This interview was originally recorded on September 16, 2022, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
[Start of recorded material 00:00:01]
[Start of recorded material 00:00:01]
Elana:
Hello, and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I am really excited to be sitting down with Joyce Whitby. Joyce is the CEO and co-founder of Innovations4Education, which is an EdTech marketing consulting firm. And she and others help with sales and business development strategies, go-to-market plans, and so much more. She can be talking to you all about that a little later, and we'll put her bio in the Show Notes, too. But Joyce has a wealth of K-12 knowledge, and we're going to be talking today about conferences and a couple of other things, and sales and biz dev.
But we could talk to this woman all day. She has so much experience. In fact, she has over 35 years experience in EdTech and sales. She's worked for EdTech leading tech companies such as Apple Computers, Scientific Learning, VizZle, and SchoolMessenger. I feel like when I go to a conference, Joyce, you kind of know everyone. You know everybody. And she's like, "Hey Elana, do you know so-and-so and so-and-so?" And it is a small space, but I realize meeting you, Joyce, I don't know half the people. So her husband is Tom Whitby, who is also a thought leader in education, a dear friend of mine. He co-founded EdChat as well. And like I said, today we will be talking about all things EdTech conferences, and for educators, we'll be talking about how you can navigate them quite a bit more. I know at the time of this launch, it's not necessarily conference time, but it's always a good time to think about your professional development as an educator. And if you are an EdTech brand, this is your hot time about thinking about next year, and conference planning, and where do we want to go, and how do we assess ROI, all of those fun things.
So I'm going to let Joyce introduce herself, but before I do, I want to talk about Joyce as a human just really quickly. I think I probably met you before, Joyce, but I really got to know you, obviously, when I went to your cabin on Fire Island. And the way Tom talks about you, he just loves you so much, and he says, "Gosh, my wife is just a firecracker, Elana. You need to network with her, you need to meet her." And so I think as a native Californian, I've had very little experience on the East Coast, and I told people I was going to Fire Island. People's eyes lit up, and then when I came and hung out with you all, you put the capital H in a happy hour and appetizers and fun, and even you've always been so generous with your connections, and I so appreciate that because I always felt like a fish out of water in EdTech. You know, all those negative things you say to yourself. You're like, "I don't belong here." And then you introduced me to the DOLS Network and so many people.
Joyce:
Yeah, that's good.
Elana:
So I just want to thank you for your friendship and your generosity and sharing your knowledge here today with us, too.
Joyce:
Oh, well, thank you so much. I'm just overwhelmed. I'm not good at accepting these types of messages, but I do know what you mean. It's daunting. Education in and of itself as an industry is daunting, and we are really on the forefront of everybody's magnifying lens right now. People are really looking at education hard, and everybody's got an opinion because they all went through school. Anybody in this country who's ever been through a school system, they're an expert, but they're really not an expert until they've walked the walk and talked the talk about the teachers who are in there every day.
And so I appreciate your kind words, and I don't really have much to add to my intro, other than to say that I started out as an educator and at the time there really weren't many jobs available here in the New York metro area. I'd go to a job interview and there'd be 200 applicants. I'd bring my guitar to try and make children sing during a demonstration lesson, and these kids with their New York attitude would look at me and say, "I don't know you. I'm not going to dance and sing."
So I didn't get the job. And so I went back and I got a master's in computers in ed. I was the first cohort of students from Long Island University in 1982 to get that – in that '82 to '83 – to get that degree. And then I stayed there and taught there for ten years because we were at the cutting edge of knowing what technology could do for education. So I always approach all of this marketing from that perspective. And if anybody were to meet me at a casual event or something, they'd say, "What do you do?" I'd say, "I'm an educator, I'm just not in the classroom." And I look at all of the marketing and sales that I do, and the coaching that I do with companies now, as a lesson plan. How do we help people learn what they don't know about? And so hopefully, that's what we'll do a little bit of today.
Elana:
Yeah, well, great. And that's a really good setup, because I think all of us learn on these podcasts. I feel like I'm the chief learning officer on all these, and I have the best job of just soaking in all of the knowledge from my guests.
But today we're going to be talking about conferences, and there's been a lot of happening in education. Lots of our guests on the podcast have been talking about pre- and post-pandemic, and I thought maybe it'd be nice to set the stage of what role did conferences play in general in EdTech before? How has it evolved? And we're still evolving and trying to figure out what the conferences look like in this new world, but why don't we talk about the before and after, what you thought the main differences were? And do you think it's changing for the better?
Joyce:
Yes, I do think things are evolving in the right direction. And I liked the question when you first posed it to me, because it implies that we are in post-pandemic, and I am a hopeful, optimistic person, and I want to embrace that and will proceed as if we are, and I hope we are. We don't need any more surprises.
