Two or three years ago, Pam Roush (Avalon Stables in Florida) called me asking if I had any beginner lesson horses for sale—anything that could carry a beginner—several of them.

“Several?”   “Who need several beginner horses all at one time?”

For her new homeschool program, she told me.

Now for several years, thinking now probably decades—I’ve always had a handful of homeschool kids who have been in my riding program.  And the super coolest thing about  homeschool kids is that they can come and ride and fill in the earlier hours—when other kids are in school.  Heck, I even have an Early Bird rate just for them of $25/lesson.

I said to Pam, “Well how many kids do you have in this homeschool program?”.  Pam replied, “50 or 60”.

She probably won’t remember but I was absolutely speechless.

She kept on talking, about how great it was and how much money it was bringing into her program.

And I was silent.  Awestruck, would be a better word.

Now I have had homeschool open houses, homeschool field trips, homeschool weeklong day camps, homeschool one day camps—and while I may have 30+ families show up, especially for an open house (which was probably free of charge) and I might have 6-8 kids show up for a camp.  I never had those kind of numbers like Pam was talking about.

So I thought o.k., here’s the “kicker”—how much are you charging these families per child/rider?

She said, “Almost $400/session”.

$400

Well what are they getting for $400?  Pam’s program is based (if I remember correctly) is based upon a 6 to 8 week program.  Each session is 2 hours in length, and they ride and they also work on horse management skills and stable management chores, while completing a Horse Science book.  She also is running on a very small staff—an instructor and a volunteer or two.  Volunteers are paid through work credit in her stable, so no cash outlay.

So simple math, $400/session per 8 weeks in session.  She is getting $50/kid/week.

Yes she is spending 2 hours per session, but she’s able to keep her staff expense low.  And you might say well–$25/hour/kid, isn’t so great.  I give a 30 minute lesson for $35/kid.

But let’s look at the bigger picture.

Pam has 50 kids paying her $400/8 week session.  So at some point at the start of each session—Pam is taking payment of $20,000 every 8 weeks or so.

$20,000 is not chump change.

So I mean I’m motivated—I have $$$$$ floating in my head.

Here I go again—field trips, open houses, camps both one day and week long camps.  I mean I’m putting it all out there.  I talk to people, I ask people questions.  Heck, somehow we even got to take ponies to a Homeschool Festival for two years.  But I just wasn’t getting the response.  And even those dollar signs dancing in my head—slowly faded away.

And then a couple of years ago, I was making phone calls to riding instructors to get guest speakers on my panels for the upcoming Riding Instructor WorkShop (YES, the plans are in the works for an upcoming WorkShop—coming this January, 2018!!  Stay tuned for more info!)

And I reached Maura Dalton of Creekwood Riding Academy in North Carolina.  I was asking her what she thought her strengths were and what she could share as a Mentor on our panels at the WorkShop.  Immediately she said, “You should ask me about my Homeschool Program.”

“My homeschool program has revolutionized my lesson program”, she said.

Revolutionized?  Whoa, that’s a strong word.

I said, “Yeah, I’ve done homeschool programs for years and years and have had so little success in getting in a decent number of kids and making it work financially”.

Another point to remember with Homeschool families, is that in order to homeschool you have to remember that usually there is only one parent bringing in a paycheck—so that the other parent is at home.  And this can make things financially challenging when it comes to extras like, horseback riding lessons.  So many families are tight on how they use their discretionary income, especially when there are 2-3 kids in each family.

So at this point, I’ve been fairly skeptical of how to get a profitable revenue stream from my homeschool families.

So I said, “Tell me about your program”.  (I do want to give a shout out to both Pam and Maura if I’ve made an error, as now these conversations have been a few years ago, and my memory has been shot a long time ago!).

Maura realized that she had students that could come in and not only ride, but they could do more.  Here’s these able-bodied kids, so eager to learn—not only riding but horse care and stable management.  So her basis is the skills and effort that are learned through working with the horses and in the stable.  And while program is different than Pam’s, Maura did mention that she had several homeschool kids who came out of her homeschool program who went on to join her regular lesson riders, go on to compete and purchase horses.

