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00:00:01
The Modern CMO
36 Plays18 days ago
In this episode, Rustam Irani sits down with longtime colleague Charlie (Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management & CMO at Kaiser University) to unpack what it means to be a “modern CMO” in higher ed. They trace the shift from old-school, performance-first tactics to a brand-and-trust-led approach where authenticity, earned media, and mid-funnel experience matter more than ever. Along the way, they dig into how AI is changing research and decisioning, why attribution and yield tracking are still a major gap for many institutions, and what young marketers need to do to grow into real leadership.Resources Mentioned
Chat with Charlie:https://www.youtube.com/@ChatWithCharlieAndFriends/featured
Charlie Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-parker-94989b7/
00:01–02:24 — Welcome + “OG in the industry”: Rustam introduces Charlie and frames the episode around marketing + enrollment leadership.
02:24–06:24 — What a “modern CMO” means now: From standing out to staying a student of the game; the evolution from old media buys to today’s landscape.
06:24–13:40 — Earned media, mid-funnel, and the authenticity challenge: Why organic trust-building is the new “tip of the spear,” and how paid/organic has blurred (especially in social).
12:44–14:44 — The brand vs. performance flip: Charlie’s “triangle” view—performance as the tip, brand as the base; budgeting for reputation and the long game.
15:06–16:39 — AI as a modern CMO toolset: Charlie’s example of using Claude to generate a market study; tools without losing culture and human connection.
16:39–18:35 — Yield over volume + the attribution gap: “More inquiries isn’t the metric”; tracking marketing investment to enrollments is still missing at many institutions.
18:53–21:12 — Brand radius, zoning, and smarter geo strategy: Rustam’s “brand has a radius” idea and Charlie’s story about finding an unexpected out-of-state sweet spot by reverse-engineering graduates.
22:10–25:37 — Bringing the art back: Marketing as science + art; storytelling, belonging, and avoiding becoming a “widget creator in a human business.”
26:05–32:19 — Advice for young marketers: Put in the extra work, understand the full ecosystem, and bring solutions (not just problems—especially in the AI era).
32:42–36:02 — Enrollment isn’t just marketing + admissions: Charlie’s push to elevate financial aid training and soft skills; Rustam’s “FAM framework” alignment (finance/admissions/marketing).
37:02–38:18 — Close + how to connect: Charlie points listeners to LinkedIn; Rustam signs off with the show’s closing line.
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Transcript
Reuniting with Industry OG, Charlie
00:00:01
Rustam Irani
All right, well, today I'm excited to be joined by one of my good friends,
00:00:06
CP
Did you call me old? You call me old, Russ.
00:00:11
Rustam Irani
old-time friend and colleague, and honestly an OG in the industry. You've been around for a long time, Charlie. You started in the admission side, you've moved across industry,
00:00:24
Rustam Irani
many different places in the university setting, which I have always respected and thought is to me just such a cool kind of path for anybody in this career, right?
00:00:35
Rustam Irani
Anybody that gets into marketing. I've recently interviewed some folks for opportunity and one of them had three or four years of experience in admissions and I thought that was just really cool, right?
00:00:46
CP
Yeah.
00:00:47
Rustam Irani
Anyways, welcome to ROI University. I'm so glad to have you on, especially with one of my first podcasts being Chat with Charlie. I remember those names.
00:00:57
CP
Brother, that was so good, man. We got to bring that back.
00:01:01
Rustam Irani
Yeah, that was awesome. That was a really good time. And, you know, I always appreciated your, know, upfront kind of candor, your experience, and you're real, just your energy, Charlie.
00:01:14
Rustam Irani
And it's been really great to kind of work together, know each other for the years.
00:01:16
CP
It's because of these Celsius, maybe ROI podcasts, we can get some royalty out of this.
00:01:19
Rustam Irani
Oh, you got to get off this.
00:01:23
Rustam Irani
Awesome.
00:01:23
CP
I'll promote Celsius right now. And if you guys want us to promote more, please send us cases of this for free and we'll continue to promote you.
00:01:31
CP
So that's a seamless plug for that.
00:01:31
Rustam Irani
All right.
00:01:33
Rustam Irani
Maybe one day Celsius will sponsor this. I don't know. We'll see. Let's see where ROI University goes. But Charlie, I think, well, first of all, Charlie joins us
Introducing Charlie's Role and Career
00:01:46
Rustam Irani
today. He's the Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management and CMO at Kaiser University.
00:01:53
Rustam Irani
Again, like I said, I think you've been doing this since early 2000, if not like 2000 or so in higher ed, I think 2002 or so. Charlie, you get
00:02:01
CP
yeah yeah
00:02:02
Rustam Irani
And, you know, just a phenomenal person, as I've said, and I'm excited to get
What is the Modern CMO?
00:02:08
Rustam Irani
into this. Just start going and talking about kind of what's going on in the marketing world and the enrollment world.
