Ep 1 - Nurturing your Pre School students to become lifelong clients

Today’s episode focuses on the most important students and classes in your Children’s Activity Business. They are the students who, if nurtured correctly, become lifelong clients of your business. 

In today’s podcast you will learn:

• The potential value of each Pre-school student.
• How to make your Pre-school program an amazing experience for the students
• Why it’s SO important to make the experience amazing for the parents
• Much, much more....

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Show Transcription: 

Hello and welcome, and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so grateful that you've given me a moment of your time to help you learn and grow your business. Today, we're talking about nurturing pre-schoolers from those little tiny, gorgeous three year olds to become lifelong raving fans of your business.

Now, have you got that family that in your program that, you know, are perhaps the seniors you know, they might be the student might be 16, 17 years old that have been with you since they were a preschooler.

Hopefully you do. Hopefully, you can think of one family that in your mind, stand out as that family. Have you actually calculated how much money and revenue that family has brought into your business throughout the time that they have been with you?

You know, it's such an interesting thing, and sometimes we don't realize exactly how much money it is. It's a great thing. And even if you don't have that particular client in mind at the moment, let's make an imaginary situation.

You know, what do most of your three year olds pay throughout the year for your program? What are the extras that they might purchase throughout the year? Is it a uniform? Are they grading days? Is their end of year performances?

What other extras are also included in their first year of being inside your program? What about the second year? What about when they start school and what do most of the kids pay then, including all the extras every single year that they're probably purchasing from from you all the way up until they get to 16, 17 years old? And if you haven't yet, you know, take the time, write it down and work it out on that piece of paper and see how much money that ends up being. It's usually mind blowing. It's sometimes absolutely huge.

I've done this in my business and it can blow your mind how much money it is. Now that's not to say every preschool, family or parent that walks through your door is going to become that customer. Definitely not.

We know that preschoolers come and go. We know that they change activities quite often, even as a preschooler, but then also as they grow up throughout their life. But you never know when that family is about to walk in your door.

And the more of those families you can get, the bigger your program is going to become over the years. And that's how you grow your business. Preschoolers are the easiest way to grow your business. Preschool parents are always looking for something new for their little children to do to keep the time occupied.

And you know, it's their first chance of having to experience their extracurricular activities, and they usually so, so excited. So, you know, growing the preschool program is the number one way to grow your business, without a doubt. Now I wanted to chat to you today about the different ways that you can grow your preschool program in your business. And obviously, marketing is the number one thing, and it's so important when we're marketing our business that preschool is always top of mind because you know, what you put out is what you attract. So how much marketing are you doing for your preschool program?

I'm a big believer in half of your marketing should always be geared towards preschool programs, at least absolute bare minimum because they're the ones that are coming in through the door every single day. There's no reason we can't be enrolling preschoolers into your program all throughout the year, all throughout the season.

And getting those new people through our doors. So at least half of your marketing, always towards preschool parents, you know, it's very important that the preschool parents can see themselves in your marketing. So you know what kind of images are you using?

Are you using images that it can reflect, you know, a wide variety of preschoolers? You want to see, you know, the beautiful, little well-behaved girl? Definitely. You want to see the cheeky boy who isn't perhaps listening to the teacher.

You want to see all the types of children so that the parents can go, Oh, that would be my child. That one there. And they can sort of see what it's going to be like. So in your marketing, you know, making sure that everyone's reflected super super important, but it's also marketing to the parents to give them a bit of a behind the scenes look into your business, into the class that they're enrolling in. You know, it's so, so important. Quite often, preschool parents are just as nervous as the children are, if not more so, you know, especially preschool moms, they feel that there's a lot of judgment going on, a lot of mom shaming going on, and they're quite often nervous about what they're to do. They're the ones that are nervous about their child leaving them, whether they stay and participate in the activity, whether it's a drop in go situation, whether there's a waiting room.

So make sure and all of your marketing, you give them a behind the scenes look so they can imagine and start to learn more about your business and know if it's the right fit for them. You know, in your marketing, telling stories of your preschool children is so, so valuable.

