103. Best of Series Replay: How Funnels Can Help Your School’s Enrollment Process with Jesse Meadow

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Tara: Hi, welcome back to the Mindful School Marketing Podcast. I’m Tara Claes, and today we are resharing a conversation from January 11th, 2023 with Jesse Meadows. This is one you’ll definitely want to hear. We explored how data can drive your school’s marketing decisions. 

Aubrey: this was a great episode. Jesse talked about how schools often neglect the top of the enrollment funnel, focusing primarily on conversions like applications and registrations, while overlooking the critical brand awareness stage that establishes long term recognition and trust with prospective families.

Tara: it was so helpful to learn that as digital marketing trends evolve, schools must prioritize collecting first party data and fostering collaboration between admissions and communications teams to effectively nurture leads and adapt to upcoming privacy regulations and market changes. If you’re looking to turn numbers into actionable insights, this episode is for you. 

Welcome to Mindful School Marketing. I’m Tara Clase. 

Aubrey: And I’m Aubrey Bursch. Today we’re joined by Jesse Meadow. Jesse Meadow is co founder and managing director of Schoolcraft Digital. Since 2020, he has been helping schools reach their prospective parents using long term, multi channel digital marketing strategies and tactics.

Welcome, Jesse! 

Jesse: Hey 

Tara: there. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. We’re so glad to meet you and have you on the show today. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? 

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you again. I’m very excited to be here as well and talk with the two of you. You know, myself. Oof, where do I start?

Father of two, uh, wonderful daughters that keep me, uh, entertained all day long. My lovely wife, uh, from New Jersey. We reside down here in Florida. So we kind of live a little bit of the vacation life, uh, all year round. But yeah, no, I went to, you know, private school boarding school when I was younger, uh, middle school and in high school, it was, it was a big, big part of my life.

And hence kind of where my passions were. I, I, Went back as an alumni, actually worked at the school, uh, for a long time, did some other things, traveled internationally, represented and got to meet a lot of, uh, other school, uh, professionals as well. And really just started to get my feet wet and here I am years, years later, still in the industry, still doing what I love to do and creatively finding ways to, uh, basically, you know, promote the, you know, the values and the offerings.

That, you know, private school education can do not just, uh, academically, but really, you know, from my own experience, character and emotionally, I really believe in a lot of what they do. So it’s very fun. And now we do digital marketing. Uh, so we’re trying to bring schools from, you know, the antiquated days of, you know, prints and mailers and billboards, and trying to expand that a little bit into the parents of today and making sure that, uh, they’re getting the consistent, you know, luxury item marketing that.

That’s, uh, you know, the rest of the industries are doing these days. 

Aubrey: That’s amazing. I love your story because you experienced kind of what it’s like to go to an independent school and, and, and then you kind of now have seen multiple sides of what that looks like. And I remember talking to you before the show about like looking at it from a parent perspective too, because you’re thinking school for my daughters.

School, you know, everything like that. So different, multiple perspectives. So we’re so excited to have you on the show. And I’m excited to dive in with you with a topic that I think is somewhat misunderstood by schools. At least when discussions that we’re having with them and that’s enrollment funnels.

So can you talk to us a little bit more about like, What is an enrolement funnel? Like how can a school use it effectively to really help their marketing efforts? 

Jesse: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, this has been a big educational piece as we go through the process of talking with schools as well. You know, typically in a role and funnel, essentially it’s the student journey or the family journey.

So, you know, prospect, inquiries, applicants, enrolled. But in marketing terms, you know, it generally follows much of the same thing as a sales. funnel. You know, we kind of modify it a little bit, but basically you’re going to have that brand awareness stage, you know, getting your name out there, getting families to know that you exist and what you offer.

Obviously getting them to take that action, you know, decision making, okay, we’re going a little bit further down that funnel. On the conversion end, you know, usually that it tends to be, uh, an application, uh, you know, getting that application in, that’s the strongest way to show that enrollment. And then there’s the advocacy part.

