“In this epidemic, whether you survive or choose to quit does not mean which institution is better, but who is more lucky.”
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Duozhiwang” (ID: duozhiwang), author Ren Xueyun.
In a big city that values education, such as Beijing, countless offline education and training institutions are closely intertwined. They are both the builders of this education industry chain and the witness of Beijing’s current first-class education.
As the nation’s anti-epidemic situation stabilizes, the epidemic situation in Beijing’s new development site has raised the anti-epidemic alert again.
At present, this still-endless “war” is still swallowing the living space of offline institutions, and practitioners in every education industry continue to sway in this uncertain future.
We found some training institutions in Beijing. Some of them turned to go online, some tried to leave under the pressure of funds, and some chose to wait in place. They are all hard to survive the “epidemic” and are fighting against this “disaster” in their own way.
01“I thought about selling the organization”
Before Beijing announced the suspension of classes again, Cheng Lei (founder of a quality education institution) posted the notice of the start of the institution, but who can think of it.
This is not the first time he has been disappointed since half a year.
In mid-January, Cheng Lei returned to his hometown for the Chinese New Year, and he didn’t wear a mask when he took the train. At that time, he still had the kind of “blind” optimism. He didn’t expect the fire to burn on himself, nor did he expect it to reignite again and again.
Compared with the epidemic that began fermentation in February, this stagnation will bring greater psychological burden to offline institutions. In Cheng Lei’s words, I had seen hope, but the result was a surprise.
What made him regretful and helpless was that at the beginning of the outbreak, due to the optimistic attitude and the characteristics of the quality discipline itself, he had never considered online teaching.
With a “bet” oneCheng Lei chose to suspend class, but the situation was not as optimistic as he thought.
The time flickered, three months passed, and six months passed again. “To be honest, it is indeed a bit late to switch online now, and we are just in need of a category, it is difficult for parents and children to pay.”
In late June, after realizing that there was no hope of returning to school during the summer vacation, Cheng Lei tried his best to join the major education groups and tried to find some purchasers of educational institutions from it.
In the current Beijing education market, Cheng Lei is not alone. With the resumption of class time, more and more organizations are trying to solve the urgent needs through acquisitions.
Overall, most of these institutions do not have the ability or conditions to transfer online. The number of campuses is less than 3, and the annual revenue is about 1 million to 5 million.
What is more worrying is that under the current background of the buyer’s market domination, there have even been a group of buyers who specialize in bargain hunting. For example, if an institution intends to transfer one million yuan, the purchaser may make a “malicious” bargaining, let it be too low, then let it go, and then lose money. After two months, ask again until the institution can’t carry it.
Two weeks passed, and after consultations from various parties, Cheng Lei’s heart for seeking acquisitions finally became calm.
On the one hand, the conditions are not good to talk about, how to talk to whom to talk to is a disadvantage. On the other hand, considering the future, as an entrepreneur who has been in the education industry for ten years, word of mouth is really too important.
If you want to continue in the education industry, you must be more determined to continue. Cheng Lei particularly understands that if he is now a “destroyer”, it means giving up the current market, and it may mean that he cannot make a comeback.
02“I started to imagine the state of working in my hometown”
Kuri and her boyfriend are calligraphy teachers at different branches of the same offline institution.
Since the beginning of February, their institution has suspended offline classes for 5 months, which means that for a period of up to 5 months, the monthly income of the two of them does not add up Five thousand dollars.
“We live in the west five ring road, the three-bedroom master bedroom, plus water and electricity service fees, the rent is calculated to be more than 3,000 per month, less than 2,000 remaining after deduction, it is really trying to survive. “
The two of them survived for a few months with few deposits. Around May, Lizi’s institution began to provide online teaching programs, and the teacher’s income structure was adjusted to the minimum salary plus the time for online class elimination.
However, this has not fundamentally eased the economic crisis facing Chestnut.
According to their monthly income, one and a halfThe average hourly lesson fee is less than 20 yuan. At the same time, due to students’ unwillingness to attend classes, compared with the same period last year, online class eliminations were only one-fifth of offline.
This puts Chestnut in a longer-term panic.
She’s worried that even after she resumes off-line classes, the children’s backlog is enough to consume for a while, which means that in the past, the larger portion of the total income is likely to face a large contraction, or even Can’t get a penny.
In June, in order to maintain his livelihood, Li Zi’s boyfriend finally decided to switch to an online education company.
At the same time, Chestnut also posted a lot of resumes on the recruitment platform. However, to her disappointment, the current flow of teachers in the market also seems to be in a sluggish state, replying that she is basically a sales position.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time in a job that does not match my income, nor do I want to rush to a job I don’t like. Li Zi eventually ran to Hema to do a part-time job, which she had never imagined before coming to Beijing. thing.
“There is no purpose, it is to subsidize the family and then avoid thinking at home.”
A more profound test is that the epidemic has caused Li Zi and her boyfriend to start thinking about the possibility of continuing to work in Beijing. “We didn’t think much about it before. The epidemic drained the water, and these problems came up.”
At the moment, Li Zi and her boyfriend have begun to look at their hometown. “With this free time, I want to prepare for the examination of the public school teachers in my hometown.”
03“To be throttling! To be open source!”
Since the epidemic has occurred, and since we don’t know when it will be opened, we should minimize our expenditure as much as possible.
Li Tian has opened less than ten parent-child swimming facilities in Beijing. Overall, the monthly rent expenditure has reached one million levels. In the early stage of the epidemic, the landlord of Li Tiankai’s store in Mentougou area voluntarily reduced the rent for about half a year, and others were exempted for one or two months, and of course there were also exemptions.
