Last night I got a very pleasant surprise. It was a fax from head-office informing me that one of my new students had just called the staff to request that her lesson be changed from Powerful to Man-to-Man from next month. “Powerful” refers to those students who, due to their job etc., need more flexibility to change their lesson time. They call the Japanese staff to reserve the lesson or fix it and then call back to change it occasionally. “Man-to-Man” refers to a private lesson which allows the student to get special attention or to avoid being embarrassed in front of other students. Many times a beginner will want to have a few months of lessons by him/herself before taking the normal semi-private lesson with up to two other students.
For a school owner-teacher it is always nice to see when a student makes this decision on his/her own without any prompting. It is like getting another student without having to do any special promotion. And the staff are very professional when they take these calls. They consult with the student and in some cases they offer the suggestion to the student to switch to Man-to-Man. The Smith’s system is built on teamwork and you can’t get that working on your own.
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