Take Control of the Phone

OK - the phone rings and maybe this is how it goes... ring, ring, ring....

Hello - thanks for calling World's Best Child Care - how can I help you?
Yeah - how much do you charge for 2 year olds?
Our two year old rate is $150 per week.
OK - thanks.

End of call. What is wrong with that? What's wrong is you did not get any air time to promote your school, it's benefits, find out what the caller was really interested in, etc. In other words - the caller was in control because they started with the first question.

Let's look at a different answer to the same caller question. Instead of giving the price right away try something like - "I'd be happy to give you all the information you need, how did you hear about us?"

Now you are in control of the conversation and can guide it through a pre-planned presentation that addresses concerns and benefits and closes with an invite for a tour. At the very least you get information on the caller so you can follow up with emails or mailings or thank you notes.

Think about this. We'll talk more next time....

Who's Ansering the Phone?

Let's do a little math... the phone rings with a potential new client that has a 2 year old child. If your tuition is $125 per week, that's $6500 in a year. If you're lucky enough to keep that child for 3 years that's $19,500. So - ask yourself the question. Who's answering that $20,000 phone call? Are they properly trained? Are they gathering prospect information? Are they taking control of the conversation in order to present the awesome benefits of your school? Or are they merely blurting out price information and then allowing the caller to hang up?

If you haven't figured out by now the most important marketing area for your school is proper phone call handling. Unless your phone is simply not ringing. If it is you need to evaluate, develop and train to make sure you're taking every advantage possible to present your school in the most desirable light and make the sale. Great schools do this, marginal ones probably don't. Call your competition and see how they're handling the phones. You could outpace them with serious and consistent attention to this most important area.

In the next post we'll talk some more about specifics....

Stop and think a moment

The whole idea of "in or on" is a simple one but key to understanding how to make and keep your child care business successful. Many times we find ourselves busy with the routine and mundane tasks - like driving the bus or mopping the floor. That's the "in" stuff. But the owner who's concerned with a profitable program that is great for kids knows that it's the "on" stuff that really makes a difference. Stuff like calling parents and thanking them for their business. Like working on teacher performance and class management. Like developing community contacts for PR and awareness opportunities. The list goes on....



Which are you - "in" or "on"? More ideas and thoughts to come in this section - keep checking back!

Crab races for kids

Bubba the crab trying to escape!

Over Christmas break our family went Scuba Diving on the island of Roatan, Honduras. The place we stayed was a great diving resort and the owners, Ted and Cam, have enjoyed 15 years of escape from the busy life here in the US. Not content to just run the resort they have taken on the challenge of improving the schools on the island. The statistics are astounding - not enough class space, low attendance, even lower completion stats.

So - every Thursday night they host a big crab race event. The night we were there over 100 people were in attendance. It's simple - buy 3 crabs for 3 races for $10. If your's wins you get to split the pot. But then the winner is heavily influenced to return his winnings to the school fund. After some additional challenges and pleas the races for our night raised over $1000 for the school project Ted and Cam are sponsoring.

We can all do something for kids - what can you do ?