Understanding your would-be client

In previous posts, I have made it clear how important it is to understand your client if you are to make any sort of headway in providing for their needs.

Now let’s take this to a deeper level. We have decided that mass marketing to schools and trusts is not really effective in selling what is often a complex value proposition within a high-walled buyer setting. Let’s have a look at a better approach.

If we are to get inside the mind of a school and/or a trust, we have to understand its mission. Before you write off such a comment as screamingly obvious, hold your horses. Of course, all schools and trusts are going to talk about enabling the child/young person to learn and develop within a safe environment. On the outside of the tin, so to speak, the offerings of schools and trusts, look quite similar. They try to outdo each other with their aspirational names, strap lines and logos. But what is really telling is how they are organised.

It’s not that difficult to find the organisation charts and operational models for most trusts. Have a look at a number of these and you will begin to see a bit more variety. What can you glean from this? For example, how dominant is the leadership of teaching and learning? Is this accountability held by the chief executive, by headteachers, or by a director of standards (or similar)? This should give you more than a hint as to how you might shape your messaging. If the CEO has this as a dominant aspect of their role, then you get a sense of the primacy of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment in the way the trust is run.

Look next at the agenda and minutes of the education committee (or similar) and have a look at what the trust is focused on. Is there anything that directly connects with your product? If so, work out how you would articulate its value proposition in a way that speaks directly into the issue that the trust is wrestling with. Replicate the language that is used in the reports that you have found. By doing so, you are beginning to act as a native, rather than an alien.

Have a go. Do share your findings. We can learn from each other in this critical aspect of our journey.