That’s really kind of after the marketing piece. There’s a lot of marketing that goes into it. But, you know, as far as us on the paid side, what we do, that’s really more of the schools, but that’s going to be your, you know, your attrition. How are you, you know, nurturing the leads that you’re getting?

through the enrollment process, the current students you have, how are you nurturing, nurturing them, giving them a great experience if they want to return every year and really become advocates and, and ambassadors, uh, for the school. So, you know, essentially it follows a lot of the model of the sales funnel.

But, you know, using some of the key points, I would say, uh, that admissions or an enrollment manager might be able to use. With, you know, their normal enrollment season. I don’t know if that helps explain it for you at all. 

Tara: It does. It does. I mean, I think it can seem overwhelming cause there are so many pieces and, and how they fit together.

What parts of the funnel do you think get the least attention or are the most challenging for schools? 

Jesse: You know, the biggest thing we’ve noticed with schools they, they’re big on checking boxes. So, you know, they, they are, are, uh, thinking that they’re doing a full on marketing when it’s really just a few months out of the year.

You know, it’s really just going to be, uh, a few different advertisements or content pieces that they’re pushing out at certain times. You know, really, they think they’re hitting this marketing piece where really what we’ve kind of dubbed it is it’s more of a random acts of marketing. Everything is really focused on the conversion.

Hey, let’s put this out here. Let’s get registrations. Let’s get you know, applications or let’s get inquiries or let’s get tours. And that’s really it. So, you know, I think for schools, they miss a lot of the top of the funnel because it doesn’t have a lot of action to it. You know, it’s really more about brand awareness.

You’re not really looking for conversions at this point. So that top of the funnel I think is, is kind of non existent for many schools. It’s really action and conversion. And then in, you know, the engagement part that we like to use or the advocacy part at the end, I think schools are aware of it.

Uh, and I think that they do their balancing acts as best they can. On how to, you know, get good retention and keep those families engaged. Uh, but I would say that, that top of the funnel, that, that brand awareness, that reach stage of the funnel is, is pretty much non existent for schools, you know, and, and the, and the value of it, it’s, it’s.

Obviously valuable in a long term marketing solution. I mean, you’re talking year over year, uh, you want to have your name out there. You want to build that brand recognition, uh, but on the school’s end, you know, everyone’s, uh, tight with budget tight with bandwidth, you know, you’re talking, uh, extra effort, extra money going into something that the ROI is not so directly linked and it’s such a long term, uh, part of the funnel.

That you know, maybe it’s, it’s, it’s not the biggest initiative that, that schools will have when they set out their marketing plans.

Aubrey: That makes a lot of sense. I’m curious, can you talk a little bit more like how does one think about the top of the funnel? If that seems to be one of the maybe overlooked areas, how does one kind of look at it and maybe think about it differently in terms of how it can better serve their school? 

Jesse: Right.

So I would say, you know, a lot of the mailers that actually go out that schools like to do they usually do it for, you know, open houses or different events that they have you know, that’s a very top of the funnel kind of thing. I know, I know they’re trying to get an action. Out of that, but you know, that is more of an awareness thing, a billboard that they put up or you know, some schools, uh, they have, uh, the movie theaters where they have the advertisements before the movies, you know, maybe not so much anymore from since the pandemic, but those are, you know, types of, uh, magazine articles are great ones.

If you’re, if you’re in a magazine at all, those are very top of the funnel things. That’s not something that’s going to designate an action for you, but it is an awareness that when you come in later. With an action piece, that awareness is there. That research is there. And, you know, another thing I would like to say that’s very important on the top of the funnel the generation of parents today are digital natives, the ghost applicants that everyone has seen is only going to rise.

They are doing their research before they get to you. By the time parents like myself or anyone else, you know, they’re going to be checking you out, they’re going to be redoing their own research. Uh, so the fact that 70, 70, maybe even 80 percent of that whole process is done by the time I contact you means what are you doing in the beginning stages of that to make them aware of what your values are?

What is your story? What are you offering? So I like to say, you know, that top of the funnel is a great way to one build a brand. If you got a great logo, especially if you’ve done any new projects or you know, new branding that you’ve done, maybe an acquisition of another campus or another school, you know that those are great top of the funnels, just, you know, get your name out there.

