The Brand Identity Test

When we begin the marketing part of our Operations Assessment one of our first questions is “What is your value proposition” this question sometimes illicits more blank faces than answers.  If you think your institution has a value proposition, try the following test.  If you ask this same question in your next staff meeting, you will find as many unique and different answers as there are people in the room.  To make sure you get the best answers ask your team to write their answers down and collect them when completed.

When beginning a branding development process you should prepare for resistance.  Resistance will likely occur where the cross roads meet between “What Your Audience Values” and “Your Strengths” as these two items are sometimes different.  Your staff will also have different opinions about the strenghts offered by your institution and your students may value a similar but different range of items.  The mere suggestion of a branding development process will make some employees uncomfortable as even the most mild potential for change can be threatening to some.

What Your Audience Values

This gets to the heart of education itself.  Why do students enroll at your institution, and what do they hope to get out of the experience?  An institution that begins with these questions and makes a concerted effort to get to the real answers will be on their way to identifying their brand and value proposition.  The shared governance structure in non-profit education should be very successful at managing the process to get these answers but they are not always successful in doing so.  Likewise, the situational leadership and “top-down” management style in corporately owned for-profit institutions typically have a keen awareness of their brand identity; one weakness is they may not factor in the opinions of students well enough.

Your Strengths

Getting faculty, administration and staff members together to identify departmental then institutional strengths can be an insightful and fun time for all involved.  Finding where the key stakeholders’ identified strengths meet what the audience thinks is important is where an institution will find its brand promise and resulting value proposition.

Problems

• If students do not value the institutions' strengths, then perhaps the institutions needs to focus on developing additional strengths

• Students may not identify an institutional strength; this may be an indicator of success, but this does not mean we stop this process as brand management is a continual effort

Shared Governance – sometimes the appearance of shared governance is just that, an appearance.  While too much ‘shared governance’ leads to a failure to make decisions, a balance is required.  In terms of Situational Leadership and the “top-down” approach to management in for-profit institutions, a leader may spend too much time telling and directing and not enough time listening.  Again, balance is required for successfully managing your Brand Identity – perhaps the most critical element of your public image.

Finally, we believe if conducted more frequently than a strategic planning process, a continuous analysis of what students want, what an institution is delivering on and how each aligns with the institutional mission can be a very healthy undertaking for an education provider.

Survive and Thrive During Fall Start Season

It comes around each year for admissions professionals, as reliable as the sunrise and sunset or death and taxes, depending on your perspective.  New students arriving at our campuses to begin their studies each fall.  This period of time represents the culmination of months of work that was preceded by planning and hopefully a training program to keep us finely tuned throughout the duration.  No matter how many annual start terms your school has, the concept of the “big fall start” is alive and well in educational institutions across the nation.

Whether we have a pro-active or reactive admissions process, whether we are for-profit, non-profit, career related or liberal arts centered we all want the same thing: to achieve our start goals and ensure the continued financial viability of our institutions. 

Check-in day can go awry for the best of us.  As Vice President of Enrollment at a traditional college in New England I was once rescued by the athletic director after having spent 2 hours personally crisis-managing 200 students and families that overwhelmed the financial aid clearance station.  As a person who suffers from bouts of low-blood sugar and stupidly having not eaten that morning the stress, heat and empty stomach began to get the best of me.  However like any good enrollment person, I was too caught up with problem solving our start day to notice I was having problems.  Re-enforcements were brought in and I was fine and the backup, resolved.

In consulting I leverage my own experience in guiding clients through the maze of enrollment issues they face.  At this time of year I take a moment to reflect back on what I’ve learned and pass along some tips to help other enrollment leaders survive and thrive over the next few weeks.

In no particular order:

1. Stay hydrated

2. Eat regularly (protein, fruits and veggies)

3. Pick a goofy word to say when you are stressed out and about to “blow” your lid.  Something that will make you and others laugh.

4. Be proactive across all departments that impact the start.  This means taking steps in advance to avoid problems at check-in and during that critical pre-add/drop deadline.

5. Subtract 10% from the number you think will start and report that as your forecast, it is the best way to manage expectations.

6. Meet as many new students and families as possible.  This is important for you and them.

7. Make it fun for everyone involved.  How about a “show rate” contest with your staff?  Divide the group up in two and decide whichever group has the best show rate at start will be served breakfast by the loosing team.  This helps to boost morale and should be fun spirited!

8. Print out start lists, check-in lists and just about any list you may need.  Computers and networks have a strange way of going down at this time of year.

9. Make an extra effort to show your appreciation to co-workers and staff around your school.

10.  Once it’s all over, take a few days off before you come back to lead a full debriefing session.

In the end, remember we are facilitators of the education process.

Have fun out there!