So here’s these able-bodied kids, who can come out earlier than her other clients.  And she has barn chores that need to be done, and lesson horses that need to get ready before any one else can get to the barn.  So her program is all built upon unmounted work ethic.  Now the kids do ride each and every time they come, but in the beginning of each semester—they may only ride for 15 or 20 minutes.  As each kid in the group progresses, then more riding is added.  And she has no staff expense, she is the only one who works in her homeschool program.

Her kids learn to catch the horses, bring them in from the field, groom the horses, clean their stalls, water the horses, load the hay, tack up their horses, and help each other.  They lead each other on the horses, and wait their turn to ride.

So as the program moves on soon, Maura has some pretty good horsewomen and men.  And she’s got not only riders, and the income they bring in—but she’s got her early afternoon staff and her lesson horses ready for when the next round of riders come later in the afternoon.

Maura said her program is always full.  In fact she usually has a waiting list of people wanting to join in.

Okay, I decided there has to be a way to make this Homeschool thing work for my program.

So I called Pam, and tortured her for details (yes, the program is still running—it is still huge and very successful).  I harassed her so much that she finally sent me a detailed financial report, her scheduling and a copy of her Horse Science book (her kids also have homework that they take home each week, COOL!).

I decided with all the info I had received on a program, that I think would work best in my program.  But now I needed to get the kids.  So I turned to our handful of current Homeschool kids’ moms and dads for help.  If you’ve ever tried to reach out to a homeschool group you will pretty quickly realize that they are a very tight knit group.  And it can seem almost impossible to get in and get your word out about your amazing new horseback riding program that you are offering to Homeschool kids.

So I offered each of my homeschool moms, the same offer I give to my Equestrian Club sponsors.  In this post, I am not going to give out the full details of my Equestrian Club Sponsor program, due simply to the length of this post already!  I will try to sit down soon and make another post on it.

But basically a group/school/club has a sponsor (a parent, or even better a teacher) and they work within their group or school (emails, public announcements, flyers) to get the word out about how their kids can come out to the barn and ride and learn more about horses.  And these sponsors are rewarded for their efforts.  For every 6 kids who ride each week, from their Equestrian Club, the sponsor receives a free riding lesson.  Currently I have 5-6 sponsors who are drawing in new riding students and receiving free lessons.

The program I am currently offering is Homeschool and  Horses.  It is a five week program.  The kids (ages 7-15 years old) come 9:00 a.m. until noon.  I have an instructor, myself and 2 volunteers (the 2 volunteers earn a free riding lesson for their work each time).  I had 10 kids sign up for this program, and they all came from my current homeschool base of parents, who posted notices on online homeschool sites.  The plan is to have a two week break and then offer another five week session.  The cost for this program was $225.  They do get to use a riding helmet and also got a Horse Science workbook.

Currently all of our kids have little to no experience with horses.  We do catch the horses and have them in our tie stall barn before they get to the barn.  But they are learning to groom, tack up, lead the horse to the ring, tighten the girth—then they take approximately a 45 minute riding lesson—take their horse back and groom/bathe, put their tack away, also learn to pick out the tie stall barn, and hopefully learn to turn their horse back out into the field.  With ten kids we are splitting the kids into two groups (right now by ages, as the bigger kids are able to work faster in their Horse Science workbook).  With all of this going on, it makes for a really fast day.

Since this is a relatively new program (I will tell you that I did try a similar program last fall and it didn’t fill up—and it was a little less expensive—and it was only an hour and a half), my instructor and I have been discussing that we could have 15-16 kids in the next semester.  And I will say that I do have 8 horses that are safe enough for a first or second time rider to do a little “horse train”.  We call it a “horse or pony train”, if you’re paying attention to my horse’s personalities, you can put them all in a row, and they will basically follow each other around the arena.  We put the instructor in the front.  We do have the volunteers leading the smallest and most timid of the kids.

