01 - Mastering Monthly Billing for Growth with Lee Read of Swim School UK

Welcome to the first ever LoveAdmin podcast episode ✨

For episode 1, we join our very own James Brooker as he delves into the essentials of optimising billing strategies for children's activity organisations.

Our fantastic client, Lee Read, joins us in the studio as he shares his journey of transitioning Swim School UK from a traditional term-based billing to a streamlined monthly model. Discover how this change has not only saved time but also significantly improved customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. 

Stay with us - we've so many more episodes with more practical tips on implementing similar changes in your organisation to drive success and growth.

Stay tuned for more insightful episodes from Steps2Success, where we help you navigate the challenges of running a children's activity organisation with practical advice and expert insights.

Created with pride by LoveAdmin

Edited with finesse by Making Digital Real

Transcript

James Brooker: 0:03

Hey everybody, this is James strategic business manager at love admin. And you're listening to the guided growth podcast, where we'll be taking you through the basics of growing your children's activity organisation with real insights and real actions you can apply to your organisation. Today, we're talking about how to get your billing models right with Lee Read, owner and founder of some school UK, who has taken a shipping container and an industrial unit and turned into a hugely successful Swim School. We'll discuss how Lee's moved his billing from the classic term structure to a monthly model, and how that has helped transform his business. Lee, thanks for joining us, it'd be great to kick off if you give us a bit of a summary of what you guys do at some school UK. So a bit bit of history and wait where you are now. Hi, James. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. So I've been teaching swimming for just over 30 years, I did come to America when I was 19. I was teaching from 17. I graduated uni got into teaching and sat on my own sort of swim score from we teach all ages, all abilities. We teach from babies, I have triathletes come to us

Lee Read: 1:09

even been on ATVs the lakes where I train somebody in 18 months to go from a non swimmer to swim in the channel. So we've done everything. And I've taken on the whole idea of doing the shipping container. Because it was something I could get into an industrial unit, and do my own thing rather than being based from hotels and leisure clubs and other such like just to be completely independent. Amazing. And I think that's a real great, great success story to have. And really, really innovative in what is perhaps quite a traditional sector sometimes. So let's start by talking about the challenges you faced. When when the way you build your customers that that termly kind of traditional model that people go for, what were the challenges that you faced when you were operating that way, it was just very, very time consuming. I mean, I was probably spending, I mean, bearing in mind, we've probably got maybe 600 customers at the moment. And there's always new inquiries coming in and to deal with the new inquiries. Whilst every term processing everybody again, it almost be in turn, the whole timetable can get turned on its head almost. And then being able to respond to people appropriately. So you're getting them into the right group again, because you know, we can't run with empty groups, we have to make sure we're maximising everything out. But still at the same time, I want to be delivering the best possible lesson as well. So the termly timetable, and you could tell when I was doing it couldn't be James, it was just, it was a headache. I was getting snowed under again and again and again. And there was almost no end in sight to thinking Well, where's the easy bit coming? When am I not going to be answering so many emails all of the time. And I think that was the main reason to go to the monthly billing is it's now it's it's all set up. We're only in our first month of the monthly billing. But I can see right now Well, when somebody wants to change, it's not going to be 600 people asking for something new, looking for something potentially different. Me afternoon to chase them to reenroll every term. All of that's now gone. And I think conservatively it's 100 hours every every sort of end of term period. Yeah, I think that's a really excellent point. Because it does make your working life lumpy is probably the best way to describe it. And from my initial conversation I can I can really tell that that actually there's there's almost a fear factor that builds around the end of each term, where you kind of go, Yeah, I've I've now got to reset my entire organisation and move across 600 people, the horrible thing was looking forward to a holiday period, where I always wind it down a bit. We still do a bit we do some one to one lesson shared lessons, but it's a bit of an easier timetable. And so what to feel like, okay, I'm on the wind down now, but actually, I'm not.

Unknown: 4:07

Because I've got to do all this other organisation now to get going for the next one. Yeah, I think that that for me is one of the main main benefits of going to that monthly model from a business owner or from an administrators point of view is, is that you're just going to make things more consistent and more automated. How How did your customers find it as well? We we've been asked we people have been asking us for a long time. Can we can come Can we go to monthly? Can we just auto enrol? Well, yeah, they sort of are. But when when it's all it just ends up bitty being term, as much as you would think, well, this is just one term. But again, it's the fact that people want to keep changing, and that's normal. You know, I've got my kids booked into things and we want to change them vacation.

