In Search of Catholic School Excellence

**The Transcript is generated automatically. Please excuse errors. **

Hello, folks. Welcome back. This week we're joined by John Mihalyo from Elementary Advancement Solutions. And John is a former principal who has done more than his fair share of wrangling in students, wrangling in the dollars, all of the above, and now he's helping schools all over the country, all over the world it sounds like with their advancement needs.

John, thanks for joining us today. It's good to see you. How you doing today? Not too shabby. It's much better with you here now. Aw, the pleasure is always here. Let me tell you something, always exciting to get to talk to you and get to collaborate with you, for sure. Yeah. I'm really relishing the opportunity here because you deal with something that most of the schools don't have a whole lot of experience in.

And I'm thinking about our, our local diocese. We've got enrollment issues we've got big dreams with no way to achieve them, and it seems like the, these two kind of worlds of schools who are making these dreams happen and the amount of schools that have dreams that , they're hoping to chase we're just not, we're just not having enough of those, right?

And so the more I listen to your stuff, the more I meet the people that you work with, the more I'm impressed by what you're getting done. So I would love to talk today about advancement what that means in terms of a, say a K-8 school, which are most of our folks and how would somebody who doesn't have a department go about dealing with something like this?

Yeah, so I think it's a, a new world that we're dealing with, and what we have to realize is just because we've always done it that way doesn't mean that's the way we need to keep doing things. And so I think it's really great that you bring up that there are so many schools out there that have these big dreams, that have these aspirations, that have these things that they want to do, but they either think to themselves, " that can't be us ever."

Or they think to themselves, "I don't have any idea how to get there." how many times have, have we gone, we go to a, an event, a conference, a, a whatever, and we take away so much great stuff from a speaker. Maybe we're listening to this podcast today- and you think to yourself, "This is awesome.

I so wanna do it." And then you sit down at your desk and you go I don't have any idea where to start. Yeah. And then before you know it, it goes on the shelf behind you, or you say, "I'll come back to this later." And then it's November, and then you go, "Okay I'll do it for Lent. We're gonna do that for Lent"- Right

kinda thing, right? And then Lent gets here and usually it's like, "Ah, we'll do it in the summer, 'cause now's just not the good time." And then when summer gets here, you go, " we'll do it when school starts again." And we just kick the can down the road- Yeah ... Longer and longer.

And so I guess the first thing I would wanna say is, to those schools out there that have these dreams, that have these aspirations, I hope you do. I hope you, you have dreams. I hope you have aspirations. I hope you are dreaming about where you wanna be in five years, because you can get there. Yeah. You just have to start somewhere.

You have to take that first step- Yeah ... To get there. And so I can tell you right now that most of the schools I work with- They are not having a $800,000 gala. They are not doing a $5 million annual fund. They are schools that are two or three years away from a bad enrollment away of being in a really bad place.

Yeah. Okay. They are schools that are not offering teachers $15,000 over county salaries. Okay? The- these are normal Catholic schools out there. Yeah. And so when we look at these kind of things, we look at advancement, I think there's a big difference. And people always think of advancement and they think of this.

This is what a lot of schools' advancement programs look like. Mm-hmm. Our PTA, or HSA, or insert parent acronym- ... does our gala, and then they do a, a g- gift wrapping thing with Santa, and then we do a golf tournament, and that's our advancement. Okay? That's fundraising. Yeah. That's not true advancement.

A- advancement is really you're developing those relationships. You're developing beyond just relationships to form partnerships with people, with businesses, with members of your community- to really create a lasting impact. And there's so many different things, and I know we'll get into these, but so many different things that go into making that successful that it's not even funny, but you got to start somewhere.

And it's has to be... I think the biggest thing, it has to be, it has to be an intentional choice- Yeah ... that we're going to do something different even when you know you're gonna get some backlash from people saying, "But we've done this for 72 years." So we have to do it for 73 years even though- Right

nobody likes it and nobody wants to come to it anymore. That's so true. Yeah and then you're also, you're taxing the same people, right? So you're going after the parents who've already paid their tuition and put up whatever extra you've asked for them, and then also have to run the thing, and you're just beating the same s- story over and over again, and it's not necessarily getting anywhere.

It's not advancing things, for sure. Definitely not advancing things. But even more so, too, I think you just said a very important word there, though. I think one of the biggest things I see with schools is we're not telling our story very well. We're not talking about what's happening in the four walls of our school.

