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BUSINESS MONITOR
Selling to schools?
Do your homework
Need a lesson in how to break into the school market? Paul Clapham tells you how
E
verybody has business blind spots – those
Getting a school
classroom actually teaching. Therefore you have to
opportunities that you know exist but can’t
uniform contract
see your way to exploit. They’re different to
might be hard
plan contact calls and visits differently to
work but it’s well
approaches to other businesses. Finding out when
what you’re used to. You don’t know anything
worth the effort
or if people are available for contact can be a
about their buying processes. You don’t have any major barrier and it’s one that often stops people
contacts. You’re only aware of what sales in their tracks when attacking this market.
opportunities exist in the most general terms. An What’s more, the education world is plain
example of this, for many printwear businesses, different. For instance one business which sells
would be schools and colleges. into the sector has a sales training manual which
This is understandable because the market and features no less than six pages of acronyms used
approach is indeed different. What’s more, for a specifically in education and you probably don’t
long time it would have been pointless attempting know any of them. There is also a level of
to sell to schools – they didn’t have the budget for suspicion: some teachers still have an automatic
your products. That has changed although, quite distrust of someone selling to them, not least
rightly, they are still far keener to spend on books solid. A promise of an order is a firm promise. It because they are unused to commercial buying. In
and classroom improvements. may take longer to get to ‘yes’ but once there you fairness that “them and us” attitude is
But there are good reasons to have a change of can schedule payment. You don’t need to credit disappearing and most are keen to harness
mind. The first is consistency. Schools will continue check the client, so you’ll never have that nasty available local expertise.
to receive budgets in a recession. Schools rarely phone call “sorry, your credit check failed”. Also The next question is where the hell do you
close – the likelihood is that an education client days to payment are typically 35 so it’s good
will be there long after you have retired – so there business for your cashflow.
is regular business. The second is a constantly
evolving client: every year every school has a new Uniform
intake of fresh blood and every year pupils move First let’s address uniforms. Sorry, it’s not good
on to new and different activities, some of which news in general. The market for uniforms is largely
present business opportunities. Then there are lots in the hands of a smallish group of large specialist
of schools and colleges in a catchment area and suppliers who are well established. That’s not to
their needs are broadly similar. Above all schools say that you won’t get the opportunity to quote
rarely have specialist printwear knowledge in their and there may be good reasons based on local
ranks. So, if you can develop a long-term convenience, reactivity and size of school which
relationship as a local reliable expert you will combine to make yours the best deal. Fear not;
become supplier of choice. Finally, schools by and there are plenty of other opportunities.
large prefer local suppliers and that’s certainly true You’ll need to adjust your thinking in terms of
of the Local Education Authorities (LEA) that run sales techniques. The LEAs have lists of approved
them. suppliers and clearly you need to be on your local
In the current economic climate there are some one. That’s the easy bit. The bigger change relates
other valuable factors to keep in mind. You will be to access. Despite any prejudices you may have,
paid by local government so your money is rock most teachers spend most of their time in the
| 20 | December 2008 www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
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