But really, it’s it’s a supportive effort so when you come in with those strong calls. It’s not the first time they’re hearing about you. You know, and like I said, that that research portion of families, you really want to be proactive in that and to think about it in terms of what are they finding out about us and what are we putting out there?

Uh, you can control that. And that’s really going to be a lot of the top of the funnel, even if it doesn’t directly go to an application right away. 

Tara: That makes a lot of sense and I, I can see how that would be something that’s missed because it’s, it’s, it’s hard to do. Yeah. But let’s talk about now another part of the funnel that’s hard to do and that’s conversions.

So what sort of conversion should schools see at each part of the funnel to move them through it? 

Jesse: a very good question, and it can vary a lot depending on what your campaign is. Uh, you know, we, we always talk about, uh, what are the goals of the campaign. Some of them can be a little bit more specifically, some of them can be very broad.

Uh, you know, we’ve had campaigns where the goal was to you know. they, their, their school was filled up, but they used a lot of financial aid to get there. So we were supposed to be getting attracting a lot of higher thresholds, uh, higher income threshold families. So those goals and conversions will be different from a general one.

So that will depend, I would say on a general basis, if you were to think of the stages as what they are, then whatever your specific campaign goal is, it will fit inside of that. For example, the reach stage, you know, your brand awareness stage. This is when they’re going to be researching your school.

This is when they’re going to be trying to find out a little bit more about you. So metrics that revolve around research are going to be great conversion metrics to look at how long are they spending on whatever landing page that you’re sending it? You know, if you’re bringing them to your website, are they going to multiple pages?

Uh, you know, what is their exit rate? Obviously, Whenever you’re doing paid marketing, you want to look at, you know, your click through rate. Is this actually, is this message actually working with our audience group? You know, but really it’s, it’s going to be those, how many new users are we engaging them?

How long are they spending? Are we seeing that they’re looking at different things? You know, that’s going to be great conversion metrics for a brand awareness stage. You know, when you get down to an action stage, you know, that decision making. These are smaller actions. This is not what we’re talking about.

Uh, the application, a tour might be, uh, involved in an action stage, but definitely open house registrations. You know, if you’ve got a special event or a carnival or something that you’re opening up to the public, you know, what are the registrations for that on? If it’s simply just to fill out an inquiry form or to get some information, download the digital brochure.

Those are all tiny little actions that require the family to give some sort of feedback, usually first party data like an email address and name. But those are going to be very key metrics. How many conversions did we have on those small little actions that we that we took there? I would say Sometimes with this stage, uh, bounce rate is going to be huge, uh, for the action stage, because, you know, bounce rate is really going to be, they went to whatever page we’re driving them to, and they took an action or they didn’t take an action.

And the whole point of this stage is for them to take an action. So bounce rate is going to be a key component. That’s going to be added into, you know, this decision making stage, keeping Keeping an eye on that. If that starts to get a little bit higher, you may want to look at the design layouts. You know, is your call to action clear enough?

Is it easy enough to find? So things like that. I wouldn’t say time on page is going to be the hugest thing like it is in brand awareness because you’re asking them to do a direct thing. And if you’ve done Your job. Well, you’ve taken them exactly where they need to go. So it shouldn’t be too time consuming to do.

And then when we get to conversions, obviously, this will be defined as what, whatever, you know, your goal is going to be, whether that’s an application, a specific type of application, you know, which type of family. And so, you know, tracking those goals along the way, you know, how many did that happen?

And then, obviously, when you get to this stage of the funnel What kind of cost did it take to get here? How many did we get? Now you can do your cost per leads. You can really get into a lot of the ROI during this stage. Your engagement, like I said, uh, for us, it’s really more on the school. But the school themselves, you know, they can look at, uh, their retention pieces.

You know, how, what is our attrition every year? You know, are we taking some intentional actions and then what were the results of those actions that we’ve gotten from our current families? This could be in a lot of variety of forms. Parent surveys could be great ones as well to get some feedback and get some metrics to use in that engagement stage.

