biz.edu
Crazy Times Call for Crazy Ideas

What bugs you most about
implementing new ideas at
your institution?

We don’t seem to have
time for that.

Needing to be in control of
the message, not wanting
to take risks, fearing the
1% that may abuse it.

Good ideas get ruined or
watered down at the middle
manager level due to fear
and inexperience.

New ideas do not happen
often enough.

Need to copy or only
do things that others
are already doing.

How many people need
to voice an opinion.

Change will not come if we wait
for some other person or some
other time. We are the ones
we've been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.

Managing Expectations
Situational Analysis
Brian Goes Crazy
Your Responsibility

1 Declaration of Demise
4 Recent Examples
1 Personal Story

The Pedagogical
Divide of 2009.

I’m a professor and I have knowledge.
You’re a student and an empty vessel.
Get ready, here it comes. Your goal is to
take this information into your short
term memory and through practice
and repetition, build deeper cognitive
structures so you can recall it to me
when I test you.

A definition of a lecture is the
process by which the notes of
the teacher go to the notes of
the student without going through
the brains of either.

Non-Sequential.
Interactive.
Asynchronous.
Multi-tasked.
Collaborative.

Talk At Teaching

Talk At Marketing

15%
10%

I.O.U.

100 Most
DENIED
$$$ Needy
Accepts

$47k per year
$20k per year

Is an undergraduate degree
from Northeastern worth $108k
more than an undergraduate
degree from UConn? !"#

June 2009
71%
National Association for College Admission Counseling

53%
U.S. Department of Education, 2009

Whew!
Let’s Begin ...

Language.

You provide a service.
You accept money for it.
You have delivery costs.
You pay people.
You may (or not) have profits.

It’s a Business.
It’s time to stop thinking
it’s something else!

Business
Consumers or Customers
Sales & Marketing
Costs, Return, Investment
Experience

Sales.

Salesperson
if your admissions people don’t like
that, they should get another job

Match the product or
service you offer with
people who have a
demand for that
product or service.

Hire different people.
Train them differently.
Provide different tools.
Create different plans.
Set different goals.

Sales Tip #1
If you listen, your customers
will tell you what they want.

Sales Tip #2
Ask the prospective customer
for their business.

The sales team should be
the highest paid people in
the organization.

62%
Noel Levitz, 2009

Support.

6X
Xerox Sales Training Institute

It takes a
community.

Urgency.

Complacency.

False Urgency.

Authenticity.

We’re such a
friendly place!
Even the teachers
know my name and
say “hi” to me!

4,276

Differentiate or Die.
(but be authentic)

What’s your
elevator pitch?

“Average Kids
Succeed Here.”

Focus.

What is your college
“in business” for?

Bookstore
Food Services
Information Technology
Housing
what’s next?

Cost.

Calculate Actual Cost
On Your Website
7%
93%
Wanted To
27% Able To

Leadership.

Shared
Governance

Clear vision
Hire great people
Get out of their way
Hold them accountable!

Death to the
$"%%&''((!!

A committee is a group of
people who individually can do
nothing, but who, as a group,
can meet and decide that
nothing can be done.

A decision is what one makes
when he can't find anybody
to serve on a committee.

Any committee that is of the
slightest use is composed of
people who are too busy to want
to sit on it for a second longer
than they have to.

The optimum committee
has no members.

A committee is a group that
keeps minutes and loses hours.

A committee is where all
good ideas go to die.

Death to
%(('&)*+!!

Development.

Accountability.

Everyone is replaceable.
Everyone is accountable.
Everyone has ownership.

Do you know what
you spend your time
doing?

Experience.

Economic Progression
• Agrarian
• Industrial
• Service
• Experience

Avoid Commoditization
Charge a Premium Price
Pay When Never Did Before
Sell Memories

Stories.

Stories not Stats.
People not Programs.
Text
Michael Sexton, Dean of Admissions, Lewis & Clark College

Give Back.

1% of Profit
1% of Product
1% of Time

Language Leadership
Sales Development
Support Accountability
Urgency Experience
Authenticity Stories
Cost Give Back

Back to you.

Never underestimate the power
of a few dedicated people to
change the world.
It’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

Here’s to the
crazy ones.

biz.edu
Brian Wm. Niles
niles@targetx.com