But conferences over the years have been kind of morphing and changing. And I think that before we even knew there was such a thing as the pandemic, I think we were all thinking very high and mighty of ourselves. The people who would attend the conferences, the people who were the exhibitors, the people who organized it, we just knew exactly what we were doing, and this is the set of rules for this event, or this is a set of rules for that event. And we were blind to potential disruptors and things that just didn't fit the model, if ISTE didn't have a cohort for UDL, Universal Design for Learning rooms, so what? And things like that. So we just kind of turned blind eyes to certain types of things.
Then of course we were rudely woken up with a great big shake in March 2020, and of course, many of the events closed. And what people didn't realize, some of the conference organizers, is that they couldn't cancel contracts with conference centers, with hotels, with airlines. All of these things came back in a really big way to bite people in their relative rear ends. And so it was really how do you survive? How do you make it through? Do you pivot to a virtual conference? And I attended many virtual conferences, and that felt like I was sitting there in my room by myself, because nobody came to visit the exhibitors. And they still had rules that vendors, exhibitors could not do a presentation because it would be a sales pitch. And so you basically spent whatever money to support that organization and be in a virtual room by yourself. And some of them did a little bit better of a job than others.
Some of those virtual events were intended to run from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for several days in a row. And I don't know who can sit at their desk that long. Certainly not the educators I know, who as thought leaders and decision-makers in their schools had people walking in and out of their office all during that virtual event. So we learned a lot. We learned a whole bunch. Did you attend any virtual conferences during the pandemic at all?
Elana:
I did. And it's giving me not-good feelings, because I got burned out very quickly in virtual events. And in the beginning I was like, "This is amazing. Look at all these brands stepping up and doing these events." And a lot of them were two or three days, like you said. And I'm like, "OK," but it's kind of like we all got restless because we didn't know what to do with our time. So we jumped in, and we did things that we normally wouldn't do. But God, I burned out really quickly on virtual events, and I know educators did as well, as well as EdTech folks.
Joyce:
Yeah, one of my first virtual events actually was perhaps one of the best formats, and it never got replicated. I'm very involved with the SIIA, the Software and Information Industry Association. I've been on the many committees and co-chaired the board and so forth for 20 years. And so our event was May of 2020, and we were like, "Well, that's not happening." And our executive director at the time said, "We're going to do this over the period of four weeks, and we're going to do two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays for four weeks for a total of 16 hours worth of content." And I thought, "16 hours of content, who's going to be able to do that?" But because it was two-hour blocks done around the lunchtime hour, we had so many people, and people were in there really discussing and communicating, and it didn't feel virtual at all.
And then I never saw that model replicated again. I was sad, and SIIA pivoted to other models, everybody pivoted to other models. But I thought that was a really effective model to understand that virtual needs to be succinct, and it needs to be something where you do encourage that networking and that engagement, and getting a room full of people and putting them into breakout rooms so that they had smaller groups that they could communicate with, and things like that, which is what we did. So yeah, that's a little bit of what we learned from virtual.
But I think now, because I'm going to embrace that post-pandemic thought that you put on out there, I think that some conferences I've seen are still doing a little bit of an echo of virtual. So they've got two days face-to-face, and then a week later a little virtual with some recordings and things. That's cool, because not everybody is ready to travel. Not everybody is equipped to travel right now. And so it's really helpful to broaden your audience and be able to bring in people virtually, maybe with the best of certain recorded sessions that happened live and face-to-face. And I think that's a pretty interesting thing to be taking a look at now in this '22-'23 school year as they're going on through.
Elana:
Yeah, and if you're a big association that they have one big or two big conferences a year, they have already now invested in virtual tech. They've already figured out kind of how to do it. Why not continue that offering and not make another revenue stream? So we're seeing that – as what we're seeing in what I'm going to call in quotes "post-pandemic world" – is that most conferences now offer virtual as well as in-person. I'm hoping that we're being more thoughtful about the medium as well, as well as not just saying, "Oh, these are virtual and oh, these are in-person."
Joyce:
Exactly. I also –
Elana:
So do you –
Joyce:
Sorry, go ahead.
Elana:
Oh, go ahead. No, finish that thought.
Joyce:
There's a little bit of a breakdown. Your Internet is a little wonky. I'm just going to add this one little piece in. I also attended last fall, kind of at the tail end of things before Omicron hit in New York, NYSCATE. And NYSCATE 21 did an amazing job of bringing people back together for the first time, helping them feel comfortable by requiring vaccinations and proof of vaccinations, wearing our masks because we still really weren't out of it. They had a sponsor and I don't remember their name, but they had a great sponsor who provided air purification systems in every room. It was wild. That was great, and they gave them a lot of kudos for that. So that was awesome. And I observed several sessions where it was a live face-to-face presentation, and there was a Zoom access as well. There was a virtual access as well. And one presenter was using Pear Deck so that in the room we could vote on some of the things he was polling us on. And of course, the virtual folks were as well. So he really did a great job of marrying it both together.
