Transcript
Speaker: Hey Andy. Yeah Rick? I love the way the earth rotates. Yeah why is that Rick? Because it just makes my day.
Speaker: Welcome to the Enrollment Marketing Geeks podcast for school leaders. A conversation designed to help your team pursue wildly important enrollment goals and ridiculously practical seasonal priorities. Hosted by Rick Newberry with Enrollment Catalyst and Andy Lynch with TASC.
Speaker: Enjoy the show.
Speaker: Welcome everyone. This is episode number four in our series on the different roles in the healthy enrollment effort. And I'm here with ah my friend and partner, Andy Lynch.
Speaker: Hey Rick, good to be with you. Great to be with you. Wasn't that a great dad joke to get things started? That was, that was, would, I want to just hear that on loop. It was that good. That's right. They're all, they're all rotation, like the earth.
Speaker: That's right. They're always that good. So, so we've been doing this series on the different roles in the enrollment marketing effort. And today continues that series for us. We're going to talk about the role of faculty and staff.
Speaker: Very important, right? Andy. Yeah, that's huge. We think about the significance of the role of faculty and staff and, you know, find me a head of school who has not said, everyone is in marketing and admissions. You'd be hard pressed to find one. I think we've heard that over and over again from heads of school.
Speaker: ah The marketing admissions folks listening in are probably nodding right now saying, oh yes, my head of school has said that. Every head of school listening in is nodding along saying, I have said that, but You can say that, and in theory, that sounds good, but practically, that can raise some open questions that your rank-and-file faculty and staff member may be what does that actually mean for me? Because I looked in my job profile, and last I checked, my job description says nothing about
Speaker: marketing and admissions. So let's demystify that a little bit, Rick. We we hear that. and And what do you think comes to mind there? Yeah, that's exactly the first reaction from faculty and staff is, you know, that's not my job. That's the admissions job. You know, the staff in that department are responsible for the enrollment and marketing efforts. So, you know, that's obvious that enrollment belongs to admissions and marketing.
Speaker: and faculty and staff may certainly hear that we need them to help us with enrollment as just another thing being added to their plate.
Speaker: I mean, they have a long list of responsibilities, not only teaching, but also things like lunch duty and car line and hall duty and ah all kinds of duties that are assigned. So the last thing they want to think about is seeing another responsibility added to their plate. But, know, our job really isn't to turn them into salespeople. Right.
Speaker: You know, that's not their role. But it's all I think it's important that everyone understands how they contribute to healthy enrollment. And so faculty and staff do have a role.
Speaker: And that's what we're talking about today in this series. Yeah, you and I have both done professional development talks on this topic of the role in faculty and staff. So we're just going to encapsulate some of that thinking that we've shared over the years here into this conversation. And in the first area here, we think about the the unique contribution from the role of faculty and staff in pursuing healthy enrollment. First is just do your job, deliver on the brand promise.
Speaker: excel in your role is the things that prospective families see on the website, uh, that they hear in admissions about how wonderful your school is.
Speaker: The role of marketing and admissions, you know, those batons get passed, uh, during the recruitment process and eventually they get, they get passed to the division lead and to individual faculty and staff who deliver on grade level teaching or programmatic experiences or coaching or,
Speaker: organizing clubs or whatever. And that's when families determine what we were told, what we were sold. Are we actually getting that? Or do we have some buyer's remorse? There's some there's some dissonance here.
Speaker: And many of those families came into your school through the power of word of mouth and through the the research and the vetting that they did online and in your tour process.
Speaker: And now they're going to determine is this worth what I'm paying? Am am I getting what I'm paying for? here is it Is this a good value? and And no one influences that more than than faculty and staff. and and And the experience those families have, they will share in the community.
Speaker: And that that word of my mouth cycle based on their experience will influence how others see the school. so So Rick, what comes to mind when you think about faculty and staff delivering on the brand promise?
Speaker: Yeah, that's where actually the brand promise needs to match reality. I've you know been on countless tours in my work with schools and talked to faculty and staff, and some of the criticisms that I'll hear from faculty members ah around the admissions process is actually what they're selling on the tours. Sometimes there's a disconnect because what they're saying isn't matching the reality of what's taking place in the classroom. I think one of the greatest things that an admissions and marketing team member can do is actually sit down with faculty and staff and hear from them about how they're delivering on that brand promise.
