110: Outsourcing School Success and Navigating Partnerships with Chris Pryor

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Aubrey: Welcome to Mindful School Marketing. I’m Aubrey Burch. 

Tara: And I’m Tara Clays. Today we’re joined by our friend Chris Pryor. Chris is the founder and principal of Lead Team Partners. After a 20 plus year career in independent schools, Chris now leverages his experience and extended network to help school leaders navigate school partner searches via the school partner Connect community.

Doing so allows school leaders to prioritize day-to-day operations while delegating the search to a trusted advisor. I’ll also add it’s a great way for advisors to connect with each other, so welcome Chris. Thanks for being here today. 

Chris: Great to be with you both and, uh, I’m excited to talk a a little bit about outsourcing.

Aubrey: Absolutely. So Chris, I, I’m really excited about this topic personally, and I know a lot of school leaders are gonna wanna hear what you have to say regarding outsourcing. I think it’s, um, it’s something you specialize in and you know really well. and it’s something that our school leaders. Kind of struggle with like, um, I’m curious, you know, as you’re thinking back to, you know, working with schools and your time in schools, what are some signals that a school’s internal team might be stretched too thin?

And how can leaders decide whether outsourcing is a smart next step or just a temporary fix? 

Chris: I think that outsourcing has become quite popular post COVID. I think you see offerings like Upwork and Fiverr and, and others. And so, you know, I brought the school partner connect community to the independent school landscape to help school leaders save time and, and find helpful connections that can, uh, achieve their goals.

So, you know, I think when. School leaders are often thinking about outsourcing. It, it, it relates to a few different gaps. Maybe it’s a gap in time, a gap in expertise, uh, or experience. And, you know, those kind of avail themselves. Maybe if you’re in a small shop or somebody has, uh, an abrupt departure or a maternity leave, or, you know, there might be a new leadership change and so there might be a new emphasis on, on something. And I think school leaders need to think about their mission and, and their strategic plan and what their goals are. And if there’s not anybody that’s, that can do that work on the team, or if they have other competing priorities and they, they need to have some expertise help them move things forward, I think outsourcing can be a, a really helpful, uh, thing to consider.

Tara: So let’s get a little more specific. When, when a school is considering outsourcing a function like marketing or enrollment strategy, what should they not outsource and like what things should stay in-house all the time? And then also, what are some of the best outsource roles? 

Chris: I think you can outsource a lot of things.

Uh, it depends on your particular school community and your team as to what might make the most sense to outsource, but things that I wouldn’t outsource. I think project management is hard to outsource. I, I once did, uh, a project for a school where I built the team and, and tried to manage the project from afar, and I just, I think it, it.

It was troubling. Not that there wasn’t good intention and good effort, but I think project management is something that hard to outsource. I also think content creation. We had a school recently that wanted to outsource all of their digital marketing, including content creation, and we advised them not to, to go that route.

They, they, some of the digital marketing aspects could be handled by, uh, a partner, but they need somebody on campus that knows, you know, the teachers and the students and, and can really bring that, the joy of that institution and the learning forward. So I think those are some of the things that maybe you want to keep in house and also kind of routine day-to-day things, but much of it can be outsourced.

So you can think about photography or videography or websites or writing projects or some strategy. Uh, we have partners that will outsource financial aid, uh, that do market research. So I think there’s a, a number of ways in which schools are leveraging external school partners and, and that’s part of what the school partner Connect community is, is to have a group of experts.

When you, when you have a need, we can easily connect you. 

Aubrey: This is fascinating. Um, I, I think, I love what you said here about, um, you know, things to think about, like. To outsource and things to hold close. Right. So if you think about, like, I always talk to schools about like their zone of genius. Hmm. Like what’s the zone of genius that like only you can do, like that’s probably the thing you can’t outsource.

Right. Um, so the zone of genius thing, and then I too agree, I think. Especially like social media outsourcing. That can be really challenging for schools because if they’re not creating the content, like you were talking about, if there is not someone in there physically, the building, knowing the stories and stuff, that’s really challenging to outsource a lot of times.

So I appreciate you kind of sharing that. And then talking about the other, the best outsource roles. ’cause there’s so many different. Things that people can outsource, like where their time can be saved and they can outsource everything. Um, I’m curious, you know, you do work with a lot of heads of school.