Another note I want to put in here.  Is the last program which did not fill and was only an hour and a half, didn’t really allow the parents to drop off their kids and go run some errands or go back home and take a little break.  The two and a half hour program seem more popular.  And with this session we are currently offering, the majority of our parents are dropping their kids off.

Okay, if you think—“Yeah, Yeah, it’s probably not worth the effort or headache—I mean I can teach a group lesson of three kids for 30 minutes at $35/kid and make more money.”  You are correct.  But you have to remember that these homeschool kids can come out and ride at a time, when none of your other riders are able to be out at the barn.

And remember, $20,000 is not chump change.

Also don’t forget the upcoming

RIDING INSTRUCTOR WORKSHOP

January, 2018

Just today it happened.  My office manager set up a “one time” riding lesson.  My definition of a “one time” riding lesson, is someone from out of town who is only in town for a few days, and makes the time to come out to take a riding lesson.  Now don’t mistake this for a phone call, which starts like this—“my child loves horses, and she has never ridden—so can we come by and take a lesson?”.  I don’t look at this as a “one-timer”.

If you call the office and want to schedule a lesson, and you’re either not sure about this “whole riding lesson thing?”—I mean kids just naturally know how to ride a horse, right?  Or maybe you’re just not sure about committing to a whole bunch of riding lessons, that your neighbor told you were really expensive.  No, this is not a “one-timer”.  These local, and unsure phone caller’s may turn out into being your next best client.

This post is about the out of town family or adult looking for a fun activity to do one day while they’re in town.  Now we do have an advantage being in Louisville—because of the whole “Kentucky horse thing”.  But I bet you get more calls than you think, “Oh, we’re in town this week-end or tomorrow could we come and ride a horse?”.  If that’s how they start the conversation, I tell them that we don’t have trail rides, but we do offer riding lessons.  At least 50% of the time, they aren’t really looking for a trail ride, just some fun activity.

I know, I know—you’re in the business of creating long term riders and horse-owning clients.  But yesterday in 45 minutes, I had made $120.  Now I do value my time, and if my time could be better spent working in the office or on a new marketing project—I consider that valuable.  But it was scheduled right before my busy afternoon of lessons was about to start, so I was already getting myself into lesson mode anyway.

Yesterday’s lesson was 2 twenty minute, Small Fry lessons.  We used two ponies, and myself and my office manager did the lessons.  Two got on had a little mini lesson, photos were taken by the Mom and Dad and then we switched and the other two got a mini lesson with more pictures taken.  These people were from Nashville and were spending their Spring Break in Louisville.

No we don’t keep time slots available for One Timer’s, but usually throughout the week, either someone has cancelled or rescheduled and there is space for them.  Now this family had scheduled a week in advance, but often One Timer’s call the same morning or within an hour and want to ride.  Again you just have to make sure you have the space.  We do not put any One Timer’s in with the regular lesson schedule.  I mean a One Timer might be in the ring at the same time as a regular lesson, but they have a different instructor, and since it would usually be their first lesson, they usually ride in the center of the arena, and only walk with a few steps of trotting.

I do have a large WARNING—which I’m putting in capital letter—any One Timer must PAY IN FULL prior to scheduling their lesson.  No exception, not ever, all One Timer’s and Out-of-Towner’s must pay in advance!  Just because they are here for a short while and may find something better to do, and you will be out there standing with your lesson horses waiting.  One thing I do encourage with my one-timer’s is tipping.  Often when you go on a vacation, and you have a tour or event, you tip the guide or instructor.  I encourage this and my instructors always enjoy this.  Not only do they get an extra lesson or two, but they’ve gotten another twenty bucks or so.

Another situation is the Grandparent child.  I have had children join us for multiple lessons or camps, often for several years while they are staying the week-end or week with their grandparents.  What a great thing for grandparents, they’re not really sure how to keep these active, spunky kids busy for a whole week—send them out to camp!  I had one family, whose grandparents still worked full time, and the kids came for two weeks in the summer to stay with them.  They had two boys, who attended two weeks of camp and this went on for about six years.  The oldest boy ended up becoming a camp counselor for our camps, and got to take home some extra money.  No one was bored, and they were ready to go to bed at 9:00.

