Amanda Barr 0:02
Hi friends and welcome to another episode of the dance principals United podcast. I am joined by my lovely husband Nathan. Welcome to the podcast and to my living room Nathan.
Nathan Barr 0:36
So much it's It's looks a bit weird to be sitting across from each other on the couch feeling a little bit silly, just talking like we normally do but recording for everybody else, but we will see how we go.
Amanda Barr 0:48
I love that. I call it my living room, not our living room as well.
Nathan Barr 0:52
I know but you get used to it.
Amanda Barr 0:55
Any anyways, besides our awkward intro, we are here to talk about timetabling for 2024 as studio owners, it's that time of the year where it's concept madness. But we're also trying to lock in our timetables for 2024. It's crazy, right?
Nathan Barr 1:12
Yeah, absolutely. And as I've bought up a couple of times, I think already but you know, back bought at the point the other day that? Yes, of course concerts important. It's the the highlight of our year on so many levels. But having a great concert doesn't really mean much if we've got no kids coming back for next year. So our focus does need to also be like we need to have one eye at least a little bit on next year as well.
Amanda Barr 1:37
Absolutely. I think that's so important. And we're seeing a big shift from studio owners. You know, I think probably the norm before was, let's not worry about it till after concert that seems to be changing now, which is so so good to see. Because we really need to be focusing on it. And parents want to be organised, right, they want to see the timetable as soon as possible. So they can plan it because you want dance to be the first activity they plan because you know, like daycares are putting out their preference days. So, so early. So are all the other sports. So we've got to get in and amongst the mix, right,
Nathan Barr 2:14
exactly. I don't even start us on swimming lessons. Because we know that every parent basically organises every single other activity around swimming lessons, because if if you're listening to this, and you're not apparent swimming lessons are like gold, they are so hard to get into. And especially our preschool as we know, it's such a big thing, right figure figuring it, everything else almost revolves around that. So like I said, it's very different than it used to be, you know, going back 20 something years ago, like when she first started the studio. Because yes, I've been around the studio that long as well. You know, we used to not do enrollments until January, that was, like I said, literally going back 2324 years. But nowadays, parents afternoons logistically are just chock a block the afternoons, we need to plan them 100%. So we need to make sure that we're there. And one of the first things that they're looking at.
Amanda Barr 3:06
Absolutely. So today we're talking about designing the perfect timetable. And I think it's really important because a good timetable can make or break enrollments. It's a big thing, right? Absolutely.
Nathan Barr 3:19
Because we know that the one of the biggest levers we can pull to increase your revenue, and therefore your profit is to have our current students that are already fans of what we do, doing more classes. Yeah, we know that that's the easiest way, because we don't have to spend any more money on marketing to get them in the door. They're already They're loving what we do. And if we can push a whole bunch of kids from doing one class to two classes a week, or five to six, whatever it is, but like if you can take a bunch from each place that they're at this year, and increase them by one, then you're making loads more money for the exact same amount of expenses.
Amanda Barr 3:55
Absolutely. And that's the goal, right? And we know that it's not all about money as well, we know that kids that take more classes per week, are more engaged in dance, they're probably going to stay at your studio longer because they dance becomes more ingrained. And it's you know, a bigger part of their life. They enjoy the concert more, they're better dancers, you know, the list goes on and on. Right? And it's so important to really think about that we know kids that take more classes love dance more. That's just how it is. Right?
Nathan Barr 4:27
Exactly. And yeah, as kids get older then sometimes they consolidate their activities. And yeah, if dance is the thing that they love the most because they're doing more classes and all those things that man is talking about that it means it's one Yeah, it's it's not the first thing that's on the chopping block when they've got to, you know, get a bit older and they've got to decide between you can't do soccer rolls, tag, netball, dancing, all those things. And if dancing is the one I love most epsilon they stick with.
Amanda Barr 4:50
Absolutely. So my goal of a great timetable is always to allow the students to do as many classes as they can. And I think that comes down to my biggest tip around good timetabling which is timetabling for your clients, for your clients, not for your teachers. Now I know that's hard to say, I know that that isn't always as simple as it sounds. Because yes, we all have the teacher that's like, I can only work Tuesdays and I can only start at 430. And, you know, they're the teacher that you want and all of that, I totally get it. We've all been in that world, right,
Nathan Barr 5:36
and maybe you've got to do it once off one afternoon for one teacher lately.