I think it's such a great way and you know, you might be able to tell the story of little Susie who, you know, wouldn't go into the water. She wanted to swim. She decided she was a mermaid, but she could not get in the water.

She sat there for a whole school term. She kept dipping her toe in. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't crying. She just was too anxious to let go of her mom and jump into the pool. But then the next term she came back.

She gradually became, you know, a more confident swimmer. And then over the years, she's grown into being part of the squad. You know, what is the story you can tell in your business that, you know, helps the parents sort of envision what the future might look like for their child?

We know that story marketing is really, really valuable. People love behind the scenes. Look at things, you know, let's think Keeping Up With the Kardashians or any of the 4000 reality TV shows that are on our screens every single night.

People want to see behind the scenes, so make sure your marketing is always reflecting behind the scenes and giving people glimpses into stories and and feelings and emotions and everything that goes on with that of children who have been through your program and the benefits they've gotten out of them.

You know, talking about benefits, you know, sharing and educating the benefits of your program. You know, they're not just coming to your class for a little bit of fun. They're learning lifelong skills. We know that for preschoolers, regardless of whether you own a swim school, a dance studio, a tutoring center, a karate dojo, it doesn't matter what they are learning lifelong skills in your program, things like waiting their turn in line, you know, listening to a different adult besides their parents taking direction, remote remembering, you know, a classroom set up and the order of how things are going in the classroom.

All of those things are great benefits. You know, the benefits of your program, for sure. You can talk about them all day long, but make sure you're sharing them in your marketing. Always, always. So, so important. Testimonials Oh my gosh.

If you can get testimonials from preschool parents, which usually is so, so easy to get because they love raving about things that they're passionate about, testimonials can work so, so well in your marketing for preschool. Written testimonials with a photo of the child.

Great video testimonials. Oh my God. Next level if you can get video testimonials that go along with it, that is absolute solid gold marketing. So, you know, work on different ways that you can get testimonials you can just ask.

Definitely. You can do little competitions or giveaways or thank you's for people giving testimonials. There's so many great ideas, but whatever you do, get those testimonials and incorporate them into your preschool marketing. My last tip on marketing your preschool program.

Investing in great content, great photos and videos of students and children being part of your program. It's so important to have a huge bank of promo images and videos as well that you can use. You know, if you need to get a professional photographer or videographer out, it will pay off in spades.

Having those really professional photos ready to go and be able just to, you know, call them up, use them at all different times in your social media and just have this huge bank of them. Make sure when you're getting especially photos that even with professional photos, you don't want every single photo to be perfect.

Like we talked about before, people want to see their child reflected in the marketing. It doesn't have to be the perfect present, perfectly presented child, but they have to be great photos in terms of the lighting, the color, all of those things, but they have to be real as well.

It's that great balance. So some of those marketing tips hopefully will really help you get more preschoolers into your program. But definitely my top tip on marketing is at least half of all your marketing should be geared towards those preschoolers.

Now the other thing I wanted to talk about with growing that preschool program and, you know, really getting them to become those lifelong customers is branding the program. Whether you do a a syllabus that you have bought from an external provider or whether you do your own preschool program, it doesn't matter.

But branding through every single thing you do is so, so important in this new social media age that we're all living in. You know, have a great, you know, uniform brand image colors, you know, perhaps mascots, you know, a program name.

Everything that you can possibly have is so, so important into the branding of that program. Consistency is key. The parents and the community as a whole want to be able to see what you're providing and look at a child.

If you're wearing a uniform, look at something on social media and know exactly what program they've come from. So really, make sure that you're spending the money, you're investing the time into branding a great program. So, so important, and you know, it is so many things you can do, you can get creative and have your branding on every single thing that you do from from toys and mascots to sticker charts to, you know, take home packs to coloring in, you know, if you haven't used resources like five or before five or is it amazing website where you know it's meant to be, people do something for a fiver.

Usually it's more expensive, expensive than a fiver, but that's OK. It's low cost things, and you can get anything from drawings, coloring ins, cartoon characters, you know, little promo videos put together and it's amazing website and there's so many websites like that.

