{"id":3597,"date":"2026-09-21T15:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/?p=3597"},"modified":"2026-09-21T11:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:47:36","slug":"schools-open-or-practice-what-you-preach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/?p=3597","title":{"rendered":"School’s Open (or, Practice What You Preach)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(PLEASE NOTE:\u00a0 Remember that starting October 1, 2026, a free membership in ArchangelAdvancement.com will be required to access the articles associated with The ARMED Framework – Asset Management, Retention, Marketing, Enrollment and Development.\u00a0 Advancementality will still be available to those without a membership.\u00a0 The reason is to add an extra level of security to the articles in this era of AI).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even though the new school year has begun, signs posted on roadsides alert parents that “It’s not too late to enroll your child.”\u00a0 Many schools aren’t shy about accepting students, but what do you say when a parent says, “May I bring my child in for a visit tomorrow?”<\/p>\n

Some school administrators cringe at the question.<\/p>\n

The proposed day might be full of lively activities, the principal has staff evaluations scheduled, or (a scary but understandable trend) the principal may be filling in for a teacher tomorrow.\u00a0 Additional spontaneous events may occur (otherwise known as chaos in the lunchroom) while a parent is visiting – which is something you don’t necessarily want a parent of a prospective student to witness.\u00a0\u00a0 Other schools might need a bit tidying up (and if it’s like my daughter’s room when she was growing up, it needs more tidying up after its been tidied up!).<\/p>\n

Visitors who do so on short-notice would see the school in a less-than-perfect state.<\/p>\n

If this is the case, then make it a practice to have some time\u00a0each week<\/em><\/strong> to have a standing widely-publicized<\/em><\/strong> invitation to students and families to come and visit your school.\u00a0\u00a0 You can hold these weekly open houses\u00a0at different times\u00a0and on different days during the week to accommodate as many schedules as possible.\u00a0 If a parent can make it to one of these events, then it’s already on the calendar and proper preparations can be made.\u00a0 If a parent cannot, you can offer another time that is mutually convenient.\u00a0 This approach, however, shows the parent that you are being proactive by offering multiple opportunities for personal visits.\u00a0 If a parent realizes this, and discovers that there is no time that meets their needs, it may help to parent to begin to rethink their priorities as well.<\/p>\n

Remember, this is only the start of getting more children into your school.\u00a0 The real work starts after<\/em> the visit when you follow-up with those parents.\u00a0 If you just thought, “We don’t really follow-up a lot…we just hope they enroll their children,” you also need to rethink your priorities, and begin to use enrollment strategies.\u00a0 They’re a lot like sales strategies.<\/p>\n

In fact, they are<\/em> sales strategies.<\/p>\n

Marketing is education, and enrollment is sales.\u00a0 If you’d like to find out more, drop an email to archangeladvancement@gmail.com<\/a> and use the word “Follow Up Methodology” in the subject line.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement\/ArchangelAdvancement, 2006-2026 (Original Publication Date: 20060918)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(PLEASE NOTE:\u00a0 Remember that starting October 1, 2026, a free membership in ArchangelAdvancement.com will be required to access the articles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ggCS-W1","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MM-Purple.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8428,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions\/8428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archangeladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}