00:02:16
Rustam Irani
And, you know, one thing with this that I've tried to do, Charlie, Over the years, what I've learned is I could learn and know everything about marketing. One of the stories I tell is when I was doing my MBA, I was learning SWOT analysis.
00:02:29
Rustam Irani
I was learning all these things.
00:02:30
CP
Yeah.
00:02:31
Rustam Irani
And the CEO came to me of an engineering company and said, hey, Rustin, we don't have a marketing plan. Write as a marketing plan. I just took my textbook, started opening it up and just started going at it.
00:02:41
Rustam Irani
Right. But, you know, things have changed, things have evolved. And I think beyond that, it's also who we are as leaders. Right. There's other things from the books that are out there, but.
00:02:52
Rustam Irani
who we are as leaders, who we are as innovators, who we are as messengers, all of that stuff matters. And one thing that I've always thought was unique for you and what you've put out there is you tag yourself as the modern CMO. I always thought that was kind of cool branding.
00:03:11
Rustam Irani
But I'd love to kind of dig into that a little bit, Charlie.
00:03:14
CP
Sure.
Evolution of Marketing Strategies
00:03:15
Rustam Irani
Like, what does that mean? And what do you think that means today versus kind of in the past, like the CMO 2.0, right?
00:03:23
CP
Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I was trying to position myself. I was trying to stand out a little bit, just like everybody else does.
00:03:29
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:03:30
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:03:30
CP
And Rustam, I mean, the people that know you, and it's a lot of people know who you are, too.
00:03:35
CP
And I think I appreciate all the compliments, but we all learn from each other, man. i mean i think we're all kind of humble. We've lasted in this industry so long. We've got some barnacles on us the past, and we're just a student of the game. We're always interested in learning. And I think that's the modern CMO now. you know i was at something this past week, and you and I had talked about that. I remember the days of Jerry Springer and Sally Jesse Raphael and Montel Williams and the Thrifty Nickel and the Valpax.
00:04:05
Rustam Irani
Oh my goodness.
00:04:08
CP
We've come such a long way and really focused on mix and segmentation. Aggregators were big for a time there. Reddit got big and then it went away.
00:04:17
Rustam Irani
Oh, oh. Remember, so because you said Sally, Jesse, Raphael, Montel, women's, all that, the ideal spot for TV commercials, I think you remember this, was Education Connection and Shannon Doherty from 902.
00:04:31
CP
That was It was perfect. You were like, everybody on the phones, we're running ass right now.
00:04:32
Rustam Irani
And She was in her pajamas. She was in her pajamas. I mean, that was like the ideal, right? Because those are people at home that are obviously not working either. They're retired. Okay. But if they're not retired, they're at home watching television at 2 p.m.
00:04:49
Rustam Irani
Probably need to do something, right?
00:04:51
CP
They need to do something,
00:04:51
Rustam Irani
And they're looking for
Why is Authenticity Important in Marketing?
00:04:52
Rustam Irani
an opportunity.
00:04:52
CP
right?
00:04:52
CP
Or they're playing hooky, they're playing sick, and they're not going into work, so they're walking in daytime.
00:04:56
Rustam Irani
Right.
00:04:57
CP
And don't know if you remember back in the day, I think it was Virginia College way back in the day, they did the bridge, and it was the girl walking across the bridge.
00:04:58
Rustam Irani
Exactly. Yeah.
00:05:05
CP
She looked like any other student that would be at their school. And she gave this, if I can do it, you can do it. And that was the first time we really saw that relationship kind of marketing that the trying to be authentic side.
00:05:11
Rustam Irani
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:18
CP
And now, 2026, man, everything is authentic. Like, you can't, well, I shouldn't say that. You think it's authentic sometimes, but you got to break from that.
00:05:29
Rustam Irani
Well, now in fine line there, there's a little bit of blur now with what's authentic and what's not. And you're hearing more of that, right? Especially from a content perspective, you know, what's why versus what's not, even from, you know, some of the videos that are out there and so on.
00:05:39
CP
Yeah.
00:05:47
Rustam Irani
So I think it's going to be really interesting to see, like you're saying, like the authenticity in the future, I think is definitely to be a trust builder.
00:05:54
CP
Yeah,
00:05:57
CP
it is. And do you want to swim upstream on it? Like, do you like my thing is in, you know, I don't want to put things out that I like, you know, you should be putting stuff out that relates to your audience and in a frictionless environment that all that all type thing in the journey.
00:06:11
CP
But I'll tell you, man, and you're like this to everything I've done for my whole life being on the average, like the reason why it's a good more from a mission side or enrollment side into marketing or advert stuff.
00:06:28
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:06:31
CP
And if you have that acumen to be good at that, and I'm not saying I'm great at it, but I just surround myself with great people. And that's also what you do. But for me, man, it's everything I've been trying to do is get to earn media.