But really, it’s all about the advocacy. You’re trying to build the advocacy, you’re trying to get students to re enroll year in and year out until they graduate. Come back as alumni like myself become big donors, you know, the whole full year cycle. So a lot of those metrics are really going to be geared towards engagement and retention on that on that end piece side.

If you wanted to get specific and maybe a little bit smaller picture. Uh, you could definitely use an engagement metric of, you know, a lead comes to the admissions officers and to your enrollment manager how many of those qualified leads or maybe even accepted students ended up converting into enrolled students and filled out, you know, all the matriculation paperwork and everything because that could tell you a little bit about your process from lead nurturing.

I get the lead to, you know, You know, the admissions office, maybe there’s some hiccups or some process steps that we need to fix and work on, uh, for families to really take the, take the big step into enrollment, the final end goal there. 

Tara: Yeah. I had kind of two things I wanted to ask you about, but I’m going to start with Google analytics because all the things that you’re talking about, I would hope that.

Most admissions people who are working on digital marketing are looking at their Google Analytics. So, all I just want to make a reference point for people that these this information, these metrics and data that you’re referring to in case they’re not aware of it. That’s information that comes from Google Analytics and Google ads.

Right. That’s right. Is that, am I correct? Okay. That’s right. 

Jesse: And Google Ads, obviously, because they’re synced with Google Analytics, will be a, a lot more detailed than what you might get with like your Facebook ads or anything of that sort. But the Google analytics side of things does track anything that’s on the website.

So even if you’re doing separate campaign ad hoc campaigns on different platforms, all of that detail will still be getting uh, built up and the data getting sent to you via Google analytics. So if you go in there, you can look at behaviors. You know, you can look on the acquisition side and that really kind of give you a breakdown of what you’re trying to look for.

And like I said, you know, when you’re looking at things, especially at the brand awareness stage You know, what are metrics that you would think someone that’s researching you, uh, what, what are those kind of metrics, time on page and things like that? All of that is in Google Analytics. Furthermore, if you really get good with it, YouTube, it’s very simple to do.

It, it seems, uh, very difficult, uh, to conceptualize, but if you actually just take a, you know, maybe an hour or two. You can really take a few short videos and figure out how to set up your Google Analytics goals. And you know, really on that back end piece, you can say, hey, my goals for this month, because we’re doing a brand awareness stage, are going to be at least two pages, uh, per visitor or this, you know, new visitors to the site.

And you can have all of these goals just accumulating in the background, which might make, uh, definitely would make You know, the, the analyzing the data that much easier. 

Tara: Yeah, I love working with goals in Google Analytics. It’s kind of almost like a hidden treasure there. I want to also kind of, uh, kind of dive in a little bit to the other part that you mentioned.

You talked about lead nurturing and we’ve talked to a lot of guests about that, about that relationship building and how that. Can often fall off for schools because they’re not managing once the leads come in. They’re not managing those. Do you consider that part of the funnel? 

Jesse: I would and I would put that more on the engagement side.

You know, I don’t really necessarily think that there’s any brand awareness that’s going on with that. And obviously you know, it might get thrown into the action. Uh, you know, if you’re trying to get them to take an action, for example, you know, if they haven’t, if they filled out an inquiry form, and you’re trying to get them to come on campus for a tour, uh, you know, that could fall into, you know, uh, the action stage, uh, for sure.

But generally speaking, you know, that lead nurturing, what are the processes, what what sort of automations do you have? To try to engage them and try to get them to complete the process, you know, for us, that really kind of falls into an advocacy part, because if you can make that that family journey from first touch point brand awareness, they come, it’s easy to find information, it’s easy to research about you, okay, now I want to contact the school, they get in touch with you, and then from that point on, you You’ve been in contact.

You’ve given them easy instructions. They’ve got a nice clear path to enrollment. You know, you take that one step further into now you’ve given them a nice, smooth, clear path towards registration day, making sure they have all the information they need for the start of school, which is a very nerve wracking time, especially if they’re not familiar with private schools like, uh, you know, many, many families over the pandemic had made that switch from public to private would be That’s all part of that advocacy.