So where do these one-time, out-of-towners come from?  Funnily enough about 8 years ago, I made a big project of taking a bunch of flyers downtown Louisville to the three biggest hotels.  I personally went to the Concierge at both hotels (with a small box of Plehn’s Bakery cookies, yummy—best in town) and talked about our programs.  You know if they’re not real busy, these Concierges are really chatty.  Anyway most of our one-timer’s come from one of these hotels.  And these are also the most expensive hotels in town.  So they can afford to pay.  So don’t give any discounts, no matter how many want to ride.

So next time the phone rings, and someone says “We’re in from out of town, could we come ride?” .  Just don’t hang up right on them.

Okay this is the second part of the last post—The Funeral Home or How to Get Inside the School System.

At the beginning of that post, I had mentioned how I would talk to my clients and find out more about them—their lives, careers, families—all in the normal course of teaching themselves or their children to ride.  I mentioned our funeral tents and how great that all was!  I also mentioned how I would try to figure out who I could get to help me with Scout troops and pony parties.

So I left everyone hanging last time, with “But how are you getting in?”.

So as I continued on the path as a riding instructor, I realized how much I needed to try to get into the schools.

Use your parents (or a school teacher who rides with you is even better!) to work for you!  They can get you in the back door of the schools.  And I’ve developed a Parent Incentive program to help reward them for all their hard work and assistance.  Note:  for the rest of this post I will call them “parents” or “parent incentive program”, but I have had parents, teachers, friends and employees earn credit for their children or themselves.

So, first the Incentive Program can be used by anyone—doesn’t have to be a parent—anyone who wants to help out the riding program by bringing in new and more riders while earning Lessons or Barn Credit which can be used within the program.  I have a standard Incentive Program that I use.  But just as each school program or club is an individual—sometimes my Incentive Program can be tweaked or changed.  This is all dependent on the number of lessons they bring in and the number of hours they may have to work.

My standard Incentive Program is that a parent will receive one group riding lesson in exchange for each 6 riders that ride weekly in their program.  So basically if they have 6 kids that ride during a week out of their program, their child can ride once a week for FREE.  I have had parents who have built up their program or school’s Equestrian Program to the size that they have had 2-3 of their own kids ride for free each week.

Now here comes the WARNING!!  I have a very detailed program and handbook which outlines our Volunteer and Incentive programs here at the LEC.  It is a handbook that has been worked on and tweaked for several years, I think at this point it just about covers anything or any issue that could be brought up by a parent/rider.  I also have an office manager who each day logs in our riders, their payment and credit—so if you are going to offer someone credit or free lessons make sure that you have a very tight program to keep up with this all.  Without being able to keep a tight track on these free lessons/credit you could easily make someone upset or even lose a customer.  So be sure that you keep up with all your scheduling and credit.

Currently I have 2 public schools and 1 homeschool program in the works.  So I have 1 teacher/parent, 1 teach who rides with me and 1 parent.  And all 3 of these are taking part in the Incentive program.  And I’m always on the look out for new programs.

The Back Door into the schools is your parents or even better a parent who is a teacher.  Parents have it all.  They know the teacher, they know the other children in their child’s class, they know the other parents.  Often they have access to a parent handbook or directory with everyone’s emails.  No one yells at them or tell them they’re not interested if they tell them how great riding has been for their child.  They’re “in”.

Here at the LEC once a child has taken a few lessons (4 or 5), myself of one of the instructors will approach a parent and tell them about how they could get involved with a one of our programs and earn barn credit or free lessons for their child.  If I get someone on the phone and they want more information on lessons and our other programs, I try to discuss how they could earn free lessons.  At the most I have had 6-8 active schools participating in our Equestrian Clubs and have had a parent/teacher receive incentives.  So if you think about the number of parents or interested people I mention an Equestrian Club to and how they could take advantage of free lessons—not many take you up on your offer.