00:06:43
CP
I mean, that's my whole mission, even before AI. You know, love paid search. You love display, you know, love the keywords, love everything. But the more you can get to that organic style, I think, especially in 2026, that's the tip of the spear, I guess you call it, is the earn side.
The Rise of Earned Media and Mid-Funnel
00:07:01
CP
And then what's all under that?
00:07:01
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:07:03
CP
And I'll say the other thing, too, is mid-funnel has become way more important than ever now. you know what i mean and and learning the mid-fumbal experience and then bringing that to your paid side like what is working and how can i make it into our paid and a good example of that i'd be curious see what you think about this is on the paid social side is that's blurred now you you can't tell what's organic or what's paid now so it's an interesting thing and you know you and i have talked about it just from a professional side because i'm i'm i'm worried about that
00:07:08
Rustam Irani
I agree.
00:07:35
CP
It's real converter for us. I don't know about the attribution. It's hard to understand it, but you know, it's doing something, but what else can I do on paid social to help out, you know, type thing. You get what I mean?
00:07:47
Rustam Irani
Yeah, 100%. I think even to the point where, and I just posted about this, I think it was yesterday or maybe the day before, but the reality is significant amount of people now are even using connected television to have that brand engagement. And we all know at the end of the day, and I went to, maybe this was about maybe this was maybe 15 years ago or so, Charlie, I was at this talk and it was a marketing guy.
00:08:20
Rustam Irani
And this was when I was at an engineering company and this marketing guy got on stage and this was maybe 300 engineers in a conference room or whatever. And he was talking about bread. And he gave a really powerful speech and it kind of stuck with me back then where he was saying, you know, you wake up in the morning, right?
00:08:39
Rustam Irani
You hit your alarm clock, which is back then it was like a Magnavox alarm clock. I don't know. But you like me.
00:08:45
CP
I'm going to hang with that.
00:08:46
Rustam Irani
Yeah. You go to your bathroom and you flush your Toto toilet, then you go to your sink and you grab your Colgate toothbrush and you grab your Crest toothpaste and then you grab and he just went off like he literally ranted for five minutes on the four to, he said like on a daily basis where you get hit by three to 400 different brands and we don't even realize it.
00:09:10
Rustam Irani
Right. And so again, the point there is like, there's so many different touch points and it takes, as we've heard many different ways, like seven, 10, 15 touch points sometimes for somebody to see your brand before they build that trust, before that timing is right for them to actually say, okay,
00:09:30
Rustam Irani
this is a good
Omnichannel Marketing in Today's World
00:09:31
Rustam Irani
fit for me.
00:09:31
CP
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:33
Rustam Irani
And so social comes into play there. We're getting paid, you know, Google, like all of it. So it's, and I hate, like, I think people have moved away from omnichannel, but I think it's still relevant that it is still an omnichannel approach.
00:09:44
CP
No, do too, man. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:48
Rustam Irani
Like you still have to be connecting with people, showing up with people in those different areas. 100%.
00:10:03
CP
mean, the old thing was like with the high school guys that did the high school program, Sullivan was always really good at that back in the day. And there's some other good ones out there, but they were percolating the middle school and things like that.
00:10:13
CP
So you look now with the AI economy, and this opinion, but it is supported by data. But you look at what's going on now. These cats are like that. It's just a different mode of communication now.
00:10:26
CP
And their decisioning is starting a lot earlier.
00:10:26
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:10:28
CP
It's not top of funnel. It's like even before that. I mean, it's it's way up there that you've really got like get Reddit. I don't know about you, man, but I'm trying to figure out how I can get people on Reddit in a good organic manner.
00:10:34
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:10:39
CP
And oh, by the way, they were for Kaiser Substack. I'm even getting into Substack. Discord. I mean, there's so many things out there for source. You get you know what i mean?
00:10:48
Rustam Irani
The key to any of this, and this goes back to what you were saying earlier, is the authenticity, right? Where we've seen challenges, especially for education, right?
00:11:02
Rustam Irani
When you have your brand engaging and all they're trying to do is promote the brand or promote the opportunity or promote the program or whatever it is, it does not come off as authentic.
00:11:15
Rustam Irani
Right. But if you have your dean of the College of Nursing engaging with People who are in high school and considering nursing as a career and giving them actual beneficial content or giving them resources or giving them advice.
00:11:15
CP
Yeah.
00:11:34
Rustam Irani
With no, you know, nothing tied to it, just really, hey, we run nursing programs. We know what the challenges are. Here things to consider. That is valuable.
00:11:45
Rustam Irani
That is building trust.
00:11:45
CP
It is.
00:11:46
Rustam Irani
And the problem with that, Charlie, and I think to me is it takes time and effort and resources. And you cannot just buy your way into those types of platforms.
00:11:56
CP
You can't. It's the old performance. Like I saw that was going to show you. don't know if you can see that, like a triangle.
00:12:01
Rustam Irani
Yeah, I see you're trying.
00:12:03
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:12:09
CP
You get what I mean?
