Archive for the ‘Counselor Training’ category

Counselor Training Series: 4 Simple Steps to Amp Up Your Recruiting Efforts

November 10th, 2014

[Today we kick off our Counselor Training Blog Series where you will find valuable and dynamic information to build a stronger recruitment team.]

At the heart of our highly-successful Interactive Counselor Training Program is a proven model of communication that counselors tell us is transformative. It is simple and effective. Adopt this straightforward method and you will see greater success in your recruitment efforts.

CounselorTrainingSeries270x150By using this model properly, both you and the student will be better served because you will understand the individual student’s needs and preferences, and that will allow you to present the value of your institution in a way that will most resonate with THAT student.

While the model may be simple, your skill in executing it makes all the difference. Swinging a bat is simple. Great execution makes for batting champions.

The 4-step process begins with PROBING, which really just means asking the student a lot of great questions that have both scope and depth.

In any conversation you have with a prospective student, whether it’s your first or your fifth, and regardless of where you are in the recruiting cycle, you need to probe. You HAVE to ask questions.

Most counselors think they already do this. But in our training workshops with admissions counselors across the country, we see two common mistakes:

First, the questions being asked don’t penetrate deeply enough to uncover all of the student’s motivations, assumptions, concerns, preferences and influencers in their college selection decision.

Secondly, we see questions asked that do little more than give the counselor an opportunity to talk about the college.

The key is to turn the focus of the conversation toward the individual student. Information you provide about the college must relate to only those things the student has told you is important in their college selection decision or, frankly, it is meaningless.

When you have asked enough questions to have a full understanding of the student’s unique preferences, you are ready to talk about your college and demonstrate how your institution can best meet their individual needs.

This next phase of the model is called SUPPORTING and this is where you’ll discuss your institution’s benefits and values, and you’ll naturally focus on what you know is important to them.

Supporting is an art in itself.

With practice, you’ll be able to not only INFORM the student that you have what they want but you’ll also get them excited about attending your college. The various ways you can support are too numerous to detail here but it’s the part of the conversation where a student’s interest in you will either get stronger or weaker.

The third step of the communications model involves DEALING WITH CONCERNS OR OBJECTIONS.http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-four-image2632063

First, you have to find out if any exist.

That may sound easy but we have learned that most counselors don’t do it.

And, when you don’t do this you are left scratching your head, wondering why the student you fully expected to enroll chose another college. Again, probing comes into play here. You’re searching for concerns, objections, or indifference.

When you find them, you have to deal with it.

Maybe the student’s concern is based on a false assumption about your school. If so, you need to correct it.  Maybe they’re worried about something. If so, you need to reassure them. You can’t address their concerns or objections if you don’t uncover them and you can’t uncover them if you aren’t asking the right questions.

Once you have uncovered and dealt with any objections, you are ready for the fourth and  final step in the communication model: CLOSING.

Closing simply means getting the student to take the next logical step on the path to enrolling.

You know there are many milestones on that path. But in every conversation you should end with a suggestion that the student take the next step. If the student resists, you have to circle back to uncover their objection or concern.

The model of communication and its four elements is a simple approach to having great, productive conversations that benefit both you and the students you are recruiting.

Remember, the goal is to best serve the student by truly understanding what they need and want which will ultimately make both you and the student more successful.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @LongmireCo

[This is Part 1 in our Series: Counselor Training for Recruitment Success. Subscribe to Versions of Conversion today so you don’t miss any of this highly valuable information. In Part 2, we will take an in-depth look at skillful  probing techniques.]

RickMontgomery_100x100

Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. 

Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. – See more at: https://www.longmire-co.com/HigherEdBlog/#sthash.Sg5bOkJf.dpuf
Rick Montgomery is as an Enrollment Strategist at Longmire and Company. With over 20 years in higher education marketing, he brings an innovative approach to helping colleges and universities meet their enrollment goals. – See more at: https://www.longmire-co.com/HigherEdBlog/#sthash.Sg5bOkJf.dpuf

What do prospective students love about your college? Hint: it probably isn’t what you think.

May 29th, 2014

Many people, when shopping to buy a home, will look at several very similar houses – in similar neighborhoods with features that are very much alike – and this makes sense because most people have some idea of what they want and then start looking.

But often, even though the houses are so similar, the decision comes easy, because there is just something about that one home that says “this is it.” And the “it” can be highly individualized.

