This interview was originally recorded on October 27, 2023, 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.
Elana Leoni:
Welcome everyone to our podcast, All Things Marketing and Education. I'm Elana Leoni and I've devoted my entire career to helping education brands build their brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately grow their lead. Every week, my guests who range from educators to EdTech entrepreneurs to experts in the field, will all share tips, strategies and insight in either social media, content marketing and community building. I'm so excited to be your guide to help transform your marketing efforts into something that's truly authentic and consistently provides value for your audience. Enjoy.
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week I got to chat with Lawrence Korchnak. He's the founding partner of Bloqq, spelled B-L-O-Q-Q. And Bloqq is a consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations scale specifically in the education market. And that my friends, is why I wanted to have him on the show. Not only is he a good, kind soul with a ton of tips and advice that is approachable but also quite candid. He is somebody that can really tell you what works and what doesn't specifically to education and that's so important. Over the years, I've personally learned from him after, "Picking his brain," through multiple times. After the last session I said, "You got to come on the show," and here he is. In this episode, Lawrence and I talked about the unique challenges of a go-to-market strategy.
What it is, how do you start it, how do you prioritize certain channels in a marketing strategy? How do you do things like backwards planning? We get into all of that good stuff. He talks about the seasonality and budget cycles in education, and we even go into a market channel strategy too about how do we use trial and error within it, give ourselves some grace, really understand that we don't know everything in education.
And then also one of my favorites is how do you diversify your channels within a marketing strategy as well? And last thing, don't miss the end of our chat when we talk about some important intangibles on building an EdTech go-to-market strategy. And I know I'm being brought on purpose, but it is very, very good. He throws down some really candid pieces of wisdom that you don't want to miss. For any EdTech marketer, but especially those who are new to the industry or marketing profession, this episode will help you set a solid foundation for your next go-to-market campaign, maybe your overall marketing strategy. Enjoy.
Welcome Lawrence to All Things Marketing and Education. I am excited selfishly to pick your brain. You know when you get those emails of like, "Hey, can I pick your brain?" At least this, we're on a podcast, but I get to learn just as much too. Welcome to the show.
Lawrence Korchnak:
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Elana Leoni:
Let's jump into it. We're going to talk about all things go-to-market strategy, and for those of you that don't know what it is, don't worry, we're going to define it. For those of you think that this is boring, I swear to you this is something that fascinates me and it's got all sorts of nooks and crannies specific to EdTech too. Whether you're an educator and you don't know what this is, I guarantee you, you will learn something about what it is, why it's different from edtech and why you should do it. If you are someone who's a seasoned marketer, a seasoned sales leader, or an executive, I guarantee you'll learn something different as it relates to EdTech, no pressure Lawrence, but I've learned so much from you. Why don't we get started and just start from the top, what is a go-to-market strategy and why would we do such a thing?
Lawrence Korchnak:
It's a really broad question. I'm glad to dive in though.
Elana Leoni:
Just going to throw something big bomb at you.
Lawrence Korchnak:
Great. Let's get after it. Working with companies, we think about go-to-market strategy as an effective way to scale the business. There's lots of ways to go at the market in a very ad hoc, very opportunistic way. Our goal is to help people and we encourage folks whether we work with them or not, to develop a go-to-market strategy that is built on the truths of the market, the way the market operates, and that you build your business around the elements of the market to ensure that the business is successful. And if you do a go-to-market strategy well, that strategy is scalable as the company grows as well.
Elana Leoni:
I am hearing parallels almost for the educators in the room is around, people generally don't do parallels to this, but it feels very user-centric. It felt very market-centric and very design thinking, UDL concepts as well. But what I like about you is saying, "Hey, let's figure out how your product fits in the market." And every go-to-market strategy is inherently different because of that. Do you want to explain a little bit more about maybe how it's different in EdTech specifically for a go-to-market strategy?
Lawrence Korchnak:
Sure. I'll back up to a really important point I think you just made. There's lots of ways to do this and every business is unique and a little bit different, and I encourage everyone not to look to a one size fits all model, but to understand the market movers, the seasonality, the cycle of the market, and use those elements of the market to the advantage of your business, understanding that your business is unique and different. Your question was around... I'm sorry, repeat the second half of your question for me please.
Elana Leoni:
No worries. It's more about EdTech in particular. This beautiful industry of EdTech and what you're probably going to also provide nuance to is that it really depends on your product and service for the product market fit and how it aligns to your user's buying cycle. But with that said, there are some generalities within EdTech that if you are a seasoned marketer or executive jumping into EdTech for the first time, what are the things that you could say are unique/love-hate relationship about EdTech?
