The avalanche of Back to School marketing is about to be unleashed with schools inundated with hundreds of cold emails each week and dozens of free webinar invites.
Standing out from the crowd in this busy busy channel is now very difficult so today I'm proposing something different. Not only really different, but also unexpected. Because if this lands for you, it could 10x your lead generation.
๐ 10x your school sales
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๐ค Does being different really work?
Let me give you some examples that have worked for me over the years:
My first company, LearnMaker, offered technology training and implementation services to schools. Most of the work available was just inset training sessions. Worth just ยฃ350 a go. We created a free 'technology audit' service, visiting site and spending time to understand their goals against their current technology and budget.
Today this sounds like a standard process but this was 2012, a different time where most training was pre-sold by hardware resellers. Going direct to schools was unheard of.
At LearnMaker we sold 'termly projects,' starting from ยฃ2k (although many ended up spending more than ยฃ3,500 with us - 10x the revenue of an inset training day). It led to appointed on 2 PFI new school build projects, both 5 figure revenues, and within a year, we were so busy we no longer offered one off inset training session.
In the early years of Arbor Education, rather than fight it out in the BETT arena trying to get the attention of MAT leaders, we rented the restaurant on the concourse and offered an invite-only lunch. Each day 100-150 MAT senior MAT leaders joined us for lunch where we had 1:1 time building rapport and understanding their needs. It 10x'd the pipeline for the year ahead. Arbor still do every year.
More recent still - since Easter I worked with Chalkie AI to build out school sales processes. Their 'be different' tactic was that they gave out really nice, colourful socks at events. There are no sweets, pens or notebooks on their stands. Only socks. Teachers would come seeking out the stand at shows because they've seen a colleague with Chalkie socks - FOMO in action!
๐ก The ultimate 10x marketing opportunity? Mini tools!
Steal any of the above examples and try them yourself. That's what most marketing is after all.
But if you're going to try something, try the one that has me really excited - mini tools!
If you're not familiar with these, let me quickly define them.
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A mini-tool is an easy, fast way to interact with a company. There's no sign up required (it's not a freemium product) and it's not a trial of your main product. Both of those introduce too much friction (requirement to enter an email or talk to a salesperson). That reduces conversion and slows everything down.
A mini tool should be the fastest and easiest way to get someone to interact your company.
Here's some examples I use regularly:
๐ฅ Growth Hack: Repurpose your existing expertise or features
The easiest way to make one is to take a tiny slice of what you're already doing and make it available to teachers or schools for free.
The secret recipe is to find something that:
- Provides an immediate benefit (or solves a problem)
- Showcases your full product or service
- Is good / fun enough to drive users to want more from you
๐ค But wait, I don't code - how do I build a mini-tool?
I don't code either, and this is precisely why I'm so interested in mini-tools right now because with any AI tool that has coding functionality (ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Base44), you can build these mini-tools without writing a single line of code.
Previously you'd have needed a software engineer but today you can start building and releasing mini tools with as little as a ยฃ12 monthly subscription.
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โ๐ซ How do I make school sales from my mini tools?
There are dozens of ways to get your mini tool into the hands of teachers and school decision makers. The key is to turn these people into advocates for your paid product. This requires more skills / planning, which is why I'm starting the School Sales Club. This is a private community where I'll be working closely with ambitious teams to scale school revenue showing you what works, as well as doing deep dives on how I'm using AI to 10x my own sales processes.
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As always, thanks for reading. If there's something specific you want me to write about, let me know. Until next time, all the best Jay!
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