Stop Letting Summer Walk Out The Door

Every May, the same conversation walks up to my front desk.

“Hey Ron, we need to put Billy on hold for the summer. He’s going to grandma’s, then we have a trip, then school starts and it gets crazy.”

And every May, the same school owner across town hears the same thing. The only difference? One of us is ready for it. The other one is about to lose thousands of dollars.

Here’s the truth most school owners don’t want to face: the cancellation conversation isn’t the problem. The fact that you’re having it at all IS the problem.

I am not saying parents shouldn’t travel. They will. Their kids will. That’s reality.

What I am saying is this. By the time that parent is at your front desk saying “we need to pause,” you have already lost the negotiation. You skipped the work that would have made this conversation a non-event.

That work has a name. The freeze policy.

Here’s how it works in plain English. When a student is going to be gone for a meaningful chunk of time, we freeze their lessons but NOT their payments. They keep paying. We add the missed weeks to the end of their program. They don’t lose a single class. We don’t lose a single dollar.

Sounds simple. It is.

But most schools don’t have it, or they have it and never explain it, or they explain it at the wrong time.

I think best in lists, so here is a list of what I have learned about installing this in a real school.

• Write your freeze policy on ONE page. If it takes more than that, you’ve made it too complicated. Make it readable for a parent in 60 seconds.
• Pre-print the freeze slip. If your front desk has to “go find it,” it isn’t a system. It’s a hope. Make it part of your standard intake folder.
• Explain the freeze policy DURING the enrollment folder process. Not the enrollment conference. After they’ve enrolled and done their first few classes, sit down with them and walk through the rules. The freeze policy is part of that walkthrough. “Hey, just so you know, if you’re ever gone for more than two weeks, we have a freeze policy. Here’s how it works.” Done.
• Now when summer comes, the parent already knows. They walk up to the desk with their summer plans, and the conversation isn’t “can we cancel?” The conversation is “we need to freeze.”
• This single change protects your June, July and August. Not from every cancellation. There will still be a few. But from MOST of them.

I get it. Right now you’re thinking “but my parents will hate this.” Maybe.

BUT! The parents who hate it are the parents who never planned to stick around past the summer anyway. The ones who matter, the ones who want their kid to keep progressing, they’re relieved. Because now they don’t have to choose between vacation and the belt their kid has been working toward.

Here’s the part most school owners miss. The freeze policy isn’t about money. It’s about progression/transformation.

When a kid freezes and gets the time added to the back of their program, they still get every class they paid for. They stay on track for their next belt. They come back in August right where they left off.

When a kid cancels and re-enrolls in September? They’re behind. They’ve lost momentum. They’re sitting at the same belt for an extra three months and they FEEL it. That’s the kid who quietly drifts away in October.

So here’s your push.

This week, before Memorial Day, write your freeze policy as one paragraph. Print 20 copies of the freeze slip. Have your front desk hand one to every family that comes in for an ID card check. Don’t make a speech about it. Don’t apologize for it. Just hand it over. “Hey, want to give you this so you have it for the summer.”

That’s the conversation. That’s what you should be doing in May.

Not the cancellation conversation. The freeze conversation.

You already know how to talk to your parents. You already know how to run an enrollment conference. The freeze policy is just one more conversation you have BEFORE the cancellation conversation can even happen.

How’s your summer revenue plan looking this year? Drop me a comment. Tell me what you’re running.