And I just think that those are some of those amazing lessons we don't want to forget. We want to bring them forward into the future for additional really engaging professional learning experiences, which is the way I look at conferences and events. I look at it for that "what are you going to add to your expertise by attending and listening to some of these sessions and growing through those professional learning opportunities?"
Elana:
So what I'm hearing is that you may find that the conferences are changed somewhat for, I know the jury's out, but it feels like we're being slightly more intentional. So there are some moments where I feel like EdTech conferences have changed for the better. We're still figuring out and getting our sea legs, to be quite honest. But I like what I'm seeing so far. I do know that just from people that go to the big EdTech shows, ISTE was the most packed from an expo hall vendor perspective. And everyone else says that most of those expo halls were still ghost town. And so those, they need to work harder to either figure out what are the conferences I think can get the most ROI in the future on or don't do the same things, like you said. Before the pandemic, we were all just doing the same things.
Joyce:
Yeah, very much so. Very much so.
Elana:
Let's get into the brands side a little bit; how to go about planning if you're an EdTech brand for conferences.
Joyce:
So this is where I do a lot of coaching with my clients who are emerging and growing companies in the education and educational technology space. And I'm kind of rough about it. I tell them point blank, "If you're going to go to a conference and stand at a booth to hand out a pen, don't go. Don't do that. That's a real waste of money if that's all you can figure out as your event strategy." And I'm very, very focused on what I call a Beyond The Booth plan. So you have to have a BTB strategy in order to get budget dollars to go to any event. And the Beyond The Booth strategy takes on many forms, and it really depends.
So the first thing you said is which events to go to. So I always start off with a go or no-go. And I've got a comprehensive list of all of the EdTech shows, both national as well as state-level affiliates, as well as subject content specialties. So the STEM conferences, the special education conferences, assistive technology. So I've got this big list, and I updated every year with what's happening, where are they, and what's going on. And I sit with companies and I say, "All right, go or no-go?" And we look to see which events target their ultimate decision-makers, whether it's from influencers for ground-up or whether it's for decision-makers, which is a little top-down because I like to do both, and I think that both sets of stakeholders really need to know about your amazing solution.
So we look at that list, and we go really close, we really go on down that. I also bust the myth that you should only go to events where there are only decision makers, like superintendent events. It's not how school districts make purchases anymore. It's no longer just top-down. We've got a lot of delegated decision-making. There are multiple stakeholders at building level, at departmental levels that control the budget. And you can talk with a superintendent about your wonderful, amazing solution, and they're going to say, "That's wonderful, it's amazing, and if my people, my teachers will use it and if my people approve, we'll buy it. But you have to talk with so-and-so." So you may as well go to the events where so-and-so are going. And so trying to map to that, that's your go or no-go first decision right out the gate.
Elana:
Oh, and if we could pause right there, because I think so many EdTech companies – and rightfully so – when you're starting, you want to know who ultimately has the most power, and you want to make sure that you are not just talking to just users, like you said, but you want to make sure that you're talking to the ecosystem and balancing it out in a thoughtful way. And so many EdTechs go straight to the superintendents, and you might not even be ready for them, to be honest. To go to a superintendent conference, I'm a little scared. They think differently, they act differently. You have to make sure that you're networked appropriately, and you have that Beyond The Booth strategy. So I love the idea of, if my teachers have buy-in and if all so-and-so, that might be an instructional coach, it might be someone leading tech at the district or curriculum, whatever it may be, if they have buy-in, I have buy-in. So that's something super important to remember, because we just go to the top sometimes.
Joyce:
Exactly. And when you're thinking EdTech, you go to EdTech events, but if your solution is really a reading solution that happens to use technology, or it's a science or math, you go to the reading, science, and math conferences. You go to the special ed conferences, and I love going to those events because I get to come in and help them understand the power of technology to meet their needs, to hit their pain points. And so you have to really look at those audiences, and that go or no-go decision is real important as well as the Beyond The Booth plan.
But there's one other thing, and this is an important thing as well. It's to really understand your why for going to those events. Are you going just to get leads, or are you going to build relationships to really become part of the fabric of what people think about when they think about your area? So if you're dealing with STEM or special ed or whatever it happens to be, do people think of your brand and do they associate your brand with your expertise? And that's not just done, as I said, by standing there and handing out pens. That's not how you get that kind of credibility. You need to come on in with reference sites, people who are using it, educators who can speak on your behalf and say, "We've used this solution, and here's what we find," or in as we sought to create a full diversity and equity solution for STEM for girls, we use these tools, and one of those tools is yours.