Lawrence Korchnak:
I like to think about these things as market advantages and the first thing that I would encourage everyone to understand and hopefully anyone listening to this is at least has been introduced to the idea of the seasonality of budget cycles and K-12 as well as higher education, that there are certain times in the season to support schools. There's certain times in the season to sell to schools. There are certain times in the season that you should expect to realize a larger percentage of the revenue. And if you understand in some general terms the seasonality and what that means, even fall, winter, spring, summer, you can orient your business in such a way to focus on things, and this is an idea around first principle thinking, what are the things that I need to solve for solve that help me down the road?
You can apply some first principle thinking to the seasonality of the market to say, "One really obvious one, August, September is back to school time." You should be thinking critically and should have thought about critically before that time gets there that there's some support mechanism in place, that you have a training function, you have a support function when teachers need you, when they have questions about your products. That's a really basic fundamental one, but there's other nuance within the market too. The very first thing I would encourage anyone thinking about this industry or immersed in this industry is to think really critically about what business functions you're standing up, at what times of the year, relative to the market, relative to your business.
Elana Leoni:
As you were talking, I'm thinking, "How would they know this?" And you can piggyback off of some things that I'll say, but I would look at your previous sales cycle history. When is your peaks in revenue? When is your sales team outselling giving information? When is your buyer actively seeking information? Maybe you do some stakeholder interviews with your buyers, with your influencers. You do all these things to get up to speed to understand that information that Lawrence is talking about because although K-12 and higher ed have their own purchasing cycles that do follow some trends each business, whether you have a product or a service is going to have some nuances in there.
Lawrence Korchnak:
Most certainly. You draw out a really good point and an important distinction. There are times to market to schools. There's a time to expect schools to actually purchase your product. There's times to expect to be paid and trying to circumvent that process, budget sale purchase cycle, you're going to set yourself up for a lot of hardship and disappointment and difficult times trying to circumvent or hack that market cycle. I've really not seen anyone do it successfully.
Elana Leoni:
Step one is to really do some research around the market itself, understand generally how it fits or aligns with your product. Smart people like Lawrence would call that a product market fit, how does your product fit within the market and align with needs and challenges and all of those things. But let's say we got some fundamentals in place now we want to put a plan in action and some people would call that a go-to-market plan and you can do a go-to-market plan for launching your entire new product out. You can do a new products line. Sometimes people use the term go-to-market just for any plan like, "Hey, 2024, it's a plan, it's a go-to-market plan." But how do we begin this planning process and why is it so critical?
Lawrence Korchnak:
Great question and I have a standard answer for this for nearly everyone that I speak to with apologies to Stephen Covey. This is an exercise and begin with the end in mind, understanding when you're starting relative to the cycle, but also understanding and having some clear definition around what success looks like. And success can come in a number of different ways. It can be a revenue number, it can be a valuation for your company, it can be the number of students served, it could be the number of teachers on your platform. There's lots of ways to evaluate quantitatively and qualitatively what success is.
And we encourage everyone to at least develop a business hypothesis around what is your definition of success 12 months from now or 10 months from now? And then it's an exercise in a bit of backward planning. What do we do today based on the time of year, the uniqueness of your business, what has been successful, what more needs to be done and how do we begin to refine the good stuff, layer in some additional things that give organizations, give companies resources, products and people the best opportunity, the best chance of hitting that goal of where we started with beginning with the end in mind?
It's an exercise and let's begin with the end in mind. What is the goal? Let's look at what the current status quo of the business is and then let's begin to backward plan about how we get to that goal based on where we are today in the cycle with a company with a product.
Elana Leoni:
Cool. Backwards planning, and you work with a variety of different EdTech companies and maybe let's just say the B2B space, usually the backwards planning is around some type of conversion goal. It might be active users, it might be signups, it might be revenue, like you said, it also might be valuation. But what do you think is truly typical when people have a go-to-market plan with someone at the helm? Is it revenue?
Lawrence Korchnak:
We believe really strongly in a double bottom line that you can do good and do well at the same time. Then whether or not you're hyper focused on doing well or doing good in the market, your company's going to have to do well in order for you to do good, if I didn't confuse the metaphor. As capitalistic as it might sound, we encourage most folks to start with what's a revenue goal? What is your revenue goal and what are the internal pressures on that revenue goal? How does pricing, deal distribution, opportunity size, pipeline, how do all of those things need to look in order for the company to do well in order for them to do good?
Elana Leoni:
I like the double bottom line because it specifically talks about, yes, we are in EdTech, there is mission-driven aspects to everything that we do, and that's why we are all in it and we love it, but you also need to survive. And whether you're a nonprofit organization or an EdTech startup, you should have revenue goals or if you do not charge for anything, I work with a lot of nonprofits that have just sign up goals or usage goals, something to be able to go back to the board and say, "Yes, this is resonating with our market and they're using it and there is a need that we are hitting that's unique that no one else can hit." And I love that you hit on that. We have a plan in place and we've looked at all, say we've identified all of our marketing channels on how we're going to go to market and maybe we've created a budget for each of them.