We are not talking about the amazing things that are happening. And I met with a school this past summer, and we were talking about all these great things that, that they did, and they really did. They did some amazing things. Mm-hmm. And when we met this fall, I said, "Listen, you told me you did A, B, C, D, and E."

And they were like, "Yeah." I'm like, "That's awesome." "Yeah." "Where is it on your website?" where is it in your newsletter? Where is it on your social media? Where..." All these amazing things happened, and nobody knew about them. Yeah. And so we just assume that people understand what our story is because we understand what our story is.

And if we're not the ones sharing what is happening at our school, that's when you get Facebook groups and parents in the parking lot and everything like that telling about what's happening at your school when it's not necessarily coming from you, and so it doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth.

And so I think that's one of the biggest things when we're gonna talk about fundraising, we're gonna talk about enrollment, we're gonna talk about leadership. I always say to people, I said, "If you have a good Catholic identity, consistency, communication, and good curb appeal, those four things, if you take those four things, 95% of your problems will go away."

And one of the big pieces of that is that communication piece. Yeah. So true. So true. Yeah if I look at some of the, Some of the Facebook pages of these schools and what they're posting is nothing wrong with posting like, "Hey, we went to church on Friday," which is wonderful.

But I also feel like that's part of the flow of the normal day, which you should have some of those things in there because you want people to know this is what it's normally like. But as you mentioned, if there's f- five cool things that you're doing, you gotta put a light on that. Let people know.

You... Yeah, without question. And I think, too, one of the things I always like to ask schools, and it's... I would ask you this. If you're listening to this podcast right now, and this is something that interests you, and this is something that maybe your school's struggling with, and it's okay to say, "We're struggling with this."

Give it a name, okay? But I would ask this question to you. What makes your school unique? Mm-hmm. Right now as you sit today, on the day we're recording this, on the day you're listening to this. Maybe you're listening to it tomorrow, maybe you're listening to it a year from now. But as you look at your school right now as it sits, what makes your school unique?

What's different about your school than every other school that is out there, every other- Catholic school that's out there, okay? And this is what I always tell schools. Because immediately they jump up and they go, " and I go, "Wait. You can't say to me we go to mass once a week." "And you can't say to me we're a big family."

And usually everybody goes, "Oh." Yeah. To me, that's a baseline for you being a great Catholic school, is that your community needs to be a close-knit community- Yeah ... and you need to be at mass. You need to have a Catholic culture within your school. That's, that- that's not, that doesn't make you unique.

Yeah. Maybe it makes you unique from public school or private schools, but it doesn't separate you in terms of what makes your school an amazing school, because I expect that- when I see the words- Bottom line ... Catholic school. Basic. It's a basic thing. It gets your starting off point, okay? Now what do you have beyond that makes your school unique?

And that's a s- that's a question I hear a lot of schools and a lot of school leaders struggle to answer. Yeah. What is it that makes your school unique? Yeah. You look at, you look on their websites too and they try to explain that. And they ... We, we teach all of these subjects, and we have dedicated teachers, and we have all these after-school programs.

And that's but that's what a normal school day is about. Of course those are the things. So if you can't identify what that is that truly makes you different or your spin on any one of those things, then, yeah I think there's a problem right there. It's always amazing to me, there's a couple questions that I told you I ask schools when I start working with them.

And depending on what I work with them on, I work with principals on leadership goals. I work with advancement directors on fundraising goals. I work with enrollment directors on trying to increase enrollment. Sometimes I work with a principal to increase their advancement dollars or enrollment because maybe they don't have one of those positions- Right

Because their school is not big enough to. But the questions I always ask that usually get people's tires spinning in the mud and that they have trouble answering, and it's just a great jumping-off point, is what makes your school unique, and the second one is this one. And when I say this, people go, "No, they..."

If somebody walked into your office right now, today, like as you are listening to this, there is a knock at your door and there is a person at your door who goes, "I will give you a million dollars right now if you can tell me what you'd do with it in the next 30 seconds." How many schools can't answer that question?

Yeah. Okay. And paying off debt doesn't count. Okay? What would you do to, what would you use this million dollars for today in the next 30 seconds to make your school better over the next one, three to five years? And there are people that go, " I had never thought about that." Yeah. Okay? So really thinking about those questions and starting to dream beyond just what your school is today, I think it's a great point where leaders have to make that decision to go, "You know what?

