I will preface this blog by letting you know I am not, nor claim to be an admissions expert. I do like think I know a little bit about sales though, especially phone sales. 

Phones are the lifeline of my business.  If a potential candidate or client can’t reach us, we are loosing money, quickly.  I think the same holds true for admissions, another craft that relies heavily on phones.

When my recruiters are calling into schools to identify and source potential candidates I can’t tell you how many campuses have no one answering the phones.  I understand this is the technological age and have no problem dealing with an auto-attendant.  The real shock comes when I “press 1 for admissions” and then get a voicemail at 10:30AM in the morning!!!   What if I was a student inquiry?  Don’t most schools spend thousands on admissions training, lead generation, hi-tech tracking software, and complex phone systems?  Then why would they not have someone answer the phone?  Or at least have it forwarded to a third party call center that can gather the relevant information and pass it on to the admissions team to follow up on.

There is an old saying in sales when the phone rings: “there is money on the line.” Campuses work so hard to attract potential students.  It seems such a waste to have that hard work pay off, only for the student to find out, no one is home….

Vincent Scaramuzzo is the President of Ed-Exec, Inc. One of the leading executive search firms in education. He has consistently been ranked in the top 2% of all recruiters worldwide by Management Recruiter’s International, the world’s largest executive search firm.  Vincent is also a contributing author to Career College Central’s magazine and web site.  As a specialist in the education field, Scaramuzzo works nationally with Universities, Colleges, Online and Career Schools.  He can be contacted at vincent@ed-exec.com  860-781-7641.

We are a business that always seems to do well when the rest of the world is feeling like it’s swimming upstream. It’s always been that way – you know the famous Countercyclical thing and all. So what should admissions do with all those new leads that think getting a career that isn’t going to be lost in the shuffle do?

Sell the opportunity for someone to understand that having more than one thing going for themselves isn’t such a bad thing. Sometime admissions feels they have to replace a bad experience with a course of instruction. That’s their  solution. “Sorry about what’s happening, now become a medical assistant and everything will be ok – let’s go to financial aid and see if you qualify”.

Not a really good approach unless your retention numbers are too high and you need more attrition at your school.

This is a time to slow down the train and listen, evaluate, discuss, and then offer a suggestion.

Maybe school is the answer, more times than not, it will help. But the way to sell it isn’t as a replacement to something, but as a supplement to something. No one wants to think that what they already spent time and energy getting to know has no more value. But everyone understands being multi-skilled. For example.

Suppose you already went to school to become an administrative assistant, and you were working at that job when one day HR came and in said to you “sorry”. What do you do? Well of course you go look for another AA job, but what if over the past 6 weeks a whole bunch of other qualified AA’s lost their job too, and right now there is a surplus for people looking and not enough jobs to go around, what then?

Unemployment check – well maybe, but that won’t pay too many bills. Go live back at home – of course, that’s always an option, that’s what parents live for (sure!). Another alternative, watch TV and then what happens, “ Call XYZ College today and real soon you will be on your way to a new exciting career, etc, etc, etc.”

So, in they go, fill out the whatever, go to admissions, and well you know the rest.

But my money is one not selling them a new career, my money is on selling them an option and an ace in the hole if they ever need it. Having something to fall back on, you know, just in case. I wouldn’t want to replace the current career choice, maybe she loves it and has always wanted to be an AA. I would suggest that we discuss possible alternatives that would allow her to be employed even during the tougher times, like now. I would spend the time to get to know what she has an interest in and then offer some suggestions, not to wave good-bye to her AA experiences, but to do to earn a good living while she was waiting for things to maybe get better and then she could, if she even wanted to, go back to what she loves, being an AA.

I would talk about the allied health arena, the IT arena, and anything else my school may offer that has reasonable career potential as demonstrated by its placement history.

But the one thing I would not do is ask her to replace what she already knows and loves with something else as a permanent move, but just to get another option while she has the time. And of course I would tell her that in many ways she will be able to offer a new employer not only the skill-set she just learned, but in addition, all the skills she already knows from her previous employment. And chances are, being multi-skilled will maybe put her on the shorter “A” list for that position she may be interviewing for.

It’s easier for someone to accept change and expense if it’s looked at as a “additional” as opposed to “replaceable” . The mental gymnastics are less cumbersome as the value of the time and money spent learning the first one wasn’t a waste of time. If someone thinks they are creating additional value without losing the initial value, it’s a much easier proposition to sell.

The idea that there’s quick results from “low hanging fruit” has been very intriguing lately. The theory is that abundance in terms of new students, program offerings, student services, and more is so easily attainable. You just have to look for the low hanging fruit. No need to get a fancy cherry picker because you don’t need to go to the top of the tree for results.  Low hanging fruit has no risk attached to it, is ripe or ready, and provides a solution instantly.  Think about increasing enrollment for example. Where are potential leads that are likely to enroll? Referrals come to mind. Are you using referral methods or if no, why not?  What other solutions are you looking for that are really all around you if you watch for them and are in ready mode to harvest right now?

What are your thoughts?