And they've made assumptions on, when I used to do this stuff, I would jump in and say, "Hey, I don't know anything about all of this stuff, I'm just going to bring in experts that can give me some estimates on what paid can get me for $20,000," or whatever. Is that how you advise companies when you're thinking about channel strategies within your go-to market is how do they even begin to know what channels are available and what they can do? A lot of it's trial and error and some piloting in the beginning.
Lawrence Korchnak:
There's a whole lot to be said about failing fast and failing often because there's a lot of value in getting at what works. Nearly every company that exists in the space has already begun to do some trial and success, trial and failure. Where we typically start with folks is not to attempt to reinvent the wheel, tear everything down, but how do we look to refine, create greater efficiency of current process, whether that be a LinkedIn strategy or an email strategy or a website strategy or a webinar or a blog, whatever happens. How do we look to improve whatever metric is being used to evaluate that strategy? How do we look to improve and refine and create more efficiency there?
And then looking at how do you stage and layer in additional channels that drive scalable growth for the company? And it's simply an exercise in what works, how can we improve it, what do we do next? Because nearly every company that we talk to and we work with at Bloqq, there's not a limitless amounts of resources. There's not a team of 15 people dedicated to just social media. There might be 3, 4, 5 people all wearing multiple hats. It becomes an exercise in prioritizing what works, figuring out what works, improving what works, and then layering in additional channels that all contribute and add up to the objectives KPIs that we have behind that goal that we talked about from the beginning.
Elana Leoni:
And I think that's a really good approach for those of you going, "Gosh, this sounds hard." It's not hard, it's just anything that you do in marketing and sales in particular in an ever-changing industry with an ever-changing product because it's aligning with your ever-changing audience needs, it's just going to take a little bit of trial and error and really leaning into what you said, what works, and jumping on that and saying, "How can I tweak this a little more? How can I do a little bit less of what's not working?" I think one of the bigger flags I see when I work with companies is they just have one channel. If a go-to-market strategy, you should at least have five different ways you're getting out the message and reaching people and engaging. And sometimes you just say, "I'm just going to use social media," or, "I'm just going to use email marketing." And you can never just hang your hat on one thing. You want to talk a little bit about the importance of diversification?
Lawrence Korchnak:
Absolutely. I think understanding who your customers are, where they interact, where they engage is important because that can help you determine what channels you use and what those various methods that you want to use to reach those folks. It's a silly example, but we've yet to encounter any substantial group of buyers on TikTok. We're not actively, it doesn't mean they won't happen at some point in the future because you never know, but currently not directing people or supporting people with a strategy on TikTok because folks who can buy products and services at scale, just they don't live there. They're not there. Being thoughtful about choosing those channels based on your customer profile, based on your persona, to give you the highest likelihood possible of reaching the folks need to reach with your specific message, your unique value proposition.
Elana Leoni:
And they might be on TikTok, they're just watching cat videos.
Lawrence Korchnak:
I don't know what goes on TikTok. My kids are on TikTok, I'm not on TikTok. I don't know what's going on there. And I think I'm better off for it, probably not.
Elana Leoni:
I know you've got a great download. It's called Intangibles When building Your EdTech Go-To-Market Strategy. I know you talk a little bit within that download around some key questions people can ask when we're thinking about product-market fit, unique value proposition and really just go to market. We'll put that link in the show notes everybody and link the show notes at the end of the episode, it's a pre-download, Lawrence and his team have developed too. And it's just helpful for guiding your planning around this, making sure that you're asking critical thinking questions around these certain aspects of a go-to-market plan. Do you want to talk a little bit more about what it is?
Lawrence Korchnak:
Sure. Happy to do that. I wouldn't go so far as to say that we've developed some strict methodology about doing this. I think what we've developed, what we've learned over the years of having done this numerous times with more companies that I can count right now is that there are some consistent things that you want to know or want to think about or reflect on. There's not a one-size-fits-all, this is the go-to-market strategy. I think we touched on that a little bit earlier, but to get below the surface of some of these things, we group them into buckets. One of them happens to be product market fit. And this is really a critical thinking exercise and some amount of research or some about engaging with experts to help gain answers to these questions. Things like, who are you innovating for? Are you innovating for the school board?
Are you innovating for the chief academic officer? Are you innovating for the librarian? Who are you innovating for? What problem do you solve? Do you have a real firm handle on what the problem is that you're solving for these folks? Or do you have a notional sense of the problem you're solving because your kids had a difficult time checking out library books?