You certainly in this space, you know, just about everyone, Chris and you work with a lot of leadership teams. Like what are some, like as you’re going through this process through school partner connect and talking with heads and everything, what are some key questions you encourage ’em to ask before engaging an external partner or maybe even before?

Figuring out what they wanna outsource too. 

Chris: I think they need to figure out what the core issue is. Oftentimes folks will, will reach out to a consultant to explore a topic, and when the consultant digs in, they’re, they peel back the onion and they, they figure out that it’s not really, uh, what they thought it might be.

A, a perfect example was a, a, a local school reached out to think about some tuition setting, and during the conversation it really. Led to some market research work before they even got to that, that type of discussion. So, you know, if they can really figure out what the core issue is, how that aligns, like how that aligns with their, uh, strategic plan and, you know, how will they determine success?

I mean, having some of those, uh, initial conversations will help them. When they start to develop a scope of work and start to talk to potential partners to see if they might be a good fit to, to execute. But leaning in and having some internal conversations, first to get clarity. And then before they reach out, oftentimes people, they, they panic.

There’s a, there’s a need and they start dialing consultants, asking questions. And I think before they do that, they need to take a pause and, and really think about what is it that they. Wanna achieve what they think is the issue and, and if they can allot the time needed to investigate it. 

Tara: Yeah, I think, um.

Devoting that time. It’s one of these things I know, I find too, delegating is hard to commit to because it takes time and work to work out what you’re gonna delegate and give clear direction. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. As someone who is someone who is outsourced, you know, oftentimes with schools who provides. That kind of service.

I also work with contractors and so I understand from both perspectives how that works and the commitment that you have to make. And actually, right now I’m really focused on updating and upping my game in terms of giving direction and with AI tools, which we love to talk about. There are so many great ways to take all of your information, all of this stuff in your head or in your repository of.

Google drives and put it together in a concise way to give good direction to somebody that’s coming in to work with you. Um. So, and leading up to a question with all of this, because it’s making me think a lot about where I am right now in terms of my relationships, both with my clients and with my contractors in terms of creating a successful working relationship, having conversations with outsource partners, you know, what are some common pitfalls that can derail those partnerships.

Chris: I, I spoke with a few of our partners, because I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I think the first thing is that there needs to be full support from the head of school. The board, we, we ran into an issue recently where there was misalignment between the head and the board. And so a project that we thought was gonna take off stalled.

And so making sure that there’s alignment with, uh, leadership is, is really important. I think again, I mentioned it earlier, but alignment with your mission and the strategic plan that the, the work that you’re about to embark on drives those forward, I think is critical. Having a clear scope of work.

There’s oftentimes mission creep when you, when you get into these projects and there’s one more thing to add. And I think if, if, if it’s written down and it’s clear in terms of the timeline and the de deliverables, it keeps everybody accountable to their, their end of the bargain. Uh, and, and.

Not kind of, uh, ending up in some frustration. I mentioned the time, but oftentimes schools are so, school leaders are so busy that if they haven’t allocated the appropriate amount of time or at least one person to manage the project, I. There are frequent delays, and I think that can be frustrating for both sides of, of the equation.

So prioritizing the project and, and and committing the right resources to to see it through, I think is really important. And then also there’s gonna be some bumps. Uh, you’re gonna uncover some things that, that, uh, might not be exactly, you know, what you wanted to find or hear. And so having.

Open, honest, direct communication, uh, is, is super important and I, I like to think about time boxing that. So maybe it’s a weekly meeting or you know, at at least some kind of frequency. So you make sure that everybody’s kind of moving the ball forward on, on their own, on their own schedule, uh, so that you kind of hit the, you know, hit the, the deadlines that you’ve prearranged.

I think those are all. Things that can be easily accomplished but they need to be kind of prioritized at the, at the front of the engagement and not figured out as, as you get into the middle of it and it, it gets a little sticky. 

Aubrey: Those are really good ones I especially appreciate. Having all the stakeholders or decision makers at the table, like so that you’re aligned, right?

You’re aligned and and, and what the project is and everyone’s on the same page. So would you add 

Chris: anything? Would you add anything? 

Aubrey: Oh, let me think. Tara, would you add anything? ’cause you’ve freshly gone through this process recently. 

Tara: I mean, I think what I was saying is communicating and having, I think it’s really good to, to use this as an opportunity to clean up your own closet, right?

