| |
 |
Register now!
UP 2008 Super Event
June 13th and 14th
Baltimore Convention Center
Call Jeannie at 877-787-4542 ext. 714 for registration and rooms. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE |
| |
NEW "Thank You" Letter for new Students
NEW "First Class Reminder" Letter for new Students
We have added a new Welcome Letter for new students and a new student First Class Reminder letter. These letters not only welcomes and thanks the student for new business, it is also gives them the opportunity to invite up to four friends for your VIP program. The writen correspondence page is an amazing source of ready-made letters and flyers to promote your business. No need to re-invent the wheel, everything is done for you. |
|
GREAT QUESTION |
| |
I have been going Parents Night Out for a while. I usually get 40 - 50
students paying $20. After paying for food and supplies I spend $150. Do
you think it's worth it? I mean I need to pay a couple of staff members?
If you gross $900 and spend $150, that leaves $750 for 2 people and the
school. If each of the two helpers got $25 an hour there seems to be some
left over for the school. Events have three purposes - one of which you
can't place a dollar value.
1. Revenue generating
2. Retention (not sure how you can assign a dollar value to this. But if
you save two students that's $240 a month)
3. Guests come and you have a chance to enroll new students. (If this
results in 6 new students a year you are adding $700 a month to your
revenue.)
Life is good -
Greg Silva
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 |
 |
Hello,
If there is one thing I feel many, no, I am going out on the limb here, MOST
school owners do not understand is the COST OF COLLECTIONS.
You see ads in magazines, get solicitated by companies and may even fall for
the idea of free billing, but what you are not understanding is the true
cost of collections.
It's not the 5.8% or 3% or the cost of software to do it yourself. Your
real cost of collections is the amount you really HAVE to put in the bank
compared to your potential collections.
LET'S TAKE MY SCHOOL FOR EXAMPLE:
Total collected by ASF was $7500.
I had one delinquent student, a three year old that wasn't ready and has
been since cancelled. In reality everyone paid.
My fees to ASF were $435 - EFT's at 5.8%
I could have self-billed and probably would have done well. If I paid
someone $100 a week that would have cost me $400.00 (assuming I could get
someone that cheap.) If they collect from all but two students because
of a lack of collection experience, I would have collected $7250. My
question is, what is my cost of collections?
In example one with ASF - $435
In example two, SELF-BILLING - It's NOT the $400 labor BUT, $400 in labor AND
the $250 in lost collectables OR $650 total cost of collections.
What if I used a discount billing service? You cannot expect a discount
billing service to follow-up, give you the daily accounting like you get
from UP/ASF or the highly trained personnel. However, if I had 2 people not
pay and they charged me 3% what is the cost of collections? That is giving
them WAY TOO MUCH benefit of the doubt.
I would have collected $7250.
My fees at 3% of $7350 would be $220.50
I lost $250 because their 2 people didn't pay.
The cost of collections is $470.50
I hope this makes sense to you. There is more to analyzing your cost of
collections besides the percentage rate you pay. Most importantly it has
to do with collecting from the highest number of students. This is
absolutely important to understand because it relates directly to what you
have to deposit in the bank.
ASF has the tools necessary to help you collect the most amount of money
keeping your cost of collections as low as possible.
Things you should be doing -
-
Students should all be paying on EFT.
- Second best choice is Credit Card.
- Use the ASF software for student check-in. Make sure anyone that comes
to class and is late is researched and spoken to.
- Weekly - Run your reports for Bad Checks and Credit Card rejects. ASF is
contacting these people, but you see them almost everyday. If a student has
an expired credit card or has changed banks, get that information and update
the students account right away. If you wait, ASF might be forced to
convert them to statement billing which not only costs you more but is a
less effective method of collecting.
- Write good contracts. Avoid extra long number of payments.
- Track your attendance and testing to head-off potential problems.
Students that actively train are much more likely to make timely payments.
|
|
New Service from United Professionals!
We NOW Offer a DIRECT MAIL SERVICE
| Design |
Choose from any post card or mailers from United Professionals or we will help you design a piece just for you. |
| Printing |
Printed on 14 POINT C2S Cardstock, 4/4 (Full Color Both Sides), and UV Coated. |
| Specialized Mailing List |
You tell us the area and demographics and we will mail directly to your target market. |
| We Mail it |
for you at a SUPER DISCOUNT! |
If you would like a quote please choose a mailer or post card design or any downloadable ad from our website. Specify your mailing criteria, example a 5 mile radius of your school to families with children 5 - 12 years of age and a family income of at least $40,000. We will then give you a complete estimate for your campaign.
You will find our prices some of the best in the business. |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
Be REMARKABLE - Let THEM say it FOR you!
Throughout the examples shown in Dan Kennedy's books, NO B.S. BUSINESS SUCCESS, NO B.S. WEALTH ATTRACTION, and NO B.S. SALES
SUCCESS, – and at the start of the books themselves, and at all my websites – you will find customer testimonials used heavily. Why? Because what they say about you is 1000% more believable, persuasive and interesting than what you say about you, even if you are 1000% more articulate. It is absolutely vital that you take the trouble to understand what good testimonials look like (study the examples I just mentioned), then collect them from your customers. Then use them! The more you use good testimonials, the better the results – it’s that simple.
