I (Patrick) and my wife Holly operated successful English schools in Japan for over 12 years. We grew from just 85 students to over 350
students as well as gaining the contracts to teach in local public schools and universities. In the latter years of our time there, we mostly
worked in a managerial role and only taught the occasional class. Here's what you can do to grow:
1. Find out what your competitors in the same area are offering. Do your research. You must find various items to distinguish yourself.
2. Lower the barrier of entry as much as possible. For example, if most schools in your area ask for an entrance fee, you should not.
Realize that a student may stay with you, on average, for 3 years, so you can afford to give away a little on the front end to gain their initial
trust, knowing that you will capitalize over the long term. We ran an ad in the local paper that said something like this: "We realize that your
little boy or girl may not like English and it is difficult for you to risk spending an entrance fee, first month's fee and the price of all the
textbooks, only to have your child miserable in class, hoping to quit. We want to remove that risk from you. That's why you can join the Bell
school with no entrance fee. And, if you child doesn't like his/her classes for any reason whatsoever and wants to quit after the first month,
we will refund your first month's fee and even the price you paid for the textbook." This was so effective and we gained many students when
other similar schools were losing them.
3. Get teachers who love students and show it. I think this is more important that having a strong ability to teach. One of our most influential
teachers in helping to grow our school was actually quite limited in their ability to teach, but because this person loved on the students so
much, they showed their love in return and our school went through a great period of growth.
4. Realize that you can only grow your school by increasing the number of hours that a teacher teaches, or increasing the amount that
each student pays. You must look for additional products or services that you can sell to your students. Consider building a DVD training
program for either students or teachers so that you can develop an on-going revenue outside of your own school operation.
5. We gave all our students "Bell Dollars" coupons valued at about $30. They were instructed to hand them out to friends and family
members that they cared about. The people they gave the coupons to could bring them in and save on their first month's tuition. The
student who had given the coupon would receive an equal amount for a discount on their next month's fee. We probably grew 10%/year
using this method, and this is after many of the other schools (even the national chains with their big advertising budgets) had given up and
left the city for good, blaming a failing local economy.
English Schools