It’s Monday morning at a children’s football academy. The inbox is full—parents chasing invoices, one coach is off sick, and the venue just raised its rental fee. The director stares at the calendar and wonders: “Are we actually making money this month, or just running faster to stand still?”
That’s the daily tension for most activity providers. Passion for teaching children is what started the business. But sustainability—and growth—come from knowing the numbers. Without clear metrics, every decision feels like a guess.
The good news? You don’t need to track dozens of figures. You just need to focus on four. Education franchise advisor Nick Empson calls them the KPI Powerhouse: New Enrolments, Churn Rate, Revenue, and Break-Even. Together, they give you the clearest picture of business health. And with Zooza’s built-in dashboard, you can track them without spreadsheets or stress.
Why KPIs Matter (and What the Research Says)
KPIs—Key Performance Indicators—are measurable values that show whether you’re on track. But they’re not just numbers; they’re stories about your business.
Kaplan & Norton’s famous Balanced Scorecard proved that companies grow when they measure more than profit. Customer retention, internal processes, and innovation are leading indicators of success. For children’s activity providers, this matters even more: parents aren’t buying a one-off product, they’re committing to an experience for their child. If they quietly leave, and you’re not measuring it, you may not notice until your bank balance does.
KPI.org sums it up well: “Good KPIs translate strategy into action.” In fact, organisations that use KPIs consistently react faster to market shifts. For a dance school or STEM academy, that might mean adjusting group sizes before it’s too late, spotting a class that’s underperforming, or scaling up a programme that’s flying.
The KPI Powerhouse: Nick Empson’s 4 Metrics
Nick Empson has worked with children’s activity franchises worldwide. His advice is simple: stop drowning in data and focus on the four numbers that matter.
1. New Enrolments
Imagine you’re running a gymnastics club. You sign up 25 new children this month—fantastic, right? But if 20 of last term’s students didn’t come back, your net growth is only five. That’s barely sustainable.
Formula:
Net Growth = New Enrolments – Churn
Read Nick’s article on enrolments.
Common mistake: Tracking only “sign-ups” without checking who left. It creates a false sense of growth.
Tip: Segment new enrolments by source (referrals, ads, walk-ins). That tells you what’s really working.
2. Churn Rate
Churn is the percentage of families who don’t rebook. In kids’ activities, benchmarks look like this:
- Good: 5–8% annually
- Average: 8–12%
- Needs attention: 12–15%
- Critical: >15%
High churn is like filling a leaky bucket. You can spend thousands on Facebook ads, but if families keep dropping off, you’re only replacing what you lose.
Understanding churn
How to reduce churn
Story: One Zooza client, a music academy, discovered their churn was over 20%. Families loved the first lesson but didn’t return for term two. By tracking churn, they realised communication between trial and term start was missing. They fixed it with automated reminders and retention emails—and churn halved.
Tip: Watch churn by age group. Parents of toddlers churn for different reasons than parents of teens.
3. Revenue
Revenue is the scoreboard. It tells you the outcome of your enrolments, retention, and pricing decisions. But it’s not enough to know “how much money came in.” Break it down.
- By stream: regular classes, camps, merch.
- By location: one studio may outperform another.
- By client type: are referrals worth more long-term than ad-driven families?
Nick writes in Why Revenue Still Matters: “Revenue doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it’s the result of what’s happening across the other KPIs.”
Story: A coding school doubled enrolments with free trials. Revenue barely moved. Why? Churn was high. Families came once and left. Once they started measuring revenue per retained client, they changed their pricing and grew sustainably.
Tip: Forecast revenue using enrolments + churn. That gives you visibility before the term ends.
4. Break-Even Point
This is the number every business leader should know: how many students you need to cover your costs. It’s the difference between sleeping at night and constant financial stress.
If your rent, staff, and overhead add up to €3,000 per month, and you charge €30 per class, you need 100 enrolments just to break even. Anything beyond that is profit.
Common mistake: Not teaching franchisees or managers their break-even point. Without it, pricing and scheduling become guesswork.
Tip: Lower your break-even by optimising costs—shared venues, smarter scheduling, or moving from one-off workshops to recurring memberships.
Common Mistakes with KPIs in Children’s Activities
- Measuring too much. Ten half-used spreadsheets help no one.
- Looking at KPIs in isolation. Enrolments look great until you factor in churn.
- Ignoring benchmarks. A 10% churn rate might feel fine—until you realise top performers are at 5%.
- Not acting on insights. Data without action is wasted.
From Theory to Action: Zooza’s KPI Dashboard
Here’s the challenge: most providers know KPIs matter but never track them consistently. Numbers end up buried in Excel. Reports are pulled once a term, if at all.
Zooza changes that. With a three-minute setup, our KPI Dashboard gives you live visibility on the four key metrics:
- New Enrolments – see genuine growth, not just raw sign-ups.
- Churn Rate – track who’s staying, who’s leaving, and why.
- Revenue – measure income across streams, predict future performance.
- Break-Even – know exactly when each class (or location) becomes profitable.
The dashboard isn’t abstract. It’s designed for real children’s activity businesses—dance schools, football academies, STEM clubs, music centres, and franchises. And it links directly to Nick Empson’s KPI Powerhouse framework, so you’re not just tracking numbers—you’re aligning with proven best practice.
Final Thought
Running a children’s activity business will always be busy. The emails, the scheduling, the surprises—they won’t go away. But the stress of not knowing? That can.
With KPIs, you stop guessing. You see what drives growth, what leaks profit, and where to focus your energy. Backed by theory, sharpened by Nick Empson’s expertise, and powered by Zooza, KPIs become more than metrics. They become your growth strategy.
Ready to put your KPI Powerhouse into action? Explore Zooza’s dashboard today.