Enough's enough. We've been doing this for too long. We haven't been getting the results that we wanna see. Our enrollment has continued to decrease. We're not making our budget every year. Our budget's coming up short every single year." Or maybe we are just by $100, coming out in the black at the end of the year type of thing, but we're really not making any enhancements or things like that.

Or you have a parent group who's running all of your fundraising events. And to me, I think your parent groups need to be friendraisers, not fundraisers. Yeah. I needed an advancement office to head up those things, so that way, you just mentioned it before, the same people aren't getting taxed over and over again.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, the idea that you couldn't, you don't have a target for what you hope your school could be, what your hope your school could do is crazy. I my old school, we would ... It was a joke because it, we just figured it was never gonna happen, and it never did happen. But we didn't have a gym, and so anytime somebody came into the school and said If I had a million dollars," I'd give it to you right now," we'd be like, "Gym."

Everybody. For the whole time I was there, before and after that was the thing because you have to have your sports elsewhere. You don't have a place to really gather people. There's lots of good reasons. But that was very easy to talk about. Now, did they ever do anything about building a gym or anything like that?

Of course not. But you, if you can't answer the simple question of, "How can I help you?" and maybe a million dollars is more than they figure they're ever gonna see, but- If you say, "I want I wanna expand our science program. I want to expand our dance program. I wanna expand our whatever," that should be at the tip of your tongue.

Like- Yeah ... these are the things I think we can actually get better at, that if we just had a little help, we'd be able to do it. But I think it's, there's a, the bigger problem of there's nothing on the dartboard. There's no target that you're trying to chase, and if maybe that dream doesn't happen in, in the next 10 years, the next 30 years, but if you're not chasing something better, then what are we doing here, right?

I think too many of us, when we look at our schools, we are wanting the scratch-off lotto ticket. We wanna go and put a dollar in the machine- ... and scratch it off and have there to be three symbols that match and get a million dollars for it. Yeah. It doesn't work that way. Now, I recognize for somebody out there my dad used to always say, when I would say to him, " why do you still play the lotto?

You have a one in 450 million chance of winning it." And he would say, "'Cause somebody has to win." "So why not it be me?" kinda thing, right? Yeah. But when we're talking about what our schools, how we're gonna improve our schools, I'm not sure that's a successful strategy the scratch-off lotto ticket thing.

And here's why I say that. Number one, we try as Catholic schools to invest the bare minimum- Mm-hmm ... a dollar, and expect the maximum results, a million dollars, and when it doesn't happen, we just go, " this didn't work," and, "See, I told you it wouldn't work," and, "Let's go again." Versus now let's think about it the opposite way.

If you have a retirement fund or a, a 401or a Roth or whatever people have, or a pension, whatever- You're putting a little bit, having wins, and having those wins compound on each other, and before you know it, you look at the end result, and you've got enough money in there to retire.

That's the strategy we have to do. We have to get some wins first. We- Yeah ... we have to start small. And one of the schools that I work with right now, they just completed a huge campaign where... And this is not a school that is having million-dollar donors come through their door every day. Okay? This is not a school that's enrollment is bursting at the seams.

This is not a school that's in a huge metropolis area of anything like that. This is a normal Catholic school community who took on this project, and they were challenged to say, "Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna do this building project and we need to raise $500,000 to get there." and they hit that very quickly.

And not only they hit it, but they exceeded that. But it didn't start with that $500,000 project. It started with them taking on smaller tasks. And one of the prime examples that they gave was this freezer that we have, this refrigerator, has been broken for years, and we've not been able to use it a cafeteria fridge- or ice maker. Ice maker is what it was. That's what it was, an ice maker. And everybody had been talking for years and years about, " when are we gonna get the ice maker fixed? When are we gonna get the ice maker..." And we started there. We fixed the ice maker. That was the first thing we took on.

Yeah. And then we went to our donors and we said, "We fixed the ice maker." It showed that we were gonna do things differently. And how many times in our school do we dream so much but those dreams never come to reality? Yeah. You gotta showcase your wins. You gotta showcase that you're making progress.

And the funny thing about this $500,000 project this particular school was doing, is it's been talked about for 30 years. Mm-hmm. And everybody just kinda said, " yeah, that'd be nice, but nobody's ever gonna do it." Yeah. Now they did it. Yeah. Now they did it and their community is coming together, and it's just an amazing thing right there.