Mm-hmm. To just take the opportunity to really define what your needs are, what your, what your mission is, what your strategic plan is. If you don’t have those things that help any kind of. Contractor come on board, makes it harder for the contractor to do a good job because they need to get up to speed quickly to learn who you are and what makes you different.

So if you don’t have that elevator pitch even ready, then it’s hard to bring somebody on board. ’cause contractors, you know, they need to get, they need to get up to speed fast, and they don’t have, you know, the same type of daily immersion that you’re, that you have with someone who’s coming on staff. So whatever you can do to make that.

Education process smoother I think is is really important. 

Aubrey: Yeah. And I think having the clear point person is super important. Like, and having that point person available and understanding the timeline associated with it. Yeah. So you can get, ’cause you’re kind of trying to work with them to meet their goals and get to the timeline that they need.

Um, but if, if people aren’t getting back or the, the point person isn’t the correct point person that can really slow down a project. Um. No one wants a project slowed down ’cause they want the end result from the project. And then the other piece I would, I was, I would definitely say is do research. I think you kind of hit on this, Chris, but the research before to figure out really what is the root challenge prior to.

Mm-hmm. Because what you’re asking, if you’re asking for digital ads, but you realize like. As you do some more research that, well, in order to have digital ads, you really need to have a decent website and landing pages and also good messaging and good photos like mm-hmm. Where like you’re backing up.

It’s like asking, okay, so what has to happen before this happens? What has to happen before this? And doing research so that you’re coming to the table, knowing. And I know many of my colleagues who work in digital ads will walk people through this process too and be like, okay, so we could run ads, but here’s what we recommend you doing first.

Right, right, right. So just asking those questions prior will help you figure out what things you need to tackle prior to going to that end result. You you really want. 

Chris: Yeah, I, I think, you know, what I just mentioned is all part of the engagement process once somebody’s been engaged. But I think there’s some things that school leaders can do to, to to help the consultants that are even pro, you know, bidding on the project.

We ran into a conversation recently where. We had a few of our partners bid on a project and you know, spend time on the RFP and, and submitting the proposal, and then they didn’t hear back in, in the end from the school leader. And I would say, you know, the the, the school leader you know, should, should.

Circle back with everybody that has expressed interest in, in, in the opportunity and just let ’em know, even if it’s a no, that’s, that’s a kind thing to do is say we’ve decided to go in a different a different direction and give a little feedback. I think that’s super helpful for the external school partner so they can, you know, be better the next time around.

Or maybe it just wasn’t a, a, you know, a good fit for whatever reason. And I think. I think that is helpful for both sides of the, the equation just to put a pin in it and, and move forward. 

Aubrey: Yeah, that is a great, great tip right there. I think, you know, the communication, the follow up is really helpful and it creates, um, I mean the, the independent school world is not a big world.

Like we all wanna be supportive of each other and we all, I mean. You, you throw a rock and you hit like consultants in schools, so like you’re, we’re all in this together. So, um, that’s right. This is really cool. I wanna shift a little bit. So as you know, you’ve been a wonderful guest at our Small School Leaders conference.

I work with small schools all the time, and Oterra does as well. Let’s talk about like schools with limited budgets, like how can outsourcing. Actually be cost effective move. I mean, can it, right. And are there creative ways small schools can make this work? 

Chris: So, I mean, full-time employee is, is expensive.

And I think many small schools and, and even other schools can’t, can’t always add to their marketing team or their enrollment team or their advancement team. And so, outsourcing is, is an alternative. I think there’s lots of different providers out in the market and knowing kind of how to, how to find one that meets your, your need and your mission is, is a little bit of an art and a little bit of a science.

But I think it saves time on the backend if you can. If you can hire an expert to, to do something really well in a short period of time, it, and it’s not something in your what did you call it? A genius zone or your, your genius skill, then, then you’re, you know, you’re. Putting your, your time and priority into something that you do really well that advances the mission of school.

So we did a project for a school in in Austin earlier in the year, and they thought it was gonna be a very expensive endeavor. And, and, and. When they reached out, we, we surveyed a few and, and found them a price with a, with an expert that that was gonna be able to meet their need and, and do it within, within budget.

And so I think everybody assumes that outsourcing and, and hiring a consultant is, is super expensive. It certainly can be depending on the scope of the work and and who you’re hiring, but there. There’s lots of talented folks out there that might be in a smaller shop or a boutique shop and not in one of the, the, the bigger organizations.

