Demand for Our Personal College Planning Franchise Services Drives Record Sales for Our Seven Original Locations
Class 101’s seven founding locations, which includes our Lexington, Kentucky, headquarters, all reported record sales for 2016, with an overall average increase of nearly 25 percent. 2017 is expected to be another banner year for growth and sales for Class 101 college planning franchise. We continue to add new locations in new markets as we work toward a goal of nearly 40 locations by the end of 2017.
Class 101 is a national college planning franchise that helps high school students get into better colleges and qualify for higher amounts of scholarships and financial aid. We provide a solution to a common problem facing U.S. families — the college application process is complicated, competitive and stressful, resulting in students who don’t get enough, or any, financial aid and who often end up at the wrong school. Our franchise is the perfect fit for business minded individuals with a desire to help make a positive impact on the lives of young people.
“It’s a very exciting time for our family of franchisees at Class 101,” says Founder Tom Pabin. “The demand for our services is only going to increase as more and more time-strapped and stressed-out families struggle to navigate the college application process with their kids.”
As word spreads about our success rate, more and more families are signing up for our services, fueling record growth that earned us a recent Franchise Gator award as a Fastest Growing franchise. The future is bright for our franchise, which celebrates 20 years of business in 2017.
Our College Planning Services Are in High Demand
As college tuition and college debt continue to rise, so do the stakes of choosing the right school for our nation’s college-bound teenagers. Tuition charges are rising three times faster than inflation, according to the latest data from the Consumer Price Index for college tuition and fees. For the millions of high school students who enroll as college freshmen each fall, the likelihood that they will miss out on tens of thousands of dollars of scholarship and grant money is high. They end up unhappy with their college experience or, worse yet, dropping out. The typical transfer rate for college freshmen is 30%, but for Class 101 students it is less than 5%. Why? Because we work one-on-one with students to ensure they have laid the groundwork to ensure a successful college career.
We Offer a Simple Business Model With Low Overhead and High Potential for Profit
Class 101 is a simple, but highly effective, business model that meets a need for today’s college-bound students in cities nationwide, both in urban or rural settings. “We aim for 100 client referrals a year, with a goal of 40 to 50 students,” says Founder Tom Pabin. “The average sale for a consulting retainer is $2,800, and our average closing rate is 90 percent nationwide.”
There is tremendous pent-up demand for the services provided by Class 101, which includes ACT and SAT preparation courses and DiSC behavior analyses. A typical Class 101 territory has a population of about 250,000 with eight high schools — comprised of 14,000 total high school students. Of this high school population, 3,500 are seniors. A Class 101 franchise can be successful with a 1% penetration rate, and there is plenty of expansion potential in larger markets for multiple franchise locations. We have plans in place to open 100 Class 101 locations by 2020.
“This is not a big numbers game. When I was a financial advisor I had a goal of calling 100 people a day. We have a goal at Class 101 of reaching 100 prospects [high school students] a year,” Tom says.
Learn More About Class 101 College Planning Franchise
The Class 101 business model ensures that owners have a steady stream of revenue throughout the year, not just during the school year. Franchise owners have three ways to generate revenue: classes to prepare students to excel at the ACT and SAT, Disc behavior testing, and retainer agreements for one-on-one consulting services. Class 101 is a low-overhead business model with the potential for high revenue from day one. The average gross revenue for our top 5 franchises in 2015, according to our most recent FDD, was $137,000.