So it's those types of experiences, I think, that I would look at. Y- you have to stop just rinse and repeating and expecting you're gonna get different results, but you also have to put more than a dollar into the lotto machine- ... and not... a- and get mad when you don't hit the million dollars every time.

Yeah. One of the things that I do is I really, when I work with a group, when I work with a school, the first meeting we have is a two-hour deep dive- Mm-hmm ... that really gives me the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level, and to really get to ask questions about what's happening in their school, and get to know the history of their school, or get- Mm-hmm

to know what, like, how have they gotten to this point? Mm-hmm. And that first two hours is so critical because I really take a personal interest in wanting that person to succeed- Mm-hmm ... And supporting them. And even with the first days of school, reaching out to people or on the mastermind groups or things like that and checking in with them.

How's this going? How did this go? And when you hear those kind of success stories, like this, this afternoon I met with somebody who did his first back to school night ever. Wow. And a brand new principal, and was sharing just about the success of it, and he said a parishioner walk up to him at mass and said, "I heard your night was amazing."

He said, "And I'm going, 'You don't even have a kid at the school. How do you- how do you know the night was amazing?'" And he said, "Because my phone was blowing up with positive messages- Wow ... about the back to school night." And so there's that word of mouth right there. There's that- Yeah ... component of things that we just can't you can't pay for that.

Yeah. It just it's authentic and I think that's the big thing right there is just I really just take a personal interest in the people that I'm working with, 'cause I... It's not transactional with me. Yeah ... I really wanna get to know them, and I wanna get to share in their successes, but also in the things that aren't going real well for them to know that they can reach out to me and and it's a safe spot for sure.

Yeah. And a great point that something like a back to school night is not a throwaway thing. This is- No ... that's a, that's another opportunity. Mm-hmm. It's not just a to-do, it's an opportunity to do something great. When I'm working with a school on a particular project or an event or whatever, first question I always ask them is, "What's the purpose of this event?"

Mm-hmm. And c- if your purpose of your, and this particular school, they're, they had a event that is a tradition of the school, but it had gotten a little stale. And nobody had asked the question, what's the purpose of the event? And when we looked at what the purpose of the event is and what they had been doing with this event, they weren't married at all.

They were totally two different avenues. And thus, they weren't seeing a lot of success with it. And so when they looked at this and said, "What's the purpose of this event?" And we actually broke it down. Okay boom. Okay, great. Now let's build the plan around that. When the event ends, we got back together and I said, "Okay, you told me your goals back in April were this."

Mm-hmm. "How did that go?" "That was an A." "Okay, great. How did this go?" "Eh, it was probably a B, B+." "Okay. Great. How did this go?" And so we had our criteria to figure out what was gonna make this event a success so that we could map it out and plan out for the event according to the success we had already established.

Mm-hmm. And so I think that's one of the things, too, that I always ask event directors is it's like, what's the purpose of this event? If the, the purpose of the event is to make an ungodly amount of money, then say that. Yeah. Okay? But I think sometimes the people say, " we wanna make a bunch of money on this event."

Okay, what else? That's it. And I go, "Okay, so if you raise a million dollars tonight, would you consider that a success?" And they go, "Yeah, absolutely." And I go, "Okay, what if everybody has a miserable time, nobody will ever come back to it again, everybody hates your school now- ... but you made a million dollars.

Would you take it?" " no." "Okay, so then your primary goal isn't just to raise money." Yeah. "It's to make the school look in a positive light, it's to make sure people come back again, it's to make sure they have a great experience." Mm-hmm. "It's a great way to get future donors involved." Yeah. Okay, so, so yes, one of the goals is to raise money, but that's just one component of it.

Yeah. And that's a byproduct of you hitting the mark on everything else that there was. So that particular school they lost money last year, and this event was very successful this year. So yeah, so it's... I think it's just breaking it down, but it's just... I find it's much trying to get in shape.

If you have a physical trainer that's walking with you going, "Don't eat that. Come on, we gotta go, we gotta go for a run. We gotta go for a walk. We gotta lift weights," whatever. If you have somebody there walking with you, the chances you're gonna be successful increase exponentially. Yeah. So true. So. Yeah, the small steps make a difference. It's also the, the idea that there's a cumulative effect to what we're doing. I get it. The principals are worried enrollment's tough, and that's their biggest problem. So that's what we're gonna spend our energy on. But I think all of these other things play into that.

