It often takes a few years to demonstrate to your Head that you are capable of achieving your school’s enrollment objectives. Even after your Head is confident in your abilities, you need to let him/her know that you are still on top of matters. To give the Head’s confidence, you first need to demonstrate to yourself that your work is driven by some sort of philosophy, strategy or intention, and then convince your Head of this too. Below are items that can build your confidence and give confidence to the Head about your ability to enroll full-pay families.
- Don’t ask for financial aid to solve your enrollment problems. If the Head had money sitting around for financial aid, then he or she would probably have given it to you. That is not to say that you won’t ask for it when you are in dire need of generating income with it. For example, you have a dozen seats that are not going to be filled but have prospective families who can pay half or more of the tuition in the higher grades. However, if there is enrollment problem, asking for more aid (with a couple of exceptions as described above) typically doesn’t breed confidence in your strategy.
- Present your marketing, communication, or sales strategies to your Head before the situation calls for it. Many admissions directors don’t give the impression that they have a strategic plan for bringing in full-pay families. Even if that’s true now, you can develop one. Don’t be afraid to ask for resources to improve your skills. In that process, keep your Head posted on what you are learning to give them confidence that you are working to constantly be ahead of the game. If you do have a strategic marketing, communications or sales plan, make sure the Head hears it. It will keep them from wanting to give you tactics and moving resources where they may not best serve your needs.
- Demonstrate that you will work with the hand you are dealt. This means working on convincing full-pay families to buy the educational program that your school already offers. I don’t think any admissions or communications person was hired to come in and change a significant portion of the educational program in order to attract the new customers. That isn’t to say that changes aren’t needed to attract more full-pay families, but it’s probably not why you were hired. Therefore, make it clear to everyone that you are there to generate enough revenues based on the program and faculty that exists. This is not to say that you don’t help the program people to see weaknesses. However, it’s not likely that you are going to make significant changes. You create your best marketing strategy based on the hand you are dealt and either you will sell enough seats or not. If you can’t, either because you don’t have the talent or the program does not present enough value for the cost, then you have to get trained or move on, whichever is the best option. Start out playing the hand that you were dealt and package it well. (In the Five Pillars workshop, I teach you how to make one of the cards in your hand a wild card which will give you an advantage in the marketing game.)
- Demonstrate that you know something about the budget. You need to make and always aspire to generate more money than the Head expects; it also makes for a happier chief financial officer. You need to understand net tuition revenue and discount rates. You need to understand how the chief financial officer is determining your budget and financial aid allocations. How are tuition targets determined? Talk with your head about the discount rate, since this is a factor that affects the health of many schools.
- Understand who the VIPs are in your admission process and have a system that identifies and takes care of them. (VIPs are families who can pay the tuition, plus give large amounts to the annual fund or capital campaign.) The last thing a Head wants to hear is a complaint from an influential or affluent person, particularly if a board member tells the Head that someone important to him/her wasn’t taken care of in the admission process. He/she also doesn’t want to hear that you didn’t accept a donor who is wealthy and philanthropic without a good reason of which the head himself/herself would have approved. Not knowing they were important doesn’t breed confidence. Build your system.
- Don’t let the Head get blind sighted by any of your decisions. You need to think about anything that might fly back and hit the Head. Any political situation should be on the Head of School’s radar. Even after you tell the Head, you need to be responsible to ensure that the right steps are taken. In cases where you don’t have all the information needed, work with other offices in your school, feeder schools or consultants, which can be helpful under number 5 too.
- Impress the board with great reports. Keep the board informed of your knowledge of what is happening with enrollment and any insights you can provide on the state of your market. Let them know your marketing plan and impress them with your strategy and way of thinking. That makes the Head feel good, because it proves that he/she has hired the right person. In addition, when something goes against you – environmental factors or competitors – you are more likely to get support from the board and head.
- Make connections with the faculty. Help the faculty to understand the conditions under which you work, so they are not complaining about the students or not supporting your efforts in marketing. Happy faculty makes for happy Heads of School. This can be challenging to do alone. Work with the leadership to support this effort. The Head has to come half way on this one and support you in communicating with the faculty, setting expectations, and identifying the importance of your work. This will be done if the Head has confidence in your plans.
- Matters around enrollment and revenue are on the head’s mind often. You need to demonstrate to the head that enrollment is on your mind more than it could ever be on theirs. Your goal is to convince them that they can cut the time spent on thinking about enrollment in half, because you have the most skills in this domain and it is always on your mind.
The best Head for the admissions director is one that is confident in your work and interested in teaming up with you, as opposed to working against you or thinking that they are the leaders of your department. Be proactive. Every time the Head changes, you will need to start the confidence building process over again. If you have built confidence among the board, you won’t have to start from scratch, because they will report it to the Head. If you haven’t demonstrated it to the board, then you will need to do quick work with the new Head to demonstrate your abilities and build his/her confidence.