Excited future college student

Why do the “buyers” (applicants/students) get EXCITED about your college? And why should you spend some time figuring this out?  The data from our recent co-sponsored study “Your Value Proposition: How prospective students and parents perceive value and select colleges” gave us some very valuable insight into excitement and the role it plays in enrollment.

About 75 percent of those surveyed in the study said they would reconsider a college they initially thought was too expensive if the college could demonstrate greater value.

Interesting, right? But what really got our attention were the answers to the second part of that question, when students and parents told us what value a college could offer to make the investment worthwhile. Those answers, it turned out, showed that there is a distinct disconnect between what colleges think applicants value and what applicants actually value.

And all of this is very important, or should be, to college enrollment and marketing managers, because what students value is also what gets them excited about your college. And excitement is what gets students enrolled and in the seats.

We addressed this concept of excitement and how important it is in a recent blog post. Briefly, to recap, we discussed how perceived value has three components: quality, cost and excitement about attending. All are important, but all do not have equal weight in the college decision process. Excitement about attending is most strongly related to likelihood of enrollment. Get students excited and you will likely have them as your students.

So back to this idea of what, exactly will get students excited and how it is so crucial to know what to communicate to potential students.

Colleges might spend a lot of time and effort, for example, telling applicants and families that their four-year graduation rate is exemplary and job and graduate school placement rates are very high. But most of the time, we found, students do not get emotional about outcomes. It is something else. And emotions drive decisions.

Longmire and Company recently conducted several focus groups on college campuses to explore this issue of when and how the emotional commitment to a specific college occurs. Students were able to tell us the exact moment in time that the light went on for them and they knew a specific college was right for them. They were able to tell us their surroundings, the people they were with, the time of day, the weather, what was happening, what was said, who said it, and many other things in startling detail. It was a moment in time frozen in their memory.

Listening and watching these students recall their experiences in the focus groups was fascinating. And highly instructive. It revealed that much of what we are doing to generate student excitement is, in fact, not doing so at all. Further, some of the things we do actually turn prospective students off and we don’t even know it.

Finding out what your prospective students find exciting is so important, we believe, you absolutely must take the time and effort to extract this from them. Then use what you learn to talk up a variety of values through every communications channel, painting a clear and broad picture of who you are and putting students in the environment to experience it firsthand.

We’ve discussed this before, but it bears repeating because it is so important: enrollment managers must take a student-centric approach to recruiting and know that it isn’t about the college, it is about the student. Ask students what they value – what will get them excited about your school – in your personal conversations with them. Tell them how your college offers what they value, build their excitement about attending.

We work frequently with colleges, helping admissions professionals change their focus to the student, in our Interactive Training Workshops. This training is invaluable to many colleges in re-tooling their recruitment processes so that students get the information and experiences that truly interest and excite them. We are more than happy to share our process with you. Just give us a call at (913) 492-1265.

Know Where and How to Control Your Perceived Value

March 24th, 2014

“We need more enrollments,” says the college president or chief financial officer or take your pick. No problem, you may be thinking, in light of the fact that tuition has been raised – again – and there are areas of the institution that are in need of let’s say “enhancement in quality.” What’s an enrollment manager to do? Information from our recent national study provides the answer.

StreetSign_300x183The perceived value that a student attaches to your institution correlates strongly with his or her likelihood of enrollment. Perceived value has three components: perceived quality, cost and excitement about attending. A change in any one will impact your total perceived value score which, in turn, impacts enrollment.

The perceived quality of a college may be more or less important from student to student although it may be safely assumed that it is universally important. Cost is also important. These two factors, however, do not have as strong an influence on enrollment as does the student’s excitement about attending the college. Students may find colleges of higher perceived quality and lower cost than others under consideration but if their level of excitement about attending is low then they are significantly less likely to enroll.

Of the three components, cost is likely to be the hardest for a college to change. Its published sticker price may be flexible through discounting but in all likelihood tuition will continue to rise.

Real and perceived qualities are changeable. However, both take time, require internal collaboration, and demand adequate resources.

The single component in the value score that is most flexible and impacting on enrollment growth is student excitement about attending. It is more strongly correlated to enrollment – by a factor of two – than either cost or perceived quality. This was one of several surprising findings revealed in Longmire and Company’s latest nationally co-sponsored study, “Your Value Proposition: How prospective students and parents perceive and select colleges.” Click here to download a copy of the report.

Generating excitement is a multi-dimensional process and should involve everyone on campus. It may entail building and communicating a brand that attracts individuals with similar interests, putting students in the company of others with similar passions, providing opportunities to work closely with faculty, offering prompt and attentive customer service, having a unique energy and atmosphere on campus, and any number of other attributes that strike an emotional chord with a student and parent.