Speaker: What does the classroom look like? What are they doing? What's their model of teaching? Actually sit in on some classes so that you can experience it firsthand. That's going to help admissions become better at the sales process.
Speaker: to accurately match what's actually being delivered in the classroom, on the field, on the stage. So there has to be this correlation, this consistency between both aspects.
Speaker: But the reality is, as you're talking about, Andy, you know they're they're delivering on that promise. um They're actually the fulfillment of what we're say what we say we're all about. It's like where we might say, you know every child is known.
Speaker: um How does that actually happen within your school community? yeah How do the teachers, how do the staff get to know the students and the families? That's where the rubber meets the road.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that suggestion that you that you made there for marketing admissions teams to spend time in the programs and the grade levels ah in in the delivery of the product because it could surface as like, hey, we're saying this thing, but we're not actually doing it or we used to do it, but we don't do it anymore. Or it could be,
Speaker: Like, oh, wow, that thing you're doing is super amazing. It's incredible. And families would love to know about it. And i wouldn't know about it if I hadn't come to to visit and see how you're doing what you're doing. So that's an important sync opportunity.
Speaker: But as we wrap up this first concept here, just want to underscore your first your first obligation to healthy enrollment as a faculty and staff member is to do the thing that you were hired to do with passion and with excellence.
Speaker: Do it well and and be be sure that um you're giving people a reason to share positive things about their experience in your classroom or in your program.
Speaker: ah what What do we have next here, Rick? Yeah, the faculty and staff certainly have an influence on recruitment. So you think about what admissions does and their interaction with prospective families. a lot of it's centered around the tour when they get the family to campus. and So it's been interesting as I talk to admissions directors, they'll mention to me, oh we got to avoid this faculty member because They're kind of cold and not friendly to prospective families when we're going on a tour. Don't go in that classroom because it's not going to be the best example of life at our school. But everyone has a role in this effort as that admissions directors walking that family around on the tour. It's important how they're greeted, how they're welcomed, how they're interacting with the student on the tour in the family. Do they seem like they're happy and engaged?
Speaker: I love the tour where the admissions director can step inside of a classroom and the teacher will actually stop and acknowledge the family. Welcome to my class.
Speaker: This is AP chemistry and here's what we're doing and just tells you a little bit about the program. I mean, that may take one minute, But in the big scheme of things, that one minute will make a significant impact on the family.
Speaker: So faculty and staff have a significant role in the recruitment effort. what do What about you, Andy? What do you think? Yeah, I want to tug on that thread a bit more, just tours in particular. i think most of your teachers, your classroom teachers um are are likely happy to participate in that tour process, but there can be ambiguity.
Speaker: And I've heard it articulated from from some, like, is it most helpful for me just to keep on going so they can see what happens in the classroom? Or is it better if we stop, acknowledge them?
Speaker: um What do you want us to do? Let's just be on the same page here. That way we're both explaining to the, or or the the family has a clear context for what they are seeing. Because we want we want our prospective families when they're visiting our campus to feel like guests in our home.
Speaker: Not an imposition. Yeah, I think you're right on, Andy. I think that ah requires us to have some conversation around this. Ahead of time. Yeah, we we can't just assume that a faculty and staff member is going to understand what their role is in the recruitment effort. What do they do on a tour? How do they interact with prospective families? What's the expectation? Yeah.
Speaker: and So it's important to be able to discuss that so you have a consistent understanding. And I believe that's where the head of school can step in ah because the head of school can be that that voice of authority and direction about setting the ah the actual culture within the school community. This is how we're going to operate as a school community during the tours, during the admissions process,
Speaker: This is the expectation that I have among my faculty and staff. And hey, why not build that expectation into a job description um so that they're clear on it? Not that it's an additional thing to do, because it should be part of daily operations within your school environment.
Speaker: And prospective families can pick up on awkwardness really quick. mean, first, that they're they're coming into this environment as the outsider, and they can pick up on cues like, oh, they must not be on the same page, ah or this ah this particular classroom's in testing right now, and it's really not a great time to interrupt these kids.
Speaker: and you know have a a teacher stop them and have a conversation and break their train of thought. um So thinking about the the expectations beforehand, making sure everyone's on the same page and signaling like, hey, today would not be a good day for you to stop in my classroom for these reasons.
