Is your school growing?

We all love data when evaluating the success of marketing campaigns, website redesigns or the performance of our admissions teams. But are we using it to establish our growth strategies? We should!

When working to increase enrollment in your school, setting executable and attainable goals to drive your strategies is a must. There is nothing wrong with making them difficult, just not impossible. Setting unattainable targets do more damage than good. It deflates the team and likely impacts agendas across the entire operation. So how do we create a successful growth plan?

Below is a quick clip of a workshop we did for the Virginia Highlands Small Business Incubator on becoming an Artreprenuer. We cover the basics of establishing your business, finding opportunities and using digital marketing to grow. More to come!

This article by Partner Chris Davie originally appeared in the September 2015 issue of ProSound News and touches on the new Department of Education's "Gainful Employment" regulations and their potential effects on Pro Audio Educators and Students.

Have you ever been caught off guard by a really challenging question? Not one of those difficult and uncomfortable parenting questions from your inquisitive child that I can only imagine gets your tongue tied. Instead a question so simple it’s complicated. What is your leadership style? Most leaders have been asked to describe their own leadership style in some setting. Whether it’s by a staff member or during an interview this can be a complex topic to discuss. In fact it probably raises a series of additional questions. What type of leader do they want me to be? What should I say? What’s the wrong type of leader? What is the trendy or hip response? What was Steve Jobs leadership style? Is there even a right answer?

One of the areas Sonority Group works closely with clients on is their focus.  In a recent meeting with the CEO of a small business, he expressed his struggles staying focused on the things that will really move his organization forward. Instead his time is filled with all the daily to-dos, keeping people on-task and the demands of running his own company. Our conversation shot me back almost 20 years to the moment my views on focus where shaped from a pretty nasty mountain bike wreck.

As I was being interviewed for an article that explores the state of education and training in broadcast audio by Dan Daley of Sports Video Group, it dawned on me how this issue affects so many other types of professions and the schools training in those professions. Not a new topic but one that got me thinking. How does an industry needing qualified new talent, that will be gainfully employed, keep their pipeline filled if students are not attracted to the programs training them in these particular areas?

"If you do the education right... the business will follow". I've had some pretty sharp conversations as a result of this statement over the years. Some in agreement and some adamantly on the other side. I'm a true believer that when we ground our decisions on a few simple principles, decisions are easily made, trust is built and everyone grows.

-Chris

I remember exactly the moment I heard a colleague say “Sometimes it’s better to be decisive than right” for the first time. We were discussing the hiring process for 2 open positions within our company. He introduced a new hiring concept to me of having a group information session for interested applicants, then scheduling individual interviews for those who stood out. This was such a foreign concept for me that I had to be convinced that it was going to work. I was guilty of being stuck in the “This is the way we’ve always done it” mindset and I was admittedly skeptical already.