Here’s a quick Checklist of Testimonial Tips:
| 1. |
Full identity: real, full names, cities, states, ages, occupations (photos) |
| 2. |
Meaningful specifics about their experience |
| 3. |
Outcomes – don’t just have them saying you’re a nice guy; they should cite specific benefits received, such as dollars saved/made, pounds lost, crisis averted, etc. |
| 4. |
Answer Objections: know what objections, doubts and fears your prospects have and let testimonials answer them for you. Example: “I was really skeptical at first and just couldn’t believe there’d be any real difference between one accountant or another – until Bill found an additional $8,162.00 in legal deductions my previous CPA had missed!” |
| 5. |
Cover Every Benefit: have different testimonials talk about different benefits |
| 6. |
Match Up With Your Target Prospects: if mailing to single Moms, make sure your testimonials are single Moms. |
How to get testimonials: (a) ASK!, (b) send out a letter asking for them, run a “best testimonial contest” with appealing prizes, (c) show samples of good ones, (d) make it easy to give them – such as with an 800# and recorded capture (e) be diligent and persistent, (f) make it a continuing priority.
Personally, I never make a speech, sales presentation, write an ad or sales letter, or do much of anything without using testimonials, and you shouldn’t either. I can judge the effectiveness of your advertising/marketing by your use/non-use of good testimonials.
Contributed by a Fellow UP Client |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
NEW TELEPHONE Scripts added! |
|
| |
|
|
| |
• Special Summer Program - Program Directors should be on the phone making outgoing phone calls for
the next two weeks.
Now is the time to call everyone on your prospect list. This list includes
everyone who has put a coupon in a lead box, all guests from birthday
parties, guests for Parent's Night Out, VIP prospects - In other words anyone
who has every inquired, visited your school or was recommended to your
school. Click here for the script.
• Script to contact students returning from vacation. Click here for the script.
• Taking the Summer Off Questions Script - Scripts can be modified to fit your personality. However be careful not to
alter the philosophy behind the message. All these scripts are meant to
give the student options as well as convey the message you have the students
best interest in mind. You are friendly, happy for the student and also
have a simple solution to their question. Click here for the script.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
MARTIAL ARTS WEBSITES
See completed sites: www.pmaredmountain.com, www.tgkarate.com, www.longviewkungfu.com or www.rivertonkarate.com, www.jgpma.com
United Professionals clients now have available to them low cost, highly effective website templates that will generate more interest in your business from a larger, diverse group of new customers.
Each website will be customizable in several ways. Here are a few examples:
|
• |
You choose the programs to be highlighted - We provide you with the website content for your programs! (Birthday Parties, Kid Safe Workshop, After School Program, Summer Programs, etc.) These pages will be designed to generate interest in the program which will produce LEADS and TELEPHONE CALLS! |
• |
A dynamic photo gallery and calendar of events will be included which you can modify yourself |
• |
Your site will be submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN which account for 95% of all Internet traffic |
• |
You will have your own domain with traffic statistics AND 50 emails accounts! |
|
These websites are designed to be a POWERFUL enhancement to your existing marketing efforts - VIP cards, Ad Cards, Local newspaper and Magazine advertising, Window Banners!
Below are examples of the current designs now available |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Contact Renee at 877.389.4085 for more information! |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
SMART school owners should be planning a Back to
School Marketing Campaign NOW.
We understand that back to school marketing can be costly, however it's also
one of the best times of year for new enrollments. To help make it more
affordable we will allow you to break up the investment of marketing
products into 4 PAYMENTS on all orders of $500. Please note when placing
orders on-line you will need to choose UP/ASF as your method of payment OR call Valerie to place orders and ask her to break up the
payments into 4 monthly deductions from your ASF account. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
Dear Mr. Silva,
Sometimes in the general course of our busy lives, we forget to thank those whose influence has made a difference in our lives. It would be extremely remiss of us if we did not take a moment to do just that…say “thank you.” Since we started with United Professionals, we’ve grown significantly. We have doubled in active students and gross revenue as well. We had once hoped for a school of three hundred students; but could never quite reach that goal. After becoming a Premier School, that goal is now a reality. We just completed our last round of school talks. We had 21 children participate on Saturday and signed up 13. Our total of new students just from school talks is now at 35. Of those 35, we have already upgraded 20 in the Black Belt Training program. WOW! That is 35 students and 20 upgrades all off a total of 18 hours of school talks. We can do the math… school talks work!
So now we take the next step. We have been just a part-time school (only open 4 hours a day), but now that we have grown so much we are seriously looking at becoming a full-time school. We are also currently looking at purchasing a new building that would accommodate not only the current growth; but also allow for future growth.
We also wanted to thank you for promoting the Instructor Colleges. They are encouraging and motivational for our entire staff. It is also very impressive that even the leading schools in our industry are still attending these colleges – constantly staying in that learning mode that is so very important.
Thank you again,
John and Angelique Liles
Premier Martial Arts
Lubbock, TX
--------------------------------- |
Hey Mr. Silva,
I wanted to share a short story with you from my school this weekend.
We had demo team tryouts this past Friday, mainly because we are gearing up now for next school year to do PTA’s, Assembly’s, and a lot of fall festivals. So we had 28 students tryout, 23 made the team with the other five re-trying in 30 days. We assigned everyone a number when they arrived and wrote it on an arm band so they couldn’t forget it, we had a closed tryout, so we wouldn’t have parental issues. After the tryouts, we posted the results by number on the door. We sent home a letter with each student telling them to check the door on Saturday and if they made it, to come to a mandatory meeting on Sunday at 4:00.
In Sunday’s meeting, we discussed our vision for the Demo Team and assigned a practice schedule. We had 23 members join the team for $285.00 each, the five that didn’t make it came to a meeting at 5:30 to discuss their weakness’, all five upgraded to help with their abilities.
We did $6555.00 cash for the demo team.
We did 30240.00 in contract amount and 1475.00 in down payments and 1175.00 in gear packages.
Just proves that regardless of the economy, if you are giving your students quality in your programs, then they will continue to be a part of your vision and school.
Zach Siokos
PMA Columbia SC
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
