By Shane Tassoul

With all the talk about paid trials these days, it’s easy to lose focus on what you’re actually trying to accomplish. Remember that you’re not in the business of selling paid trials. Paid trials do not pay your rent, your utilities, your payroll or any of your other bills. In fact, most paid trials that I see owners promoting end as either break-evens or loss-leaders.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m all in favor of paid trials. However, I see schools working hard to generate paid trials month after month, only to enroll very few of them as new students. The purpose of a paid trial is to get qualified prospects into your school and convert them into paying students. If they’re not converting, the trial was wasted. It’s important to have a system in place to convert your paid trials into enrolled students. It doesn’t matter what kind of trial you sell — two weeks for $19.95, four weeks for $49, six weeks for $69...