So those types of stories that educators tell each other are the most valuable at these events where they really share. And that's, to me, one of the best Beyond The Booth strategies. I am going to bring in to this national or this state event these teachers who have submitted a proposal last year for this year's event – by the way, you got to get ahead of the curve – and I'm going to bring those folks on in, and I'm going to showcase both their presentation through my social media. At my booth, I'll have "Don't miss this session at 11:00 by..." and so forth. So I'll be promoting it through the event directly. Ongoing after the event, I'm going to write a blog post about what they talked about and just keep extending the sharing of best practices that include your solution.
Now you're a thought leader. You're not just a vendor on the floor. You don't have to stand there and hand out pens. So that kind of leads me to my other Beyond The Booth strategy that I love, especially for startups, and that is no booth. And conference organizers are going to hate me for saying this, but wait, there's more. Sometimes just having an exhibit booth can break the bank for startups. They work on shoestring budgets. They really have to measure every penny that they spend. Just getting on a plane and getting a hotel to go to a conference in a major city, that's a huge expense. And now you're going to pay two, three, five thousand dollars for the booth. And then they come and they say, "Well and if you want Internet, it's $100 per device per day." "Oh. Well, I'll bring my own hotspot." No. They jam. They jam the airwaves. You can't use your own hotspot. You have to use their event hotspot. If you want to have a padded carpeting so you don't kill your back in the booth, that's extra. Everything is nickel-and-dimed, and all of a sudden that one little booth for that little startup is totally unaffordable.
And so I said, "You know what? Instead of spending 5,000 bucks on a booth, don't. Buy a badge. Support the organization, and buy a full-fledged badge where you can get into every aspect, pre-conference workshops, whatever it is. Then look at the conference agenda and the schedule and pick and choose which sessions you are going to go and sit in." Most vendors don't even think about that. They'll sit back, and they're doing their email behind their booth, whatever. I'm like, "No, you can do your email from the hotel room later on. Right now you're at an event where you can learn, and if you hear what people are talking about, you are more informed and can be consultative as you talk about your solution."
And that's part of this relationship. When you sit with educators and you're learning from them and you're sharing, you're now a partner. And that's so important for educators who are doing those presentations, because they need to be heard. So it's a two-way street. You kind of meet people where they're at. And so I often say, I call that working the event in reverse. So instead of having a booth and waiting for people to come to you, you don't have a booth, you buy a badge, and you go to them and you sit in the front row and show great body language, because you're listening to what they're doing, taking notes, you're nodding your head, and you really are attending, and you wait until the end, and you walk up to the person, and you say, "That was fascinating. I learned this, this, and this. Would you like to continue this discussion over maybe a cup of coffee or a beer?" And take them on out, and let's build that relationship. And instead of spending five grand on a booth, maybe spend a little bit of money and get a nice restaurant. Say, "You know what? I have two seats at my table tonight that just opened up, and I'd love for you and a colleague to join us, and we have several other educators here, and we're all going to be talking about whatever it happens to be."
That's a better spend on your dollars if you can walk away from an event and have a dozen new friends that you can talk with that might pilot your solution, that might help introduce you to the right person who would pilot your solution, could just be that. And finding those types of relationships, that's priceless.
Elana:
For those of you not watching us on video, you can just see me head-nodding, because everything that Joyce is saying is like, "Yes, yes, yes. Rewind. Make sure." So when you are starting up, even when you're a bigger company, budgets are getting more scrutinous. You have to really make the case of why am I spending this much and what do I expect to get out of it? And what I hear from Joyce is also less is more, potentially. Don't go for the big broad net of really surface-level relationships. Try to go deep with a couple, because those will make or break you at the end of the day. When I go to conferences, I know actually the EdTech are my companies that are prospects, but I focus on one or two relationships that I can foster that may turn into a client, and for me it's one or two clients at a conference, and I'm happy and that I'm building a pipeline of everything else. And what that's hearing you say, too, is be intentional and don't take the default status quo of, "Here's what we normally do, so let's just do it." Or, "Here's what everyone else is doing."
Joyce:
And I've heard people tell me, "But I'm really naturally shy, and unless I'm standing at a booth, I don't know how to engage people in the conversation." I'm like, "Go to one of their sessions." It's naturally going to pour out of you, because you have a passion for what you're doing. And when you hear people who have a passion, you're going to start talking, and that's what it's about. It's not, "Do you have the elevator pitch?" It's not, "Do you have your spiel and you have a collateral, you have a brochure and a pen that you're going to..." There are some companies that just need to make sure they have the presence on the show floor. Great, I get it. But that's not the end-all for what you're doing. And let's also differentiate between those big national shows and the local state affiliates and regional shows, because that's an important aspect, too, in that whole go or no-go. You could be a little fish in a big pond at a big show, or you could be a big fish in a little pond at a state-level show.
