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On to the main event…
Enrollment Pressure and Reality Shows
Happy Friday, dear readers. Some of you have been back from spring break for a few weeks; others are just heading out. I’ve heard a pattern of comments this month wondering out loud if the two week March independent school break so prevalent in some areas is a) wise or b) sustainable with earlier grades and parents who need to find child care coverage. One week? It’s doable to patch it together if you need to. Two weeks is another story.
What is your market telling you? Are you asking? And either way, are you willing to listen to the feedback if it doesn’t line up with your prior beliefs?
And thus this brings me to today’s topic about your market and enrollment efforts. Of course, this is related to the fact we’re in yield season, that time of year where many heads have hopes and dreams and then in mid-April, deals with the reality moving forward.
One blog post and one LinkedIn post have lingered in my mind this early spring. There’s this recent blog post by Dana Nelson-Isaacs, discussing the two phenomena she’s seeing really squeeze schools - declining demographics and oversupply of independent school options. Facts.
And then there’s this LinkedIn post from Peter Mason at Creosote Effects (Peter was formerly at TABS) a marketing and branding firm. The power in this post is just how nakedly it lays out the bottom line: the market for independent school education is still essentially driven by a search for high quality academics. Schools are in practice accepting a much broader range of learners than ever before. Not all schools are equipped to manage this and faculty strain is sometimes translated into murmurings in the market and at the board level that the school “isn’t what it used to be.” But “community” is not enough to make a parent part with tuition dollars. And heads and schools need to actively make the case for DEI and SEL programming as an essential component of a school’s outstanding academic program.
Every day, I appreciate the complexities of independent schools. It’s amazing the range and variety of missions and the number of passionate people who wake up every day excited to get to work, and to work with kids. How tricky they are to manage. How expensive and complicated they are to operate.
So there is something refreshing to me about the bottom line of it all in both these posts. Maybe it’s not all that complicated. Get real about your demographics and your market. Maybe all the new programs or pivots or added frills won’t create many more potential students, at least in the predictable future. Public schools remain a free option and extra curriculars of all kinds continue to blossom at a significantly less expensive price point. Be realistic about what your market wants. Identify a significant differentiator that has resonance in your target market. Ensure your academic experience is top notch.
And it keeps making me think of the old BBC version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
Stick with me here!
Before the Fox TV version with the dramatic music and the staged theatrics, in the mid-2000s, the BBC created a show with Gordon Ramsay where he went to four struggling restaurants a season to diagnose their problems and then guide them in an attempted turnaround. This is now a familiar and melodramatic formula, but the original show was low budget and authentic and other than the weird scenes that include Ramsay talking to the camera while changing his shirt, what came across is the chef engaging with the real people struggling to operate these restaurants despites times or taste changing. He’s brisk and direct but also charming and funny, not the screamer of Hell’s Kitchen or the US Kitchen Nightmares. And there was always a one month follow up at the end.
Culture is hard to change! Because really, the BBC version is about how even in the face of a demonstrable need for change, there are very human complications in making it happen. And often everyone is running themselves ragged trying to make it work, despite what the market is telling them and someone it seems preferable to continue on in a state of futile exhaustion instead of accepting the need for change.
You may not be at the Independent School Enrollment Nightmare place yet, but you may be worried! Here are three takeaways to consider:
Are you offering a fine dining experience to a gastropub market?
Get Real About Your Market
In one episode, Ramsay works with an owner who had a dream to own a fine dining restaurant. So he took over a Michelin star restaurant in a small country town. Except the restaurant had seen better days even as it still charged Michelin star prices. Except there were now other dining options for really good food but in a less fussy atmosphere and a much lower price point. Except times have changed and there was no market for the kind of fine dining this owner envisioned. And the owner is desperate, exhausted and angry that customers are not appreciating the wonderful food he is offering.
He can keep killing himself innovating and trying sous vide or foams or neat little stacks of beautiful food in ten course tasting menus. The market doesn’t want that kind of food or that kind of experience. Sure, can an occasional Noma become an international sensation with a year-long wait list for dinner on a farm outside Copenhagen? Yes. What’s the market for multiple Nomas? (You’re seriously asking that question, with maybe some hope in your eyes?)
Even if your food is incredible, it will take a huge amount of luck to make that vision succeed. Is your food and your restaurant experience Noma level incredible? Honestly? Maybe it’s a better idea to channel all your energy and creativity into something your market actually wants.
Is the Food as Good as You Think It is? Really?
Get Real About Your Offerings
You’re using grandma’s sausage lasagna recipe and you’re so proud of it, and talk it up as a speciality of the house, but ignore that plates are coming back barely touched? Do you keep adding new items to the permanent menu every time you hear of something another neighboring restaurant is doing well? Do you ignore a young chef’s ideas for editing old menu items and adding new ones, even though he’s the one who’s seeing what’s going out of the kitchen - and what’s coming back?
