The year is slowly winding down and coming to an end and before we know it, the New Year will be upon us. We have discussed in previous blogs the importance of being prepared for the New Year, such as now’s the time to plan for 2016. But this week we are going to take a look at what we can take from 2015 and use it to help grow your business in 2016.
Student Numbers
One of the big things for any instructor is ensuring they have students to teach, but managing both the day to day admin of your current students and prospecting for new ones, can be a challenge of varying degrees. Thankfully, tools such as myMA and its Agreement reports can help keep track of this data to help you better understand what’s going on. Utilising reports such as New Agreements and Attrition Rate give you a clear idea of what your retention and sign up rates are like, and where and when you can improve these.
It’s all just numbers and graphs, how does that help me?
The reports from myMA can give you the insight you need into your strongest and weakest months in terms of retention and sign ups. Learning from 2015, you can look to make a strong start ahead of those projections into 2016, preparing yourself for those more challenging months. If you haven’t looked at your reports yet, there is still time to do so and be ahead for next year.
On budget
Understanding your student numbers is one thing, but it is just as important if not more so to understand your finance streams and cash flow. Of course, your student numbers will affect this as will any pro-shop sales you might have, but understanding where the money is coming from, how much and when is vital for your budgeting plan.
I know roughly how much I earn each month, that’s enough…
It’s great that you have an idea of your income, but it’s important to understand the sources of your income. Taking advantage of the Business Planning Tool will help make this easier; helping to highlight the ‘peaks and troughs’ of your financial year. Using this information for 2016 can help steer things such as your marketing plan, giving you a stronger idea of when to run certain campaigns and when to save money. Looking at and referencing your Payment Reports can also help give you a more accurate idea of your income each month when using the Business Planning Tool.
Speaking of marketing
It’s a good idea to get your head around your marketing and how it is or isn’t working for you. By using the above reports, you will be able to identify when you need to invest more into your marketing to help increase your leads and sign ups, and when you can ease off a little.
So in the busy months, I can save money and not do marketing?
There always needs to be some form of marketing to keep awareness of your business there; it’s more a case of investing more into your marketing when you need to. Finding out when your slower months are predicted to hit in 2016, gives you ample time to put some marketing campaigns together or use our campaign materials to help increase sales. Utilizing the Business Planning Tool on myMA can help get you started and give you some ideas for next year.
Taking a look back through these key elements can help to give you a better understanding of your business, what to expect and when to do something about it.
If you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this blog, or have questions for us, get in touch, we’d love to hear from you. Please note we are closed from 1pm Christmas eve until 9am Monday 4th January.