Lee Read: 5:00

my own, I'm gonna say I'm the same, I'm no different to anybody else either. So it's the ability to deal with these things better isn't that that's what's good. But there's also a money saving aspect to it as well. Because that first week, potentially two, they can still be a bit of change. And if you haven't quite got the group, right, somebody wants to change. And then then you're dealing with potential, you know, people who are a little bit fed up, possibly. And so to get rid of all of that feeling as well makes us look better as an organisation to we are just more efficient now, with our processing people, and how how did you kind of overcome any concerns that you had around changing the model? Obviously, changing your your billing model is one of the kind of fundamental things you can do in an organisation and certainly quite a big change both internally and with your customers as well. How, what were your initial concerns? And how did you kind of deal with those? Honestly, I didn't want to change.

Unknown: 6:02

You, we talked about it quite a bit than we did. And I was worried because it like you just said, you make any change. And there's the fear that well, people will just say, Well, I don't want to do that and leave as the as the organisation. That's the biggest worry, isn't it, that you're going to make a change, and it's such a bad change. Nobody ever wants to come back? Well, it's so nice now because we've got people booking themselves in. And it's all just they're done and sorted. And if there's a problem, well, it's great, because the onus isn't on me, I didn't create that problem. Now, they booked in and I can help solve the problem. If it isn't right, we can throw it out. But it just takes some of that. I don't know accusatory sort of thing out of it, where you feel like you may be letting somebody down because you've got it a little bit wrong, we're all going to do that occasionally. And for the 100 we get right that one we get wrong. That's the one that still plays on our mind. And again, for that to maybe go to less less, it's gonna go to one in 1000 and plucking numbers out there a little bit. But that that makes life easier and more comfortable. But the honest answer to it really is, it makes sense because of everything we've just said. And to some extent as my partner Nicola would say you just got a pull your big girl knickers up and get on with it at times. And that's that's what I did. Basically. It was just make a leap of faith. Do you think that was the kind of key deciding factor? Do you think that was the sort of key thing that convinced you to go for the change? What? What were the kind of elements that shifted your thinking from going? I don't want to change? I want to stick with what I know. I want to stick with what's comfortable? What What was it that kind of made you think? Yeah, let's let's go and do this. There was plenty of support from yourselves. You gave plenty of time and discussion to it. And even when we started, I still had a few doubts when we were first going through it. But you you put you put meetings in, you kept regular updates to me, you, you you yourself even went away and researched a few things that were on my mind to give me some answers to it because you knew our time poor I was and all of those things. I think that's what builds the confidence that yes, this can work. I feel like I'm getting answers to things here. And again, that that that was that was the carrot but the there's also the stick that I can't keep doing this every single term. You know, so there was those two things, you know, the pushing me away and me pulling pulling me towards. Yeah, and I think those those are both equally important aspects. I think the work we did in kind of corralling your your fears as such, and actually giving you the information and breaking down a big change in into small, small elements of first we're going to do step one, and then by the end of it, we'll be at step 10. And in between each other step is, is very manageable. And the other thing as well. And I think it's important for all owners and operators of some schools or other children's activity providers is actually is it okay doing what you're doing? Do you enjoy the way it is at the moment? And if you don't, then then really you need to change. And I think that's the point that the we got to in in our discussions as well is I had quite a frank conversation with you where where we kind of settled on the fact that actually you can't carry on when you want to grow your business by continuing to do something that is so so labour intensive. And actually the only option is to change to a to a different way of operating that that is going to be scalable and is going to be more efficient for you and I yeah, I certainly agree with you that the approach we took in in resolving that was is a carrot and stick really, and sort of giving you that impetus to actually follow through with the change? Yeah, it was, it's the confidential port there forever, forever thing that we can go through, you're not just this booking system or you, you've got all your background that you've got coming into it as well. And that's helped massively. In terms of me being able to see a way forward and trust that way forwards. I think, for anybody making a change, it's the trust in the people around us. And you know, that yourself and Luke, who I've been talking to, as well, and just feeling like everything's resolvable, whatever comes along. Yep. Chuck about that. This is the solution. And you know, sometimes I've been able to do the solution, sometimes you've been in the background, working it all out for me. So, you know, I know, you've put a lot of effort into that as well. Yeah, I think you touched on on actually a really important point there that I think worked very successfully. When we when we completed this project for you was, I wanted you to come up with the