That’s really building what they’re going to be able to think about the school, how they’re going to think about coming back the following year. I mean, it really does start with that, that first touch point. And you know, for sure you can, you can make things up on, on the back end, you know, after they enroll.

There’s a lot more people involved on campus with that experience than in just the admissions part. But that admissions part, once they get that lead, it’s crucial, the impression that you’re giving them, the perception that they’re getting about how you operate as a school. 

Aubrey: I really appreciate you explaining all that because it can be a little overwhelming for people to understand all the different, you know, things to think about and that kind of spurred my next question, which is so we have a lot of people who are small shops or one person shops.

Like looking at all of this, like, where did they begin? I mean, you mentioned YouTube and you mentioned some other tools, but, but, you know, how can they like start tracking or what tools could they use to supplement the fact that maybe they don’t have a larger team? 

Jesse: Yeah, I would say, you know, starting with the funnel process, if you haven’t, if you don’t have one built already I would say that it’s starting larger and more broad is a very, uh, is the best way to go about it, you know, instead of getting into specific niche areas of enrollments, uh, maybe jump to enrollment overall.

Okay, we need to have this. campaign message that’s going to go out. Here’s our theme for the year, or slogan, or catchphrase, and maybe multiple years, but this is, this is who we are. Who are we talking to? Defining their audience, obviously, and then from there you can plan out, okay, what is the content that we’re going to push out at each one of these stages?

That could formulate a nice simple plan. It’s a very broad reaching plan. It’s not really focused on any specific niche area that will be very time consuming to dive into individually. And then it’ll also builds, uh, the, the habits and the processes that will be efficient for you to get into those specific areas there.

As far as the data, uh, I would say Google Analytics is going to be your best friend here. You know, keep it simple. Uh, you know, your, your Cost metrics are going to be, if you keep it on the broad basics, you know, cost per click cost per thousand impressions on that reach stage, you know, that you’re getting and then, you know, really, you know, your, your ROI at the end results, uh, you can formulate a lot of those outside of that, everything else should be available in Google Analytics, if you want to be keeping on a broad level, you know, who’s coming, okay, we were starting to target this area.

Yeah. You know, where are these people coming from? Google Analytics has geography on there, so you can take a look on the map of where they’re coming from. Uh, you can definitely take a look at how long they’re staying on pages, how many new users when you get into the later stages, how many returning users, and it’s literally just a click of a button on your Google Analytics.

So I would say, if you can get familiar with Google Analytics first. And build out a very broad annual plan. Uh, that’s really the only way you’re going to be able to start really setting up the stages of the funnel. Because if you’re only thinking about a certain time of the year, you’re not going to be able to do a whole funnel in three months.

It’s going to take a little bit longer than that for families to kind of move, move through the cycle. So, I would say keep it broad. Work your way down to more specifics as you get more comfortable and really familiarize yourself with Google Analytics. That’ll help you out a lot. 

Aubrey: Yeah, thank you for that.

And it’s always good. I mean, a lot of times I think we’re, just in general, people are hesitant to try new things and to fail. And like, I think this is a good time. Google Analytics can seem very intimidating, but you know what? Just try it. And ask questions and yeah, you’re not going to get it right.

Probably the first time, but that’s okay. Cause that’s part of learning. And that’s part of like, frankly, marketing is a lot of that. So, I appreciate you giving them some tools and suggestions. Now I’d like to switch gears and ask you, you know, 2023 it’s right around the corner, you know, what sort of trends or things 2023 and beyond?

Jesse: Man in digital marketing, it is, uh, It changes every week. I feel like I have to do some, some more research every week because, you know, Facebook or Google changes something, you know, I think that, uh, this next year coming up, I think the importance that schools really should understand, uh, is first party data is going to be king coming.

pretty much next year. It’s already starting with, with a lot of platforms, uh, Apple, uh, Facebook, uh, they’re, they’re already starting to have a lot of regulation. The data, you know, personal data is, is a very hot issue. You can see the regulation that’s going on in Europe. So, you know, these things are trickling down and it’s really finding their way into, into our market as well.

