InspirED Sparkcast: Finance and Marketing, The Overlooked Alliance for Success
Mike Connor, President of Connor Associates, and Thom Greenlaw, Connor Associates Strategic Partner for Leadership Searches, Finance, and Operations, expand on Mike’s blog about Finance and Marketing Joined at the Hip and talk with Rob Norman of InspirED School Marketers about how a School’s identity is meaningless if it isn’t sustainable; how a School’s product is useless if it is not what people really desire or if you can’t prove its value, and how Mike and Thom have seen it all go south if a School can’t align the marketing mix with its long-term financial policy or pricing, grounded in data.
Selected Mike and Thom Quotes:
“It’s unusual for business managers, CFOs, marcom, and enrollment managers to sit down together to talk about price and value and their interplay with one another.”
“Once you understand why it costs so much to provide the services you do and then the uniqueness of your school in your market, the discussion about the relationship between price and value is simple.”
“A school says, ‘Five years ago we had 100 students more than we do now. We need to get those 100 students back!’ I ask, Why?”
“Discounting tuition is a recipe for disaster.”
What You’ll Learn In The Podcast
Setting tuition with marketing in mind.
How to serve the student population by figuring out a more economical way to do it.
How to prove ROI.
Perceptions of existing families vs prospective families and how to align the two.
Most schools try to appeal to all people, but they should take a stand on what we don’t stand for.
Who should be interviewed externally to assess your school’s value proposition?
What to do with perceptions about your school, positive and negative.
How to determine the right size of enrollment at your school.
Hospitals as an example of right-sizing.
Why schools are reticent to right-size down.
No margin, no mission!
Rob Norman Best Boy, InspirED School Marketers
Rob has 25 years of independent school marketing experience as principal of Turnaround Marketing Communications, a branding and marketing firm specializing in independent schools.
Rob shares his experience on InspirED School Marketers by blogging, editing the Daily Jolt, and by podcasting with fascinating independent school movers and shakers. As InspirED's Best Boy — a term borrowed from theater, Rob's longtime passion — Rob loves to be out and about, meeting with school marketers, learning their needs, and helping them overcome challenges.
Be sure to ask Rob about his golf game.
Mike Connor
Mike Connor is President of Connor Associates Strategic Services and co-author of the NAIS book, Marketing Independent Schools in the 21st Century. His latest e-Book, Pulling in the Same Direction, emphasizes everyone’s role in recruitment, retention, and fundraising.
Earlier in his 30+ year career, Mike worked in nearly every position at independent K-12 schools.
Connor Associates stakes its value on its experience with providing comprehensive services, including ensuring proof of ROI through Image Audits, Enrollment Feasibility Studies, Five-year enrollment Forecasts, Business Office Evaluations and Plans, and Strategic Marketing Plans.
Connor Associates’ newest offering, administrative search, uses a unique approach to finding, training, and keeping the best people on your leadership team.
Thom Greenlaw
After serving not-for-profit organizations for over 40 years Thom Greenlaw founded Creative Independents (CI) in 2012. CI serves not-for-profit schools, colleges, and other education-focused institutions finding creative solutions to strategic issues facing these organizations. Thom joined Connor Associates as a Strategic Partner for Executive Searches, Finance, and Operations in 2018. In addition to coordinating Leadership searches, he specializes in Tuition Elasticity and Financial Sustainability.
For over twenty years Thom served in varying senior operational and finance roles in independent schools including thirteen years as Assistant Head for Operations/ CFO at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, MA. Before his employment at BB&N, Thom served as Business Manager at the Dana Hall School. A former Board member for NBOA and AISAP, he currently serves on the Board of Summit Montessori School and is a volunteer mentor, specializing in not-for-profits for SCORE.
Connor Associates stakes its value on its experience with providing comprehensive services, including ensuring proof of ROI through Image Audits (reputational asset and risk management), Alumni and Alumni Parent Surveys, Enrollment Feasibility Studies which identify qualified appropriate prospects at rooftop level, Five-year enrollment Forecasts, Location Studies, Business Office Evaluations and Plans (pricing sensitivity, tuition analysis, benchmarking, reliable revenue streams, and capital management), Strategic Marketing Plans based on research, and onsite training and coaching to get everyone in your school and your trustees supporting enrollment, retention, and philanthropy.
Our newest offering, Administrative Leadership Search, is a very creative, fast, and effective approach to finding, training, and keeping the best people on your leadership team--and it’s surprisingly different and a better value than you may get from job boards or other search firms. Find out more here.