00:12:10
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:12:10
CP
That was brand.
00:12:10
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:12:11
CP
That was brand. back in the day or just just, you know, 15, 18 months ago. Below that was all performance marketing. I mean, performance, you know what I mean?
00:12:19
CP
Performance marketing but is driving this on demand, that kind of thing. Now it's flipped where the performance is a tip, but the big base now is brand.
00:12:29
CP
And I think, you know, systems that realize that and start to separate their budget like us, we're heavy reliance on that side, especially on paid search.
00:12:39
CP
And we're breaking out our budget differently.
00:12:39
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:12:42
CP
So we're spending more time on brand reputation. We're spending more time on these things that in the past you couldn't identify yield real good. So you got boards and trustees or CEOs or presidents and they're like, you know, I need this now.
00:12:56
CP
And you're like, no, it's a longer game now with that brand rep that you got put money into. don't know if you agree with that or what you think.
00:13:04
Rustam Irani
Well, I think that's going to continue to be more and more important. And again, the reason why is because of the noise that's out there, because of, you know, now with a lot of what's happening, what is authentic and what is not, right?
00:13:20
Rustam Irani
And the final thing I'll say on that end is it's just continuing to become more and more competitive environment.
00:13:28
CP
Yeah.
00:13:29
Rustam Irani
There's more options than ever for potential students
00:13:32
CP
Shiny objects, shiny objects all over the place.
00:13:35
Rustam Irani
All over the place. And, you know, some conversations we've had with schools that are like, well, we just want to create online programs and we want to go global and here's our goals.
00:13:47
Rustam Irani
We had some of those conversations, Charlie, maybe three years ago. And now I kind of look to see where those schools are. There were lofty goals.
00:13:57
Rustam Irani
Let's put it that way.
00:13:57
CP
Well, they are, man.
Collaborating for Success in Education Marketing
00:13:58
CP
I think, you know, just thinking just how you work, too, in your personality, you're a collaborator. And I think that's the other thing that, you know, there isn't you got your social team, you got your paid team, got your SEO team, you got that.
00:14:12
CP
And then they don't kind of talk to each other. And that's kind of that ecosystem, if you get what I mean.
00:14:15
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:14:18
CP
that I think you're getting.
00:14:19
Rustam Irani
Mm-hmm.
00:14:20
CP
And the other thing you're talking about programs are going online. I literally had a conversation with Claude this morning because I read an article about McKinsey and, you know, people are starting to use different AI products to build market studies.
00:14:32
CP
And, you know, we're always curious about what's what's a good program to offer or what's the market looking like. And so I had a conversation with Claude.
00:14:39
CP
I didn't just put a prompt in. I was like talking to Claude like, well, Claude's this Bruce's ChatGPT. That's my name for ChatGPT. But I chose Claude and I got a 20 page market study based on the demo, based on what the career looks like in 30.
00:14:47
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:14:56
CP
And it's not exactly perfect, but those are the things that you talk about the modern CMO going back to your earlier question is using the tools now, but not losing the culture you are.
00:15:09
CP
And it's more collaboration between departments, if you get what i mean.
00:15:10
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:15:15
CP
And then using these new tools to figure out how I can approach the audience quicker, better and faster.
00:15:15
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:15:21
CP
But for us at Kaiser University, and I don't know about the clients that you work with, but we're not going to go away from talking to humans. That's our secret sauce. and we're going to have those touch points but i think we can make our touch points more efficient if we understand these things like what you're talking about we're talking about earned media time if all that stuff doesn't matter if we can't turn that into yield and growing our population So we still have to connect all those dots into that ecosystem.
00:15:31
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:15:46
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:15:50
CP
And lastly, Roostom, just because you know I love to talk, the mix is different now, too. You've really got to look at your mix than traditionally we looked at it with the broadcast, with this, with that, all that stuff.
00:16:00
CP
You got to look at all as one thing and then look at it down funnel. I know you're a big proponent of that, but more inquiries is not a metric.
00:16:07
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:16:10
CP
Inquiries that produce yield is a metric.
00:16:10
Rustam Irani
Cool.
00:16:12
CP
And so that's the other thing that you have to put into it. I don't know like I say, if I'm too far over there, but
00:16:18
Rustam Irani
No, i mean, you hit the nail on the head. I think this is where... And I'll tell you, Charlie, to me, it's still a bit surprising when I do have conversations.
00:16:31
Rustam Irani
And I've had conversations with heads of marketing some pretty decent-sized universities. And they're even aware that, hey, we just cannot track performance down to an enrollment level. We don't have the connectors that we need.
00:16:50
Rustam Irani
you know, our investment from a marketing perspective to enrollments. We know the activities there. We know conversations are happening. We know what our enrollment numbers are, but we cannot track it one-to-one.
00:17:01
Rustam Irani
And that to me is just absolutely huge opportunity. I think it could be
00:17:09
CP
Could be a slow death. You know what i mean?