Amanda Barr 5:40
Absolutely. And, you know, it might be that certainly day, you can get a good ballet teacher, or that's the only day you can get your hip hop, whatever that is, I get it. We're all a little bit of a slave to that. Unfortunately, however, we have to minimise that as much as possible. Without a doubt, the timetable needs to be made around the clients, not around the teachers, because there is absolutely no point having this, these great teachers that you were dying to get in that awesome ballet teacher that could only work on the Tuesday at 430. If the timetable is crap, and no one's going to come in, because the classes are too late for that age group, or because they really want to just be able to do a block of their, you know, jazz tap ballet next to each other, and they're not going to come an extra day for ballet, whatever that is for you. Right? You know, I think it's really important we design it around our clients. Yeah. And
Nathan Barr 6:36
look, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast has also had that the scenario where they might have done it in the past, and they've done the timetable around the awesome ballet teacher or the awesome pop teacher, they've locked it in turn for, everything's going great. They've moved mountains to make sure that they've accommodated the timetable for this teacher. And then they get the the call in January are actually sorry, on contract can't work anymore. Yep.
Amanda Barr 7:00
Or in term two, or that we've worked at that teacher wasn't that great. And then the classes don't have anyone in them anyway. And you don't have the teacher, look, you know, it happens. But we have to not be a slave always to our staff, we've got to do what we need to do for our business as much as possible. So really try and focus on making it for the clients, we talk about fans first, you know, making the timetable work for your clients. And with that, you know, you've really got to think about your ideal client, right?
Nathan Barr 7:32
And what does their afternoon look like?
Amanda Barr 7:33
Absolutely. What does that afternoon look like? What time does the school finish? What time does that mean that they can get there? You know, how many classes would you like them to do? If you would like them to you know, if, for example, your averages class per student currently is two. And your goal is to get it to three, or closer to three for the new year. Well, then what you should be doing is putting three classes in a row right next to each other. You know, that is the easiest way to get them to be taking more classes to put their Jazz tap ballet or whatever those three classes are right next to each other at the perfect time for them in one afternoon so they can get all those activities done in one afternoon. And yes, that might make it hard with teachers. But you got to try and like juggle that as much as possible. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 8:23
parents like convenience. Absolutely. So like I said before, afternoons for parents are logistical nightmares. And it's often not just the one child that they've got their one child loves dancing. But then maybe there's two siblings and for the siblings. Karate is what they do or musics what they what the other child does. And so of an afternoon, they're trying to get three children to three different activities, sometimes across suburbs, across towns, across cities, whatever that may be. And whilst we can sit here and like Yeah, from from a love of dance perspective, and thinking that oh, yes, they're doing the ballet because they really love the art form of ballet, to be honest, guys, sometimes with the parents is the fact Well, hang on, I can drop little Susie off at 345 and not have to pick up to 515. That means that I can get across to karate that I'm getting back to the music. That's how parents think about it. Yeah, they think about how their afternoon looks. And if they can have their daughter or son doing something that they love that keeps them fit for a bit over two hours. Salt.
Amanda Barr 9:27
Absolutely. And so I think that's really, you know, thinking about your ideal client and what their afternoons might look like, you know, I know we had a question on, I think it was the dance principals, United Facebook group, the free group there about, you know, preschool classes in the afternoon for example. And you know, it's one of those things like it depends on what you know, your ideal clients afternoons, like, you know, for some studio owners that I know we work with Um, studio owners who have, you know, not far out of the city in Sydney, you know, they know that a lot of their parents commute into the city for work two working parents, two working parents, children in daycare. So they know that afternoon classes, actually quite late afternoon classes, what I would consider in my area to be way too late for preschool classes, because of my demographic, but they say they absolutely go off for them. So you know, it's about thinking about your ideal client, and what works for them. Exactly.
