September offers enrollment leaders a brief opportunity to collect their breath. With orientation in the rearview mirror at most schools, efforts now pivot to the next recruitment class. If you’re coming off a great class there is energy for the road ahead, but for many the recent class offers a stark reality of the ongoing challenges.
So how quickly should you turn the page on last year? Too many leaders bypass looking back to calibrate for the journey ahead.
These four steps for September will position you for success next fall:
- Don’t go too fast to look back. Create an honest post-census report. There is always more to do in enrollment but reflection is often omitted from the to-do list. Avoid this trap! Good or bad, your previous efforts need to be documented after fall census. Most people fall prey to the fundamental attribution error and chalk a good year up to great teams and a bad year up to uncontrollable factors (e.g., Covid fallout, demographic cliffs, inflation, etc.). As an enrollment leader you must have a firm grasp on reality to change the trajectory of your recruitment. Don’t skip getting to the bottom of your results (especially if they were good) by completing a thorough post-census report. At bare minimum, this report should break your enrollment funnel into granular details, outline the efficiency of your financial aid, recap the performance of your visit program, and detail the strategies used to deliver these results. This will be invaluable to you and your institution in the years ahead.
- Refine your strategies for the year. Too many leaders create a set-it-and-forget-it plan in the summer. Once you have your post-census report you should revisit how effective your strategies will be to overcome your obstacles. Admissions is cyclical so it is tempting to roll out the same visit program, communication sequence, and travel philosophy. This only makes sense if you are certain that your upcoming challenges are exactly the same as your previous ones (not likely given the pace of change in the marketplace). Create time for a focused review of your recruitment strategies for the year and whether or not they need revision.
- Allocate your resources (money and time) around your biggest opportunities. Budgets and teams are often deployed in a similar way from one year to the next. Instead of this, ask yourself a few questions based on the insights from your post-census report. First, do you have the right people in the right structure doing the right things? Second, what resources are needed to be shifted to be successful? All of us would like a bigger budget but there are innovative and strategic ways to re-allocate your funds and people to go after opportunities that can change your enrollment outlook. Innovation and creativity show up most when there are clear parameters.
- Win or lose, acknowledge your team’s effort. Whether you achieved your goals or not, your teams need to feel like their work matters. Early in my 20+ year career I was told enrollment teams are either “the hero or the goat.” This binary approach to recruitment is one reason why there is rampant turnover in admissions. I’m not suggesting a missed goal is worth a party, but maturity develops and teams come together when adversity is faced. If you’re in enrollment for long, you’ll undoubtedly face it. The key is how you handle it because your employees are watching.
As you forge ahead with your enrollment teams you must go slow to go fast. My own experience in turning around enrollment fortunes in adverse circumstances and now helping other leaders do the same confirms the importance of starting with clarity (post-census report), moving to focus (making refined strategic choices to alignment), and ending with alignment (deploying people and budget appropriately). These three things, alongside a winning culture, will set you up for the best possible hope of future success.
–Ryan Dougherty is the Principal Partner at TG Three with over 20 years of experience building successful enrollment teams and strategies
TG Three is a strategy company that helps Christian colleges grow their people and their enrollments through hiring, strategy, and coaching. We believe that sustained success comes from the right people (hiring), working together (strategy), over time (coaching).
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