You- when you're proud of what you're doing and you're showing growth, then people pick up on that. And it's not necessarily a marketing tactic on its own, but that's a residual of the fact that you're taking care of your community, your space. Yeah, I think that one of the things, if your school is having a enrollment issue.

If your school is coming up short on your budget every year, if you're not hitting your fundraising goals, your advancement goals, whatever the case might be one of the things that I would say, and I, Listen I've sat in the chair as a principal. I've been a principal of high school, I've been a principal of a pre-K, I've been a principal of a K through eight school.

I, I have sat in every one of those chairs. And you have to ask yourself what's not hit- what's not hitting? What's not resonating? Mm-hmm. Okay? And a lot of times when you take a step back, why isn't our, why aren't our advancement dollars coming in? Because we don't have the students. Okay, why don't we have the students?

Because we're not getting our message out as to what's happening. Okay, why aren't we getting our message out? Because we really don't have a message. And when you start taking a step back on those types of things... Listen I'm from Pittsburgh area originally, okay? Mm-hmm. There is a reason that if you go to New York or Boston and you wanna go to a baseball game, you better get those tickets on the first day tickets go on sale, or they sell out for the whole year.

But if I went tonight to Pittsburgh and wanted to go to a baseball game, I could sit right behind home plate. Okay? People, when a, when you have a school that's thriving, that momentum hits. And let me just say this, being from Pittsburgh, I hope my Pirates eventually get that- ... momentum going, okay, so that they sell out the ballpark every night.

But you get that momentum going. People wanna be part of a winner. Yeah. And it's contagious. It is contagious to see that other people are taking part in something. It is contagious to see that other people are giving or enrolling their kids there. I always say this. When you have, if you have a school that's struggling with enrollment, here is the secret sauce, and it's so simple on this one, and obviously you gotta get your messaging in place and everything like that.

But I remember being a principal of a school and we were the, as this parent said to me, we were the second choice for everybody. And I'll never forget this, that I literally had a parent come to me, this particular parent, and they toured the school, and they opened the tour with me with, "Hi, we're so and so.

This is our kid, so and so. I'm just letting you know right now, we're not coming here." Okay? That was how we opened the tour. Okay? Great tour. So I'm gonna spend the next hour and a half with you- ... with you already saying to me, "We're not coming here." And I said, " how do you know that? You haven't seen the school yet."

And they said, "We're going to this other school, but we're only touring this school as a backup if we don't get in." Okay? And so we toured the school, and at the end of the tour I said, " what do you think?" And they said, "We like this better." And I said, "That's awesome. Let's get you the paperwork." And they go, "We're still not coming here."

And I said, "But you like it better." And here was the comment, "But all of our friends are going to this other school." and that's where we need to go, too." and I said to our enrollment person at the time, I said, "We just need one person to give everybody else permission to come here." Yeah. And once that happens, once somebody gives everybody else permission that your school's okay and that your school is the place to be, boy, does that momentum carry.

Yeah. Boy, does that... And before you know it, you've added one kid, five kids, because everybody-- And this is where that word of mouth piece comes in. As we're recording this right now, we're in September, right? Right now I have principals ask me, principals that I work with, they say, "Where should our focus be?

When do we start recruiting for next year?" And I said, "Right now your focus needs to be on recruiting the families that just started in your school." Because they chose you, they trusted you. And what they're looking at right now for these first 30 days is who this person said they were really who they are.

Yeah. Is what this school said they were all about, is this really what they're all about? Your first 30 to 40 days in school, now I recommend all of them, but y- you understand- ... what I'm getting at with this. Before you can even start to think about next year, you've gotta recruit your current families- Yeah

to make sure that they stay in love with your school, to I always say to people, I say, " if you say to your husband or your wife, ' I love you,' on your wedding day, and then you don't say it for another 30 years." Y- you have to r- you know the it, you have to continue to keep people in love with your school each and every day, and that word of mouth, and that telling your story, and that communication, and that belonging, and that giving opportunities for those opportunities to come together for community engagement pieces.

Not just opportunities to just, "Ah we gotta go to this because we kinda have to go to it." but really giving your community opportunities to come together and grow together that's where it's at right there. Yeah. You bring up a great point. The shepherding of the folks, it's a lot easier to keep your folks, or it's a lot, yeah, definitely a lot easier to keep your folks than to get the new people to decide that they wanna be there.