Some parents will be interested and get started but not follow through.  One of my largest programs, with about 30 active riders, enabled a mother and her three kids to ride for free each week.  Pretty good trade four lessons for free while I had 30 others ride and pay for their lessons or program.  So there is a fine line on encouraging but not forcing your programs down a parent’s throat.  Parents are busy and often to even think about taking on another program would terrify some.  But even if they don’t get a group to ride, but could get a teacher or principal to put out a take home flyer to all the kids in a class or school.  I would definitely reward them with some incentive.

Getting inside a school can be a challenge and continuing to work with that school becomes an ongoing challenge.  But as I kept thinking about at my first professional teaching job—when I arrived on the first week I had 13 lessons.  I got $5/lesson.  So basically I was going to starve to death, if I didn’t find some new students.  But remember that’s where the kids are .  .  .

Many years ago when I first started teaching—I quickly learned that if I needed help with something, maybe a volunteer to help out with a pony party or a Scout troop—I needed t know whose parents worked full-time, which kids were home-schooled, which adult worked the night shift, but could be counted on to help with a project in the late mornings.

I would make mental notes.

Then I started taking it a step further.

I would listen—somehow politely ask, “Oh, you’re a fireman?”  or “Oh, you work at the local day care?”

So you can see where I’m going with this.

But then it took a funny turn .  .  . funny but fabulous!

I had a family whose daughter rode with me, and they mentioned how busy there were with their family business.  Turns out they owned a local funeral home.  Oh, sure you’re thinking, “What?”

I’m not sure what first comes to your mind—when someone says, “funeral homes”.

My first thought was—TENTS!  I needed TENTS!  We had our summer camp programs getting ready to start, and we were short on inside, covered space to get in out of the sun and rain.  And tents are expensive.  So I casually said, “Oh, do you all have any tents, you don’t use?”  And the mother said, “Oh, sure—we have these older ones that are too faded to use.”  I remember that moment, I thought, “Fantastic!”.  But it really got better.

The mother said, “When do you want them?”  And in two weeks, a big truck drove up, with a crew of guys.  They jumped out and up went a huge and beautiful tent—a little sun fading didn’t bother me!  The tent went up and stayed up for the three weeks of camp, and we greatly enjoyed it—at the end here came the crew again and down it went.  This went on for three years!!

So how does this relate to you and your riding program?

For years, I have been pondering—How to get inside the school system?

I have tried many “avenues” of getting inside my local school systems.

What am I trying to do once I get in?  I’m trying to promote my riding program.  I mean there they are—all your clients (well probably not the adults, although I’ve gotten several great teachers involved through the school system)—I mean lots of future clients.

Just go and get them.

Yeah, I’ve found it’s not as easy as it seems.

I’ve tried to get in using the Front Door and I’ve tried getting in by using the Back Door.

I have found that if you try the Front Door, you find all your efforts quickly ended.  There are two reasons for this.  In today’s world if you don’t have an appointment, you may find yourself not allowed in, even locked out.  Security in today’s schools is tight, so unless there is a reason for you to be there, you’re not getting very far.  And schools do not like to be “marketed too”.  Schools do not like salesmen.  Frankly schools are too busy to help you out.  Most of them are short staffed, and too busy.

But while I’ve had very little, to no success going in the Front Door—I do need to discuss what happened to me last summer.  It happened in July.  I have to give some background information, I have called schools—I have made “cold calls” to numerous schools over the years.  With “cold calls” I didn’t have a contact to ask for, I simply made a call and asked for what I wanted/needed.  I’ve never had a “cold call” go very far, other than vague answers from the voice on the phone—“we don’t really do anything like that” or “bring a flyer and I’ll try to hang it up”.

But one morning in July last summer—I had gotten brave, from listening to one of our speakers at last year’s Riding Instructor WorkShop.  They had said to try to find the school’s marketing program or director.  Well here in our little county, the schools don’t have a marketing director.  So I called the Board of Education, my thought was to just try to be able to pass out some flyers within the school system.

