The Conversion Experts
How to Increase School Revenues by Slightly Tweaking your Marketing and Admissions Systems
By Gregg Meiklejohn, Co-founder
Today in the Higher Education field, in the area of marketing in particular, opportunities abound to leverage time and money. These points of leverage create results greater than what seems to be possible. Organically a School can typically grow 20-30 percent per year without a huge stress on infrastructure. Yet in growing organically, one can often get steamrolled by competitors who grab market share at a greater pace or simply lose the potential of a program opportunity. Nature abhors a vacuum. Slow organic growth particularly when rolling out a new program or geography often doesn’t do the trick in the cut and thrust world of marketing. Read more
How a Canary can save your school from financial ruin…
by Gregg Meiklejohn, Co-founder
At the advent of the Industrial Revolution, there was a sudden accelerated demand for coal. It was seen as the crucial fuel needed to operate various aspects of factories and later steam plants. Read more
Bandwagon Jumping
by Shane Sparks, Co-founder
I have to admit, I’ve been reluctant to jump on the blog bandwagon, mainly because it requires a commitment of time (which, like for most of us, is at a premium for me). But as I thought it through I realized, like all important things, I need to make time. Or as Steven Covey called it, focus on the Important but Not Urgent. Read more
Reach within grasp
by Shane Sparks, Co-founder
We have a management philosophy that my very bright business partner Gregg came up with, called “Reach within Grasp”. It means we ask ourselves if we take on a project can we finish it? It seems like a obvious question, but I’m constantly surprised, both at my self and with clients, how many projects get started that can’t be reasonably finished. Read more
How to crank up revenues by optimizing incoming internet leads
by Russ Layton and Gregg Meiklejohn
The key success metric within the Enrollment Management process is Appointments per day per rep.
All activities around lead generation should be geared toward generating more interviews per Admissions Rep per day. Interviews and tours are where new students are created. If you can increase a reps interview rate from 2 to 3 interviews a day (that’s one extra interview per day per rep), and you can maintain your conversion rates, you stand to increase enrollment figures by 50%. Wow… Read more
Inside the Bottle
by Shane Sparks, Co-Founder
I had a typical sales call yesterday: The prospect began the conversation focused on a specific solution they had in mind. “We need more (fill in the blank),” he began.
I listened patiently for a few minutes and asked some pointed questions. And then quickly determined that they had many problems (or opportunities for you optimists), but the one he was focused on was not one of them. It was a minor issue, and of marginal value to fix. Once I was able to get him focused on the bigger picture, and the bigger opportunities he felt a mixture of relief and appreciation that I could provide some leadership.
I made the sale and we are going to help his school greatly.
There’s an old saying, “you can’t see the label from inside the bottle.” What we normally see with new clients is that they come to us with a specific solution in mind. They come wanting to buy something from us. Most often they are wrong. Not because they are poor decision makers, but because they have an internal context around the problem. They are inside the bottle.
Our first job is to be objective, to look from the outside in. And in doing so, we can usually bring a perspective that is missing. It’s an important exercise to go through periodically.
Another way to do this is to look at your school with fresh eyes. Start at the parking lot, though the walk into the campus doors. What do you see? What would be your first impression if you were a prospect? Then look at your website and pretend that you are a prospective student. What would you be feeling? What answers are you trying to get? Call the school, how does reception sound on the phone? Inviting, bored? How does your staff engage prospects?
Why not take a few minutes today to look at your school and step outside the bottle. Let me know what you see.
Would You Spy on Your Admissions Staff if you could make a Million Dollars?
By Gregg Meiklejohn, Co-founder
When I was a young boy I was in Cub Scouts, the precursor to Boy Scouts. One session we made home made periscopes, manufactured from cardboard boxes and a couple small rectangular mirrors. The periscopes were painted inside and out in flat black paint. I was now in possession of a three foot long instrument of stealth. A flat black spying machine just like the sub commanders used in the movie Das Boot.
How 1% Can Translate Into Millions of Dollars
By Gregg Meiklejohn, Co-founder
I have a story about 1% and how this esoteric, marginal mathematical digit can represent for schools the difference between mediocrity and excellence, breaking even or being highly profitable. Read more