"How to grow your education business?" Podcast with mr. Sreejith KC

Summary

The podcast presents an in-depth discussion on how to grow and digitally transform an education business, focusing on sales, marketing, automation, and operational challenges specific to the education sector, particularly in Kerala, India. The speaker, Mr. Sreejith K.C., a seasoned education business consultant, shares his personal journey from a marketing executive in Bangalore to a specialist who has helped numerous education institutions grow through consultancy and digital transformation.

He highlights the traditional mindset toward sales in Kerala, where sales often carry a negative connotation, and stresses the importance of professionalizing sales and marketing to build successful education businesses. He relates how education businesses often fail due to poor execution rather than lack of ideas or funding and emphasizes the need for a clear vision, purpose, and structured sales processes.

Sreejith discusses the evolving nature of the education industry, where students—not parents—are now key decision-makers, influenced heavily by digital presence and social media engagement. He stresses the necessity of building trust digitally through content, video marketing, and active engagement to convert leads into admissions.

The discussion covers the critical role of sales training, CRM systems, and marketing automation in streamlining operations and improving customer engagement. He points out the common disconnect between digital marketing teams and business owners due to unrealistic expectations and poor execution of conversion processes.

The speaker advocates for proper discipline among business owners, marketing teams, and sales teams to ensure smooth functioning and success. He explains how automation tools like CRM can help track leads, schedule follow-ups, and personalize communication, thereby increasing conversion rates and reducing manual errors.

Sreejith also addresses recruitment challenges in sales and marketing roles, emphasizing the need to hire people focused solely on sales activities and training them properly rather than assigning them administrative tasks. He advises education business owners to be personally involved in the growth process, setting clear goals, and maintaining discipline to ensure consistent progress.

Finally, the video underscores the importance of continuous learning, adapting to hybrid or online education models post-COVID, and leveraging digital tools to scale businesses while maintaining a strong human connection with customers during key decision-making moments.

Highlights

- 🔑 Clear sales and marketing strategies are essential to grow education businesses successfully.

- 📱 Digital presence and social media engagement directly influence student admissions today.

- 🤝 Sales is about supporting and solving customer needs, not just pushing products.

- 📊 CRM and marketing automation tools are vital for lead management and improving conversions.

- 🎯 A defined vision, purpose, and disciplined execution differentiate successful businesses.

- 👥 Recruitment and proper training of dedicated sales staff are crucial to operational success.

- 📈 Hybrid and online learning models offer scalability and reduce dependence on physical trainers.

### Key Insights

- 💡 Sales Mindset Transformation Needed: The prevailing negative perception of sales in Kerala stems from outdated ideas of pushy or deceptive selling. This mindset must shift to recognize sales as a consultative process focused on customer support and solution provision. Educating both business owners and sales teams about this can improve recruitment, motivation, and performance in sales roles.

- 🌐 Digital Trust as a Decisive Factor: Today’s students conduct extensive online research, relying heavily on digital content like videos and social media presence to decide on education providers. Building trust digitally through authentic content and active engagement is crucial, as parental influence is declining and student autonomy in decision-making is increasing.

- 📈 Execution Over Idea or Funding: Many education businesses have ample ideas and even adequate funding but fail due to poor execution, especially in sales and marketing processes. Establishing clear, measurable sales processes, proper training, and automation systems ensures consistent execution and business growth.

- 🧑‍💼 Role of CRM and Automation: CRM systems help manage leads efficiently by tracking interactions, follow-ups, and customer behavior patterns. Automation supports timely communication (e.g., automated WhatsApp messages on birthdays or follow-ups), helping maintain engagement even outside business hours and reducing lead drop-off due to delayed responses.

- 🎯 Clear Goal Setting and Discipline: Business owners must cultivate discipline in themselves and their teams, defining clear goals, roles, and KPIs. Without owner involvement and accountability, even the best systems can fail. Discipline across ownership, marketing, and sales is a pillar for sustainable growth.

- 👩‍💼 Dedicated Sales Teams and Proper Training: Sales executives should focus solely on sales tasks rather than administrative work. They require continuous training in objection handling, closing techniques, and customer qualification to perform effectively. Lack of training and mixed responsibilities lead to poor performance and missed opportunities.

