I just finished listening to one of my old martial art association CD's from about 5 years ago. If you have old tapes and CD's I highly recommend you listen to them again. Here is the truth, good material is timeless.
I was enjoying the CD up until the speaker was discussing how to get someone signed up on a contract. I have come along way in my business career, and I've learned quite a bit about selling. In fact, selling was something I taught when I was a representative for Zig Ziglar. One of the things I taught was how to sell a contract. If you know anything about selling, you're not actually selling the contract, you're selling the benefits. If you portray the benefits well enough, you've got a signed contract.
Before anyone ever adopts a contract, they should ask themselves one question. Why do I need a contract? If a student agreed to stay in your program for 1 year, and pay your tuition rate, would you still ask him to sign a contract for a year? What if most of your students stayed in your program for 1 year or more, and agreed to stay longer? Would you feel there was still a need for a contract?
We adopted contracts several years back, mainly because it was becoming the norm. A couple of years ago I decided to test something. I wanted to know if students were staying in our program for 1 year (minimum) because they enjoyed it, or because they were on a contract. So, we eliminated the 1 year contract and began analyzing our drop out rate. Guess how much it changed? ZERO!!!
Here's the important point to consider- If your program lives up to what you say it will, your instructors teach from the heart like you do, then you don't need a contract. The only reason some schools NEED contracts is because their programs cannot retain the student. Remember when I mentioned, selling the benefits above? The only time your students will want to quit is when you're finished selling the benefits. Selling the benefits is something you do in every class, not just in the enrollment conference. Your program, your instructors, your systems should retain the students, not the contract.
If you need the contract to retain the student, you've got a drop out problem after one year. Schools that don't have contracts and can retain students past one year have extraordinary 2 year retention rates.
Now... if you've got a contract and you're retaining students well after 1 year, and you don't mind signing students up on a contract- more power to you. We were this school at one time. I simply decided to test contracts vs. no contracts, and never went back. I do know of many successful schools that have contracts and great students going all the way to Black Belt. My belief is that you must choose those systems that make you feel good about yourself and your program at the end of the day.
Respectfully,
Master Richardson