When you're losing 30 kids out the top and only bringing in 10 at the bottom you've got a deficit there. And so any any kid that sticks around is valuable. But also that's the place you want them to be excited to be there, right? And so if you shepherd those folks along, you can also learn lots of things about how do these folks see our school?

How do they understand how these things work? The, the eighth grade families are like, they're over it. These are the new ones, they're all excited and they're poking holes in the things that we're doing, so if you're shepherding them along the way then they are gonna tell folks that, "Hey you wanna come here?"

And their second kid, and their third kid will be there too. So yeah that's a good point. One, one of the things too with that is I always like to ask, if I'm talking to a group of schools, I say, "If you have-" Unknown families who don't know you exist and you don't know they exist.

Okay? Mm-hmm. But they have a school-age child that could go to your school, but they have no idea that you exist. Mm-hmm. Okay? You have alumni families who were once affiliated with your school, but maybe their kid graduated, I don't know, 30 years ago, whatever. Mm-hmm. You have new families.

They've enrolled. They've probably already called you 17 times to ask you when uniforms are going on sale. They've already called... You know what I mean. They're, they are ready to go. Yeah. You have families that are poking. Maybe they've inquired, but they haven't quite filled out the application yet.

Maybe they thinking about it, but were not quite there yet. And you have your current families. I said, "Who should you spend the most time recruiting?" And the answer to that question is you should spend the most time recruiting your current families. Number one, they're already there. They already chose your school, okay?

And you just hit it on the head. If I add 70 kids but I lose 71, my net enrollment is a loss. Not to mention the fact that now you are bringing in... Think about this one. If you got 150 kids and you're 75 of them leave and you bring in 75 new, that's half of your school that doesn't know your culture- Yeah

that doesn't know your traditions, okay? And they'll probably be gone the next year. And it'll be gone the next year, okay? 'Cause they're just flying in, flying out. Now, I recognize that we have Catholic schools in military towns who there's constantly that transition. That's not what I'm getting at here, 'cause obviously you're gonna have families that are stationed one place for two years- Sure

on to another. That's a whole different ballgame. But you should spend the most time recruiting your current families because if they enjoy what they're seeing, if they enjoy what's happening for their kids, if their kids come home happy, do you not think they're gonna go tell other people? Yeah. Okay? And I remember one of the best compliments I ever got from a parent was, I'll never forget this.

I remember, I can literally still see where I was standing in carpool when this person said this to me. He said, "Every day my kids get up in the morning and they think they're going to Disney World." They are so happy to go to school because they just love it here so much." Yeah. He said, "And where I, when I talk to friends of mine that I work with, they're like, 'Oh, my kids hate school.'"

He goes, "I, my kids love school." He goes, "They're just, it's like they're going to Disney every single day." Yeah. And I will never forget that, him saying they feel like they're going to Disney every single day. Oh, that's great. But you've created an environment where that's where it's at. And how do you do that?

Your leadership has a plan. Mm-hmm. You've conveyed that plan to your families. You've conveyed it to your faculty. You've communicated it to your administrative team. You've communicated it to your parish, your alumni. And that buy-in starts to happen across the board so that when you have a tour, your f- teachers know what's expected of them on a tour.

Are they gonna just stop? Are they going to stop everything and say hello to this person or are we just gonna keep touring? Do your parent, do your teachers have any idea what they're supposed to do when you give a tour? Okay? When's the last time you told them that? Yeah. When's the last time you talked to your teachers and you said to them, "This is the process that we go through to admit a student"?

Mm-hmm. Because if you haven't, I'll tell you what the teachers think your process is. Person walks in, fills out a piece of paper, hands you a check, they're in. Yeah. And maybe that is your case. Okay, maybe that is what your school does. I don't know the answer to that question. But when's the last time you took the time to explain to your faculty, "This is our process for enrolling a student," and walking them through that thorough process?

Mm-hmm. Furthermore, when's the last time you sat down as a leader of your school and said, "What's our process for admitting a student?" Mm-hmm. Okay? 'Cause if you don't know that answer, you can't have your teachers know that answer. Yeah. Okay? And if your teachers don't know that answer, then how can they buy into your process?

When's the last time you asked your teachers for, "What would you do if we were able to hit our goal for our annual fund or our gala," or things like that? What do you need in your classrooms? When's the last time you asked them that? Yeah. When's the last time you told your community what you actually used the funds from your gala or your annual fund for?

