“Poor decisions are being made by too many administrators regarding the performance of a class, event, or contract,” says Greg Marsello, LERN Senior Vice President for Organizational Development.
Marsello travels around Canada and the United States each week and sees program financial data. He reinforced the unfortunate “news” at the Operations and Staffing Institute in Savannah, while participants at the Advanced Programming Institute also got the word.
Poor decisions are being made due to administration cost factoring when operating margin should be the focus, notes Marsello. By focusing on administration costs instead of operating margins, too many successful classes and events are being cut. Not only are these classes and events profitable, they are also prime classes to grow to become even more profitable. Instead of looking at costs, look at your Division and class Operating Margins to determine financial performance.
Some 25 percent of programs are not doing very well financially due to their own poor decision-making. The other top four ways programs shoot-themselves-in-the-foot are:
- Cutting back or eliminating print brochure.
- Cancelling classes based on the wrong criteria, budget, instead of cancelling classes based on the Go-No Go point.
- Not pricing just below price points.
To get the best return for your LERN consulting, bring Greg Marsello to your program doing a Program Review. The Program Review has saved, or made, tens of thousands of dollars for programs. Some Program Reviews have led to making programs up to a million dollars. Just email Greg at marsello@lern.org for information.
Photo: Some people learn better poolside at the LERN Institutes.