The ritual of Ramsay ordering a variety of menu items from a restaurant he’s there to rescue is a hallmark of all his Kitchen Nightmare shows. On the US version, it’s often very theatrical with gagging and spitting-into-napkins. On the BBC version, it’s often just,,, not great. A piece of duck that takes a full minute to chew. A deep fried… something. Wilty lettuce. The food doesn’t have to literally be trash to be tanking a restaurant’s business. Meh food isn’t why you go spend hard earned money in a restaurant. And one would think producing meh food isn’t why anyone gets into the notoriously difficult restaurant business anyway.
This gets to my number one pet peeve about independent school culture - Best Year Ever Syndrome. It can’t possibly always be the best year ever. But it’s hard to hear grandma’s sausage lasagna maybe isn’t really that good - it’s heavy and greasy and that bechamel sauce might need a serious revision. You always loved it, or at least you love the memory of it. It’s what makes your food, your food. It’s food as love. And who’s going to be honest with you about grandma’s lasagna? Probably not the people who report to you, even though it is likely a subject of a lot of talk behind your back.
People vote with their feet. If no one is ordering the lasagna, or they order it, send it back largely untouched and then politely leave, never to return again, pay attention.
Is the Restaurant Functioning Well?
Is Your Leadership Fuzzy?
Leadership and management done right is relentlessly hard and draining. It takes a ton of discipline. It doesn’t mean it’s without its joys and satisfactions as well, but it’s a tough job, it’s hard to prepare for taking on the job as the big boss, and there’s a lot of trial and error to get the balance of authenticity, vision communication, keeping people on track with both carrots and sticks, being present with people and making people feel seen for their efforts while maintaining appropriate boundaries, providing honest, valuable, accurate feedback and mentorship, keeping all these different people singing from the same hymn book, and being clear about lines of authority even when you suspect it will rock the boat. And then there’s the perennial favorite, not giving in to the desire to be liked.
Phew! That is all exhausting. Who wants to do that as a full time job?
As it turns out, not many people!
Other than the food and the style of dining, the next biggest problem Ramsay encounters is fuzzy leadership. You have demoralized owners who are exhausted but everything they do doesn’t seem to lead to success. They’re crabby or mopey, blaming the market for not understanding or properly appreciating the restaurant. You have partners or family members with unclear lines of authority that confuse the rest of the staff. You have chefs or owners who are so palsy-walsy with staff no one takes them seriously. You have angry owners or chefs who only understand hard power as power with a go-to move of yelling at already overworked staff. You have interpersonal conflicts bubbling under the surface that boil over during moments of stress.
One one revisit episode, Ramsay sees that while the adjusted style and food quality has generally stayed on track, overall efforts are beginning to fray because the chef/owner has reverted to a very, shall we say, informal management style which leads to power vacuums happily filled by strong personalities.
I’m not saying this stuff is easy - it’s so hard! Thus, why it’s so interesting. And with the added stakes of education and kids’ lives it makes the situation so much more compelling than the goal of creating a delightful dining experience.
But if you can’t get clear on the basics, or if there’s no will at the top (the board/head of school level) to get clear on the basics, then settle in and circumstances will happen to you, whatever may come. If you have a lack of customers, It’s not likely to resolve itself and be pretty. And if you keep doubling down on doing the same old, same old, you’re just going to burn out the faculty and staff - and all for what?
Finally, let’s say in a best case scenario where your customers are dwindling, you listen to your market. Related to Peter Mason’s point about welcoming in a wider range of learners - you then need to get real that your experience can meet these needs, or else, the new families will be heading to another restaurant in short order. And that you have faculty who are prepared, equipped and supported to meet their needs or else they’ll take off their aprons and head to another restaurant down the street.
So watch a few of the old UK Kitchen Nightmares. Maybe even watch an episode with your team. What’s getting in the way of you all getting real? Do you ever all just retreat to the bar and complain that if only there was more of a marketing budget, you’d have a line out the door on Friday night? It’s hard to admit to the bigger problems because a market problem is a hard problem to solve. But it’s not impossible. What is absolutely true is that while it might be fun to reminisce about the past or bond you to complain about the present, it’s not going to keep you afloat for long.
And the big secret? Actually getting real is not as painful as worrying about how painful it will be to get real.
Truth.
I’ve said it before and it bears repeating - I’ve spent the bulk of my career worrying about enrollment. I’m cheering you on, admissions folks. You will kill it with your yield efforts. (But don’t forget to keep advocating to your boss that maybe you need a little reality in the mix, too?)
Enjoy the weekend -
Julie