Speaker: so last Last week, I was on a tour at a school campus that I'm working with. And as part of the tour, we actually made a stop in the dining hall. But it went beyond that. We actually talked to the head cook so that we could understand how they go about setting the menu and delivering quality, healthy food. And that just took a couple of minutes. But...
Speaker: that cook understood their role in the recruitment effort and being able to talk to families. And, you know, they mentioned that there may be families who have issues with their, ah their child's allergies and want a specific diet. And so that becomes important in that parent's decision process to be able to interact with key people like that. So it could be a coach, it could be a robotics teacher,
Speaker: Could be the drama instructor. Could be the elementary principal stepping out of his or her office and being able to engage with that prospective parent. So everybody, and we when we say that, we mean everyone within the school community has an important role in this recruitment effort.
Speaker: Yeah, but before we move off of this this ah commitment to the recruitment process, the the tour is a major area of opportunity. I would also say um faculty and staff are in a key position to influence the school's storytelling.
Speaker: Because marketing and admissions, they're busy folk. um they they They tend to hang out in their office. They've got events going on, tours going on, stuff to to publish, cetera, social media to to keep up. But there's so much that happens within the classroom or within the clubs, within the on the teams, et cetera.
Speaker: There's so much amazing stuff that's happening. And the the marketing admissions team are not omnipresent. i mean they they They can't be every and everywhere at once.
Speaker: And there are things that are happening or coming up within faculty and staff domain that could be super powerful if the folks publishing on social or writing the blog post knew what was going on and could harness some of that goodwill. and and the but so So I would encourage faculty and staff to think of themselves as on the front lines of great stories to tell about the school. And in addition to that, and they have certain expertise and families come to your school in large part because of the expertise that you have.
Speaker: What expertise is hanging out in your classrooms among your faculty and staff that if you were to export that, showcase that, it would be super powerful and differentiating. Rick, what do you think?
Speaker: I totally agree. In fact, I've always said to school teams that if every faculty and staff member shared one story from their area of influence every month, you'd have a plethora, and that's a big word, right? A plethora of stories to be able to share on social media, on your website, your website, in the admissions process. And so everybody needs to understand that that is a way to be able to fuel the marketing effort by providing and sharing those stories.
Speaker: You're listening to the Enrollment Marketing Geeks podcast for school leaders, hosted by Andy Lynch with Tassel and Rick Newbery with Enrollment Catalyst. Visit EnrollmentMarketingGeeks.com to access free resources and learn about upcoming events.
Speaker: That's EnrollmentMarketingGeeks.com.
Speaker: All right, the next area of focus here for faculty and staff, we think about their unique contributions to healthy enrollment. We just talked about recruitment, and now let's think about unique contributions to retention, keeping the families that we want to keep.
Speaker: And this is a ah rich area of conversation for sure. But you know one area where faculty and staff can have an outsized impact is through the concept of customer service.
Speaker: And I realized that for some, just using the language of customer service could feel like, does that even apply in school world? Well, yeah, it really does. you know think You think about the significance of getting the small things right, like ah proactive communication.
Speaker: ah making a personal connection, being responsive. I'm not saying that ah the customer is always right and we should kowtow to every family and make accommodation for every preference and whim, but there is an aspect of customer service that faculty and staff are delivering on and being good communicators, being clear, being responsive.
Speaker: Even if ah you're you're delivering news that isn't ah isn't always the best news, I've got some hard things to communicate to you. um that's a That's key in retention is that is that people is that our our parents feel like they understand what's going on.
Speaker: ah The communication is is helpful and timely and they're getting what they need to make good decisions and manage the logistics of the family. What do you think, Rick? This concept of retention, where does your mind go?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it goes to lots of different areas as I think about the role of faculty and staff in retention. I mean, they're the they're the main drivers of retention. In fact, I believe that retention doesn't belong in the admissions office. It belongs with the leadership of the school working with the faculty and staff, because that's, again, where the reality kicks in. It's where the parent is validating their choice.
Speaker: It's where they will make the decision to stay and continue to pay the tuition within the school. And it comes down to the the daily experiences.
Speaker: you know Are we getting our money's worth? Is the teacher delivering on the education that we expected, that we were sold in the admissions process? Do they communicate with me? Do they let me know what's happening in my child's life and learning?