So when you’re talking about getting out in front of families, And being able to have data that you can use and work on. It’s really going to be the first party data. So I would say, you know, in digital marketing in 2023, anything that you can do to get someone’s email address. Uh, you know, it doesn’t have to be.

Real detailed stuff, you know, you know, you could do a lot with an email address as far as building audiences and look at like audiences, uh, but you know, names addresses, phone numbers you know, email addresses, this type of information is going to be pure gold in the upcoming years, just because that’s, that’s really going to be how you’re going to use a lot of your outreach efforts in the future.

Tara: Thanks for that. I love learning about what’s coming down the pike and your predictions for what’s next. Who knows? Who knows what’s around? 

Jesse: And I wish I had a crystal ball, but you know, sometimes you never know. That was actually supposed to have already happened. Google’s pushed it back a year. So, you know, we’ll see how it goes.

But you know, digital marketing, it keeps you on your toes all the time. And, you know, I will say this on a personal level, like, like organizational level, one thing that I have noticed that I feel is happening with schools from the conferences and the people I’ve talked to, there seems to be a very big understanding now of the importance of digital marketing.

And even more than that, on a broader scale, the importance of the admissions department and communications department talking together. Uh, that, that seems to be, I can’t even tell you how many conversations where I’ve been like, I can’t, this is great. You know, we even went to, uh, uh, the conference, uh, enrollment management association, EMA conference recently, and they had.

Communications people there, the emissions team brought them so that they can understand. Hey, this is what we’re seeing. This is these are the trends. These are where we need to be so that that communication and that that that you know that marriage between the two really comes together. And I feel that organizationally.

That seems to be a great trend, and I hope it keeps going, and I will be a proponent of that any way I can. 

Tara: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I want to move on to a question about mindfulness, because we always ask our guests about mindfulness. It’s something that we pay a lot of attention to, and that applies to all aspects of life, depending on how you define it.

So, can you share about how you define mindfulness, and how you might apply it to your life? Working with digital marketing. 

Jesse: Yeah. I mean, mindfulness, uh, you can’t really see it here. I got a little corner, my little cubby corner over here. Uh, that’s my mindfulness corner right there. I’ve got all my, you know, my little incense and everything I go over.

My reading nook is over there with my, uh, my big, uh, library. So, you know, for me, it’s, it’s really about awareness. Uh, you know, keeping perspective, uh, it’s very difficult to do. And you know what I’ve learned really working in schools when I, you know, that was probably the first, the first job where I had to wear, you know, like 10 hats at the same time.

Uh, you know, it was fine so much when I was the nine to fiver, and then I jumped over to, you know, residential life where we had the boarding population and it just never stopped. So making sure that you’re, you know, and now where I am now, uh, trying to run a digital marketing agency. It’s. It’s very difficult to keep mindfulness on the forefront.

Uh, for me, I literally schedule blocks. for reflection. You might not need to go that far, uh, but, you know, I feel that reflection is huge. And that could be, I do that in my personal life, uh, but I also do it professionally in my work life. You know, hey, what did we do here? What did we want? What ended up happening?

Uh, for, for me, a lot of what I do is build out processes. So, you know, what’s working well, what’s not working well, is this helping to achieve? So, you know, in, in digital marketing, uh, mindfulness for me is, you know, Hey, try to take a break. Uh, there’s a lot, uh, that can, that there’s a lot of rabbit holes you can go down and fill your entire time, but sometimes take a step back, have some reflection about what’s happening, where you’re trying to go.

And really, really nail in and hone in on what’s working well from that reflection piece. 

Aubrey: That’s great. And so powerful. I mean, taking a step back in general, just sometimes gives you perspective on where you need to go. So thank you. That’s really helpful. So we’re going to transition into our rapid fire questions.

Are you ready? 

Jesse: I hope so. 

Aubrey: All right. This is one of my favorites. If you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, what would it be? 

Jesse: Uh, it’s got, you know, listen, I, I finished a book, the last book I finished, uh, in September, atomic Habits. It’s gotta be, it’s, it’s gotta be Atomic Habits.

