?
In previous post I covered how to decide when you should teach, that is your first step. What fits into your life style. For the sake of this blog I will use myself and a current graduate as an example, we will call her Sally. I have teenagers whom I take and pick up from school, it is important to me to be available for them early in the a.m. and afternoons. However I can work some weekends because my kids can feed and look after themselves and my husband is off on weekends.
Sally however has small children and her husband is a nurse who works three weekends a month working three ten hr shifts. He is usually worn out on Mondays. Sally would like to work Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but not all three days as she would like to have some family time. Sally would like to add about $300 a month to her income so she feels at $25 an hour she needs to teach four classes per week. Sally and her husband talk and decide that working on Tuesdays and Thursdays would be ideal. Sally decides to approach her yoga studio and ask to teach a 6:00 a.m. class and a 9:30 a.m. class, giving her a little time to run errands between classes or do paperwork. She approaches the Director whom she has taken classes from in the past. The Director ask her to demonstrate a class, which she does. The Director says she will be happy to ad the 6:00 a.m. class for three months and see how it does but she, the Director, teaches the 9:30 class. Sally gladly accepts and soon finds she has an average of eight folks showing up to take her class within six weeks. The Director is becoming more and more busy and decides since Sally is doing so great by month three that she will let her sub for a month and see how it goes on the 9:30 class with the intent to free up the Directors time if it goes well. Sally loses two students (normal when teachers change out) but gains four so the Director keeps her on and within in four months Sally has exactly what she wanted and is bringing in an extra $400 a month for her family working two weekday mornings and loves her job.
So you may be saying "Huh, how does this apply to getting people to my class?" Well it's only half of the story. One Sally is happy, enthusiasm is key to your success. So then what is the other half, or I should say quarters.
You need to look at your clientele and marketing approach. At a college you cater to students and to retirees who get a discount so you can offer classes for students any time of day and they will likely show because they need P.E. credit. I would recommend between the hours of 8a.m. and 12:00 and 1:00 to 5:00 and then starting again at 6p.m. and then offer classes on M/W or T/Th for an hour at a time. Look at the college schedule and see what classes are offered and talk to the Director of Health and Fitness.
At a health club or yoga studio you can start at 6:00 a.m. and then nothing from 7 to 8:30, start back up 8:30 and end no later than 12:00. There are some exceptions but slow times are usually 7a.m. to 8:00 a.m. for classes and 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m., at 4:00 you get school age kids, around 5:30 start back up and end all classes by 7:30. Depending on your place of business you can have 15 mins of wiggle room here. These numbers are based on many years of experience on my part. For yoga I highly recommend you have 15 to 20 mins before or after a class for people to socialize. A huge part of exercise is the community aspect, hold this to be true "Value the social aspect of your yoga community in order to grow." Push them out within minutes of a class and failure is an option. Give them time to build relationships and they will return.
Happy Scheduling!
Courtney
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