"Our counselors need training."
A true story about a call we received from a director of admission ...

We’ve had the same type of call from colleges all over the country. This one came from a director of admissions from a mid-sized public in the north-central part of the country. His group of twelve admission counselors was a mix of both veterans and new hires that were graduates of the college and beginning their professional career.

Each counselor exhibited pride in the institution and a sincere desire to do their level best in bringing students to the college and working well together as a team. While the team did not lack for desire, they had never received formal training and professional development. It showed. The group had been stuck in ways of thinking and process that inhibited improvements in efficiency, yield enhancement, and as the director said, "Closing the sale."

Longmire and Company's on-campus Interactive Training Workshop for counselors (ITW) solved his problem. After fully understanding his needs and desired outcomes we developed a customized series of workshops that addressed topics ranging from entrepreneurial thinking and process management to selling skills and role-playing. The workshop centered on the practice of a student-centric approach to recruiting that is proven to be highly effective.

The workshops received high marks from the director and every counselor involved. Interestingly, the director told us that the veteran counselors got as much or more out of the workshops as did the younger counselors. Most importantly, this college is likely to experience increases in yield similar to the average of 16% yield increases experienced by other ITW clients.