And, and they might be a little bit more competitive with, you know, with the cost, especially if they are relatively new to consulting. They might, they might have a lower price point too, um, as they’re building up their client, their client roster. So, you know, if I can ever help point you in the right direction, I’d be happy to do it.

But. Small schools certainly, you know, have, have budgets and, and we ran into this the other day where, you know, they couldn’t move forward because they didn’t think they had budget. But one of the things that they didn’t do was they didn’t reach back out to the consultant to say, Hey, we’re, we’re in a tight spot.

Will you work with us on pricing? Or will you work us on with, you know, how we. Pay for it. Can we pay, uh, maybe in, in installments or, or work out something. So I think being again, open and honest with the communication about where you are and what you need. But there, there are options to outsource and for each size of project, you just need to kind of, do a little bit of investigating to see what, what might be a good fit.

Aubrey: That’s, you made some really good points there, Chris. I, I kinda have a follow up question for this. You know, a lot of schools when they look at a price tag for a consultant, they’re like, wow, that’s a lot. And sometimes it’s not a lot. But like, can you talk a little bit about the difference between a consultant and an employee and where that like price savings can come in?

’cause I think a lot of, as I’m looking at like, people who are in small schools or hiring, they’re hiring for positions. What is the true cost behind those positions versus if you outsource some key components, it might actually be cheaper. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Chris: Well, I mean, the first part is hiring for talent, right?

And so maybe, maybe you can’t find the, the right person that fits all the, all the, the boxes in your local area. And so by broadening your search and outsourcing, you get access to a greater degree of talent. So that’s, that’s one. Two, you know, you’re paying obviously a full-time salary plus benefits.

And and while they are dedicated to to your school and, and the work that you’re doing maybe they don’t have the same. Range of experience. And so by hiring a consultant that works with multiple schools they’ve seen it in, in, in different sizes and shapes. I can give you really helpful advice where they’ve seen, uh, this work really well at an, in another institution and can bring that experience and advice to, to bear.

So I think that is certainly a, a, a. A kind of added value of hiring a consultant and then, you know, you only, you only need them for a, a short period of time for the scope of work. Uh, you, you know, you can define that and box it out and budget for it. A simple example would be we always hired a photographer to come to campus when I was a school leader, uh, in the fall and, and the spring.

And we would. We would take those photos and, and run with them for the entire year. And while we had somebody on staff that could take photos, the, the, the output was not anywhere close to the, to the professional photographer that came on campus. And so that was. A really great return on investment because, uh, we spent, you know, two days worth of photo shoots, but we had access to these incredible images for our website, for social media, for our impact report you name it, throughout the entire year.

So, I think you can, I. You can get expertise and, and you can, uh, expand your reach in terms of the, your talent pool by, by using consultants in strategic ways, right? You know, there, there’s definitely great reason to hire, uh, talented people for your team. And it’s just a matter of what, you know, what skills you have and, and how else can you kind of supplement.

You know, the team’s effectiveness with things that you aren’t so great at. 

Tara: Totally agree. Makes sense. Of course. I hear that a lot in the, when I work with schools on their websites. ’cause that’s something that, uh, that is often outsourced, right? Mm-hmm. What are some innovative ways that you’ve seen schools use.

Consultants, external partners that maybe they haven’t considered yet, anything out of the box. 

Chris: Yeah, so I did a webinar with Esha, the elementary school heads group, and we had a head of school that outsourced his entire business office, and I thought that was really innovative. And now that had had, you know, business acumen and, uh, technology background. And, and so he was well positioned to, to take on the extra work of, of coordinating the the consultants that were working with him in an outsource capacity for his business office. And he certainly fielded more calls and conversations with his faculty and staff around HR related things and, and, um.

Contracting issues that normally the, the CFO would, would handle or the HR team. But, uh, at his small school, he found it to be you know, a really strategic thing to do. He had to work, uh. With his board and, uh, and his team around what that might look like and feel like. And there was some risk involved, of course but they’ve been at it for a couple of years and, uh, it’s really worked for them.

Now, if a new, you know, if he leaves and a new head comes in they. They might revert back because, uh, of the particular skill sets of, of, of that head of school or, or kind of their vision. But that was, that was new to me. And although you see, you see a bunch of fractional folks now, you see fractional marketers or, or fractional advancement folks.