Yeah. When we leave those pieces out, that communication piece of things, we miss that big part of it that keeps our current families in the loop, and that word-of-mouth marketing is free. Doesn't cost us anything. Yeah. Costs you nothing to- Yeah ... to do what you should be doing already. Yeah. That's so good.

And you just laid out a little plan for us. Have a plan, and then be able to communicate that plan, make sure everybody understands that plan before you go out and spread that plan. What would be the first step? 'Cause I know folks listening to this are probably thinking, "Oh, that sounds amazing.

I wanna do this." what's gonna be their first step? What can we give folks as we g- get closer to the end here, how can we give them something they can start with immediately? What's that first step? So one of the questions I always ask schools when I work with them, and you know this I work with a lot of schools one on one and that's what I'm passionate about.

I'm passionate about helping individual schools because every individual school has individual situations that they are dealing with, right? Th- this is... Catholic education is not a one-size-fits-all. Yeah. I wish I could just kinda say, "Hey here's the game plan. Go do it." But your school is unique to the person that's in the car next to you, their school, who's unique to the school across the country.

Mm-hmm. Every Catholic school is unique. Every Catholic school has their own things that make them unique, and every Catholic school has their own problems that are holding them back from being unique or from being a, a successful school. But I think the question I always wanna ask after I've gotten to know a school a little bit, and you really have to be honest with yourself on this one.

Mm-hmm. If you just kinda say that everything is chocolate coins and puppy dogs, you're not gonna get very far with this. But if you were sitting at your favorite restaurant with your leadership team in five years, and you were celebrating success- and you were celebrating where your school has gotten to, what would it look like?

What are you celebrating- Mm-hmm ... tonight? Okay? As you are eating your great meal or having a steak or what- whatever it is you like to eat and- ... whatever the flavors, what is it you're celebrating? What does it look like in five years? Mm-hmm. Okay? And give it a name. Give it like dream a little bit.

Yeah. And don't say, " we can't afford that," 'cause you can't afford it today. One of the schools I interviewed for a podcast, they had a dream to do a STEM academy, and it was a pipe dream- Mm-hmm ... until a donor walked in with a big check and said, "I wanna make this a reality." Okay? Yeah. Now, hey, I can't tell you that's gonna happen in every single school across the country.

I wish it could. Of course not. Okay? But they were ready, and they had the answer to that question. Yeah. But what does success look like? Give it a name, and where it is that you're working towards. But then the flip side of that question that I always ask schools is the opposite. We are sitting in your local favorite restaurant in your town in five years And we are wallowing on the fact that we didn't hit those dreams and those goals that you wanted.

What prevented us from getting there? Yeah. What kept us from happening? Okay, give it a name out loud. Mm-hmm. Because once you know what your obstacles are, and once you know what your dream is of where you wanna go, now the game plan is how do we get there? Yeah. How do we... And where do I need to be... If this is our dream in five years, where do we need to be by the end of year three?

And if we wanna be here by the end of year three, where do we need to be by the end of this year? Yeah. And if we wanna be there by the end of this year, where do we need to be in 90 days? Okay? When we go back to, I said before about kicking the can down the curb down the road with with Lent and say, " we'll do that next year.

We'll do that in the summer." Okay? I think one of the things and I wish I c- could remember who I'm gonna give credit to on this one somebody on a YouTube channel, whether it be Gabe Built or whatever the case might be I don't remember who it was, but they said too many times we start and we say we're gonna do a New Year's resolution, right?

Mm-hmm. And by day, like, seven, we're going, "I didn't do it." Yeah. "All right, I'll start at Lent." And then we start Lent, and maybe we don't, and we go, "All right, summer when school ends, I'm gonna do it." And then summer gets away from us, we go, "Okay, when school starts again, I'm gonna get it." Okay.

Yeah. And then it's, " after the holidays for New Year's resolution." We just keep going, right? But we don't actually stop to go, " no, we're gonna make this start." And if you break it down, this was the advice that I saw, and I think it's so spot on- If you say you're gonna do it over a year and you get off track, it's gone.

Yeah. But if you break it down over 90 days, like three months- Yeah ... what's your goals over the next 90 days to move you toward that five-year vision, that five-year goal that you have? What needs to happen in your office over the next 90 days? And guess what? If things get out of control or things don't go well in 90 days, you can start over again, or maybe you can pick up where you left off, or maybe you're not as far along as you thought you would be, or maybe you're further along than you thought you would be.

