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Six tips for social entrepreneurs trying to succeed in schools
Six tips for social entrepreneurs trying to succeed in schools
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Six tips for social entrepreneurs trying to succeed in schools
In the UK there are over 24,000 schools teaching 8.2 million students. It's a market with potential for large-scale impact for social ventures working with children. Yet selling to large numbers of schools is something many social ventures struggle with. Social entrepreneur Alice Lacey has a lot of experience selling to the sector. She founded education venture and Big Venture Challenge Award winner, now>press>play. The venture uses wireless headphones and audio resources to bring school lessons to life. Children become the main characters in a story which is designed to fit into a school’s curriculum. Find out more about now>press>play’s journey. They have achieved rapid success and growth selling directly to schools. They now sell to 75 schools - 12 months ago that number was 30. Alice’s motivations are clear, ‘the thing that gets us up in the morning is working with more and more children’.
1. Teachers trust teachers
In a competitive market like the education sector a good recommendation can go a long way. Whether it's an online review of your services or through word of mouth, it’s important to ensure your current customers become your ambassadors. ‘Our conversion rate when we are recommended is 90%,’ says Alice, ‘teachers just listen to each other.’ Feedback and surveys can be great ways to capture your current customers’ thoughts and opinions. ‘We do focus groups – hearing from the children and teachers themselves on what they think the impact has been. We also have questionnaires we give to teachers and children at various points throughout the year. Through the Big Venture Challenge, we worked with a PhD student to get those questionnaires into place.’
2. Budget, budget and more budget
Public sector schools are determined to ensure value for money on tight budgets. This year, now>press>play is focusing on retaining existing schools, but it has still been a struggle. According to Alice, ‘there are so many competing options. No-one’s doing what we’re doing but we’ve had schools coming back to us this year saying they've got a £50,000 deficit.’ ‘The other massive challenge is budget cuts. Because we’re a bit fun there’s a risk that we get put in the “nice to have†column.’ Acknowledging this is important to building a sustainable customer relationship. This can be done by demonstrating how your impact has a clear, positive effect on students.
3. Identify education networks or events
Identifying schools that are interested in your venture’s offer and finding a way to approach that school is difficult. For now>press>play this process isn’t perfected yet. ‘We’re still figuring it out,' explains Alice, 'On the whole it’s been through events. BETT (an education technology conference) has been really big for us.’ ‘At BETT, you have teachers coming who are looking for new things. They’ve got a budget, they’re open-minded and they tend to be quite forward thinking. Events are a big one because they can hear it, see it and touch it.’ A tangible product like now>press>play’s is perfect for events. Others may find online education networks or resources more effective ways of introducing schools to their products or services.
4. Solve a problem for teachers
Make sure that your social venture is clear about the problem it is solving and the benefit that a school will see from using your services. now>press>play identified two problem areas that faced schools and young children: engagement and life experience. Finding a better way to keep children engaged while learning is a big part of now>press>play’s offer. ‘We’re giving teachers a way of engaging every child in their class,’ claims Alice, ‘And it works every single time.’ Teachers’ fed back to now>press>play that lack of life experiences affected many children. Offering children life experience they otherwise might not have been able to experience has become a key part of their offer. ‘We’re giving children opportunities and imaginative adventures. Opportunities that they otherwise would not have.’
5. Create strong relationships with schools
Now>press>play is focused on retaining schools as well as expanding into new ones. They work closely to ensure schools get the most out of their products. ‘We've found that you have to physically go in to schools,' Alice explains, 'If we go in during the first year and get everyone comfortable with the equipment then potentially we’ve got a school for the next 5-6 years. It’s worth making that investment with them.’
6. Keep your focus
For Alice the key to success has been ‘learning to focus and not getting distracted.’ That has meant not taking on too many ideas at once. ‘When we started we had hugely grand plans of what we wanted’, says Alice, ‘We were going to be in secondary schools and SEN schools and primary schools and do community work.' ‘It became clear that primary schools was a big enough market and a big enough challenge.’ Focusing your approach will lead to better results and sustainability. This is especially relevant given Alice’s final piece of advice for any education startups out there – ‘assume everything is going to take at least six months longer than you think.’