So the, there is a, a market now for fractional, but I haven’t seen, uh, too many outsourced business offices. Completely. You’ve seen aspects of it, but not, not the whole team. 

Tara: I would love to do that.

Chris: Yeah. I just had a call about payroll. Nobody likes payroll. That’s the not fun stuff. Yeah. Bookkeeping. Yeah, 

Tara: for sure. Absolutely. 

Aubrey: Yeah. Yeah, I think there are so many. I think especially as we continue to move as, as AI and technology grows, I, I think it would be really interesting to see what other creative solutions there are for outsourcing so that small schools can continue to like live out their mission and, and mm-hmm.

Also create a sustainable kind of. Foundation as they move forward. So I’m very curious. Yeah. Wonder 

Tara: about, I’m gonna just, I mean on that note, right, like as, as consultants, we also wonder and, and employees too. You know what? Jobs, what roles AI is going to replace completely. And it more and more it’s doing just, you know, there are so many things I can do and we love talking about that, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.

We have episodes focused on that. 

Aubrey: It is, yeah. We definitely, we could go down that rabbit hole, but not now. Thank you Tara. Uh, so I am going to transition our conversation, Chris, to. As you probably remember, rapid fire questions. Yes. So, I have to ask, are you ready for your rapid fire question? 

Chris: I think so.

Aubrey: Okay. Okay. You don’t look scared, so that’s a good sign. Yeah. 

Chris: Yeah. All right. 

Aubrey: If you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, what would it be? 

Chris: I don’t have a singular book, but I think kids today need to learn about entrepreneurship. My, I think I had a lack of education in that area, and I’m leaning into it now.

And I think anything about entrepreneurship is, is great creative thinking, taking risks. I, I think those skills are, are certainly in, in, in need and will be. And of course as, as Tara mentioned, kind of the ai, uh, anything kind of on the technical side to, uh, support. Learning and growth is is really important.

Tara: Next question, what is one app you could not live without after we’re done with this, by the way, we’re gonna remind you what you said last time since you’re repeat guess. But what’s one app you could not live without? 

Chris: I probably said something as a parent, which is team Snap. It’s, if you know anything about me, you know that I’m a soccer dad and I run all over Northern Virginia and the East coast, uh, with soccer games.

So TeamSnap. But there are many others that I have. Good memory, 

Tara: good memory, sports 

Chris: Engine. I use a bunch of different ones, but that is like my go-to because, uh, outside of Calendly, it, it is the one that I manage kind of my, my afternoon, evening schedule with. 

Aubrey: I actually 

Chris: said, I actually said TeamSnap last time.

Aubrey: Yes. 

Chris: That’s hilarious. Okay. 

Aubrey: I was like, well look, this, we can use this as a timestamp at this point of your life. It’s the same as last. It’s the same. 

Chris: It’s the same. 

Aubrey: Nothing’s changed. Alright. What are you reading right now? 

Chris: So my wife, uh, just got me a subscription to The Atlantic, and I’m really, I’m really enjoying that.

You know, I read a lot online and I, I also like, ugh, it’s a soccer theme, but I just bought a book that I haven’t, I haven’t dipped into yet. But Sir Alex Ferguson was the longtime manager of Manchester United. Very successful coach and leader. So I’m looking forward to digging into that when I have a little extra time.

Tara: Thank you, Chris. Last question, one great piece of advice you can leave with today. 

Chris: So, I heard this the other day and I, I love it and I’m sharing it with my own kids. And it’s plan the work, work the plan. And so it’s about really being thoughtful in designing your goals, your future goals, and and, and thinking about what steps you need to take to, to achieve it.

And then once you’ve, you know. Set up the plan, then you need to be, uh, you know, dogmatic and aggressive about working the plan to, to achieve the outcomes you, you wish for. So that is what I am planning to do. Uh, as you know, I think about the, the little break that we might have with, with Summer on the horizon and getting ready for the new year.

I’m gonna plan the work and work the plan. 

Tara: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Chris. Where can people find you online? 

Chris: Well, you can find me in Falls Church City, Virginia, which is where I live. But online I’m definitely on LinkedIn. My website is lead team partners.com and I’m super excited for any external school partners listening.

Uh, I’m gonna host our school partner Connect Summit in, in August in the little City of Falls Church. So I’ll reach out if I can help. 

Tara: Thank you. 

Aubrey: Thank you, Chris.