And you just said the word target, Elana. So for you, you go and you target on getting a couple of solid connections. Same deal, same answer. If you are just starting out especially, you should have your target markets, even bigger companies, and you have your target markets where you want to grow your market share, where you want to establish a footprint. Those are the markets to look for local and regional events and to remember that those conferences are not run by big organizations like LRP, who they know how to run events, behemoth-size events, but these are run by volunteers that typically work in a local school district, or maybe they retired from the district but they're embedded within the community.
And so, I don't forget about them, I try and learn about them. So as people say, "OK, well, you're going to register as an exhibitor, or you're going to do this or do that," I say, "Do you have a minute to talk before the event?" So I can make a friend out of that person who is managing the registration, who's managing the event show floor and so forth. And then when I go there, I'm like, "Oh, you are Mary Jane, thank you. It's so great to see you. Wow, we've talked. We've spoken. It's nice to put a face with the name on the email or in the voice and so forth." And you know what? Those people love that appreciation. They feel honored. They're volunteers. They're not making money to spend extra hours stuffing bags the night before the conference until 1:00 a.m., which is what they do, by the way. And so I've oftentimes said, "Hey, I'm getting in the night before, do you need help stuffing bags?" "Sure." And I'll sit there with 12 people, and you go around the whole thing and you help them stuff bags. Why not? Because every one of those volunteers works in a district and, "Oh yes, I'm with this company". And, "Really?" They remember. They say, "Oh yeah, that was the woman from that company, and she was so great," and you make friends – it's about relationships, and you will casually share, "Oh, here's what we do, we love it, blah blah." "Really?" And they'll say to you – I guarantee this will happen if you're there stuffing bags – "I know somebody who you should talk with." "Terrific. That's terrific. OK, great. Yes, I do want to talk with your person." Making friends.
Elana:
Yes. And what I hear from you is plan, plan, plan before, and this applies to EdTech brands and educators. So if you are lucky enough to go to a conference, and I know that budgets are tight and there's a lot of educators that would love to go to conferences and don't have the professional development dollars, but if you get that green light and you know you're going, I want you to plan as much as possible. If you're an educator, what are the EdTech companies you currently use? How do you want to create a relationship with them? And then what are the ones that are intriguing to you? Ask around. Join some PLN groups and say, "Hey, what do you all use? Who's going to be at ISTE?" So doing that, pre-planning is everything on the educator side, plus how do you make the most of your time and not get burned out? And we also have a podcast episode about that with Steven Anderson we'll put in the Show Notes because that's overwhelming in itself.
But from an EdTech brand perspective, I say it's a complete waste of time if you've done no planning and you just show up. I spend so much time researching who's going to be at booths, who's going to be there. I reach out individually to people and, like you said, there is no cold. You don't just go up to someone cold and be like, "Hey you want to chat for 15 minutes?" No, people are booked out, they've already got coffee chats booked, everything, and they don't know you. You need to build that trust up.
Joyce:
Yeah, absolutely. And if the first thing you start talking about is you and your product, it's usually a pretty big turn-off. So having that understanding that it's really about those educators and finding out who you're talking with within the first few moments makes a world of difference to ask them a couple of open-ended questions and find out who they are. You never walk up to somebody and say, "Hi, would you like a demonstration of?" Thinking, yeah, "Oh, I'd love one, but not right now, I got to go." And then they will avoid you like the plague. So you've got to have those opening lines that are sincere and authentic and that tell you a little bit about that person because it may also help you qualify that lead. Are they truly somebody that could be an influencer or a decision maker for you? And if not, let them go. Wait until the next one comes along, because that'll be a better type of an experience. So, planning and understanding that you're in teaching mode, not selling mode. It's a professional learning event.
Elana:
I love that. And as a marketer, you need to understand that ROI is not solely determined by the number of leads at a conference, too. So I like to look at the marketing funnel and say, "What are the brand awareness activities? How am I going to try to measure the brand awareness and then just the general engagement? What did we get around that?" And then, sure, we can look at conversions, qualified leads, and then eventually maybe some that go to sales. But conferences are more than what you just – When we look at the go or no-go, and maybe you look at your list last year and see how many leads you got, just know that it's a bit bigger than that at times, too. So don't be so shortsighted in being lead driven, because I want them to be a little more thoughtful when they do that go or no-go, and then they start doing that Beyond The Booth planning for each one that they decided to go to.
