Tips for Selling to Canadian School Systems

Selling to the school market is just a bit different than selling in any other market. This is true because of a variety of factors. Firstly, the academic year that schools are structured by will not generally mesh exactly with the structuring of the year in more traditionally business sectors. There are also a different set of rules and culture around buying and upgrading tools and technology in schools. There a variety of people who will need to sign off on each decision, and there can be what seems to be very complex systems put in place to decide what will be worth the investment, and what will not be. However, the school industry does not need to be as opaque as it sometimes seems. Here are a few tips to help you to reach out to your school database in a way that understands the culture and systems of the educational market.

Firstly, it is helpful to know about the differing budgets allotted for different types of educational technology. This is a big part of pricing your technology in a way that gives you a good chance to land a sale, and can also help companies better understand the nature of the educational market.

Educational tools are not all valued the same within the school system, and will have different budgets allotted to them based on their ultimate educational function. The more “core” to the educational system or operations a tool will be, the more schools will be willing to pay for it. Whereas tools deemed as being meant to help with “extracurriculars”, will be allotted a much smaller budget to contend with. This means that a tool that helps with something as core to education as assessment could be priced anywhere from thirty to fifty dollars per student. Whereas a tool for educational games would be best priced somewhere in the range of one to five dollars per student. Knowing this can really help your business adjust to the budgetary concerns and expectations of the school database.

Another important tip, is to be savvy about pitching. This is something an online school database can help with. Who you are pitching to, and what their job in the school system is, can greatly influence what part of your product or service will be most interesting to them. It is also important to understand who your product is best placed to serve, so that you can seek them out. For example, would your product be best used in Elementary schools? Is there a certain type of class or age group that would benefit most from your product? Understand what metrics will be most interesting to who you are pitching to, and adjust your pitch as needed. With Scott’s Directories private school database, your team will have all of the information that they need to find who your product is best placed to help. With over 17,000 Canadian schools and over 50,000 contacts, you are sure to find the best leads to fit your product.