2.         START-UP STAGE:

The following are the challenges you face when you are STARTING a school business:

[a] How do you RAISE money to finance the school project?

You can raise money for school project through your personal savings or loan. If your saving is small and you don’t have access to or collateral for loan, you will definitely start small. If you start small, growing the school will NOT be easy. There are many ideas you will conceive but have no money to execute.

[b] How do you HIRE qualified, dedicated and competent staff?

Every applicant always writes in his/her application letter to you school, promising heaven in your school, if you employ them. How do you know the right ones to HIRE, because not all of them are sincere with what they have in their application letters? Some of them only write those beautifully things in their letters and curriculum vitae to deceive you into employing them.

[c] How do you manage expectations from school fees and cash reserves?

[d] How do you manage your school accounts?

These are areas you need to study well before you start that school. Some people believe that when they get to the bridge, they will cross it. Ah! This is one MAJOR REASON for failure in school business most often.

Before you open that school come September of a new academic session, you need to consider the above mentioned point. YOU CANNOT RUN YOUR SCHOOL THE SAME WAY YOU HAVE BEEN RUNNING IT IN THE PAST AND EXPECT DIFFERENT/BETTER RESULT.

3.         GROWTH STAGE

Schools that reach the growth stage have overcome the developmental and start-up challenges. Congratulations to you for overcoming the challenges above. You are now generating school fees and growing your student base. But remember that when profits are increasing, competition is also catching up because those schools who started before you will NOT fold their arms and watch you grow, they too will strive to grow too, by so doing, they make the competition “HOT”. New schools will also spring up in and around you, just the way you started sometimes ago. So the competition continues to increase. Amidst this competition here and there, your school must continue its existence. Whao!

If you really want to SCALE-UP your school:

[a] You should focus on IMPROVING/FINE-TUNING your school and its model.

[b] Identify ways to improve on you school operation and improve profitability.

[c] You need marketing strategies/models to help you expand.

[d] Analyse your major profit and your school drivers

[e] Last but not the least, come up with strategies to grow the profit drivers with the least cost.

The following are the challenges you face when you are at the GROWTH stage of a school:

[i] How do you deal with increasing customers and revenues?

[ii] how do you streamline operations?

[iii] How do you deal with market competition?