So definitely spend the time investing in branding into your program. My other big big tip on how to grow your preschool program is investing in the customer care for those students. The customer experience the customer care for your preschool parents should be absolutely second to none.

This is how you turn them into lifelong raving fans by starting them on the very right foot from the get go. So that from three years old, that family that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode where they stay until they're 17, 18, 19, you know, they're their first experience when they were three, was so phenomenal that they fell in love with you that day. And they've been in love with your business ever since. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that exactly what we dream of as a business owner? So what are you doing inside your business?

You know, to make sure you have an amazing customer experience for those preschoolers. So in my dance studio, we have just over 250 preschoolers in our doors through our internal and external programs every week. We have a head of preschool and we've had head of preschool for quite a long time, you know, even when the numbers weren't quite that big because I think it's so important to invest into the right people in your preschool program. Someone who absolutely adores living in that magical fantasy preschool world. And can, you know, convey that to both the parents and the students?

Coming in with that, you know, having your very best teachers on your preschool program is absolute key. You know, too often I see teenagers teaching preschool programs that the the best teachers are left for the more experienced kids.

To me, the absolute best teachers should be teaching your preschool program because that's where you're starting, and that's where you know all of your attention should be. So making sure that the best teachers are someone who loves children, they connect really well.

They generally have a really warm personality and quite a characterization about them when they speak. And so making sure that that is something that is, you know, important and they understand your values of your business and they're going to carry that through in their personality, both in the waiting room and in the class as well.

To all your is to make sure they're getting that phenomenal experience that you know you want to be known for in your business. Wouldn't that be just something, you know, everyone leaving after their first day of classes and just talking and raving about it to their friends on social media about this phenomenal experience they had in your business? The very first time they came in? Gosh, wouldn't that just be amazing and putting this effort in? I think that's what makes it so really, really think about what you can do. I'm a big believer in over staffing during preschool programs.

I don't think you could possibly have enough staff, and I know that we can't always afford to over staff everything. But if there is one time in your business that you took over staff during your preschool classes is definitely it.

When I'm talking about over staffing, I'm making sure that, you know, for us, we might have multiple receptionists on during our preschool classes, will have a junior on that's helping, you know, take children to the bathroom, you know, take them back to their parents if needed, and just be there to kind of chat.

Plus our very best teachers teaching the classes. I love having that over staffing in your waiting room and during those classes, because it's the absolute best time to be building relationships with those parents and those families that hopefully I get to last a lifetime.

You know, and you want to make sure that your staff have enough time to build those relationships. So, you know, if they're really struggling and they, you know, the same person is trying to quickly take fees from someone and then raced into class and then have to rush back out to, you know, tell someone that so-and-so needs to go the bathroom or whatever it is. They're not having time to sit down and make relationships. And to me, that's what it is all about. So, you know, the type of things we do in our business, for example, is we have, you know, short periods of time between each class.

My teachers, my receptionists, my staff are out there mingling with the parents and the children. They're talking to Little Janie about how beautiful her dress is today. They're talking to Connor about how Callie's t shirt is. And you know, what did he do on the weekend there?

Then, you know, talking to the mom about the holiday that they had and where they went? They're playing Duck, Duck, Goose. You know, I know another friend. You know, make sure that the kids will have like a reading time and the teachers read them a book while they're getting settled before the class starts.

You know, what can you do to kind of do more than the class and more than than just the bare minimum, I guess? You know, giving them this amazing experience, not just during the class, before and after it as well.

The whole time that they're in your building and part of your business so that you're building those relationships, you know, when we're talking about customer care, making sure that they're getting every single bit of information they need is so, so important.

Amazing welcome packets with exactly what to expect. You know how much they're going to need to pay, what's expected of them in terms of end of year events, you know, uniform, all of those things are so, so important for the preschool parent.

However, you don't want to overwhelm them. You don't want to be giving them so much information that they have no idea what to do with all of this information. They don't want to know information about your whole business.

