Private Education: The Ultimate Trust Fall
Focused School Identity
Trust Us, We Know What We’re Doing
If you’ve been in one of my workshops, you’ve likely heard me say, “Private education is the ultimate trust fall.” Why do I repeat this mantra? Because most schools ask families to take a significant risk with no clear picture of what to expect for their investment.
Think about it. Essentially, we’re saying, “Hey, I know we just met, but trust me, we know what we’re doing here. Just give us your kid, your money, and the next 12-14 years, and — wow — it’s going to be great!”
Families are evaluating future outcomes based on your reputation, your website, a few social posts, and 60-120 minutes of interactions during tours, interviews, and follow-ups. They’re seeking clarity around your school’s identity, your approach, your programming, and your people.
And, frankly, the decision-making process is way harder than it should be. Why? There are two reasons. First, prospective families are not savvy buyers of private education because they don’t make this decision often. It’s not like a one-click purchase on Amazon they’ve done time and time again. This is a complex, nuanced decision with massive long-term implications. And, they’re going with their gut, hoping and praying they’re making the right call.
Second, schools struggle to express who they are and what they’re good at. Their websites have thousands upon thousands of words, but often more noise than signal. That’s because they have not done the deep work of determining, defining, and articulating their differentiators. They may think they’re different in ways they’re really not (i.e., “It feels like family here”). Or they may highlight differentiators that don’t matter to the customer (i.e., “We’re the oldest private school in the county”). They compete on points of parity, gradients of better, and the intangibles of school culture, which can only be fully appreciated once enrolled. From the family’s perspective, all things being equal, they’ll choose a school based on social standing, convenience, or (heaven forbid) cost.
And families can’t be faulted for making a decision based on short-sighted criteria. They don’t know what’s at stake because they’ve never been presented with a compelling view of the school’s value proposition.
The Three Parts of Your School’s Value Proposition
I’ve taken the scenic route to get to the point. What is your school’s value proposition? Perhaps it would help to define my terms here, as there are as many definitions for “value proposition” as there are consultants, marketing professors, textbooks, and AI platforms. For the sake of clarity, here is how our team at Tassel® defines “value proposition” for private schools:
For the Right-Fit Family™, if you engage in our proven process, here is the outcome you can expect.
Three parts, one timeless pursuit.
Part 1 – For the Right-Fit Family: The implication here is that your leadership has clearly defined a Right-Fit Family™. Your school isn’t for everyone. There are families who express interest in your school who are simply not the right fit for what you’re doing. Your value proposition has to be valuable for a certain subset of the market. Due to philosophy, proximity, price, etc., you will be out of reach or just plain undesirable for a significant percentage of families in your community. And that’s as it should be.
Part 2 – If you engage in our proven process: The second part of our value proposition definition has two built-in assumptions. Let’s deal with the second one first: “if you engage in our proven process.” This assumes that your school has a proven process, a methodology, a way of educating students. If your school has been in business long enough to graduate a class, then, clearly, you have a process.
But is it defined? Is it documented? Is your model for education students commonly understood among faculty and staff, featured in your marketing and admissions process, and the focus of ongoing continuous improvement? If not, you’re essentially saying to your school community, “Trust us, we know what we’re doing.” And your proven process has to work, not for two out of 10 exceptionally bright students, but for eight or nine out of 10 average students who fit your Right-fit Family™ Rubric.
The other built-in assumption in part 2 of our value proposition definition is the word “if.” You can have a proven process, but you can’t make the student (and, by extension, the parents) do the work. They have to take the initiative to work the process. By the way, there’s a third assumption in this part of the definition — that your school has clearly defined mutual expectations between the home and school. We call that the Portrait of a Partnership™.
Part 3 – Here is the outcome you can expect: So, where is this going? What can we expect from your proven process? These are fair questions and reasonable expectations from families who are paying six figures for a private education over the course of their child’s PreK-12 experience. What value are we going to receive? Many schools answer these questions by hammering out a Portrait of a Graduate. Unfortunately, this exercise is often an onerous task carried out in pursuit of accreditation requirements. Some schools will even go so far as to ask the question: “What should we be doing to grow into this portrait?” But the reality is that if a parent has a kid going into kindergarten, your Portrait of a Graduate isn’t really that relevant or impactful. That’s 13 years away from now, and they have no idea if they’ll be here at that point. They’re more interested in a Portrait of a Kindergartener. And then a Portrait of an Elementary Schooler, etc. How will their child grow, develop, learn, and mature as they go through the Ages-and-Stages® at your school? If you’re not prepared to answer this question, your value proposition isn’t nearly as strong as it could be.
The Four Fundamental Questions that Inform Your Value Proposition
Many independent and faith-based schools are not positioned to articulate their value proposition because they have never asked and answered the right questions. They lack internal clarity. Therefore, it stands to reason that they can’t expect people outside the school to have a greater level of clarity than they have. So, what are the right questions?
- What do we do?
- Who do we do it for?
- How do we do it?
- Why do we do it?
Perhaps you can relate. Does your school have a compelling value proposition? If so, how would you explain it to a prospective family? Or, perhaps a better test would be to ask current members of your community what your value proposition is. You may be surprised by what you hear.
It’s always a good time to pursue clarity. And the schools that do the deep work of defining reality can tell a differentiated, compelling story that positions them to win with right-fit families. Why? Because they’re making it a lot easier when families don’t feel like they’re being asked to take a trust fall.
Contributing Voices