- 🔄 Hybrid and Online Education Models for Scalability: The pandemic demonstrated the value of online and hybrid models, which reduce dependence on physical trainers and infrastructure. These models offer scalability and flexibility, allowing education businesses to expand their reach and manage resources more efficiently.

- 📊 Leveraging Data for Smarter Marketing: Using customer data for creating custom and lookalike audiences on platforms like Facebook enables more targeted marketing campaigns. This data-driven approach improves lead quality and conversion rates, reducing wasted marketing spend.

- 🤝 Sales as Relationship-Building, Not Just Transactions: Although automation can streamline processes, personal relationships and timely human intervention remain critical during the buying journey. Striking the right balance between automation and personalized communication enhances trust and conversion success.

- 🛠️ Continuous Process Improvement and Problem Solving: Regularly analyzing sales and marketing data to identify bottlenecks and reasons for non-conversion helps refine strategies. Solving identified problems systematically ensures incremental business growth and reduces wastage of resources.

- 📉 Challenges in Recruitment and Staff Retention: Many education businesses face difficulty finding suitable sales staff willing to focus exclusively on sales activities. Combining recruitment with role clarity, performance monitoring, and motivation is essential to build effective teams and reduce turnover.

- 🎥 Content Ownership and Sharing Builds Credibility: Many trainers hesitate to share their knowledge publicly, fearing loss of competitive advantage. However, consistent content creation and sharing establish credibility, build brand presence, and attract prospective students, especially in the digital age.

- 💰 Investment in Marketing and Training is Non-negotiable: Business owners must understand the need to invest adequately in marketing campaigns, sales training, and CRM tools. Cost-cutting here often results in poor lead flow and conversion, ultimately hurting revenue and growth potential.

- 🎯 Aligning Vision with Revenue Generation: While passion and vision drive purpose, education businesses must integrate revenue models from the outset. Without a sustainable revenue plan aligned with the purpose, businesses risk becoming charity-like operations without scalability or longevity.

- 🔄 Customer Journey Mapping Facilitates Automation: Clearly mapping the customer journey—from awareness to interest, desire, and action (AIDA model)—allows businesses to design automation that nurtures leads effectively, providing timely content and interactions that guide prospects toward enrollment.

- 👥 Educating Business Owners is as Important as Training Sales Staff: Often, business owners lack understanding of digital marketing and sales processes, leading to unrealistic expectations and poor collaboration with marketing teams. Educating owners on these aspects improves alignment, execution, and results.

- 📅 Real-Time Lead Engagement is Critical: Quick response teams that handle inquiries instantly, even during off-hours, improve lead conversion drastically. Delayed responses cause prospects to lose interest or move to competitors, underscoring the importance of agility in sales engagement.

- 🔍 Quality Lead Definition Requires Qualification: Not all leads are equal; leads must be qualified based on criteria such as financial ability, readiness, and interest. Filtering unqualified leads saves time and resources, increasing the efficiency of sales teams and improving closing ratios.

- 🧩 Integration of Sales, Marketing, and Business Owner Efforts: Success depends on seamless collaboration between marketing generating leads, sales converting them, and owners providing vision and discipline. Fragmentation or blame-shifting among these groups leads to failure.

- 📈 Sustainable Growth Depends on Systemization: Developing and documenting end-to-end sales and marketing processes, with clear KPIs and automation, builds a scalable business model less vulnerable to staff changes or market shifts. This approach secures steady revenue and growth.

- 🌍 Global Mindset and Opportunities: Encouraging students to consider overseas education and equipping education businesses to target such markets digitally expands opportunities beyond local constraints, reflecting the globalized outlook of today’s youth.

Conclusion

The podcast delivers a comprehensive blueprint for growing education businesses by changing mindsets about sales, adopting digital tools like CRM and automation, and implementing disciplined processes across marketing and sales functions. It stresses the importance of digital trust, targeted marketing, lead qualification, and continuous improvement while recognizing the critical roles of business owners, sales staff, and marketing teams. This approach enables education institutions to scale sustainably, meet evolving customer expectations, and thrive in a competitive digital era.