Business is booming at Connor Associates!

Connor Associates kicked off its work with Oakbrook Preparatory School beginning October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Oakbrook Preparatory School in October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Valor Christian High School in September 2024 and returned with a surprising desire to reprise his career as a professional musician! 

80% of the nation's prison population are public high school dropouts. What can independent schools do to disrupt the dropout pipeline to crime and imprisonment?

To get a better handle on how to discover and communicate educational value, we created a model to make the case. Using Montessori schools as a case study, we also included a value graphic, among the best I’ve ever seen.

Please join me in welcoming our new and accomplished Research Associates.  

Searching for a new Head of School? Mike Connor and Thom Greenlaw recommend hitting the “Strategic Pause” first.

Internal strengths and weaknesses of your school are important to identify. Those tell you who YOU think you are. But when you compare yourselves to how others outside the school see you, THAT is where great marketing plans are born. Without knowing external perceptions, you’re just navel-gazing.

When a Head of School leaves or is let go, the board often defaults to the decision that it must find a new leader as soon as possible so that the school doesn’t appear weak or its reputation damaged by the departure. We think there’s a better way.

In the daily uphill scramble over wet boulders that describes school marketing and communication these days, you can count on there being more challenges ahead. In marketing and communication, our success depends not so much on the means we use to communicate, but on the ends, the outcomes, and the proven deliverables. Can we prove that what we are 'selling' has overwhelming value to the lives of the families investing in it—as THEY define value?

 Congratulations to all of you who this year are entering the two best jobs a school can offer.  I’ve been there! Here is some hard-won advice for your journey.

It seems so simple, yet when I search most school websites for evidence of value, I’m astonished by the number of schools who don’t highlight value through the testimony of their alumni and former families. Can your school objectively claim it is worth the cost? Prove it! Promote it!

Your school’s identity is meaningless if your school isn’t sustainable. Your product is useless if it is not what people really desire or if you can’t prove its value. If you can’t identify and place your ideal customers by looking at present data and future trends, you’re handicapping your school. But it all goes south if you can’t align the marketing mix, demonstrably grounded in an objective determination of value, with your school’s long-term financial policy or pricing, grounded in data.

Business is booming at Connor Associates!

Connor Associates kicked off its work with Oakbrook Preparatory School beginning October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Oakbrook Preparatory School in October 2024.

Connor Associate’s President Mike Connor visited Valor Christian High School in September 2024 and returned with a surprising desire to reprise his career as a professional musician! 

80% of the nation's prison population are public high school dropouts. What can independent schools do to disrupt the dropout pipeline to crime and imprisonment?

To get a better handle on how to discover and communicate educational value, we created a model to make the case. Using Montessori schools as a case study, we also included a value graphic, among the best I’ve ever seen.

Please join me in welcoming our new and accomplished Research Associates.  

Searching for a new Head of School? Mike Connor and Thom Greenlaw recommend hitting the “Strategic Pause” first.

Internal strengths and weaknesses of your school are important to identify. Those tell you who YOU think you are. But when you compare yourselves to how others outside the school see you, THAT is where great marketing plans are born. Without knowing external perceptions, you’re just navel-gazing.

When a Head of School leaves or is let go, the board often defaults to the decision that it must find a new leader as soon as possible so that the school doesn’t appear weak or its reputation damaged by the departure. We think there’s a better way.

In the daily uphill scramble over wet boulders that describes school marketing and communication these days, you can count on there being more challenges ahead. In marketing and communication, our success depends not so much on the means we use to communicate, but on the ends, the outcomes, and the proven deliverables. Can we prove that what we are 'selling' has overwhelming value to the lives of the families investing in it—as THEY define value?

 Congratulations to all of you who this year are entering the two best jobs a school can offer.  I’ve been there! Here is some hard-won advice for your journey.

It seems so simple, yet when I search most school websites for evidence of value, I’m astonished by the number of schools who don’t highlight value through the testimony of their alumni and former families. Can your school objectively claim it is worth the cost? Prove it! Promote it!

SparkCast host Rob Norman shared with Connor Associates that InspirED’s most downloaded podcast of 2021 was Finance and Marketing: Overlooked Alliance for Success, which features Mike Connor and Thom Greenlaw discussing the critical intersection of marketing and finance at independent schools.

What marketing advice would you give to Heads of Schools?

Mike Connor, President of Connor Associates, and Thom Greenlaw, Connor Associates Strategic Partner for Executive Searches, Finance, and Operations, expand on Mike’s blog about Finance and Marketing Joined at the Hip and talk with Rob Norman of InspirED School Marketers about…

All told, the national decline in public school enrollment last year was the largest since the turn of the 21st Century. As enrollment challenges continue, public schools and their districts will need to listen attentively and market themselves authentically to compete for families. Adequate funding is essential to a quality educational experience for your students. That funding depends on your district’s fundraising ability and your ability to maintain or increase your market share among an increasing array of alternatives. Are you ready?

Your school’s identity is meaningless if your school isn’t sustainable. Your product is useless if it is not what people really desire or if you can’t prove its value. If you can’t identify and place your ideal customers by looking at present data and future trends, you’re handicapping your school. But it all goes south if you can’t align the marketing mix, demonstrably grounded in an objective determination of value, with your school’s long-term financial policy or pricing, grounded in data.

The research associate team is growing at Connor Associates and we are looking for exceptional talent to help us meet client demand! Come join our winning team that specializes in exploring the deeper reasons behind school choice around the country.

Please join Connor Associates in congratulating Christopher Hui on his new role as Director of Finance and Operations at Summit Montessori School in Framingham, Massachusetts. The candidate search was conducted by Connor Associates Strategic Partner, Thom Greenlaw, who helps schools around the country discover and place talent in leadership and administration roles.

We are delighted to announce Connor Associates impressive success with a recent candidate search and placement. Thom Greenlaw, Strategic Partner for Search Services, was asked to find a new CFO for a Boston Area School with a very short three-month turnaround.

Connor Associates President Mike Connor will provide the Opening Keynote address for the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools Enrollment Retreat on May 5, 2021. The topic will encompass Where Are Your Ideal Students Now? Where Will They Be In 2025?

I will be hosting a serious Big Data session on enrollment and communication lightheartedly titled “The ‘Burger Approach’ to Seriously Increasing Inquiries, Conversions, and Yield!“ on April 15 -16 for a new event hosted by Mia Johnstone, The School Marketing Summit. I will be joined by many other private school marketing leaders who will cover the top-of-mind concerns for those tilling the fields of admission and Marcom.

Mike Connor and Thom Greenlaw, two internationally known private school consultants, are teaming up to deliver a new approach to private school search and placement services. “Connor Associates Leadership Search,” explains Mike, “bases fees upon services rendered, not the industry standard of a percentage of salary.”

“A successful brand piques the interest of those you wish to serve and reinforces what is special to the existing community. We’ve done our job if in the end, the community says, “You absolutely got us.””

Connor Associates’ Strategic Partner Angie Ward and Co-Founder of digital marketing firm Enroll Media Group: “Market research can avoid the “spray and pray” method wherein marketers spend money ineffectively, hitting almost everyone in a few markets and instead being very targeted about whom and where they target, and with what messages. Market research and digital marketing really do go hand-in-glove, when done well.”

Join this discussion with your biggest challenges and pain points in mind and leave with practical strategies and solutions to move forward.

Our new eBook describes the roles all school administrators, trustees, and faculty must take to attract and retain mission-appropriate families.