If you’re like a lot of people in higher ed, you have a lot of people outside higher ed who want to help you with your enrollment goals (full disclosure: I do too.) But too often, the companies that have convinced themselves that they’ve cracked the code–that they’ve reduced complexity to simplicity–will hire young, completely inexperienced sales staff to solicit business in email messages or at conferences. You might get several feelers that sound something like this every day:

(This is from an actual email solicitation, by the way. I did not make this up, and if you’re as incredulous as I’d probably be if I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d be happy to send it to you.)

I know what it’s like to be fresh out of college and in need of income to pay off student loans, and I don’t really fault these people; my first job out of college was selling cable TV door-to-door, which was perhaps the worst job in the world for an introvert. I will admit to feeling a little fremdschämen for them and their bosses, however; if you’re effectively telling people their challenges are easy to overcome, you’re often really telling them they’re just too dumb to figure out the simple solution. Not a good way to start a sale.

Let’s all agree there is no magic button you can push to decrease melt, increase retention, generate more revenue, or increase your yield rate. But if we assume the only naive or arrogant ones are these young sales people, we’re missing something: A lot of presidents, provosts, faculty, and–especially–trustees seem to think there is.

Consider the trustee who insists that the top priority is lowering discount. Ask that trustee what they think will happen to enrollment if you “just lower the discount,” and when they tell you what they really mean is to keep enrollment the same (or increase it) while lowering the discount, ask them this: So, you’re saying we should raise the price and expect to sell more? At the same time?

Good trustees get it right away. Others might need to read my PowerPoint, linked in this previous blogpost. Whatever it takes.

You can lower the discount, or increase quality, or reduce melt, but it’s never easy. You can do it with sophisticated tools to better optimize aid allocation, for instance. You can understand what other levers move in an opposite direction when you pull another, and live with the consequences.

However, too often you don’t like where the knitting unravels when you pull the thread. And helping you understand that–helping you understand that before it happens–is the difference between a young sales person and someone who’s actually done this for a while.

Choose wisely.