Joyce:
Absolutely. One of the things that I always suggest and we did it really well, had an amazing event coordinator at SchoolMessenger, the moment that show ended, she had four questions she would ask you about your experience as a rep who attended that show. Write it down right then and there. Are you frustrated because you were miles away from the ladies’ room on the show floor, and you want to remind them put us someplace easier next time? Or did you have a great time because you found this group or, you know, found a playground at ISTE that mapped up to you? Capture it right then and there so that in three to four months when you start planning that same event for next year, you've got what worked and what didn't work right in front of you, and number of leads is going to be part of that. But I also always say in your whatever CRM you're using, customer reference ... What's the CRM stand for?
Elana:
Relationship management.
Joyce:
Thank you.
Elana:
No worries.
Joyce:
Customer relationship management, whatever CRM you're using, your customer relationship management tool, you need to have spots where you can list the number of touches that you encounter a contact with. So I met this person first at ISTE, then I met them again at NYSCATE, then they attended one of our webinars, or they responded to something we did online. Those multiple touches are what build your brand with that person and that school or district, and that lead to a purchase. It happens that sometimes people just buy because they saw you once, but it's less than likely for true solutions that need to be adapted to, especially instructional solutions, or even things of just technical in nature. It takes some time. [crosstalk 00:36:32]
Elana:
Yeah, and we notice, and that's the harder challenge of being in EdTech and sales, is that length of a sales cycle is quite long because there's multiple stakeholders involved, and they need to figure out what budget from where, what funding, all of the things. Student privacy, they need to check all their boxes. It usually takes a very long time to have a sale whether you're free or not sometimes, too. So I think we've done a pretty good job of thinking about, "OK, we've got some conferences next year, how do we decide which one to go to?" Don't ignore the little ponds, like you said. I think that was really good. But what I loved you saying that I haven't heard from many people is be a learner as well. Listen. Listen, listen, listen. Go to sessions, and do not brag to others how you don't go to sessions when you go to conferences. That is something that so many times I hear people say. I wish I had the lecture to go to sessions sometimes, but I just –
Joyce:
I know. I hear from vendors sometimes, they go, "Oh it was dead, there was nobody on the show floor." And then I see them, and they have – their chairs are behind their little exhibit table, and they're sitting back there eating lunch or doing their email, and I'm like, "That's a no in my book." Just take the chairs, either get rid of them or put them out for customers to sit in, push your table back, make more space to be inviting, do those kinds of things. And then if there's nobody at the show floor, make sure there's nothing that can be stolen off your table, like a laptop or something important. Put those things away, get up and go to a session, and leave the session five minutes before the exhibit area opens up again. But go learn, even if it's just little snapshots here and there. They'll see you. The person you're sitting next to is going to make note of the fact that you were there. They know. They see it, and they can tell which students are paying attention in class. They're good at that.
Elana:
And when you love learning, you will start creating importance of learning all around you. And what – the trend I've loved, and this isn't new, before the pandemic, I did see this quite a bit, is now expo halls are learning centers, and they're bringing in influencers, and they're bringing in users that can show you the best hacks on their tool. I learn so much in an expo hall now, and I say sometimes, "Educators, if you do not have money to do the full registration – again, sorry, conference people – but if you just want to go to the expo hall, a lot of the times it's free, and you can learn so much. And I think that it starts with the company being learner-centered and being curious and listening and elevating educator voices. So I love that.
Joyce:
Absolutely. And school district budgets are so tight, and they may only be able to send one or two people to the whole event. But if it's a national event, those exhibit halls are usually free. Bring another ten people, and let them just learn on the show floor. Give them tasks to divide and conquer and bring back information. Because when you also go as a team from a school or from a district, then you can have a great debrief. "What did you learn?" "Oh, I saw this, this was amazing." "And how do we follow up on that?" And so, for educators themselves, they should have a Beyond The Booth plan. They should have a beyond the expo hall or beyond the session plan. What do we go to that show for? Who's going to do what, and then what did we learn when they come back out? And they debrief it as well. It's the same thing. Everybody's there as a learner.
Elana:
Yes. And I want to quickly switch over just to general sales, because I know you are a wealth of knowledge there. But before, you just touched on something is what do you do after? And my biggest pet peeve, and probably yours as well, is that we spend all this money and time and effort, and maybe we planned, and all these things to get these meetings and we never follow up. And this even happens on the PR side. So when I see journalists come to me, and they talk to me about all their meetings, they say, "Elana, only one-third of them actually follow up from the meetings. And I find it a waste of my time. They don't even follow up." So really make sure, and what I do is I spend the next two days afterwards just following up, following up, setting up meetings. And if you don't do that, why are you even going?
Joyce:
Right. You need to almost, like, clear your calendar.