Well the phone rang and rang and rang.  It must have rang like 10 times, just as I was going to hang up a voice said, “Can I help you?”  I thought “Oh, I’ve dialed the wrong number.”  I said I was trying to reach the Board of Education.  And the voice on the other end said, “Oh, you’ve got it.”  I had gotten the secretary of the Board of Education.  And my was she chatty.  I suddenly realized I had gotten through in the dead of the summer.  I had really gotten the person I needed to talk too.  And she was bored.  She knew where the barn was—she loved horses and rode as a child—Oh and she thought it was a wonderful idea to get our children riding.  What do you want to do, honey?  My gosh I was nearly in shock.

This secretary gave me the name of every principal and grade school teacher in the county.  You just use my name and tell them that I said it was fine to drop off flyers throughout the county’s public schools.  She also told me how many kids were in each class and how many flyers I should make.  Also that I should put them in a folder or envelope for each teacher.  I made sure to write her name down in bold letters.  And every time I take those flyers, I make sure to “drop” her name every time!

After years of not getting in the Front Door—I had finally gotten in.  I would recommend trying to reach someone in July.  I have called in June (I’m presuming everyone’s resting from the school year), and I know I’ve called right before school started (but I’m thinking that everyone is very busy getting ready for the new year).  July may be the ideal time!

So let’s try the Back Door.  And I’ve found there’s a lot of ways to get in the Back Door.

Okay, first I decide what I want to do within the school.  First it is important to look at each school as an individual.  You are dealing with different ages, you may be dealing with a public school or you may be dealing with a private school, there are a lot of variables.

I do a lot of different things with schools (many times this may all depend on how I can get “into the school”).  It is also important to note that I have always had more luck in working with Private School Systems than Public School Systems—I think it simply has to do with the fact that the Private Schools often find it easier to change their schedule, calendar or system, than the Public Schools.

I do want to mention that I have worked with over 20 public Louisville area schools and over 30 private Louisville area schools.  Once you get started with one school make sure you mention it when talking within another school.  If you’re “O.K.” with that school it must be “O.K.” for their school.

Also it is important to mention that here in Kentucky, we have three points that I try to use to their fullest:  the tradition of the horse in Kentucky, the importance of the equine economy to the state of Kentucky, and the Kentucky Derby.  I think if you are outside Kentucky—you can still mention the importance of the equine economy (“your kids who love horses can take this love and turn it into a career, mention equine degrees as well as figures with the impact that the equine industry has).

Okay, getting inside the schools—using the back door.

What am I trying to do—well my dream is that I get 30 kids from a school sign up for lessons.

But over the years, I have found the road difficult and at first you will only get a trickle, don’t go in looking for a flood of new students.  Several years ago, Parker Lovell, an instructor and manager of a very large successful riding program in North Carolina, wrote a series of articles on riding lesson program management—and one of those was on the importance of “Follow Up”.  And if you do any work with marketing, you will quickly find that one of the biggest challenges with any business is its ability to “Follow Up” with any programs that have been started.

Follow Up will include managing your programs that you’ve offered—make phone calls, remember who’ you’ve talked to, what you’ve offered, send reminder emails, be patient and thorough.

