Best Practices in Grad & Adult Admissions & Marketing

I've been submitting a round of new conference proposals. Tis is an opportunity for me to think critically about the issues and concerns I've heard most often over the past year. Knowing what you're struggling with helps me to develop the ideas and strategies you need to improve results.

One of those areas I've been hearing about is a need for outside professional admissions training opportunities for your recruitment team. There are plenty of opportunities out there for mid and senior-level management staff. Have you seen CALEM?

Yet other than the national and regional association conferences, there aren't many opportunities for the staff directly responsible for converting students. Thus we have developed two such opportunities for staff.

So how do you even know if you should be considering training for your staff? Here are four signs I look for when working with schools to determine if they need some additional help and training.

It's a question admissions, enrollment and marketing staff should be asking themselves every week. It's a question I ask often and early in a project. Unfortunately it isn't a question I have answered with many new clients.

Continuing education & adult program units are ignored until they creep into the realm of traditional programs - or until an institution needs their cash flow. And in this case, it was both.

Do you receive any emails from sales professionals? Do they read something like this?

"I want to personally invite you to schedule a live demo..."

"I saw you on LinkedIn and thought you might find our new web series helpful."

"I'm not sure if you are the right person to discuss this at your college, but..."

Who do you think those emails are for? Are they for you? Or are they for the sales person?

Over the next 10 weeks, I will be wrapping up one of my longer, most intense consulting projects to date. I had the wonderful opportunity to roll my sleeves up and jump back into the world of admissions.

There are few people, or so it seems, that have a neutral opinion of Donald Trump. It's hard to even find a TV newscast discussing politics that has positive things to say about the man, or his political ideas and views.

When I go into a visit with a school and speak directly with the recruitment team, one of the most common frustrations I hear is the lack of time to get all of their work and tasks completed. So, I am sharing some of the ideas and tactics I've collected over the years.

If you know much about personality types, you may recognize my Myers-Briggs type, ENFP. For the purposes of this article, let me share that ENFP's aren't the most focused of all the types - in fact, they may be the least focused. So I have had to use many of these tactics over the years to get projects completed and accomplished.

Let's start with the elephant in the room: How can I get through ALL of the email I receive every day? Well, while this concept is certainly not new, it is one that can dramatically improve the number of tasks you complete in a day.