Tight Education Market Emphasizes Need for Smart Selling

Alan
Stern talked with Karen Meany of Simba's Electronic
Education Report (EER) about selling
educational materials and introducing new
products into the school market in challenging economic times.
Formerly national sales director for the Siboney Learning Group (St.
Louis), Stern now provides sales management services at Academic
Business Advisors (Chappaqua, N.Y.), helping clients identify the
right channel for their products and services. This article is copied from the December 1 Issue of EER with the author's permission.

EER:
How does a market downturn impact the selling process?

One
of the most important things is to position a product to address
specific needs, as opposed to a discretionary product or “nice to
have.” Also, as districts increasingly tighten up on spending,
publishers are going to have to provide measurable results for their
products; accountability for both results and purchases will be key.

EER:
What funding sources should companies look to now?

As
funding tightens, federal funding becomes more important. Th ere are
more specific requirements that control it; it’s difficult to
reallocate for purposes other than what it was intended for. Also,
there are specific time frames, quite often, where the funds do need
to be spent. What’s happening now is that federal funds are going
to be targeted by more and more of the publishers because they are
the available funds. Additionally, there are opportunities for
partnerships with corporations and foundations that are interested in
providing support for schools, especially as funding gets tighter.

EER:
What are the challenges for new companies in this
environment?

What
we try to do at ABA is to match the product and service
with the right sales channel. If the product is heavily
content-oriented, it is important to have someone who understands
what the content means and how it is implemented. If the product is
more administrative or data-oriented, it might do better with someone
with a different skill set.

The
biggest obstacle for the emerging companies is brand awareness.
Increasingly, the education market is being overwhelmed by marketing.
There is so much noise in the market now, it’s hard for a new
company to make headway. An advantage that wasn’t available before
is e-mail and Web marketing. They have leveled the playing field a
bit, but nothing beats feet on the street. Experienced salespeople
bring so much to the table, there is no better way to reach a
customer.

EER:
We hear that sales organizations are now partners with
schools, is this really happening?

Salespeople
who have been in the industry for awhile are
looked to as a resource. Schools have specific needs. Many schools
have a wealth of materials available to them. Quite often what
someone will say is: I don’t need one more book, I don’t need one
more software program, I need to solve a specifi c problem.
Increasingly, sales are focused on addressing that problem. It could
be an increasing ELL population or a change in state standards.

A
perfect example is what has been going on in California where there
is a requirement that all eighth-graders are going to take algebra.
All of a sudden that change requires a commensurate change in what
the support materials are. If you address the specific pain, not only
do you get a better response, but I think the schools get a better
result.

EER:
Does selling technology-enabled products to schools
require more long-term involvement than selling other educational
materials?

One
of the biggest problems with software is it makes a lot of sense to
present it and market it, but the use is where it falls off . The IES
(Institute of Education Sciences) study on the effectiveness of
software last year found no measurable results. But when you read the
study, two things stood out. Th e teachers felt they were
well-trained before they started using the software, but after they
started using
it they felt they were not well trained. Th at speaks right
away to professional development. The other point is no one
determined there was a need for the software with the students who
were using it.

Two
parts need to be considered: the nuts and bolts of the software—how
do you enter students, what kind of reports are available—but the
aspect that is likely to lead to better results is the implementation
of the software. In a school, there may be a basal textbook and
formative assessment being used, direct instruction going on and now
there’s a software component. If those components aren’t
integrated—if the teacher doesn’t know when to use the
appropriate part of the software with a specific chapter in the
textbook, for example—it will never be successful. The
implementation and integration of all the tools is important.

EER:
Are teacher learning communities and social networking sites
changing the selling process?

They
provide the ability for an emerging company to get more awareness in
the market, but it’s a slow process. I don’t know that anybody
has been able to quantify that they have increased their sales X%
because they are blogging or using RSS feeds. But teachers rely on
the recommendations of other teachers. Th e classic is when you walk
into a school and are asked who is using your product. Social
networking can go a long way and I think use of it is increasing. You
see larger companies, like Microsoft and major publishers, getting
involved.