As a professional instructor knows, we share information, passion, and life experiences. We get to do this from 9am-4pm everyday during the winter. And other than Apres'-ski, the lesson and the relationship with our guests typically ends at that point. Occasionally there were email exchanged or pictures sent. Even more seldom was a seasonal newsletter sent to our students. Why? Because it was time consuming and difficult to keep track of contact information.
Can you imagine maintaining a CMS (Contact Management System) for all of your students? It is intensive, especially for the seasonal nature of the snowsport instructor. When this did happen it was certainly just in the realm of the Private lesson. Rarely could the group lesson be addressed in such a manner. It was too time intensive for an instructor to keep in contact with all of the students taught.
MySnowPro.com (MSP) founders have spent a combined 40,000+ hours teaching groups, privates, and instructor clinics in the mountains. We have spent thousands of hours in the concepts and applications in this website, and we continue to work on it. As you read each word and post in this website, know that the functionality of the website and the backoffice features are being created for year around communication between your students and you, the teacher/coach.
A professional instructor knows that when a student comes to a resort and takes a lesson without having an instructor in mind. The resort goes to its list and schedules an instructor. If the student is of a high level, the ski school attempts to match an instructors level of certification with the needs of the guest. If the student is of a lower skill level, the resort has more flexibility in assignment of that lesson. All things being equal an instructor with a higher level of certification and more experience will give the student a better lesson. Yet, all things are not equal.
You know that a student/instructor learning partnership is often enhanced or diminished by individual circumstances such as past experience, transferable skills, and communication styles. In a typical lesson, the first 15-30 minutes is taken to initially assess these pools of experiences/skills/styles. The more experienced an instructor has become, this time can be cut down significantly. Likewise, the more experienced a student has become, the more they demand from a Pro. Trust and bonding can take time as well. With a foundational relationship build prior to meeting on the snow, lessons progress more quickly.
Wouldn't it be amazing if an instructor's blog can be more than just an online business card. You can offer insight for the student into your methodology and personality. You probably already know that the process of creating a blog from scratch can offer its own set of challenges.
To create a easy to find and visible blog you would have to insure you found the best webhost, found a great domain name, set up your infrastructure, create autoresponders, design your website, and physically construct your site.
Then you would need to get the word out, optimize your search results, manage your ingoing and outgoing links, brand your site, create newsletters, manage press releases and public relations. Oh yeah, then you would begin to actually write your blog. Perhaps that is why mainly the techie types are the ones who have created their blogs and websites.
Know that we have done the bulk of this for you. Your job... Register for your blog. Teach, share, and write your stories. Then let your students know where they can look to find it. That's it. Their experiences as you have expressed them on your page will live far beyond the day.
Have you noticed that MSP will create informed students and facilitate ongoing communication your students and you. Imagine fostering an ongoing exchange of ideas between pros and students.
Remember prior season when you would finish the lesson and offer a recap. You may have asked your students to draft some quick notes on the lesson for their ongoing benefit. You were fairly certain this would rarely take place. They are on vacation after all. We fully understand. Now you can create a medium to have recap of the days lesson, experiences, and insights. There is no question that the act of writing these down, and posting photos and movies is extraordinary for students. Your skills as a teacher, and excitement as a skier are greatly enhanced by keeping a blog.
In the past 3 years I have seen request lessons of more than 100 hrs from students whom I had previously never met in person. And my current students request lessons earlier in the season than they had in the past. New students found the MSP blog while searching on the internet, and they have enjoyed what was written. Can you imagine a network of hundreds and thousands of instructors around the world writing in their MSP blogs. The visiting student will search for your resort instructors, find you then read your blog and contact you. That is what happens when you share your ideas and experiences on your blog.
You don't have to be an experienced writer, or computer techie. I never expected to enjoy writing about my students daily mountain experiences as much as I have. The joy of mountain life is enhanced by writing and posting photos/movies about the daily events in your classes.
Imagine exposing your teaching to the world by using MSP. We look forward to learning from you, and following your daily experiences. MSP makes it possible in one place. We will be selecting top blog posts and including them in our Monthly Newsletters. These will be distributed to everyone registered for our newsletters.
Let the thoughts of attracting the type of students you would like to ski and ride with sink in. They student will find the teacher.
To your success,
Jonathan Lawson
p.s. If you are an instructor, register for your blog
p.p.s Have fun and write a few posts and upload a few pictures. You can also become of friend of MySnowPro.com on Facebook and enter your post there too!
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