These are the things I’ve offered to schools

• Field Trips—here at the Louisville Equestrian Center we’ve offered FREE Field Trips the two weeks prior to the Kentucky Derby (this is usually the last two weeks of April—which also coincides with the promotion of our upcoming annual summer camp programming). Each year we’ve had 500-1000 school kids walk in our doors.  With years of practice, we’ve gotten a real handle on how to have 50-75 kids walk into our barn, I will try to post soon on how to host a Field Trip a successful Field Trip.
• Pony Rides/Open House—I’ve had trouble getting students out to an Open House, but to offer a school an educational Field Trip, seems to go over better with the school. An Open House may appear to be a Marketing Tool by the stable in order to “sell something” to the students.
• Educational Programming—I’ve had this go two ways: the school/teacher developed the programming or I’ve built the Equine Science/Education programming.  I have found schools will be more likely to allow you inside the school/pass out flyers/make announcements during school/send out emails to parents if the programming follows along a more educational route.
  • First Way: Twice I have had teachers (one who rode with me and one that I didn’t know prior to the program) build a program on their own and want to implement within my program/stable.  The first was a Math Teacher (she “cold called” me to set this up and had a program for her elementary students to look around the stable working on a variety of math problems she had figured out for them.  This school was very close to the stable, and she brought about 25 kids.  I had one volunteer go with them as a safety protocol, but other than that I had no other expenses.  So I didn’t charge them.
  • Second Way: I have two offerings out at my stable for large groups to join us.  The first is an un-mounted Horsemanship/Equine Education, kids come out for a 45 minute hands-on horsemanship program—usually for a semester period (of 4-6-8 weeks).  This is often utilized by a school who is new to our programs or simply from a poorer area and they really want to join in, but can’t afford to pay for the Riding/Horsemanship programming.  I have a teacher who has ridden with me for about 10 years, and she has worked with her school and for the past 5 years we have had about 150 kids join us, for a hands on program only.  I don’t charge this school, I only use the teacher, her bus driver, myself, my office manager to watch and help the kids (this is a Middle School).  This is a hands on program, and they love it.  The other offering is what I’ve termed an Equestrian Club.  Your school can put together any kids that would be interested and join us for an hour or an hour and a half and this includes a 30-45 minute riding lesson and a 30-45 minute un-mounted horsemanship lesson.  The length is determined with myself and the teacher/club leader.  This is usually a multi-week program, although I have done it with a one time offering.  There is a charge for this.  Currently we have two schools working with us (both public schools) and the cost is $129/rider for a 5 week session.   This includes a 30 minute riding lesson (most are beginners, so I do have overhead with my volunteers) and a 30 minute un-mounted Horsemanship program (and I do also have a couple of volunteers who help with this also).  Our elementary school that is currently offering this Equestrian Club program has 28 kids participating.  Twenty-eight kids was my max number, so it did fill up.  The teacher is planning to offer the program again when this one is finished.  The other school is in the works of getting everyone registered, but we have offered 28 openings as well.  Each one of these runs 2 one-hour long meeting time (30 minutes riding and 30 minutes with the horses).  We offer one time slot at 4:30-5:30 and one 6:30-7:30 on a Monday night.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I have found throughout the years that each school has to be looked at as an individual.  So be sure to be flexible and work with the teacher or parent when discussing future programming.

Okay, I’m kind of jumping around here.  But let’s go back to marketing and your tools.  If you are lucky enough to get inside of a school, either by working with a parent or teacher and our able to promote your program either by using a flyer or notice—be sure to be VERY, VERY NICE!  If you are bringing several thousand flyers (I always offer to bring them the flyers—I don’t think any busy school teacher or administrative staff would look forward to more time spent at the copy machine or computer) make sure that you are on your very friendliest behavior.  I mean you are dropping off thousands of flyers for your program/business for them to promote your program/business!  You are asking them to do more work for you!

It is a given fact that schools are usually under-staffed and over-worked.  They already have too much on their “plates”.  And here you come along and say “Hey, Michelle down at the Board of Education said I could drop these off”.  First, do “name drop” to legitimize yourself.  If you just walk in with a box of flyers you will more than likely be escorted out along with your box or it will just sit on the floor waiting for the trash.  I always make sure that I know how many flyers for each class/teacher and already have them all separated and in a bag—hopefully so the administrative staff can simply slip them into each teacher’s mailbox.

Also if anyone asks always push the education side of your program.  How the kids learn about nutrition and daily care of a horse, health and veterinary care—keep the education, number one.  The riding side is great physical exercise.  I usually include something with the Washington State University study about how great horses are to kids’ mental and physical health.

OKAY, All of this sound great—But how are you getting in the Back Door??

That’s for the second part of this post .  .  .