Nathan Barr 10:31
And look, it's always gonna be a balance, like, I think we we had like maybe one preschool class, for example, this of an afternoon. And to be honest, that one was chock a block with those parents that manda was just talking about. But then to put them on, there is a bit of a trade off, because we know, it's the only time of an afternoon that you can put on a kindergarten class or you wanting to class and things like that. So there's always that trade off, right between and finding that balance. But you know, if you can, if you've put one of those classes in, that fills up, then maybe later on the year or after, after sometime in term three, you can see that the one class isn't quite full, or it's only got two or three kids in it, then maybe you cut that class and put another preschool class on in that afternoon time slot for the second half of the year. Because the first one is so full. Sometimes you can play around with things a little bit, right. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 11:22
absolutely. So that is our biggest tip is making sure you're doing it for the clients, not the teachers. The other thing we wanted to talk about is, you know, when you're timetabling making sure that you're doing the perfect number of classes, and adding the perfect number of classes into your art timetable. So that it is as profitable as it can be. So we're not running for example, you know, two different, like, you know, grade one Jazz's or something, and they're both small, where we could have just run one instead, for example. So you know, for us, Nathan developed a great little calculator, because
Nathan Barr 12:02
I'm a numbers nerd that loves
Amanda Barr 12:03
my numbers, nerds. And we would always, you know, obviously, it's still a guess it's
Nathan Barr 12:10
a projection and anything, yeah, anything like this any time we do a projection, or it is it is our best guess. Right? It's our best estimate. It isn't probably ever going to be perfect, but it's as good as we've got. Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 12:22
So we would use the calculator to project a better word project. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 12:29
exactly. And look, we would do this, we'd look at the classes we've got this year. So for example, if you're running year three and four hip hop, yeah, we would look how many year three and four Hip Hop classes do we run this year? And how many students? Do we have a crush across those classes? So let's say yeah, we might have three years, year three and four here, but classes on the timetable. And there might be 60 students across those classes. We always had a cap of 25 on our older kids classes. So that means that like 60, or 75. And we're gonna lie, I can't do that percentage at this at this time. But that means that those classes were pretty full. And look, maybe 60, or 75 is pretty spot on number. So then we have to think, look, I don't think we need to cut a class. Because if we went back to 250 students 50 class placements for 60 students doesn't work. Yeah, you have to say no to people. Yeah, exactly. So we're thinking three is probably a pretty good number, or do we want to like go out on a limb? Are we are we going to push it even harder next year? Put on that fourth class? It's one of those like, that would be the decisions and how we get to making those sorts of decisions. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 13:33
absolutely. I think that's a great way to explain it. So really looking at you know, what your projections are and how many classes you feel you should run per week. And I always do that first. So before I start, timetabling, I would always go okay, here's what I'm going to run, I'm going to run to grade one ballet classes. I'm going to run three, you know, eight to nine year old hip hop's I'm gonna run, you know, and sort of like lay out exactly how many classes I want to run per week first, and then slot them into the timetable. I think that's probably a good way to explain it. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 14:04
absolutely. And lots of people always ask, especially given that I love a good software solution. I'd love to be able to automate things. And you know, when we would do our timetable, don't get me wrong. I looked high and low, tested a million, like different computer programmes to try and timetable and things like this. And we still always went back to post it notes. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 14:26
I love a good post, colour coded post it notes works so well, for me. I felt like it was the only way to do it back does the same. And I think that that's a great thing. If you have a great solution. Wonderful. And I think some people do it on like, I know a lot of people do it on spreadsheets. That didn't work for me because I just like to be able to see it, move, pick it up and move it just much quicker than that. But each to their own. So I'd write out all the posts that I wanted out first, and then lay them out I guess, in the perfect way. So you know, we've talked about our first couple of tips which was clients Not first, teachers second, in terms of designing it, you know, really knowing how many classes you want to run. My next thing I wanted to talk about, you know, for the, you know, best timetable you can to maximise enrollments is really making sure it's idiot proof. Basically the word I want to use, I can say dad proves. We can say all the things, but making sure it's easy to understand. Because the big thing is, is that when people are confused, they just don't do it. Yeah,
Nathan Barr 15:36
people take the past path of least resistance. Absolutely. And if you if your timetable requires them to do some form of mental gymnastics and look in loads of different places to see the different classes that their eight year old will do, then they're probably not going to choose multiple classes.