final answer. And actually, I think it's really important where where someone does help you in giving alternative perspectives, is that you then make that final decision, make that final choice yourself, because actually, then it's authentic to you. And you believe it, because you've kind of come up with what that final solution is. And I feel like that's, that's the place we got to when when we moved away from from totally billing, was that I gave you all of the information, I gave you the reasoning as to why and then said, Okay, Lee, what we're going to do, and then helped you in terms of getting from what we wanted to do in term, and then how we actually achieved it, going from the y to the to the how, I think, was an please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say almost the the biggest element of fear in terms of managing that change for you was, okay, I understand why we need to do it. But how are we actually going to do it, because you know, you've you've got a large, large number of members that we need to manage each one of those to enable the business continuity to continue. Yeah. And it's also things you're bang on. And it's things, everybody comes up with their own version of what you're talking to them about as well. And it was nice to be able to come to you and say, Look, this is the email I've got. I'm concerned about this now, because this is our appears, where you you guys have been doing this for a while now. So you've got the answers to it. And you can be able to say, Yeah, well, that's because of this, that or the other, and you straight away gave me an action plan to be able to put into place. And you know, that only has to happen a couple of times, to be honest, before I was starting to think actually, I'm covered here, these guys, we've got my back, I'm going to be sorted. And that's a good feeling. It's nice knowing that there's that support, because it's a little bit lonely, doing your own due running your own swim school, because it's it takes up all of my time. And to have somebody there to bounce off is fantastic as well. And to know, I'm being supported as I go along the way. I mean, I think it's Vincent and then Charlie must be fed up with me calling them by now. They go Oh, no, it's not Lee read guy. And I you know, that's that's all part of managing change for me is ideas of great, because they give you the initial inspiration. But actually, it's it's how we can back that up by giving you confidence in actually executing that, that change. And as, as I mentioned before, moving your billing model is such a fundamental part of your business, because then that's how you get your money. It's it's crucial to your survival. That actually, you know, it's very important to have people to go to to go, Okay, we've done all of this now, but I'm not quite sure on this one element, can you just give me a hand with this, and being able to provide that for you, I think, certainly was the right way to go. Just to make sure that change sticks, because so easy. You said someone makes a change and then and then slides back on it. Because it feels a bit uncomfortable. They're kind of they've jumped off the cliff, and now they're floating in midair, and they don't know whether to fall or fly. And it's making sure that you've got that support. And, you know, I think personally, it's been hugely successful completing that project for us. Great to see all of your members adopting the change, and, you know, signs of positivity moving forward, for sure. So now that I guess we've kind of worked through the process that it took us to get to that point of getting on to monthly billing. How has that made it easier for you to think about other stuff within the swim school and growing the swim school? We've got so many other things we're looking to do. I want to get into scuba diving. I want to get into the anti natal stuff and So moms are coming in before the baby's even born and getting in the pool to be able to organise the bursaries I want to do, all of these things are time consuming. To show people the journey of what swimming with our swim school can be from, you know, pre birth to open water and swimming 1000s of metres in the lake, you know, we're very lucky in the location we are, we can provide absolutely everything. We've got hospital just around the corner from us, we've got loads of schools very close to us, we're perfectly situated for what we're doing. And I haven't had the time to be able to go and delve into and explore all these other avenues that I want to go down. And that's what makes it exciting. It's always that pushing to something else, isn't that achieve one thing? And what well, what else can we add to this? What else can I do now? And so yeah, feeling like I'm gonna have time over this next month, to go and do all of those things. It also helps having the having the knowledge that is now money coming in every single month. It's not those three hits and a bit of sporadic payment here and that, you know, it's evened out through the whole through the whole year, that makes it a bit easier to plan things as well. And when you still know roughly what you've got, don't you, but it's nice having that monthly figure coming in all of the time. And that makes the idea of going and exploring these other things a bit easier to do. Yeah, I think you touched on an excellent point there. And this whole concept of being time poor. I think I think there's a real, a real common issue that, that a lot of children's activity providers have with their owners and administrators, where you've got loads of things you want to do. But you can't get yourself out of the weeds. And I think that that was one of the main benefits that that we've been able to establish with Swim School UK, is we're now starting to pull you out of the weeds. And I know a lot of the bits we're working on now is going okay, let's let's build a plan for the next 12 