00:17:12
Rustam Irani
That's the thing is I just I cannot believe that. And these are successful operations that operate like that. And they can maybe do it, especially if you're if you're a well-known brand, you're a traditional university, you've got, you know, the alumni base, you've got a good slew of kind of candidates coming in every single semester and you've got that kind of filling our applications.
00:17:38
Rustam Irani
But many are not like that. And then the other side of that, if you want to think you can do that and then go online and go beyond, you know, your brand rating.
00:17:48
CP
And how to differentiate because you're a commodity. If you don't differentiate yourself, you're just another person in a different modality, right?
00:17:53
Rustam Irani
A hundred percent.
00:17:56
Rustam Irani
Absolutely. And this is where they even wrote a LinkedIn, actually my most
How Does Geography Affect a Brand's Influence?
00:18:02
Rustam Irani
viral. I had one post, I think over the last eight years, I've been posting like hundreds and thousands of content pieces, but I had one that really went pretty viral.
00:18:12
Rustam Irani
I think had a couple hundred thousand impressions or so.
00:18:14
CP
good.
00:18:15
Rustam Irani
It was about your brand having a radius. You literally, like your brand has a radius, especially for traditional schools and campus-based programs that have one campus.
00:18:25
CP
Yeah.
00:18:26
Rustam Irani
Like you're going to have where it'll resonate within 50 miles. Then you've got a hundred miles where you're going start to diminish. Then you've 150 and like a hundred percent, a hundred
00:18:33
CP
Yeah. What's your zoning, right? But you may not even know your zoning. I worked at a school group, dude. And I'm sorry, the Celsius is kicking in now. Another shout out Celsius.
00:18:41
Rustam Irani
percent. Yeah. Let it kick in, Charlie.
00:18:44
CP
Please reach out to Roostum and the ROI podcast so that you can set up some sponsorship time.
00:18:44
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:18:48
Rustam Irani
There you go. We're taking sponsorships. Yeah.
00:18:51
CP
We're taking sponsorships. But, you know, I worked with one school group and they were I'm not going to give too much away here, but they were in one state and you would figure, well, we would own our backyard.
00:19:01
CP
Right. That where most of our people were coming, people were coming to our students.
00:19:04
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:19:05
CP
And what we learned is actually, no, there was a pocket in another state. miles away that actually was a sweet spot. For whatever reason, it matched our outcome.
00:19:17
CP
So when we reverse engineer, which I'm a big proponent of, look at all your graduates and then find out where they look, where they eat, where they sleep.
00:19:18
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:19:25
CP
You can do it when you bid with Google, you know, find lookalikes that that are applying to your programs and things like that. You have to be smart now with the dollars that you have because your trustees are going expect that.
00:19:34
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:19:34
Rustam Irani
100%.
00:19:37
CP
And and Roostam, you and you can't do that without data is my point but but my i guess my other point that without you know getting into it too much is no one's too big to fail i mean none of these systems that have been around for years and years and years they're realizing is it revenue is it surplus in the non-profit or or ebitda income if
Impact of Tuition Changes on a School's Brand
00:20:00
CP
you're in the other side You know, and how do you balance the two from a margin control with your spend?
00:20:00
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:20:06
CP
And then I think because you may have a bunch of students coming on the website.
00:20:06
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:20:10
CP
But like I'm hearing schools completely drop their tuition because they're scared to death. Right. And they want to respond to this whole affordability thing. Well, that can tarnish your brand, too.
00:20:19
CP
I believe in Rolex and Rolls Royce. I believe in that philosophy. But if you drop your tuition too much, maybe you have a net positive on the rev and your pop goes up more. But what about your margin and your surplus if you keep things the same?
00:20:30
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:20:32
CP
So it's such a you can't be siloed anymore. I guess what I'm saying at the university setting, it takes the whole leadership team working cohesively together with top of funnel with, you know, the journey of admissions and enrollment.
00:20:49
CP
to who's teaching for the first upcoming classes, where your drop points, your gaps, and are you re-entering them in? And then what's the outcomes look like?
00:20:57
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:20:58
CP
But that all goes back into who you bring it into the school. And I'll just see this real quick, because I'm a big believer in this right now.
00:21:02
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:21:06
CP
Because we've lost fun with marketing. It's so on demand. Like it's not I feel like to the most part and I'm guilty of this. I don't make it fun anymore. I want to have an obsession with experience like I believe more than just the programs you offer. It's will I fit in?
00:21:21
CP
Do I belong? Am I going to be with the cool people? these the people that i want to walk the halls with and i think we kind of get so in marketing and in enrollment we get pounded on so much that we turn into this jaded group that we just want to sell hamburgers all day you know what i mean but we're not building that like life learning experience for the community and the workforce sorry if i'm over talking brother you can edit that out if you want to
00:21:49
Rustam Irani
look i hundred percent agree with you i think What got me into marketing is it's science and it's art, right?
Is Marketing a Science or an Art?