Amanda Barr 15:54
Yeah. Or if they don't know what something means. Yes. I think that's a big thing as well, if they don't understand what something means. They'll be like, Hmm, I don't know what that is. So we're not enrolling in that. So a good example of that is bronze star tap. Yep. The hell is bronze startup? You know? Or what the hell is grade three ballet? Yeah,
Nathan Barr 16:18
my daughter's in year two or year four. So there's no way that she could possibly do that.
Amanda Barr 16:21
Yeah. Grade Three ballet? Well, no, she's in year two at school. So she's not in grade three ballet. Do you know what I mean? Or is that for three year olds? Or does that mean he's been doing ballet for three years? Or is that like, do you not? I mean, lots
Nathan Barr 16:34
of people listening to this are gonna say, I'll do like grade three ballet. Like, if you're an RD teacher, of course, you're gonna say, Well, great. Everybody knows that. But no, they don't. Not everybody looking at a timetable actually. Sorry. The majority of people looking at our timetable have absolutely no idea what that means.
Amanda Barr 16:51
Yeah, absolutely. And forget sometimes as well, to be honest, like, even for me, I was chatting to back the other day, I obviously know the RFID syllabus. You know, we do it. We're in our ad studio. I know it. Well. I have three daughters back asked me. What grade did Sally do this year? I'm like, Huh? It's the one with the potter chars. But I don't quite remember. Do you know what I mean? Like, honestly, because you forget, and it's easy to forget. So if I'm forgetting things like that, I guarantee you parents are. So what you should do is making sure it's something that's easy to understand, you know, instead of bronze star tap, and I don't know, even if what syllabus studies or how that even works, but I'm just throwing out examples is, you know, a tap for a child that's 13 or 14 years old, is a much easier way to understand it or tap for 13 and 14 year olds have done a minimum of three years, you know, something along those lines is a much easier way to understand it. In something that's you know, that the dad goes, I know what that is, right? Yes.
Nathan Barr 18:01
Just helps any potential client when they're looking at your website, your parents as well, exactly when they're looking at your website. And it's just an easy way for them to get in contact with you and to say, Hey, I'd love to enrol in the eight, nine jazz. And then you can be a fantastic not a problem at all. You're only hitting on just it's actually the ballet class after that as well that so many of the kids do that. You want to try that in your free trial week as well. That'd be fantastic. Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 18:24
Absolutely. So really making sure it's easy to understand. And the way I like to do this is give it to someone who has no idea about dance. Give it to a friend, a partner, somebody without kids as well, Mom without kids and go. Okay, so if you had a seven year old daughter that wanted to dance, what would they do? You know, and really making sure Do you understand this? Do you know how you would enrol them and how to do it? I think that's a really good test to do. Right? And be able to see it. So really think about that, you know, and also like as, so that the names of classes is important to make sure. You know, it's idiot proof. My other just other thought that I just had because I was talking about this in studio growth club the other day is, you know, I made a mistake one year I actually showed it on a timetable that we did a few years ago. And instead of writing musical theatre on my timetable, I wrote empty. I remember that one. And, you know, it was a couple of years ago, and I just scribbled it out on the post it notes and that was held on on the on the website and you know, how it was printed out that we gave to people and our musical theatre enrollments for that age group dropped significantly that you couldn't work out why I was thinking, oh, you know, that teacher? Maybe it wasn't the right teacher for the class. Maybe it was this maybe it was that? I think in reflection now, it has to do with the fact that I called it empty, because people didn't know what it was. And so therefore, they didn't enrol. They just went, Oh, I know what jazz is, I know what hip hop is empty. I don't know that mountain class, obviously a handful of people that were really dedicated and keen, but you know, that was never a huge stream in our studio. But that made it drop off even more. So I think that's really important to really think about, you know, do people understand what the class is called?
