Speaker 1: In this particular session, we're not gonna get into things like lead distribution, um, because we're, we're, we have another session that's where marketing meets admissions. And so, um, we we'll, we'll unpack some of those, you know, for, for this one. Um, you know, we're blessed to have, you know, um, over a hundred different [00:00:30] schools, 150 different schools that, that we get to work with. And then, you know, I'm, I'm fortunate that I've been with some of the big boxes as well, you know, DeVry Lincoln tech schools, like school groups like that. So just, um, gotten to get some exposure to, um, a lot of best practices. There's an opportunity every day to interact with somebody that I'm really, I'm not at work yet, but it's a blended life and it's part of, you know, who [00:01:00] I am and how I'm wired. So in your daily walk, outside of work, are you being deliberate whenever you have an opportunity to influence someone's life and are you gathering their contact information, you know, and it can be something as simple as do you wear your colors when you're out and about, do you have, you know, sweatshirts polo shirts, um, what do you call those lanyards, um, you know, uh, badges that you're [00:01:30] wearing that, that share who you are. Speaker 1: So, you know, one of the, um, biggest transformations I saw at a campus was we took some marketing dollars and we purchased polos and hoodies for everybody. And all of a sudden it wasn't just admissions. That was generating referrals. We started getting referrals from everyone, you know, somebody was out and about a target or wherever they were, and they had, they were wearing their colors, you know, and, and [00:02:00] somebody engaged with them and just asked them a question. You, and so we started seeing referrals from folks outside of admissions. So are you leading a blended life and is, is, is, are your teammates leading a blended life? And when they're out and about in their daily walk, are you generating referrals and are you getting new students and future graduates as a result of that? And then I do wanna share a third area, [00:02:30] you know, um, my first nine years in the sector were with DeVry and it was ultra-competitive. Speaker 1: And, um, and this is, this is the nineties. Um, so there was a, even a little bit of pay for performance. I started before 85. So it was a little bit of that. And we were ranked and, and DeVry called it pride, professional recognition for integrity, dedication, and excellence. And when I was a rep, I made pride every year. You know, I better made pride every year. I was pretty competitive, [00:03:00] but there was one guy that always kicked my butt and it burned me because I had much higher conversion rates on all of our advertised marketing lead flows. You know, and I'm not, I'm not saying this to be cocky or conceded. I just, I did a stronger interview. I was tighter on follow up. I was a phone animal. I had more energy, more cadence, blah, blah, blah. Yet he kicked my every year. Speaker 1: And the reason he did it, I, I was starting somewhere 180 to 210. [00:03:30] And that was kind of my sweet spot. When I was a rep, he was starting 240 to 250. And, and, and it burned me. And the big, his difference was he was known in the Chicagoland area and the Hispanic community as the father of the girl with the beautiful voice that helps people get careers. That was what he was known with. And his referral niche was the Hispanic church community [00:04:00] where his daughter sang that was his source. And he, over 50% of the folks, he was starting, that's where they came from. And I just couldn't, I, I, I was, my niche was I was going after first, uh, and, and second generation Americans. I love that whole immigrant population cuz of my family's background. And then in my youth, I used to shoot a lot of hoops. Speaker 1: So I would go hit a lot of the, the, the parks and, and I would be playing and I'd be [00:04:30] interacting. And I, I, so I did get quite a few referrals. It was more than 20% of my starts yet. He smoked me every year. So do you have a niche? Do your teammates have a niche that you're cultivating where you're literally in business development mode and you're deliberately working that particular niche and it's something you're passionate about and it means something to you and you wanna impact that particular community. [00:05:00] So I want your about three different areas on referral generation. One is on our laundry list here and some of what we've already been talking about, and it's every touchpoint you have with a prospective student, a current student, a graduate, an employer of your graduate that's one area. Okay. The second one is, are you eating a blended life? And when you're outside of the walls of work or your home office, are you still is [00:05:30] your radar open? And if you're bumping into people that might benefit from your educational offerings, are you engaging with them and are you capturing their contact information? And then that third area is what is a niche? Where can you be deliberate and actually go after a very particular, you know, um, group. And how can you cultivate that? And do you have a, [00:06:00] a business to development plan? Speaker 1: Um, somebody asked if, um, if, um, some of this information is accessible and can we share it in yet? Um, we're, we're recording these sessions and, um, you know, these, these are tools that we have in that as clients of ours, you have access, you know, to them. Um, and, and, and the scorecard is a whole process. All right. So I feel like, um, I beat up referrals, [00:06:30] a anybody else? Questions, comments, you know, Sterling, anything else you wanna add on referrals Speaker 2: Specific? Um, no, I think you covered it quite well. Um, it seems like people do have a good understanding in answering some questions in here and, uh, reply to feedback. Yeah. It's, uh, as long as the, the main thing for me is that you just start doing it. You have a process in place and you're, you're going out there and getting them and a lot of time, it's, it comes down to not being scared [00:07:00] to ask for it. It's really what Speaker 1: It does. I, I love this in the chat. I had someone at the grocery store. See my mask. Yeah. That's a whole new one, right? Our mask. Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's awesome, Speaker 1: Man. That's a cool one. Yeah. Now that one, I, I personally have never done that one, so that's cool. I like it. Speaker 2: That's, that's why branded stuff is awesome. Do hats mask shirts, whatever it is, they look at it. And then they'll ask you a question about it. Um, but yeah, if you want talk more about this, we have some cool ideas. Like we, we don't have time to dig all in on referrals, [00:07:30] but there's things you can do with Q uh, QR codes. Like if you have a business card, you could put, um, a landing page or a signup page as a QR code on your business cards. So someone just scans their phone and then they can put their information for you and you could have unique ones. And so there's a lot of great ideas, email us after or reach out, and we'll be able to step times and talk with you if you want to dig into more stuff with referrals. And, but for now, let, um, Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Um, you know, when it comes to business cards, this, you know, this is just a, uh, you [00:08:00] know, sales 1 0 1, but, but why do we have business cards? Yeah, we'd love it. If somebody kept our business card and called us. Okay, that's great. But that's not really the value of a business card. The value of a business card is you give it to somebody so that you they'll, they'll give you something back and what are they giving you back? They're giving you their name, their number, their kind information. That's a key thing. So give your card. Yes. Have cards. I know that's old school have business cards with you [00:08:30] because they make it easier and they make it, they make it easier for whoever you're handing that card to, they make it more likely that, that person's gonna share their information back with you. Yeah. Speaker 2: And I don't know how many times I've been at conferences in and they didn't have a business card. So I pull up my business card and they wrote their information on the back of it and hand it back. That's great. So it's also great too. You can hand them a business card and they want to reciprocate, so it's like, oh, gimme your name and number excellent. I'll you know, Speaker 1: And, and put the memory joggers, you know, [00:09:00] whatever, whatever helps you, you know, recall that conversation or be able to personalize it when it's three days later or a week later or whatever Speaker 2: Exactly. Right. Cool. Um, where do you wanna move to on next task? Speaker 1: Well, um, we, we will, this is being recorded and we will share this, you know, but I do wanna talk a little bit, um, about start rate, you know, and, and [00:09:30] what are some best practices, you know, around start rate. And it's interesting, you know, we've seen some of our clients actually increase their number of interviews and their number of applications. And I'd, I'd love to, to get some killer data on this. Um, you know, some of my old circle, um, of, uh, you know, former teammates are, are in different roles. And so I know [00:10:00] for some of the big boxes, what their data is saying, and it was interesting interview and application activity went up, start rate, went down, you know, and I've heard that from few of, um, you know, my ex-teammates that are working with some of the larger, um, school groups. Speaker 1: Um, I I've heard the opposite, you know, from, from some of the smaller, um, schools, [00:10:30] but I, I do believe that because of the pandemic, because of COVID, I do think that people are more contactable and the, the, what the data has been sh showing us is that the, the new best practice is actually to take 'em right into the interview. Yep. You know, and, and I'm old school, you know, we only used to do that one as student know, showed us a few times, you know, that was old school, but, but, you know, that's, that's, this is the new reality. [00:11:00] Mm-hmm , you know, so, um, so Sterling, why don't you unpack some of the, um, you know, the, um, application to accept it and enrolled, and let's talk about that a little bit. Okay, Speaker 2: Excellent. Yeah. So I, I, just to, for a little side note, I've done a lot of these. This is our enrollment management spark card, just in case you don't know, it's a process. We do any of our clients get the full process for free, but non clients we'll do two sessions free. So if you're someone who's not a client of ours, but you're attending, you get two [00:11:30] sessions free. Um, it usually takes about eight sessions to complete. So we could diagnose in the first few sessions to test it out, to see how you like it, what I'm seeing over and over again is the same thing. Attaching schools are getting better at having people move through their funnel. So they're better at need contact better at, um, getting them through to enrollment better at all of the steps except for start is down. And the reason is like, uh, attached to saying people are more contactable now that we've moved things to virtual, [00:12:00] that's a barrier that's gone. Speaker 2: And it's been a lot easier for people to do virtual appointments, to get into your funnel and move through the funnel. But there's a weakness at the very end, or at least we're getting so many people through the funnel. So, well, at the very end, there's just more of a drop off. Um, but so yeah, these are things that we could hopefully do to address them. Um, so first one here is pretty straightforward, multiple sources of financing. If you have multiple sources of financing, there's more options, more availability, you know, it's just one barrier being block [00:12:30] knocked down. Um, Speaker 1: And, and it does seem like, um, the pendulum is swinging and there is more third party financing, you know, and I know some of you on this call are working with, with outside organizations, like, you know, like climb credit or folks like that. Um, you know, and, um, so it's, so there's opportunity there. And if you haven't explored, um, third party already financing, um, you know, there, there are lenders out there that have their own [00:13:00] algorithms and their own models, and they're not strictly, you know, FICO score based. So, um, you may be able to get funding. You may be able to your students, you, you may be able to get tuition dollars, you know, a chunk of 20, 50, 70 5% of that upfront based on some of the outcomes of your programs. So, um, you know, I, I do think that this is a area that is, um, making a comeback over these last few [00:13:30] years. Right. Go ahead. Strong. I'm sorry. Speaker 2: No problem. Yeah. So the next part here is doing financial aid follow