In his words, rent exemption cannot really be forced.
Therefore, in order to alleviate the pressure of rent, before preparing to resume classes in June, Li Tian took the initiative to sign an agreement with landlords of multiple campuses, which specifically talked about the payment method of rent.
For each campus, Li Tian first pays one month or two months’ rent, and waits for the opening, and then allocates according to the proportion of unpaid rent, such as paying 1.5 times the rent of each month until the rent is no longer owed .
In addition to rent reduction and exemption, at the level of institutional capital savings, some k12 educational institutions will use optimized campuses to alleviate the pressure on cash flow. However, for Li Tian and his organization, this action has no reference value.
The core lies in that, unlike the academic institutions, the decoration and equipment of high-end parent-child swimming has invested nearly 5 million in a store, but the cost of removing the store is actually higher.
At present, according to the cash on the company’s book, Li Tian estimates that the institution can still hold up to the end of the year. At the same time, in order to continue to extend the life cycle of the organization, in addition to reducing the expenditure within the scope of capabilities, he also tried various open source methods.
“In March, when the epidemic was serious, there was a saying in our circles that no one knew if there was a mask factory behind the boss of a training institution.”
This is not a joke. Before May, Li Tianzhen went to sell masks. “To be honest, I didn’t make much money, that is, I subsidized the living expenses of my family for a few months.”
However, the fact that selling masks has given Li Tian a deeper impression in his more than ten years of entrepreneurial experience: “As a boss, I need to think about the company’s cash flow. My own bank is education Industry, but at the same time, I am also an entrepreneur with dozens of employees. From a very unusual time, as long as I can get income reasonably and legally, I will definitely try it.”
After entering May, Li Tian began to gradually expand the proportion of personal consulting business. For the education industry, he provided services such as shop opening consulting and resource transfer.
In a few months, Li Tian has made 3 cases. Taking this part of income into calculation, it can indeed offset part of the losses caused by institutional expenditure.
04“Take your eyes temporarily inward”
“In this epidemic, whether you survive or choose to quit does not mean which institution is more powerful, but who is more lucky.”
In the early stage of the outbreak, Li Yong, the founder of a quality education institution, just got an investment. This was indeed a sum of money that was unexpected to him, and it was this fund that helped him to survive the crisis smoothly.
According to his estimation, without this money, his own institution would also be passive in the epidemic.
In early June, Li Yong’s institution officially released the offline course selection notice, and he plans to start the offline course about a week after the notice. Due to the fermentation of the Beijing epidemic, this attempt had to be urgently calledstop.
However, what made his heart fall is that, based on the initial selection of courses by parents and students, everyone is very willing to return to offline. “Children have social needs, and the first reaction to hearing the offline resumption of class is to see a friend.”
With an optimistic attitude, Li Yong chose to temporarily focus on self-renewal within the organization. On the one hand, efforts will be made to adjust the distribution of campuses, and on the one hand, iterative online courses will be continuously iterated.
From the point of view of adjusting the campus, Li Yong’s starting point is that he hopes to find a venue that better meets the needs of institutions, parents, and children during this period, for example, to enable parents to park better and make it easier for students to travel.
“We generally set the adjustment range within three kilometers. The core is still to improve customer satisfaction. Before determining to adjust the campus, the agency staff will communicate with students and parents one by one.”
At present, Li Yong promotes the normal operation of the organization according to the online courses. According to his observation, after several months of online courses, the overall recognition of parents is relatively high.
According to his findings, at the beginning of the epidemic, many parents took a wait-and-see attitude towards online teaching and worried about the effectiveness of online teaching. The extension of the Beijing epidemic has accelerated the recognition of parents online.
On another level, Li Yong thinks this is also a kind of luck.
Before this epidemic recurred, the internal expectations of the organization were to resume offline, and the recurrence of the epidemic made everyone aware of the crisis. This made him realize that for the education industry, online is almost an irreversible trend.
At present, Li Yong and his team are already considering how to shrink the offline rhythmically and strategically.
However, due to the special timing and relatively high online input costs, they still choose to maintain a high degree of caution and conduct low-cost attempts in a small range of businesses, including the development of a series of course systems and the iteration of online systems.
“On sunny days, you can only do this job when you have sufficient cash flow. It is definitely not the way to spend money now. In front of life and death, whether it is revenue or future development, it is really not worth mentioning.”
05Conclusion
Everyone is equal before the disaster. This kind of sky-falling thing is the same for every family, regardless of the size of the organization or the strength of the technology.
For large institutions, due to the large number of students, teachers and campuses, their flexibility in responding to the overall strategy is relatively small. For small and medium-sized institutions, although the financial strength is not strong enough, they can be more flexible in their response plans.
For example, some newly-opened institutions choose to suspend their steps and wait for the admission after the epidemic has passed. Some cannot survive and are forced to transfer or closeStopped institutions, began to learn to warm up in groups, and actively seek the help of professional institutions and service platforms…
Although there are large or small differences in the organization’s self-help plan, the same thing is that for every founder, as long as they can survive, every method will be tried.
According to the current development situation of the Beijing epidemic, a number of institutional founders have made a new plan in accordance with the September restoration of offline. However, in Li Tian’s words, no one is thinking too much now, and it is still based on policies.
“Perhaps, we have found a better solution. I always believe that everything has a turning point.” (Doxue Ren Xueyun)
(*All interviewees in this article are pseudonyms)