00:21:58
Rustam Irani
And I think, especially with competition and continued challenges in the space with, let's say it's regulations, let's say it's the push for online, all the competitive landscape, all those things are there. And the data will tell us what's happening there, right?
00:22:14
Rustam Irani
And we can kind of adjust with the data.
00:22:17
Rustam Irani
But the other side of that is it's also art. Like it's the storytelling, right? And that's like you said, and I think we missed that. And I've been guilty of this too. Like that's the fun part, right?
00:22:27
Rustam Irani
That's the story part.
00:22:29
CP
That's what you got in the business.
00:22:29
Rustam Irani
That's exactly what attracted us, right? To me, it was both sides of that. That definitely attracted me to it. And I think we tend to forget that sometimes.
00:22:39
Rustam Irani
And that is where, again, going back to the beginning of this, the authenticity comes out. It's in that.
00:22:46
CP
You know I'm a believer in that.
00:22:48
Rustam Irani
It's in the heart.
00:22:48
CP
We've said your vibe, what's your statement that I love so much?
00:22:50
Rustam Irani
Your vibe is your tribe. Your vibe is your tribe.
00:22:53
CP
And that's what you're creating.
00:22:54
Rustam Irani
That's right.
00:22:55
CP
But we forget.
00:22:55
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:22:56
CP
I mean, I forget that we forget that I get stressed as a marketer. You've got, you know, I'm not saying I have this here. I'm just saying in general, because we all know this. Well, one, everybody's a marketer now.
00:23:07
CP
Everybody's a social media expert because they scroll. Yeah. So you have to deal with everybody telling you how you should do your job. And that can get kind of frustrating when you're trying to work a strategy. Not complaining, but it's a reality we deal with, right?
00:23:17
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:23:19
CP
The other thing is everybody wants yield. Everybody wants to grow their population. And then you start to resort to quick stock photos because you don't have a good production team where you can show real things.
00:23:29
CP
or you start to write long-winded statements because you're trying to pre-sell them too hard without them going through a mature a good mature funnel and and those are the things that concerns me because of that art side that i love i love the storytelling i love showing reasons why we you should be here i love if we have a maturity window from ink to enrollment of 45 days what what things in nurturing techniques can we bring that to maybe 15 days to 20 days But that's not something I can do immediately.
00:23:58
CP
If I'm crunched with my fall entry, you know what I mean? If you're traditional based or you have a started five weeks. So I think a note to all of us as modern marketers is, is you've got a short game and a long game, and that's got to be understood.
00:24:12
CP
And it has to have buy in from everybody involved with that, or you're just going to turn into a widget creator and in a human business, you can't be that because you're dealing with humans.
00:24:24
Rustam Irani
I love that.
00:24:25
CP
You know what I mean?
00:24:26
Rustam Irani
I love that. A widget creator in a human business.
00:24:30
Rustam Irani
Very nice, Charlie. I like that. I'll keep that. I'm going to keep that quote.
00:24:35
CP
It's not as good as the tribe, man. It's not as good as the tribe.
00:24:38
Rustam Irani
I didn't make that up. I heard that actually on a podcast maybe a year or two ago.
00:24:42
CP
You can coin it.
00:24:44
CP
No, you're coining it. You need to copyright that, trademark that.
00:25:12
CP
Wow.
00:25:19
Rustam Irani
hear.
00:25:21
Rustam Irani
I think that would be helpful. Uh,
00:25:24
CP
I want to hear you answer that too, because I know and I love how you think and process.
00:25:29
Rustam Irani
I'll tell you mine right, right away. think, you know, you, you got, you got to put in work, like whatever it is, I mean, you have to put in the work and you have to do, you have to be more than what is even required.
00:25:42
CP
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:43
Rustam Irani
I personally would work on projects, I would work on side projects, I would come up with ideas of kind of campaigns, there was a campaign idea that I had at one organization and it turned into a significant part of the revenue of the business.
00:26:01
Rustam Irani
And it was three failures for me to get it kind of finally going. But once it got going, it was a significant boost the revenue of the business.
00:26:11
Rustam Irani
But I did that on my own time. I did that on extra time outside of that. So to me, I think that's one thing. Like, if you think you're working hard, like, Work a little harder.
00:26:23
Rustam Irani
And you don't need to burn yourself out.
00:26:25
Rustam Irani
I'm not saying only work. But you've got to learn the things. You've got to dig in. You've got to roll up your sleeves. Understand Google AdWords. If your team is running Google Ads, get into a campaign. Understand why the structure is there, how it's set up.
00:26:40
Rustam Irani
What are the campaign bid strategies? Why are we using broad versus exact versus phrase? Those things are important. You don't need to be in the campaign running it. You do need to understand it.
00:26:51
CP
Man, that is so good.
00:26:52
Rustam Irani
Wow.
00:27:04
CP
And it's just like you, you got to understand what you're doing.
