In my work as an educational consultant who specializes in working with language schools, one question I am often asked is: How do you find a reputable educational agent?
Part of the answer is to avoid wasting your time with unproductive potential agents. That may sound harsh, but it isn?t when you consider that your reputation as a school is on the line. If youve ever been in the classroom, chances are that youve had a student who wants to monopolize your time in ways that dont contribute to the overall lesson or are just plain distracting or even bothersome.
As teachers, we learn how to handle students with all kinds of personalities and motives of their own. We learn to set boundaries with them while keeping the lesson focussed and hopefully avoid too much disruption in the classroom. That?s effective classroom management. We try to achieve this in ways that allow us to avoid embarrassing the student, if possible, while making it clear that as the teacher, were the one in control of the class and thats the way it should be. In fact, if we dont do that as teachers, we may lose others respect and not be taken as seriously.
The same idea applies to business relationships, particularly when it comes to others outside your school who want to work with you or represent you. The larger your program grows, the more people you will have knocking on your door wanting to work with you. Annoying though it may be, this is a good sign. It means you are being noticed and your image is one of success.
One of the ways that businesses get more business is to let the world know who their partners are. If an educational agent or tour operator can say they are working with ABC Language School and that school is well known in the community, either locally or internationally, then it lends them credibility and prestige.
Thats precisely why you want to take your time establishing new business relationships. It just may be that you dont want your name associated with that business.
One tactic that I learned while managing a university ESL program was to ask prospective new business partners or agents for a package in writing. Sometimes if the person was in the same city, either living here or just passing through, they would insist on a personal meeting first. I would gently but firmly state, in every case, that it was our policy to consider written proposal first, before a meeting. The reality was that the first few times I said that, I was fibbing. We didnt actually have such a policy. Having said that, we quickly created an internal policy that stated we had to receive all proposals in writing before a telephone or an in-person meeting.
Once everyone in the office knew the policy, we all stuck by it, asking frontline clerical staff to help prevent such calls coming through to us. One polite way for an administrative staff member to do this is to say, If you send the written proposal to my attention, I promise that will hand-deliver it to our manager to ensure she receives it. Anyone who took the time to send a proposal even a one-page, detailed letter would gain our attention, at least long enough for us to review the proposal.
If they couldnt deliver, we would gently but firmly stand our ground and move on. I was able to stop wasting time on agents and others who may or may not have had good intentions. And it also set out from the beginning who was in charge of our programs: we were.
That was the first step. From there, we requested references and examples of previous work done. If this caused our prospective business partner distress or caused them to become uncomfortable, we eliminated them from our list of possibilities.
Sometimes, the prospect would say, Oh, well our partners are located in a foreign country and no one here speaks the language. We would always reply that we were prepared to hire professional, accredited translators to check references. Very rarely did we ever hire a translator to check anyones references.
The steps we followed were:
* Insist on a written proposal first.
* If you receive a form letter or pre-made package, request more details on how exactly they would propose that you work together. Get this information in writing.
* Insist on references. If they cant or wont give these to you, the process ends there.
* Arrange a phone or in-person interview during which they do most of the talking. Ask about the history of the business, the persons credentials, and examples of experiences they have had working with other language schools.
* Close the meeting saying that you will consider their proposal and you will get back to them within a fixed amount of time (usually not more than one week, unless youre about to leave on a trip). Never agree to anything on the spot.
Part of the process involved abiding by our policies and the next step was to gauge the reaction of our prospective partners at certain points along the way. It became like a behavioral interview. If the other party wanted to bend our rules from the very beginning, insisted on doing things their way instead of ours or if they became frustrated, aggressive or unwilling to cooperate with us at any time, we knew we didnt want to work with them.
In the end, there can be any number of reasons why you would choose not to pursue a business relationship, including (but not limited to):
* The relationship may not be mutually beneficial.
* What the prospective agent wants to provide for you is not something you need at the moment (i.e. not a good fit from a business point of view.)
* The timing of the proposal is off. This can happen if you are undergoing changes in your organization. You can always ask the other party to check back with you again in six months.
* Your gut tells you that working with the other party would be a bad decision.
Although we sent some policies and procedures in place for dealing with prospective new business partners, the bottom line was for us to feel comfortable with the new person. You want your business partners to respect how you run your organization, be willing to provide you with what you need and be as interested in your success as you are.
Remember the 80/20 rule. 80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients. You want to ensure you have the time and energy to cultivate strong relationships with your top 20%. Part of being able to do this is to avoid those who have big ideas and good intentions, with no way of ever realizing their goals or yours. Be polite, be considerate and be firm.
Want to cite this article in your own research? Here?s the citation information for you:
Eaton, Sarah Elaine. (2010). Marketing ESL and other Language Programs: The Importance of Working with Excellent Agents? Retrieved from: ArticleSnatch.com
Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Calgary. She has worked as a marketing consultant for language schools since 2000. She?s also a dynamic and engaging speaker who has presented on her work in 7 countries. Book Dr. Sarah to speak at your next educational event! Check out her website at: http://www.eatonintl.com or follow her blog at http://www.drsaraheaton.wordpress.com
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