Creating excitement is in the wheelhouse (or should be) of the admission office and admission counselors. However, many people working in admissions don’t know how to create the level of excitement that it takes to win an emotional commitment from the student that will lead to enrollment. This problem usually arises because the department or counselor spends too much time selling the institution rather than trying to understand what the student sees and feels as being valuable.

The answer to increasing enrollment in the face of tuition and quality challenges lies in taking an entirely student-centric approach to recruiting where the admission office and counselors realize that “it’s not about the institution – it’s about the student.”  This is powerful when put into practice. Through our Interactive Training Workshops for counselors, we spend a great deal of time changing the focus of admission counselors. We see their transformation and improvements in productivity. Most importantly, we see changes in the recruiting process that exposes students to the information and experiences that truly interest and excite them.

Putting your Pre-Enrollment Service Improvement Plan into Action

January 9th, 2013

It’s Go Time!
Putting your Pre-Enrollment Service Improvement Plan into Action

If you’ve been following our blog for the last two installments, (thank you!), you realize the substantial impact and potential that pre-enrollment customer service has on your institution’s student recruitment efforts. You’ve taken a baseline assessment of your service delivery across many brand touch points, and you’ve created an actionable plan that identifies key issues for improvement and makes everyone accountable. Nice work! You have already accomplished some very important tasks and laid the groundwork for meaningful change at your college or university. You have a clear idea of where you want your organization to be, and now it’s time to start making your way there.  The process of transforming the way your organization operates for the better can be both exciting and at times overwhelming, so we have compiled some useful tips for executing your Pre-Enrollment Service Improvement Plan. There are essentially three key components to keep in mind for optimal plan implementation:

1) Spread the Word
Share the findings from your baseline customer service delivery measurements, and also your clearly articulated goals, with everyone on campus.  That means administrators, faculty, groundskeepers, the school mascot, everyone. Each and every person at your institution will have a role in making prospective students feel welcomed and wowed, so it’s key that they are all well-informed and apprised of the plan.

In this day and age of social media, it’s not too difficult to spread the word on the things you do to make prospective students and parent feel great. In addition to creating a formal internal communication announcement, feel free to Facebook and tweet away! Going viral can work to your advantage in this case.

2) Involve
Engage every person on campus in the plan with clear and actionable instructions and objectives. Express to each person how key their role is, and offer specific ways they can get involved towards helping the institution improve its customer service. For example, one of our very successful clients presents every visiting prospective student and family member a bright red Welcome Packet at the beginning of their campus tour and asks them to keep it with them throughout the day.  Every employee, professor and even other students know that they should go out of their way to welcome and help those bearing the Red Folder.  Research at that campus shows that even though the prospects didn’t know that they were particularly visible, they felt that they had just experienced one of America’s most friendly and helpful campuses.

Another payoff of including everyone in the master plan is greater cohesiveness and engagement within the school community. Working towards a common goal together will elicit the kind of infectious school spirit and pride that will make your college a desirable place to be.even though the prospects didn’t know that they were particularly visible, they felt that they had just experienced one of America’s most friendly and helpful campuses.

3) Reinforce
Call out positive behavior.  Remember gold stars from grade school? They were effective because everyone likes to be recognized and appreciated for his or her efforts. Have a grownup gold stars system in place to identify and acknowledge exemplary service.  Catch folks doing the right thing and celebrate the act. When a groundskeeper is taking particular care to make the campus look good; when the switchboard operator is helping with a smile on her/his face and in her/his voice; when a professor takes the extra minute to visit with a student; applaud the action.  Newsletters, bulletin boards, a special recognition email all can be used to acknowledge excellence in pre-enrollment service. This is another opportunity to utilize the power of social media to broadcast good works and kudos. Give every member of your school the opportunity to be a campus rock star, and they will embrace the challenge.

If you follow these tips and get everyone engaged in improving the pre-enrollment experience, your campus will soon be buzzing with excitement and radiating excellence and positive energy that are impossible not to notice. You will likely find that your campus becomes a place where others want to be, and also becomes a source of greater pride for those who already call it home.

Longmire and Company conducts pre-enrollment customer service surveys for colleges across the country. We are more than happy to share the nationally aggregated data we’ve collected and initiatives that colleges have successfully implemented to deliver improved customer service. Just give us a call at (913) 492-1265 or send us a request using our Contact Us page.