00:27:08
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:27:08
CP
Gone are the days where I think you can... kind of isolate yourself and be specific on your certain area of expertise, whether it be the art side or or or driving this or placement or broadcast timing or, you know, things like that. And Ted Greeley at MDT, who I know, you know, we talk about this a lot. And I'll tell you, the young staff that I've worked with, not necessarily Kaiser, but, you know, at the previous group I was at, I was at the luxury of having an agency inside. So I had my own like agency, which, by the way, that's the best thing ever is to have your own agency inside.
00:27:40
CP
But one thing I was always quite frustrated with from the position we have is I'm an expert of nothing. Right. I just I feel like my job is to give guardrails, to give conceptual and vision in a strategic manner and not let the talented people run.
00:27:49
Rustam Irani
Thank you.
00:27:56
CP
Right. And the things that kind of frustrate me that I think is something that a young person coming into this should think about is when you see. But first of all, you need to know everything about what you're doing, to your point.
00:28:07
CP
if you're doing x you got to understand the domino effect to other things that are happening or other things that that are part of your business you should know everything all the way down through the top of funnel all the way down so the whole journey like how does this affect enrollment how does this affect some other categories or sources that i'm doing what does this mean how's the relevance do you know how to ab ab test not just ab test right how do you understand that and just be a real good learner
00:28:21
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:28:34
CP
But if you're gonna identify things because you wanna to stand out, you've gotta put the work in to have a solution with it and know that that solution may not be the best, but is more valuable as a CMO when I'm doing a zillion things and a lot of it's more stakeholder related internal politics instead of actually doing the job.
00:28:55
CP
Like, i don't know about you, Rustin, but I wish I could just go back to just like storyboarding or something and just sitting in a room and chalking it up.
00:29:00
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:29:02
CP
So I think, you know, when you're younger is look for pockets that can make something better and have the confidence to provide a solution.
00:29:03
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:29:11
CP
Because one, you built a foundation that you understand how this whole ecosystem works together and then providing solutions with that. But you can't do that if you just AI something and point out problems.
00:29:25
CP
And that's what I'm dealing with now with AI is people will put prompts in and then I'm peppered with 20 emails a day on things that aren't in their swim lane, so to speak.
00:29:35
CP
But there's no solution.
00:29:36
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:29:37
CP
There's no, well, what is the downside of this? Like right now, a big one is. organic traffic versus our paid traffic with paid search, you know, are we are we getting crossed with our keywords and is it degradating something?
00:29:49
CP
I'm like, great. I hear what you're saying, but help me understand the downside of that. And what is your solution to combat that? Like, I can't as a CMO do that. And I hope this is making sense to you. And tell me if you disagree, because I know you will. But if I'm coming out of school, that's what I want to start doing. I want to be a solution to everybody's problem and not just punch a clock and work my subject matter expertise if I really want to grow to a CMO level or if I want to be my own agency.
00:30:16
CP
Like you've done a great job of building a fabulous agency. And if you guys don't know, roostam do yourself a favor and I'm being serious, get to know him because you're the most humble person that thinks through things and then brings a solution.
00:30:20
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:30:27
CP
And a lot of times it doesn't even benefit you. It benefits the client. So I just I have a mad respect for you. But those are the things that I think will create the workforce of tomorrow that we need.
00:30:37
CP
and not just put prompts and then pepper your upper management with these problems. Like work together to find them out. Does that make sense or is that stupid?
00:30:46
Rustam Irani
I love it.
00:30:47
Rustam Irani
No, it does not. It does not sound. I love that. I mean, at the end of the day, you've got to be bringing solutions and
00:30:57
CP
Can I say one
Understanding the Enrollment Process
00:30:58
CP
more? You know, one more, because I got to say this because I get irritated about this one.
00:31:03
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:31:03
CP
Your job is just not your only deliverable when you're a marketing. your job, whether you're focused on, you know, spend revenue, if you're focused on EBITDA or margin control or FTEs, if you're in marketing, you better understand what enrollment does.
00:31:20
CP
Like it pains me that marketers don't understand the production side because cost per start, cost per enrollment too,
00:31:21
Rustam Irani
Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:28
CP
That's a two way street. It's not only, you know, the adverts and the marketers, it's what's happening in the performance side. So CPS and CPE, don't be pointing fingers at one or the other.
00:31:39
CP
That's an enrollment team. Right. And then you throw packaging in it And going to go I'm gonna throw a big shout out because you got me going now, brother on financial aid. I want to hear going to ask you a question.
00:31:48
CP
We're going to chat. We're to chat with Charlie on ROI for a second.
00:31:52
Rustam Irani
Let's do it.
00:31:52
CP
I believe that we've put so much training and so much stock and so much time into our emissions people.
Improving Financial Aid Training
00:32:00
CP
And we have got to have that same vigor and vision with financial people and financial aid.
00:32:06
CP
I believe our Achilles heel of the future is we're not prepared with soft skills and how to have good conversations on the financial aid side or the financial side.