months. What, what's next in terms of actually, what's the next risk we want to take? What's the next positive opportunity, we want to try and exploit rather than just fighting to keep our head above the water, no pun intended, it is a case of scuba diving, okay, that's going to take an investment of time to get set up. But now you can guarantee that all your billing is just going to happen. You've actually got that time now to really put the effort in. I think the word described to you and the word describe it to all business owners is that your value is is not through doing in a an admin and processing a termly billing model. That means you need to sit and manually put everyone into their class for next year. Your value comes from being massively passionate about the industry that you work in. And I thought when when we have that, conversationally, it kind of struck a bit of a chord, in that we wanted to put you front and centre and actually get you working on growing the value of your business. And actually, that's how you're going to achieve growth in the future. So now we've got this really exciting plan, where we're starting to look at all of this stuff. We I think you're right. And that is the key thing there is it becomes exciting again, because I was just feeling a bit bogged down. I said, like you said, I was feeling stuck. And I like your wheat analogy that works really well with your manual. And to feel like now I can go and do some of these other things that I've been wanting to do for the since setting this specific part up where we're, we're, we've got our own location. You know, for two years, I've had things on my mind, but I want to go and do this. I want to I want to go and get that done. When am I going to get time to go and do that? And now I'm seeing through all those weeds. That yeah, I'm going to be able to get that done here. And there. It is already in the schedule, isn't it? I mean, we've got something booked in, Haven't we already for end of this month, to go about processing those things forward, moving those things onward. But that's a key thing of what you offer as an organisation that as has been such a relief as well, is to have that facility there to bounce off. You know, that doesn't you're not a booking system is under selling itself as a booking system. It's so much more, you know, is business development and everything. Isn't that. So yeah, that feels good. That's not an it's exciting. You know, building this in the first place was exciting. Getting all the client base in that's exciting. And then I've got a little bit stuck probably for 12 months plus, and now I'm feeling like okay, I'm going to be building again. Now. This is exciting. Yeah, I think actually, you touched on a really excellent point there. And it is that element of excitement. I think business owners founders such as yourself, you're you're driven by not just a passion Shouldn't for the industry you're in, but also for being a bit entrepreneurial. And going out there and trying to build something based on the passion you've got. And I think it's very, very easy to then after a while, you know, you've got several 100 members, you've got your own venue, for a lot of people, that's, that's success. When you were first starting out, when you have three people turning up in a hotel or something, you're probably actually looking into the future, and saw that you had 600 members in your own venue and think, yeah, that's, that's success. But actually, when you get there, you almost get to the end of the road. And you're stood there thinking, Oh, God, what's next. And it's not, it's not clear, because that was all you ever dreamed of having. But now you're there, there are so many more opportunities that you can go out and get. But What's critical is you have the fundamentals in place that enable you to do so. Because the the model you used when you had three customers three members, is not the same model you can use when you've got 300, or even 600. As as you've got now. So I think, you know, the, the work we've fundamentally done in resetting your organisation, it's almost like we've reset you back to the start of another road, where now you've, you've got a business model that can scale with you will give you that time to be excited. And to go again, when I think about how I was on, you know, spreadsheets, and this, that and the other. And even with 100 people 150 It was so easy to get lost with that. Multiply that four or five times, and even with your system and doing the the termly billing, that that was a big step forwards. But it's nothing like what this monthly one is now, you know, I wish we'd jumped straight on to this monthly. It's definitely the way forward because of the freedom that it now gives. And again, we've had so many parents asking, how do we, how can we split the bills. And when you've got then split monthly, or termly bill into three payments, you've got to chase all of that up, you know that people were telling us we need to split this payment up, you know, a whole term up front is quite a lot, especially if they got three kids. So to to be able to do all of those things for the customer as well. I think it sells us better to future customers as well. The fact that we're and that that exists and makes life easier for them to budget. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point, and one that we've not actually really, really focused on. So far, you know, we've we've focused quite extensively on the impact that it has on you as a business owner. But one of the key things that came up in our conversations early on, and it comes up in our conversations I have across the children's activity spectrum, is what I don't know how my customers are going to feel about that. And there's this real fear, and it's real submission to the customer. Whereas actually, and as we've kind of proven through converting all of your 600 members to monthly billing, there's been very few complaints in terms of, I don't want to pay for it monthly. And as much as it will help the business's cash flow in keeping that smoother, which you mentioned earlier, it's also going to help someone's personal cash flow. I'm not gonna get into the wider economic situation in the UK at the moment, because that's not not my place to say, but we're gonna get really tangled up in that. Yeah, that's that's certainly for another episode. But I think we're taking a small piece of that picture and and how you can work within it is to say, actually, let's try and align with everything else in your life, with your mortgage, with your rent, with your bills, all of that operates on a monthly basis. And if you can just align with that. So they know that within the first five days of the month, all of their monthly outgoings are going to happen. And it's going to be roughly the same amount every month. That gives them a level of consistency in in their life, more of a level of predictability. And I think looking to the future, and I know this was one of the key discussions that that we had for Swim School UK, when we're looking at growing you into the future is going okay. 50% of it is what my current customers want and like and prefer the other 50% is, what does that future customer that is yet undefined. What did they want, but what's going to help get them to sign up with me rather than somebody else. And actually, if we can reduce that barrier to entry of not having to stump up the near 200 pounds for a term or in some cases in for some providers over 200 pounds for a term. That's that's quite steep for someone to find that three points across across the year if they're not super financial planners. So those people that might just sign up to swimming lessons on a whim you'll and you're going to lose those people if you don't offer a model that enables them to join quite, quite easily. And I think the model that we ended up settling on Lee was, was a perfect combination, where we enabled an advance fee to occur. So you can lock people in, I think, and it was certainly a concern I know you raised was around, how do you stop someone from just leaving, so they do two months, and then they just go, actually, you know what, I'm alright, I'm just gonna leave. Whereas for terminally don't get that because you've got the money up front, and they're kind of locked in. So we introduced this advanced fee, which basically meant that they've paid for a month, before they've even started almost like a reservation fee. But we took that from the yearly cost of all of all of their sessions, they're not paying any more, you're just taking a little bit of that money, and putting it up upfront, to make sure that you've got something in the game to make sure they don't, don't just leave. And I think, Lee that that worked really well. For me, what was so good about that was, you were able to come up with that model, where we could put all the payments in and see how that looked over the whole year. Now, that made me feel very safe. The fact that you put the effort into going and doing that, so that I could see the impact through the whole year cycle of what that and that's what allowed us to come up with the right amount, even in the first place. Took a little bit of to and fro and and job Linden and it we've ideas about should it be this much that much. But I think we've settled on something that I haven't had, I don't think I've had one person complained about the amount of that upfront fee. You know, again, it's I think, from a business point of view is keeping it personal to some extent in letting people know, look, you're still paying me. You know, it is through whatever the provider is. But this is a personal relation steps relationship still between you and I. And if something isn't right, for you, as the customer, I'm still going to put it right. And I have the confidence to be able to say that, because of how you helped me with the system. You know, I can go in and I can do all of those things within the system. That saves a lot of hassle. You know, to be that flexible all in one place. One hop? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I think certainly, that the fact you've not had any complaints is almost miraculous, and really demonstrates that the option we ended up going for, and the leap of faith you took was was the right thing to do. Most most every so it's always nice to get get that kind of validation almost, that we took the plunge. And guess only one month in but so far it's working. Yeah, well, we're we're as good as full. You know, I've always tried to operate at 95% capacity. When I get above that I'm thinking yes, I'm winning. But you know, 95% of capacity is pretty high, isn't it? And we're up there at that. Now already. And there's still emails coming in, there's still people booking new new customers. And I think the flexibility of payment is definitely something that's pulling people into signing up just that little bit quicker. It doesn't feel like it's such a delay or a deliver arounds around getting booked in. So yeah, it's great. Awesome. Well, that's all we've got time for today. Thank you very much to Lee for giving us some some fantastic insights. It's been been great to work with you through that quite seismic project. And, you know, it's always really pleasing to hear that, you know, it's, it's been successful, and we've successfully solved the problem for you. And hopefully that that is a great guide on how changing the billing models can enable you to grow in the future. Make sure you subscribe to our Steps to Success podcast to get more guided growth tips each month with a different children's activity provider. And check out love admin.com/step to success. For more information on how one of our growth consultation services can make the same difference to you as well. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.