You they don't want to know about your advanced 16 year olds. They don't want to know about your squad training. They don't want to know about, you know, all the things that don't concern them. Make sure that all the information you're giving them just relates to their classes and just to their preschool program.

You know, I think that's really, really important. Otherwise, you're going to start scaring people off, and that is definitely not what we need, you know, thinking about our customer care. You know, really think about other type of things you need to be having in the preschool programs.

A transition to big girl, excuse me, big school program is so, so important. You know, we all have those students that are that four or five, they're getting ready to go to big school next year. What do you have special for them?

For us? We do a graduation ceremony. They absolutely love it. The full cap and gown. You know, they get presented with their certificate of achievement for graduating. They then move into a transition program where they start getting ready for big school classes just like they would at school.

So making sure that you're with them every step of the way and, you know, starting from if you start them from two starting from what would happen at there to that three to four years age and then that five as they're getting ready to graduate into big, big school.

So making sure the customer care program follows them along that journey nicely. Awesome, so we've talked about marketing and branding, and we've talked about customer care. All of those things are so, so important, but also the special events, you know, I just touched on it before, but the special events are so important, especially for the preschool parents

We know that preschool parents love putting photos of their children on social media because how cute are they? Let's be honest. Very few preschool parents don't absolutely love boasting about their children, their child. Excuse me, you know, posting on social media or at least showing their friends.

So how can you create those special Instagrammable moments? I call them in your events that you're running in your business. You know, having things like special backdrops and special photo stations in your business is so, so important. Do you have, you know, my first class, my first day signs, you know, decorations, boards, you know, the Instagram, you know, the multiple frames that they have. All of those things are really great marketing tool for you because if those parents are taking photos with those and tagging you, that's just like free marketing. Go to use it and run with it.

So how can you create these Instagrammable moments that the parents can't help but take photos of them, you know, doing certificates or awards in little presentations? That's the perfect opportunity. Ringing the bell when they finally, you know, kick the goal, you know, nail the cartwheel, whatever it is.

You know, that's an Instagrammable moment. Having special dress up days or parties, you know, perhaps it's end of term or maybe for holidays, you know, Easter and Christmas Halloween. Creating big special events around your preschool program is key to keeping your students engaged, but also creating those Instagrammable moments, as I've said to, you know, help promote your product and your business moving forward. Viewing day is a great birthday celebrations, you know, birthday badges that you can give or crowns or gifts, even to the students. They are all so valuable. We do special princess stays at our business where my staff dress up.

We have, you know, the full blown Elsa costumes and we decorate and get into it. We even do special, you know, science that they can wear. We can do balloons. All the kids dress up, the characters come. We, you know, use the music and really get into it.

And I think that that is absolute key to creating excitement, engagement in your preschool program. And you know, what else do you do at the end of the year? Do you have party days? Do you have Santa visits?

Perhaps. You know, what do you do to make it super special for the child? You know, making sure that you acknowledge every students achievement at the end of the year is absolute gold. Making sure that every child has that special moment, whether it's at a dance concert where they get to walk the red carpet and show off their trophy that they received or at a presentation day, a grading day, whatever it is to make sure that you're recognizing every single student individually is so, so important to retaining those students and growing your program. I hope some of these preschool tips have really helped you today.

You know, we've touched on quite a few things, from marketing and branding to the customer care, which I think is the absolute key to the special extras that you can do for your preschool parents. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, you know, if you haven't yet sit down and work out what that ideal customer might spend in your business from the age of three to 17, I'd love to know if you work it out. Make sure you drop me a message on Instagram because I'd love to hear what that actual figure is.

And, you know, sitting there and working out the value of those students makes you look at those children differently every time they walk in the door because you never know which one might be the potential family that are going to spend that amount in your business.

And hopefully they all will. Wouldn't that be amazing? Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you've got something out of our episode and some ideas on how to grow the preschool program in your business so that you can grow your whole business starting from the bottom up.

Thanks for joining me. I hope you can join me next time on the Enroll More Students podcast.