Have you ever planned your open day events in your university or college and somehow students don’t turn up? Or even if they did, they just won’t enroll, and they end up enrolling in your competitor’s university?
Open days can be very expensive to execute and lots of planning would have been started months back. Students at this time would have finished their high school and are ready to enroll and this is the time to convince them to enroll in your university instead of your competitors.
Here, we’ll show you how to double your enrollments:
- What do you do with your leads?
Your marketing team would have generated leads and passed them to your team. Next is to call them and confirm their attendance (this is a must-do).
But, with so many choices of universities, students would have made many other appointments with other universities and some appointments may even coincide with yours. So, just 1-2 days before the open day, follow up again with either a call or an SMS. When you follow up, high chances are those students will come to your open day instead. Use that phone call to inject some benefits to entice them further.
- Building the ‘connection’
Now that you have successfully secured the appointment and the student and parents are sitting right in front of you on the open day. What do you do?
Most counselors will start asking them about the course they are interested in and then share more details about it. It’s not wrong, but it’s missing the first step – rapport building.
It’s important to build the connection first before talking about the product. Rapport building can be about sports, for example- If the student is wearing a football jersey, have some small talk about the match yesterday. If the parents have a younger daughter who wouldn’t sit still, talk about your child who’s the same age too and explain that you understand their challenges also (if you have one). Building rapport is about finding any common interest and this is how connections are created.
Small connections like this make them interested to hear more about what you are going to say next.
- What about other universities?
One of the most challenging parts is when students compare your university or college with a competitor. It can be about price, lecturers, facilities or even about awards and recognition.
The key is to know your own Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that others do not have. In Sales Ninja, we have designed PPSC – Product, People, Service, Company that can switch a comparison to an opportunity to enroll for your university instead of your competitors. Find out more about PPSC here.
- Converting counseling into sales
Everyone needs to close sales. When meeting with students (whether you are in sales or a counselor), it is important to close the sale which means getting that student to enroll.
The main target during the open day is enrollment hence everyone plays a part to close sales. So, during the counseling session, the priority has to be about giving good information to students and parents to ultimately close the sales.
- Weak closing skills
When you try asking the student if he or she is interested to enroll, you might get the common response of “Oh I’m not sure yet, let me check out other universities first”. That’s when most counselors might just go “Okay, sure”
Instead, probe more and go “Can I know what’s holding you back from enrolling in our college?”. From there you’ll get information about what’s bothering them. It could be either PPSC – price, product, service, company.
This information you get is actually an objection which is an opportunity for you to sell more benefits. In our MASTERS’ training, we will teach you the Do’s and Don’ts of handling objections and converting them into sales.
Closing sales during the open day is important because parents are ready to enroll their child but they just need to know that they have selected the right one. That’s where counselors need to press on the right pain points and provide the solution.
Do you have an enrollment coming up and you have a high enrollment target that seems impossible? Come talk to us for a free consultation to let us help you transform the performance of your counselors so you can double your enrollment in your upcoming event.