But if you treat every 90 days like a new year- Yeah ... you start to break it down so much easier. Yeah. And it doesn't get away from you, and you don't just go, " we'll do this when Lent's over or when New Year's Eve r- rolls around," whatever the case might be. Breaking it down into manageable things would be the biggest thing, I would say.

That's number one. And number two, I would say is think about where you wanna be, breaking it down into steps and thinking about what's going to move the mission forward the most. What's the one thing you can focus on right now that's gonna help you get there? What's the scaffolding that you're gonna put in place that's gonna help you get to that next stage?

Because I think so many times, like I said before, that scratch-off lotto ticket. We wanna put the dollar down, we wanna scratch it off, and we want a million dollars. If it's not there, we're mad. Okay? Think about it in terms of building it up s- where do we need to be today in 90 days to help us get to that next piece and the next piece and the next piece?

It's contagious. Yeah. But it starts with having a clear game plan. But you just gotta give it a name. You have to start somewhere. And if you are somebody that is out there- And every year your budget is in the red, and every year your enrollment's under where you want it to be, and every year teachers are leaving, and every year families are leaving, and every...

And this is the vicious cycle that you've seen over and over. Eventually you gotta kinda go, "Okay, let's stop and give this a name as to why it's happening." And so I would say have those honest conversations, dream big, and know where your jumping-off point is. That- those would be my piece of advice for a school out there.

That's great. There's the challenge, folks. There's the challenge. What are you gonna do in five years? What do you need to get done in the next 90 days? What's gonna be the most valuable piece that you can move forward? I would love to hear more about what people actually do. But hopefully everybody out there is thinking about this through.

John, I wanna thank you for this conversation. How can folks find out more about you maybe have this conversation with you one-on-one? Yeah. So thanks so much for that. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. My website is Elementary Advancement. Elementary like elementary school.

advancement.com is the website. You can find lots of information on there about me. There's different blogs. There's podcasts on there. There are ways to get in touch with me, set up a time with me on there to connect with me. I love talking to Catholic school leaders. I love talking to different people and sharing what I know.

As I told you before, I said there's probably not many things as a almost 20 years in Catholic education that I haven't seen. 20 years o- of Catholic education, five years of public school administration. I've seen pretty much all... I don't wanna say everything, but a lot of things- ... That have come through that, that I've seen them or I know somebody that has seen them.

And just having that conversation. And I think don't be afraid to ask for help. But elementaryadvancement.com is the website address. You can find out information about me on there. Or if you want, my email address is John, J-O-H-N, @elementaryadvancement.com. And reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to hear more about your school. Would love to talk with what you're struggling with or help you talk about your goals. One thing I'm proud of is 100% of the schools that I work with have seen enrollment increase, and 100% have seen their advancement dollars go up. And so something I'm very proud of that and looking forward to keeping working with a lot of them and seeing their success continue.

Yeah. The stuff, the free stuff on your website is already gold, but I've also had a little glimpse, a little window into some of the paid stuff that you've done with folks. And I have to say that those stats are not being padded at all. John knows what he's doing. And I would definitely reach out to him if you have questions.

Even just having the conversation might start something great. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the one of the things I do is those frameworks for the different offices. I have frameworks that I gave for anybody I work with. I give them a framework for principals or for advancement directors or enrollment that really breaks it down and lays the breadcrumbs to help you be successful.

And one of the things too, I think, is if you're a new principal, and we all know that leadership is a revolving door these days in our schools. Mm-hmm. And if you are somebody who's a new leader to your Catholic school or a new leader, maybe you've come from a public school where you've spent the last 20 years and now you're walking into a Catholic school for the first time, you've probably figured out that it's significantly different-

in terms of where the focus- For sure ... and where your time needs to be spent. And I even have something like that. I even have something for a first-year Catholic school principal that walks them through the framework. And so reach out to me. I'd love to have a conversation with you. Promise it's I am somebody that just is passionate about Catholic education, but more so I take a personal interest in the schools that I work with. I wanna see them be successful and just it's a joy. It's something that brings me a lot of joy in life. Yeah. I appreciate it, John. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us today, and I look forward to another conversation.

I can't wait, man. Let's do it again soon. Will do. Thanks, John.