DO GREAT TEACHERS MAKE GREAT ACADEMY OWNERS?

DO GREAT TEACHERS MAKE GREAT ACADEMY OWNERS?

02-11-2008

I’m sure many teachers have often wondered what it would be like to run a school themselves.

Would it work out?

Would they be able to earn more money?

Would they get more job satisfaction?

Quite frankly, until you try it you’ll never know. Let’s look at what might be involved.

From a risk point of view we’re in a very fortunate industry. We don’t have to invest in expensive machinery or buy in stock that may never sell. As we get a class, we teach it ourselves or we find a teacher to teach it for us. When the class finishes, the teacher finishes. as simple as that.

Everyone’s story of how they got into running a language school is different. In my case, I was teaching at a school that was already established, the owners wanted to sell and asked if I was interested in buying it. Here the risk was low, as it was already a going concern, students were guaranteed, all that was needed was to work to increase student numbers and company clients.

Many teachers begin by becoming autonomo to be able to take on corporate clients themselves, and then as they become well known and are asked to do more and more classes, they subcontract out these classes to other teachers. Eventually their base grows to such an extent that they open an office and begin to set up administration and pedagogic systems, contract a gestoria etc. The successful teacher is now on their way to becoming a successful business owner.

If you’ve got previous management experience and have been trained in such things as time management, leadership, sales skills, interviewing techniques and basic financial management skills you’ll be way ahead of the competition. Let’s face it, to combine general management experience with an expert knowledge of your product (TEFL) has to be a winning combination.

So what happens now?

I believe that the biggest factors influencing the success of a school are focus and vision.

Now you’re running a business instead of just teaching, what do you want from this business? This is the most important question any business owner can ask themselves and the question we always start with when we are coaching such people.

The questions you may want to ask yourself are:

· How big do I want this business to grow?

· Am I prepared to put in the hours the business needs to get established?

· What niche of the market do I want to concentrate on?

· Am I prepared to take a financial risk if necessary?

· Who do I know who can help me?

· What lifestyle do I want?

· What are my strengths?

· What are my weaknesses?

It’s by asking yourself questions such as these that you can formulate your vision and from your vision you formulate your business plan and set your goals. People and businesses often become confused and lost because they don’t know where they’re going. It’s also often the case that you see other schools doing different things and you say to yourself, “should I be doing that?” If you’ve spent some time initially deciding what sort of business and lifestyle you want, you will immediately know the answer instead of wasting time debating whether to follow or not.

We’re lucky; we’re in a market where the demand for our service is huge. The downside is that the competition is extremely fierce. If you are offering a good service at a reasonable price, keeping an eye on the financials, know what you want to achieve and by when, you shouldn’t have too many problems. Beware of your weaknesses however.

As your business grows it’s important to recognise the weak areas and find the necessary resources to fill the gaps.

If want to own a large school, one of the most important tips I could pass on would be to keep your head up and look at your business as a whole, don’t get too hands on, don’t get too involved with the teaching and ignore the business development. If you do, you will continue to be a great teacher but you will be lucky to achieve your goal of having a great school.

Janice Haywood
Directora Windsot Idiomas

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