Speaker: um i mean, the worst way to tick off a parent is to have a parent email a concern to a faculty member and the faculty member doesn't respond. just lets it go. Exactly. And I see that over and over again in school. So it's being proactive. It's communicating. Because, again, that parent is always...
Speaker: continually going through that process of asking the question, did we make the right choice? Is this a place where I want to continue to send my child? I liken retention to continuing to build the parent's confidence.
Speaker: The more confidence that a parent has in the school to deliver, then they're more likely to stay. And so every interaction becomes a confidence booster or it can have the opposite impact. It can derail their confidence in the school.
Speaker: And that's where they'll see that commitment erode and they potentially may end up going elsewhere. So faculty and staff play a key role in the retention effort.
Speaker: One way they do that is by surfacing early if they sense that a student is struggling or that a family is starting to to falter. So we think about what are those likely flight risks.
Speaker: um Marketing and admissions aren't going to be in a position to to surface those. They're not going to know that. And and particularly in larger school, division leads. may not have that sort of granular understanding of where specific families are. So faculty and staff need to know, hey, it's on me to send up a flare.
Speaker: We have a process that we work when we realize that we have a family that may be a flight risk. And and I would say also, um no keeping an eye out for families that are causing an outsized rift or um where you you have a particular student who is making things difficult ah for that particular grade level. I mean, those those are the uncomfortable commitments.
Speaker: um But being willing to surface those difficult issues, because what can happen if you walk too long with a family that's a problem family, you're eventually going to push away the ones that you want to keep and that's going to hurt your retention.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right on Andy. You know, one of the other things that I think is important for faculty and staff is that they should they should work to proactively make positive contacts with parents about their child in the class or on their team or on the stage. because inevitably there's gonna be something that you're gonna have to share with a parent about a behavioral issue or maybe the child isn't performing the way they need to academically. So to make those positive comments in advance is very, very important. And that's- affirming. Yeah, it's an intentional effort that the faculty and staff need to put in place. That's good.
Speaker: Yeah, so let's move on to the the next one. Again, we could probably spend hours on each one of these bullet points that we're trying to highlight as we think about the role of faculty and staff. But, you know, the reality is faculty and staff create word of mouth.
Speaker: And so word of mouth is going to come from those stories, those experiences. um So it happens every day. you know To think about what we're asking faculty and staff or employees to do, we shouldn't be getting up and saying, go market the school, because that's not their main role.
Speaker: But we can invite them to actually intentionally create experiences that we're talking about. and And when they do that, to be able to make sure that the admissions and marketing team are aware.
Speaker: um So what do you think about word of mouth? Yeah, we think we think about how that actually plays out. mean Rarely is word of mouth like, hey, you should really go check out this ad.
Speaker: Or there's a most amazing billboard for the school. You should drive by it 10 times. um Or you should keep refresh refreshing your social channel until you've seen this ad from the school. No, they're talking about this is what this is the story of transformation for my family or um they created this special moment or this particular challenge. They were super receptive to that conversation and and something happened.
Speaker: um But you know people are going to talk about the things that got better because of your school or things that got worse. things that went unresolved that motivated them to do something different and perhaps share some negative word of mouth on the way out the door.
Speaker: Rarely is it like, oh, that marketing person or that admissions person just made all the difference in my life. um It was ah the the experience that they received on the other side of that affirm that that affirming like, yes, I think we we would ah we would partner well together that they hear during the marketing admissions process, they feel affirmed in that.
Speaker: on the other side through what they're experiencing and the stories that they feel empowered to tell. i would also say um the stories they continue to hear from people within their orbit at school because their parents are constantly comparing notes with ah with with their kids, classmates, parents, with the peers along the way and the journey. so um And no one's in ah in a better position to influence that than frontline faculty and staff.
Speaker: It's so true. In fact, I have talked along the way about the nine drivers of word of mouth. I have a webinar that I'll be doing and that you can either access live or recorded. But the first driver is actually experience. And that's what the faculty and staff do. They they drive the experiences which become word of mouth.
Speaker: It's the daily engagements within the classroom, out in the field, on the stage. It's whatever they're involved in Being intentional about those moments can create the stories that marketing and admissions needs. And it's important to be able to inform the admissions and marketing team about what's happening. So That's probably one of the greatest disconnects that I see because admissions and marketing team members are saying, we don't know what's going on. I wish they would just tell us. yeah And the faculty and staff will say, well, they don't know what's going on. I wish they would just come and see what's happening in our classroom. So it takes that unified conversation around that as everybody looks at their role in creating and driving word of mouth.