That may be very true and there may have been an isolated problem, but there may not necessarily be a market for that. And the final hoop that we ask folks to, or guide conversation or ask them to ask themselves, is there a budget for this? What problem do you solve? And is there a budget to solve it? And this is a real critical piece because anyone who's watched the news, who has kids in school, who's been in school recently, I think would universally agree, schools are overburdened and understaffed. And if what you provide is not contributing to the efficiency of instruction, learning or operation in a school, it's not solving a problem and there's not a mandate and a funded mandate for it's going to be a difficult time for you. Answering those questions around product market fit, we found help folks really get to the heart of the matter.
Elana Leoni:
Yes, pause folks, rewind what Lawrence just said and listened to it again, because I had to learn later on in my career that, and it took a while. I thought if I had something that was novel and unique, of course people would buy it. But what I have missed is they didn't really talk about it the way I was talking about it and they didn't have budget allocated to it. And really aligning it to what are those budgets? That helped me so much more, frame it in a way that I can easily say, "Yes, here are your funds available. Here's how you can buy it." And like you said, "Here are the challenges it's going to meet."
And the challenges that are important to them may not be as important to you. And that's where you have to make those concessions. Maybe you created a product that'll fundamentally increase student engagement or them being a well-rounded citizen for this world and they don't have keywords they search for it or budget around being a well-rounded citizen. They do for improving test scores, improving attendance, saving time and efficiency, professional development. How do we map those together and do it in a way that is a win-win? That took me a while, to be honest. And it's still something I look up and try to align every day.
Lawrence Korchnak:
One of the nice advantages to this market is funding sources and budgets, even if you can't find this year's budget, it's all publicly available. You can see it at least historically in broad buckets, what's being funded, how money is being spent, what it's being spent on. And there are even some resources out there that allow you to drill even deeper on high-level stuff. You can really gain an understanding within the market. Understanding the budget cycle, but then having visibility into what gets prioritized and what money gets spent on, I think that's a massive advantage of the market. That level of transparency can be a real advantage if you choose to use it.
Elana Leoni:
I just learned that and it's silly, and people are like, "I can't believe she didn't know this," I just learned that school board minutes are available online, and I know that's silly, but I didn't know that you could find them and search them, and you can also use them to align with future forecasting of needs as well. And I was like, "Gosh."
Lawrence Korchnak
And if you are listening to or reading board minutes, you might need to also Google, "Robert's rules of order," to understand what's going on, what are people actually talking about here, and what is the function that's big for four. You can add that, "Robert's rules of order," is a good Google search term. I'm sure Google AI will give you a nice succinct exclamation of that.
Elana Leoni:
We will put this download in the show notes as well. It'll surface up some key questions around how do you start to align your product with the product market fit and come up with a plan that really complements all of the ecosystem within education. Really looking at product market fit questions, unique value proposition questions, go-to-market questions, all the good stuff. We'll put that in the show notes. Before we end this episode, Lawrence, I'd love to ask you one fun question, one human question, Lawrence is a human, what is one thing that you've read or watched, we know we have some binge watchers, some binge readers, if we're lucky, the educators are like, "Yeah, right?" But what is something that you're doing that's inspiring you in terms of consumption? Whether it be reading, watching something that you're like, "Wow, people should read this or watch this because it's inspired me," or, "It just made me zone out" and that's good too.
Lawrence Korchnak
One of the things, I'm a big music lover and I think a happy place for me is to go and just listen to some music, like good music, a story that we probably don't have enough time for today, but going back and re-listening to Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, and understanding much like the education market, the nuance and complexity to the music that they're creating and the themes and the musical threads that they pull on is just, it's simultaneously fascinating to me, the genius of it, some ways, the simplicity and the complexity of it is absolutely intoxicating to me, but I also find the whole exercise very therapeutic. I think it satisfies another portion of my brain, the other side of my brain.
Elana Leoni:
That's nice. I love it. For everyone listening, I hope you were able to be satiated a little bit on the go-to-market, wonderfulness in EdTech. There will be more resources in our show notes. And Lawrence, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. I know you get to work with a lot of EdTech companies and it was beautiful to be able to just pick your brain around what are the trends you're seeing and what are the things to avoid. Thank you.
Lawrence Korchnak:
Awesome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
Elana Leoni:
Take care everyone. Thanks again for listening to All Things Marketing and Education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter @leonigroup or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoy today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get, and it helps us reach even more people that need help. We'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
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.
Lawrence Korchnak, Guest
An experienced C-suite business and non profit executive bringing over 25 years experience leading people, departments, and organizations toward stability and growth. Throughout his career, Lawrence has been consistently drawn to and effectively led new product and organizational growth.
Since founding BLOQQ Lawrence has led market entry, B2B channel development, revenue strategy and management, and CEO advisement projects. Lawrence is a believer in first principle problem solving, seeking to understand first, and collaborative solutions.
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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