A great New Year’s resolution for swim school owners may be to simply plan better than the year before.   Like Santa Claus, I’m making my list and checking it twice!   So what am I doing right now?  Here’s my first draft of my “To Do’s” for my 2012 Learn-to-Swim season: 1. I email my current [...]

I really enjoy traveling via Amtrak.  Traveling in their View Liner suite is great, and I prefer it any day over flying or a long drive.  But Amtrak is really “missing the boat” on their customer service and their “policies” on their Amtrak Guest Rewards system.  Suddenly they are reminding me of the airlines.  My [...]

What measures can you take to improve your swim school business?  As the unexpected first place San Francisco Forty-Niners Coach Jim Harbaugh said after yesterday’s win:”WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME ASKING QUESTIONS.” Swim school owners must do the same.  What questions should you be asking?  Here are a number of good ones to get [...]

How Can You Make Your Swim Instructors Smile? Dear Swim Professor: How would you encourage, insist, demand, or coax an excellent instructor into smiling and quit frowning?  I have tried everything.  He loves what he does… he just doesn’t and cannot display pleasant facial expressions, and has a natural “concerned” look most of the time.  [...]

TOO MANY PARENTS THINK THAT WHEN THEIR CHILD CAN SWIM UNDERWATER THAT THEY DON’T NEED ANY MORE LESSONS! Does your swim school experience this problem?   Of course it’s not only a problem for swim school business, it’s a very serious problem for the child’s safety.  I would like to share with you today a couple [...]

One of the most frustrating things for parents, swim teachers, and swim school owners to deal during Summer Swim Lessons is thunderstorms.  Parents get mad when we cancel, parents get mad when we don’t.  As a parent, I am certainly sympathetic.  I know how hard it is to get my three children in the car, go to the pool, [...]

So can YOU or YOUR business benefit from Social Networking? Are you resisting the idea of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.? Technology changes are always hard for me and I was resistant at first too.   In fact, I have been only using twitter for a few weeks but I have been trained in it now and [...]

The Swim Lessons University Super Conference is a one-day, information packed event with an EARLY BIRD RATE of just $75.00 (the rate will increase 30 days prior to the event).   Don’t miss out on Jim’s enthusiastic delivery of four state-of-the art presentations featuring video and power point content that you can actually take home and put [...]

Tomorrow, Thursday, 5/20/10, is your last chance to register your swim school to participate in The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson.   What a great way to get your local media involved in promoting swimming lessons as one of the most important ways to prevent drownings.   Make no mistake about it, drowning prevention requires  layered approach . [...]

When I have a chance I really like to listen to “The Herd” on ESPN radio.   In fact, now that I get it on cable I will record it and even watch it when I’m winding down at the end of a long day.   Recently the radio show’s host Colin Cowerd talked about how the [...]