Unknown Speaker 20:23
So,
Amanda Barr 20:24
you know, making sure it's idiot proof. And with that, you know, the importance of presentation of a timetable. I think that's really, really important. Because people get, you know, Nathan talked about the path of least resistance. Yes, if your timetable is this huge, big, hard to read document that you open on a phone, and you've got to like, scroll, you know,
Unknown Speaker 20:45
really,
Amanda Barr 20:46
what's the word magnified? And I'm doing it with my hands, obviously cannot say that. You know, it's really confusing. It's hard to read, you know, they don't really understand what they're doing. They can't see the simple flow. You know, we talked about the goal being people just take multiple classes in a row. And if your timetable like, you know what I mean, because obviously, they change studios, once again, I'm using my hands, which does not help. But if they aren't doing things, like it's very confusing, and it doesn't flow properly, like, you know, once in Studio One, one column once in studio two, column one.
Nathan Barr 21:19
Yeah, I think what you're trying to explain is, and don't get us wrong, we still have the big dirty Excel spreadsheet, huge Excel spreadsheet, big huge Excel spreadsheet, because a DSP had six studios running at any one time. And for the staff, and for our purposes, we would have the big spreadsheet that had studio 123456, all the times colour coded for like each age group. And so like, we could see the flow of you know, like, what a year one student could do on an afternoon at the first time slot, the second time slot, the third time slot,
Amanda Barr 21:48
give that to a parent, oh, my God, that's so overwhelmed. There's
Nathan Barr 21:52
no way they'd be able to follow it. It's it was just way too hard. And like overwhelming is the the jam jar test that we always talk about, is that famous experiment that when people were presented too many options, they didn't even purchase? I think it was when they were presented 27 options. We're talking about basically, too many options makes people not buy, yes, when they had fewer options than people would purchase.
Amanda Barr 22:17
Yeah, absolutely. So you know, cutting out the noise. So really making sure when you present your timetables, whether that's on a website, you know, or an actual physical, you know, timetable that you give people. It's really clean. What they can do,
Speaker 1 22:36
it's well designed, it doesn't look like a big duty Excel spreadsheet, graphic design wins.
Amanda Barr 22:41
I think design matters all the time, and seeing the easy flow and how you group classes together. Makes sense for people. For us, we like to do it, you know, there was a different timetable. For each age group that worked for us, it might be a different way for you.
Nathan Barr 22:56
That's what we've seen, because we've shared this with tribe members and students, I've got members, and we've loved seeing how many studios are now converting to presenting it in that same format, right? And them saying what a massive difference is made to their parents being able to choose and upsell those classes to them.
Amanda Barr 23:13
Absolutely. And, you know, there's so many different ways that you can do it, but just making sure it's super easy for the parents that don't get ever were overwhelmed. And my big thing is you do the hard work so they don't have to. Exactly. So I think that's a really great note to kind of leave it on, you know, really think about how can you make it easier on the parent, whether that's the way the afternoon and what their classes look like, you know, them being able to choose as many classes as they can in a row. Seeing the timetable, you know, set out really easily with just their options and not being overwhelmed. And making sure that the way the classes are named works for them all about making it easy for the parent. So, you know, I think that's the absolute key to it, right?
Nathan Barr 23:55
Yep. With out of doubt.
Amanda Barr 23:57
Hopefully you guys have got some great tips out of this podcast. We've loved chatting all things timetable with you. If you have anything you'd like to add, join the discussion drop us a DM and we would love to chat about it. But while we have you, we do just want to ask you one small favour. If you don't already, please press the Follow button on in Spotify or Apple podcasts. It helps us more than you can ever know it would mean the world to us if you would take two seconds and just press that follow button. Whoo.
Nathan Barr 24:26
I'm glad you remember that I always asked manda I'm not gonna lie she often forgets but I'm so excited. Hey,
Amanda Barr 24:32
thanks, guys. chatty next week. Thanks, guys.
Nathan Barr 24:34
Bye. Hey, guys, if you listened to that podcast, and you thought, oh, that calculator where we could project how many of each style and age group that we need in our studio is something that you would like to get your hands on to make sure either getting your 2020 Full timetable ready, or checking that what you've got so far, is good to go. Then please drop us a DM on Instagram and we can send you through some more info
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