up with prospects. So, and this sort of actually in my opinion, goes in with the application coach. Um, so both of these, so again, financial aid actually making those follows, um, helping things to progress, but the application coach is what I want it to. So application coach, what we're talking about here is someone [00:14:00] who specializes in getting them over the hump at the end there. So it might be someone who's separate from your actual admission reps, because what their job is, is to get them to enroll. They're, they're, they're just trying to get them to move forward, to do the interview. And they're really sales reps, right? They're selling your school. They're trying to get people to move forward once they make that commitment, but there's still all this paperwork and there's things they have to do. Speaker 2: There's a few hurdles left. It can be a great time to bring in someone who's more of an application coach. Their role [00:14:30] is less, you know, of a persuasion, less at sales, but more as just like nurturing, helping you get everything done, making sure you get over those final hurdles and then holding your hand right to the start, the application coach would maintain contact, check in set dates with them, oh, you have this done by this date. If you have prerequisites or things you need to do. Um, but there's someone who stays accountable and because they're not focusing on the full funnel, they're only doing at the end part. So they could actually have more capacity than a normal rep. They could handle lots of people [00:15:00] because they're not doing it the whole front to back all their outbound calling, doing appointments. They're just focusing on these few people who get to the end of the funnel and making sure that nothing gets in the way. Um, and so it can be difficult to do this if you have a small school and you don't have a lot of reps because it takes specialization. So generally you need a few more reps, but if you could have people start doing this part-time, if you have a smaller school, or if you have a large enough have some focus on this role, it could be huge at bringing up those final two numbers in your, uh, [00:15:30] funnel, which is acceptance to enroll and then enrollment to Speaker 1: Start. Yeah, let, I wanna share a couple things. So, so I've, I've seen this and, um, if you do have strong front end, um, applicants, so you're, you're in good shape there, you know, I've seen some schools where they don't even set up a financial aid point until their perspective student has emailed the FAFSA confirmation email that they receive after completing [00:16:00] the FAFSA. So of course they'll allow them to talk to their financial aid folks, but in terms of setting up, you know, the meeting where they're gonna go over everything, um, you know, that, that is a, if, if you know that that's a prereq on it, then you know, some, if you don't have the, the, the financials and the bandwidth and the manpower to have a specialized role, you know, um, I'm assuming that almost everyone on this call has a weekly stitch or cement meeting, right? Speaker 1: Your, your, [00:16:30] your stitching meeting and that you have your financial aid and your admissions folks on that, whether it's the heads of those areas, whether it's the front lines. Um, but you know, that does need to be tight communication. That needs to be at least weekly, at least weekly, you know, preferably earlier in the week, not at the end of the week, you know, and are you following up on the action commitments from the team from the prior week, [00:17:00] and are you actually capturing who committed to doing what on the follow up, especially on the chasing of your problem children, and are you measuring the time between when they interviewed and when they signed the master promissory note. So, and is that window shrinking? Are you able to shrink that window and make that timeframe shorter and shorter? And you all know this it's much easier [00:17:30] to get a student when they're on their way up to move through the process. Speaker 1: Then once a lot of time has passed and now they're on their way down and now you gotta kill yourself, you know, just trying to get them to, to follow through on things. So what can you do to compress the timeframe between point application and point of signing that master promissory note? Are you measuring it? Do you have a standing stitch in Samantha in meeting? Is it earlier in [00:18:00] the week? Does it have your admissions and your financial aid folks involved on that call and are you taking minutes and actually getting people to commit and is all of that going into your CRM or your SIS, and is it, is it triggering, you know, follow up and tasks and making it dummy proof so that, you know, today's Friday and I walk in and I know I gotta call that particular person, you know, and I know why I'm calling them and I know what [00:18:30] I'm hunting them down for, you know? Speaker 1: So, um, anyway, I think, I think that, that, that there is a lot of, uh, opportunity right there. Um, how many of you have some good Q and a set up already where students can go and get answers to very common questions so that your financial aid advisors or your admissions reps, aren't constantly repeating the same kinds of things over [00:19:00] and over again, you know, so is that available? Um, I don't know if it still exists, but, um, I used to run a school group and we, we brought in financial a TV to do just that. And that was basically a FAQ skin, you know, that, that, um, that had all the basic questions and it had testimonials all over it and it looked like it was your school, but really it was just a skin that they customized and made look like yours. And, oh my God, did we free [00:19:30] up manpower hour, you know, in, in man hours, you know, by doing that. Speaker 1: So, um, you know, I, I would, uh, make sure that, that, that your perspective students can do some, um, some self selection. Are you using the, um, the, the, um, department of ed, are you using their one 800 number or, you know, so when somebody's having an issue completing their FAFSA, or [00:20:00] is it your own internal manpower that's helping 'em through that or are they going to the us government and getting help in order to complete that? There's a lot of manpower so that up out there, and you don't have to be doing it all yourself and all with your own, you know, resources, leverage what's out there. Take advantage.