Speaker: yeah I'll take a moment here. these These can be great ideas and you might be listening to this thinking like, oh yeah, we should do that. But I want to make a connection here between what we're talking about engaging with faculty and staff and their environment to understand what's happening in their world. We can give mental assent to that and say that we should get around to that.
Speaker: But and until you operationalize it, until you build it into ah the meeting cadences that marketing and admissions has like, okay, here's here's our plan for the next period or this semester, we're going to focus on these areas and it becomes someone's responsibility.
Speaker: and they have a to-do to go to that classroom on this day at this time and report back in the meeting cadence the following week, a lot of this stuff will just go into the into the the good ideas ah folder that you never actually get around to doing anything with.
Speaker: um So we would encourage you as you think about perhaps you're listening to this with your team or ah you're thinking like how can we integrate this into how our teams do better?
Speaker: we would encourage you at your next huddle, just think through what you've heard in this podcast and think how could we operationalize some of these things to where we're systematically helping our faculty and staff get better at contributing to healthy enrollment. but Lastly, ah i'll wrap up with this here before we do a quick summary, but...
Speaker: um When you think about your in-service opportunities, ah you you you could certainly have ah you know Rick and I come in and and do a 90-minute session on this for your for your faculty and staff, and that would be wonderful.
Speaker: But from our perspective, this message is really powerful coming from you as well. So getting ah built into those agendas where marketing and admissions have time to speak to this topic every year in some sort of in-service conversation where you're helping, you're reminding faculty and staff of their role, their contributions, and you're informing new faculty and staff about how they can contribute ah to healthy enrollment.
Speaker: I think that it's so important for for you all to to have the ear of faculty and staff to help them understand their unique contributions. Yeah, the reality is that healthy enrollment is a team sport.
Speaker: There's a lot of different players. Now, certainly admissions and marketing are going to be involved in calling the plays, but the faculty and staff are going to shape the daily experiences at your school.
Speaker: And so they have a very important role in the enrollment and marketing effort. And so building that healthy enrollment requires everybody to participate in this.
Speaker: So you might you know ask your team, you know what's one thing that we can do this week to help a family feel known, valued, and confident? That certainly will have an impact upon retention. Maybe it's you know how that's related in the recruitment effort on a campus tour. Maybe it's in the story that's being shared.
Speaker: But the reality is is that faculty and staff um shouldn't be asked to do more, to do more more marketing or more things put on their plate, but to understand that you know they are the ones who help families believe about the promise that we're making in the school.
Speaker: So to know the promise, to live the promise, how that should show up every day and in everyday interactions, it's the way you do school. And then the stories that we capture and celebrate and share ah online or in person become the fuel to our word of mouth effort moving forward.
Speaker: Anything you want to leave in closing, Andy? Yeah, mean, i I think we just can't run the risk of assuming that faculty and staff know what we mean when we say everyone's involved in marketing and admissions. We can't just assume that they understand that and they're actually going to follow through. So it's important to be intentional even about even about the basics. So hope this has been a helpful conversation. if you've enjoyed this exchange, I invite you to join Rick and me in person, November 11 and 12, 2026 the First academy in Orlando for our
Speaker: ah ai summit for enrollment marketing uh it's gonna be a great time together hands-on workshop focusing on ai uh for marketing and admissions teams and integration with uh various platforms be hands-on with with uh certain exercises or go deep in certain topics so check out enrollment marketinggeeks.com to learn more and register. it And we love, uh, we love doing virtual stuff, but getting together is just something, a lot of fun about getting together with, uh, nerds from the enrollment marketing world.
Speaker: So we hope to to see you there. and, and, you know, Rick, uh, sign off with a dad joke here. All right. What you got? So, uh, Rick, what do you call a paper airplane that can't fly? Hmm. I don't know.
Speaker: Stationary. Rick, it's been great to be with you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Enrollment Marketing Geeks podcast for school leaders. If you found today's conversation helpful, be sure to follow the podcast, leave us a rating or review, and share this episode with colleague.
Speaker: For more free resources and information on upcoming events, visit enrollmentmarketinggeeks.com.