Elana:
Why don't we jump into –
Joyce:
Did you get that? I was going to say a good idea is to clear your calendar before you go for the day after, so that you have that time already banked in. I also write my "great to meet you at blank" note before I even go. "That was so great to meet you at ISTE in New Orleans. Hot and muggy outside, but it was great to meet friends inside. I wanted to follow up with you about this." Short, sweet, four sentences to remind somebody about what you spoke about. Maybe even take a picture of yourself at your booth or with your badge so they'll remember who it was. Because they met so many people, they may not remember you. "Oh, I remember that person. She spoke with the New York accent."
How do you remind them who you are? And when I am talking with people and it feels authentic and real, I always ask them how they would like to be followed up with. What's the best way for me to reach you? Do you have an admin that I should talk with, an administrative assistant that I should talk with? How do you want me? When do you want me to reach out to you, and how do you want me to do it? I've had people say, "Just DM me on Twitter," and they mean it because their email is not something they do, but DM, they'll see themselves – but that's their choice. I'm not just going to blanketly do that to everybody I meet. I'm going to do that when somebody tells me to do it. So yeah, have the follow-up plan already firmly entrenched in your calendar and in your mindset. Because again, if you're not going to follow up, don't go. Stay home.
Elana:
Yes, yes. So good. Those are great tips, and I learn so much because I'm not that specific, and I need to be. I know we only have a little bit of time left, but I want to give a teaser for your knowledge in sales. So I'm going to ask you a big question on sales and you can just maybe tease out one thing. Because we can spend an entire podcast episode, which we probably will later on, just talking about the importance of being strategic in EdTech sales. But there's a lot of people that are in EdTech that maybe are forming either EdTech teams in terms of a sales team, or they're kind of mid-level, or they've got a lot going on. So that spectrum on sales. What should they be aware of when it comes to sales? How do they know they're moving in the right direction? How do they structure sales teams? I know these are really big questions, just whatever you think is the most important thing to throw out to those people that are struggling in EdTech sales right now. How do they get started? How do they be effective? There's so much to talk about.
Joyce:
Right. It's a huge topic, and I'd love to chat with you at length about it. But for companies at different stages, the answer's a little bit different. For startups, the CEO and that initial team that launched the startup, you guys are the first salespeople. Whether you know anything about sales or not, you are the first salespeople for that company, for that solution. And you may be pitching to investors or districts who are going to be your early adopters, but you need to get your messaging around your value proposition nailed down up front. And folks like myself help companies do that. I help people craft that. And I really dislike saying elevator pitch, but that's what everybody refers to it as. What is your messaging? How do you succinctly say it? And I usually say, "Well, you need the elevator pitch, you need an escalator pitch, and you need a got-stuck-in-the-elevator saga." What if you had more? The goal of the pitch is to have somebody say, "That's interesting, tell me more." So now how do you answer that question, that second level? So the CEOs, the COOs of these startups, you are the first salespeople.
And then as the company grows, and you begin bringing folks on board, whether it's through a channel partner or an independent rep or a direct sales rep, you need to help that individual or group know how to sell your solution, because you've been selling it. So you should know what's working in terms of the messaging. What tools do they need? Don't let people wing it when it comes to your messaging. Make sure you've given them what works. "This is what I've used to sell this. This is our value proposition. Here's why this is so important for schools to have." And I'm going to make it easy and give you some slides. I'm going to give you some language that you can use in social media. I'm going to give you a one-page or whatever it is. Don't let them wing it. And folks like me will come on in and do that with you.
And I guess that's the last part of my advice is when you bring in consultants to tell you how to refine your messaging and your value proposition and which events you should go to and what types of marketing campaigns you should run, listen to those consultants. Because a lot of times, I've seen companies who will sit there and pay you for this consulting work, and then they go off in a totally different direction, and they wonder why things didn't work out. So you've got people who've done it before and have had success with it. Listen to them, bring them on into the fold. And then we can talk more about this, like you said, for hours.
Elana:
Yes. It's such a huge, huge topic. But I love the idea of so many people don't have a succinct elevator pitch and a, like you said, escalator, getting stuck in the elevator but aligning that and speaking in real approachable terms to educators and tailoring it potentially to different stakeholders. Because a lot of people care about different things. A superintendent's going to care about something completely different than an educator. And so I loved the just get started with that. I want you to pause here if you're a small EdTech startup and say, "Do I have that? Can I ask every single person on my team, and will we be somewhat aligned with what we do and how we say we do it?" So important. And then being able to say, "What's the next step? How can I grow my sales team? What are the options available?" And are they trained to do that? Especially in the world right now of student data privacy. That's where sales reps, I feel like they stumble a lot and they need to know those things, because they will be asked those things. And I'm sorry, I'm getting off. We're, we're going to dive in [crosstalk 00:47:45].
Joyce:
That is so true, because your solution may be a math solution, but if you don't know about student data privacy, you're not a solution. Now you create another problem for them.