00:32:17
CP
And we've always put so much into the emission side. And I think if you're a system listening to this, you would do yourself a favor to pay those financial aid people a little bit better, put some really good ongoing training like we do in admissions, have financial pack run rates, have weeks leading up to start and working backwards and understanding what they look like, find out what the power of a good no fiduciary or encumbrances the starting school looks like, and work together as an enrollment team, which means marketing,
00:32:33
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:32:45
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:32:49
CP
enrollment and fa all three of those are the three-legged stool we can't do this your guy your mission is bring me leads your mission is to convert them your mission is to get the money those days are gone man the way these guys think it just 18 to 35 or whatever it's a whole nucleus nucleus i can't say the word nucleus sorry man you got me on a tangent on it
00:33:05
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:33:08
Rustam Irani
Yeah. No,
00:33:12
Rustam Irani
honestly, I love that. I think not enough people talk about that, right? I mean, one of the biggest challenges is finances, right? How am I going to pay for this?
00:33:20
CP
Yeah.
00:33:22
Rustam Irani
You know, what are my options? Like, those are pretty serious questions for a pretty serious decision.
00:33:28
CP
And why should I pay that?
00:33:28
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:33:29
CP
What's your unique benefit?
00:33:30
Rustam Irani
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And so, yeah.
00:33:31
CP
If you get criminal justice and you cause a price, well, so does everybody else. So what is different about you?
00:33:36
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:33:38
CP
And why should I do that here? Right?
00:33:40
Rustam Irani
I love that. I love it. You know, and I spoke about it. Maybe I think I did a podcast on this maybe few episodes ago, but I call it the FAM framework, which is
Introducing the FAM Framework
00:33:49
Rustam Irani
finance...
00:33:49
CP
Wow. love
00:33:50
Rustam Irani
admissions and marketing, the FAM framework, all three have to be aligned. And in that framework, I was referring more to like finance in general within the business or the school.
00:33:55
CP
that. Wow.
00:34:01
Rustam Irani
But I think the financial aid part fits right in there too. Like that FAM framework with financial aid, admissions and marketing, right? That is kind of the core of the nucleus of the university and the admissions process.
00:34:16
CP
It's the trifecta, man. I mean, for us, most of our students, believe it or not, are individuals that went to another school.
00:34:18
Rustam Irani
It is.
00:34:25
CP
So they were unsuccessful in other schools.
00:34:26
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:34:27
CP
So we have to talk to them differently. If you're a first-generation school or they're coming right to you, you're trades-driven, you talk to them differently.
00:34:30
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:34:35
CP
But I also feel like, just like in marketing, and this is not ego, this is listening to people, is we're so just...
00:34:40
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
Tailoring Communication to Students
00:34:42
CP
trying to do this that we're forgetting on the audience side of it and if 70 of our students came from another school well we need to understand why they didn't complete what they complete at the other school and help them understand why our school fits that and that can go into our marketing our org credentials our mid funnel channels like like are you pointing out what you're good at are you pointing out what other people without pointing them out right but
00:35:07
Rustam Irani
Yeah.
00:35:07
CP
You're a certain if you're Charlie Parker and you need this, well, this is where you can get that type thing.
00:35:14
Rustam Irani
Got it. Yeah, I know.
00:35:15
CP
Once you get any more Celsius before these calls.
00:35:17
Rustam Irani
I love it. No, good. We chat. I love it. Well, Charlie, we are pretty much kind of at time here. So, so grateful for you to join.
Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn
00:35:29
Rustam Irani
Thanks for being on again. For me, it's like having a celebrity from my first chat with Charlie.
00:35:34
CP
Whatever brother, whatever.
00:35:35
Rustam Irani
I appreciate it. But if somebody wants to connect with you and get to kind of learn a little bit more about you, chat with Charlie, I know you're out in the community, you're always putting content out there and so on.
00:35:48
Rustam Irani
How can they find you? What's the best way?
00:35:50
CP
Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is what I'm predominantly on. You can look me up on LinkedIn and then put Kaiser in there. It's where I work at, and that's my family. That's my hood right now, Kaiser University.
00:35:59
Rustam Irani
All right.
00:36:00
CP
But yeah, look me up.
00:36:02
CP
love talking. And Rustem, you know, anybody listen to this, because I'm going to share this out too. You know, if anybody needs someone just to talk to or someone that can really help them out from a jam, you got to reach out to his agency and you're a class act and you know the biz more than anybody else do.
00:36:16
CP
So don't forget that one.
00:36:19
Rustam Irani
Charlie, I appreciate that. I'm going to send you a case of Celsius for that one.
00:36:23
CP
No, don't.
00:36:23
Rustam Irani
i yeah
00:36:24
CP
won't shut up.
00:36:27
Rustam Irani
All right, everybody. Well, thanks so much for joining us. That's all for this class of ROI University, where the biggest ROI is personal. Thanks so much.