Yeah. I just, it blew my mind. It’s changed every, ever since September. My whole life has been different, uh, from this book. And, and it, it’s for a curriculum piece. If you can build something around it. If you can get kids, uh, you know, hi, if I had the, those, those habits and tactics and mindset, uh, at that point, the sky’s the limit, uh, for what I was able to achieve, uh, you know, from that age.

So I would say atomic habits is, uh, I think it’s, 

Tara: james. Yeah, we are fans of that book. I’ve also like a disciple of that and it’s been mentioned by many of our guests. So we do have a Goodreads list that I like to plug where we have just a fabulous list of great books to check out and Atomic Habits is already on it.

Jesse: Okay. Sorry, I couldn’t add more, but one more vote, you know, it’s like, Hey, which school is going to do this first? Right. I’m 

Aubrey: going to recommend my children’s school. I’m going to send them a copy because I love how you said weave into the curriculum. I was like, Oh, we could, I mean, I was just going to force my children to read all these books, but what if my school could weave it into the curriculum?

So I like your thinking. Thank you. 

Tara: Yeah. Uh, the next rapid fire question is what’s one app you could not live without. 

Jesse: Oh, man, right now, right now, TikTok, come on now, it’s just so much fun. And when you need the break, it’s there. Uh, I, I hate that sometimes it takes more time than I want, but it’s great. But no, all seriousness, I probably would be Slack, uh, to be honest with you.

I know that’s a weird one, but. You know, we’re remote work. So, you know, we’ve got, uh, you know, employees all over the country for us. Slack is I just couldn’t be without slack. Everything else on the social side. You know, I grow up my ADHD kicks in. I move on to something else. But slack slacks always there.

I can’t get rid of it. Can’t live without it. That knock 

Tara: knock knock sound. That’s right. Yeah, 

Aubrey: I we use slack too and I love it and I’m surprised more schools don’t use it because school teams could really benefit instead of sending each other emails all the time. So yeah, thanks for that. What Now you already mentioned Atomic Habits, but what are you reading right now?

Jesse: Oh man, I’m reading Never Split The Difference. It’s a Chris Voss book and I gotta tell you, it’s, it’s been, it’s been great. Uh, I like that one too. It’s, it’s basically a former FBI agent talking about Negotiation tactics and, you know, a lot of the references that he uses, uh, are obviously based off of hostage situations or things like this, but the, the, the strategies and the, and the, the mindsets behind them can really be applied to so many different things.

And, you know, just a funny story really quick. I remember reading it. I think it was actually just a few weeks ago. I was in bed. My wife was actually tick tocking and. I’m reading this piece. I finished this paragraph. I take a deep breath. I look at my wife. I say, this book is not good for you because this is teaching me exactly how to plan, how to get what I want and how to really organize this thought process.

I said, I need to put this book down or we’re going to get into a lot of fights. 

Aubrey: Oh my gosh. That’s funny. I love that book. I also watched his masterclass, which was intriguing. So, Oh, 

Jesse: I have to check that out. Good to know. 

Tara: Yeah. All right. Well, we’re going to wrap up with our last question, which is what is one great piece of advice that you’d like to leave us with, Jesse?

Jesse: Ah, you know, top of mind, it’s focus on the process, not the end goal. Uh, you know, something I learned from Atomic Habits, you know, end goals are very important to have. But you know, you’re focused day in, day out. It really should be on building the habit and building the process, because in the end, you’ll reach your goal, and then what?

If you have a good process, if you have good habits, you’ll just continue to have new end goals to continue to climb that mountain. So I would say focus on the process. 

Tara: Great. Thank you so much, Jesse. We really appreciated your time. Where can people find you online? 

Jesse: Sure. Yeah. We’re available on any of the social media platforms, Schoolcraft Digital, you can look us up.

Uh, we’re also at www. schoolcraftdigital. com. Uh, you can reach out any which way that you have there. You know, we have plenty of ways to find us on that website. 

Aubrey: Thank you so much, Jesse. We loved having you here and I know our audience will find this conversation very valuable. 

Jesse: Thank you. Sure hope so.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Aubrey: Thanks. Bye bye.