Elana:
You're a problem.
Joyce:
Yeah, exactly.
Elana:
So Joyce, we'll come back and talk about sales, because you are so knowledgeable around that. I learn. I'm in the marketing side in this beautiful unicorn world, and sometimes you're on the ground and you're teaching people how to connect sales and marketing in ways that I love. So we'll talk more about that.
But the last question we ask our guests is around inspiration, and every day is hard. We were just talking before this about how this week has been so hard. How do you look to either maybe habits you do or things you read or intellectual things, whatever, are there things that you just go, "I got to do this to recharge my soul?" What puts that pep in your step if you have those hard challenging moments, weeks?
Joyce:
Well, it's always a little different, right? I do read each morning a set of different types of ListServ emails and things like that. And I scan through them. I'm looking for certain key points that keeps me on my toes, and it lets me be consultative to my clients. But personally, I just finished reading InnovateHERs, which is a great new book by Barbie Kurshan and Kathy Hurley. So I recommend it highly. I put a post out on my LinkedIn about it already. I do spend time on my social media in the morning to connect with like-minded folks. So that's an important aspect, because I learn things from other people all the time.
And then I also try and disconnect. So usually in the evening I'm still finishing up those last couple of emails and my husband wants to watch a movie or something. I'll bring a laptop in without a cord. When the battery dies, I'm done. It's good. The battery's down to 5%. I'm done. I push it away. I find ways to disconnect and recharge just organically and get off the screen where I can, because there's just so much that anybody can withstand before you have some serious burnout issues and everything.
And I also do a lot of giving back. Just gratis opportunities. Like, next week I'm working with the StartEd people at EDTECH WEEK in New York City, and I'll be doing master classes for them, and then I'm doing one-on-one mentoring next week. And that's just ways to kind of give back to the industry. You mentioned the DOLS earlier, and we're female leaders in education and technology. We've got almost 900 women in the DOLS at this point, which is crazy. And we meet now twice a month on Zoom, and we help each other.
So those types of things, to me, are really uplifting to know that I'm not alone, even though I'm sitting in the office alone a lot of the time. I'm not alone. I'm really connected with so many other people and people like you who just make me smile when you ask me to come and talk on your podcast.
Elana:
Yes, yes. Those are all really good things. And for those of you that are in the car or running and listening to this, we'll put it all in the Show Notes. The link to the DOLS if you want to get invited to that, if you want to read that awesome book, we'll put it all in there.
So Joyce, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. I know you could talk about so many topics, that I love that we were able to dive deep into conferences. I want everyone listening to this podcast to think about, "Gosh, what is my next conference? Maybe I want to be strategic and plan out my conferences, or be assertive and advocate for myself as an educator of where do I think are going to bring the most value to me professionally and also personally building that PLN." So every year is hard. Every year feels like it's harder on education. How do we use conferences in a way that can help us in our profession as an educator? And EdTech, I think no one knows how to rightfully assess ROI. So I hope this conversation helped just say, "Wow, do we do this? Do we have a way to assess this? Are we being strategic?" And please reach out to myself or Joyce, who's really the expert here. And speaking of that, Joyce, how can people get in touch with you?
Joyce:
Well, I'm easy to find on Twitter. I'm JWhitby1. So follow me on Twitter, and that would be cool. I'm also up on LinkedIn, and I'm really quite active on that every day. Or just write me at Joyce@innovations4education.com. So it's innovations with an S added, the number four education.com, and yeah, happy to take on questions.
Elana:
Awesome. Well, thank you again, and thank you everyone for joining us and listening and learning alongside us. I specifically loved our theme of just being a learner wherever you are in the world of education. And I keep mentioning Show Notes. You can access this episode's Show Notes at Leoni Consulting Group. So that's two Gs, Leoni consulting group.com/31. 31 for detailed notes on all the things and all the links. And we'll talk to Joyce and see if she wants to throw in some things that might help you assess conferences in the future. So thank you all. We see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcasts for all Show Notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends. So please connect with us on Twitter @LeoniGroup. If you enjoyed today's show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We'll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
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Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Joyce Whitby, Guest
Joyce is a lifelong EdTechKnowLedgist who started off as a special ed educator in NYC, and went on to teach graduate-level EdTech courses at Long Island University. Since then, Joyce has been in the business of educational technology and has held key leadership roles in sales leadership, professional development, and marketing with organizations like Apple Computer, Scientific Learning, and SchoolMessenger. She also has extensive experience working with startup EdTech ventures. In 2017, Joyce and her husband (a.k.a. @tomwhitby, co-founder of #EdChat) launched their consulting business Innovations4Education, where Joyce serves as CEO, working with emerging and growing EdTech companies that are seeking growth in revenue and market share.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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