← The Signal (formerly the EdTech Connect Podcast)
The Signal (formerly the EdTech Connect Podcast)
Ep. 87 - Grant Greenwood: How to Automate What Actually Matters in Enrollment
00:35:46
What happens when a sitting vice president of enrollment management—who evaluates and buys ed tech every day—decides to build his own solution to a problem he's lived for 15 years? You get a conversation that cuts through the hype and gets real about what actually works in higher ed technology. In this episode, host Jeff Dillon welcomes Grant Greenwood, VP for Enrollment Management and COO at McMurry University, and co-founder of CardCapture, an ed tech startup reimagining how universities capture student leads at college fairs. Grant brings a rare dual perspective: he's both a buyer and a builder, a practitioner who feels the pain of clunky workflows and a founder who understands what it takes to build something better. Grant gets honest about the AI hype cycle, warning that the coming wave of AI agents could overwhelm students with automated outreach, creating a "postcard problem" for the digital age. He shares why he's skeptical of AI avatars making millions of calls, but optimi...
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Transcript40 lines
- [00:00]
A
There is undeniably going to be areas in our work, specifically in higher ed, in the university setting, enrollment management even more specifically, that are going to be drastically changed by the implementation in AI. I think it's our job to kind of suss out like what's valuable here, like what's worth pursuing, what can actually make a difference for us and what is just noise, Right. It's one of 300 vendors that are trying to sell me AI products. And so I think where I most see that take effect in a positive manner are maybe like the data analytics, right? Like AI just gives us immense power to digest data quickly, to arrange that data, organize it to make decisions faster. Like I see that every single day right now.
- [00:51]
B
Welcome to another episode of the Signal, Jeff. I'm your host, Jeff Dhillon, founder of EdTech Connect. And today I've got a guest who I think perfectly captures what this show is all about. You know, we spend a lot of time talking about edtech from the vendor or platform side of the table, but today we're hearing from someone who actually sits on both sides of that table at the same time. Grant Greenwood is the Vice president for enrollment management and Chief operations officer at McMurray University in Abilene, Texas, a role he's held for over six years. In that capacity, he oversees how McMurray attracts, recruits and retains students, which means he's living the real world pressures of higher education enrollment every single day. But here's what makes Grant especially interesting to me. In March of 2025, while still serving as a full time enrollment executive, he co founded Card Capture, an ed tech startup that's reimagining and how universities capture student leads at college fairs, including on device free campuses. Grant also holds a doctorate in higher education administration from Texas Tech and has published research on social media's role in higher education. He's a practitioner, a builder and a researcher all at once. Grant, welcome to the show. It is great to have you today.
- [02:15]
A
Yeah, thanks Jeff for having me. Excited to have the conversation.
- [02:19]
B
So you have spent over a decade in higher education admissions and enrollment. What was the moment or experience early in your career that made you think this is where I want to be?
- [02:31]
A
Yeah, I don't know that I could narrow it down to like any one specific experience. And I tell people all the time, like jokingly, and many people who find themselves in this chair will probably echo this, that you don't always start your career or go to school to be an enrollment manager. Right. Like there's very few people that aspire to do that. So I think part of it for me is last man standing. You know, I've just been really fortunate to have a lot of opportunity to kind of test my skills. And I'm really thankful for the people that invested in me. So for me, it's kind of been just this coalescence of like, my passions and what I'm interested in. And enrollment management has this really unique blend of like, it's very analytical and like data driven, focused work. Right. So that logical side of me, that analytical side of me feels engaged. But enrollment measures, I think, also have kind of like this extroversion and a need to satisfy that we still, and I still enjoy meeting with students. Right. And when they come to campus shaking their hands and learning about them and interfacing with a lot of different people on campus in our community. And so for me, I think enrollment management's a really good blend of those skills. And just over the years I've been more exposed to that and just come to the conclusion that this is probably a pretty good fit for me. I enjoy this work. So I don't know if it's been one experience, but rather kind of just a lot of these experiences that have kind of led me in this direction. I feel very fortunate.
- [04:00]
B
So you're currently the VP of Enrollment Management and Chief Operating Officer at McMurray University. And for listeners who may not be familiar with smaller private institutions, what. What does enrollment management actually encompass at a school like McMurray?
- [04:15]
A
Yeah, great question. And I think the enrollment management, like work and discipline looks really different at different schools. Right. So what it looks like here at McMurray University, we're a small, private regional campus. What it looks like for us is we are most interested in finding students who can align with our core values and mission and who can be successful in our classrooms. Right. We're less concerned with exclusivity and driving up the amount of students that we decline at McMurray University, and we're more interested in finding the right fit students. So to be on our campus, the enrollment management like, function and kind of like my work on a day to day basis, what that involves for me is kind of aligning the resources at the institution, our staffing levels, to design strategies to achieve our enrollment goals. Right. And those enrollment goals are most often driven by the vision of the institution and our leadership, our strategic plan and priorities. And a big piece of it too, is just being efficient with our resources. Right. You know, we have, you know, a certain amount of beds on campus and housing. So Enrollment management. In part, what I'm concerned about is one, I don't want to over subscribe those. Those housing capacity, but I also don't want them empty either. Right. It's not a good steward of our resources. And so I'm the one that's kind of coordinating and pulling the levers and aligning our strategy and our resources and our financial aid and our athletic strategies to make sure we're efficient, but to also make sure we're hitting our enrollment goals at the institution.
- [05:50]
B
Yeah. Really? Doesn't it really take working in different positions in the funnel to understand? You know, I imagine you were seeing students at a totally different stage than when you moved to admissions directing. So I'm. I'm curious. You've had a pretty unique vantage point across. Across the. The life cycle of admissions directing and now wearing both the VP and COO hats. How is your view of the student recruitment funnel actually evolved as you've climbed that ladder?
- [06:22]
A
Yeah, that's a great question. And it may be like some encouragement to some of our younger professionals in the field. You know, the work certainly changes for you over time, particularly as you find yourself in different leadership positions. You know, I spent some time as a roadrunner admissions counselor, and in that role, it's very important work. Right. But it's narrowly focused. I'm focused on engaging students in a specific territory or within a specific discipline, try to hit the enrollment goals for that area. You know, as I progress into leadership, I've kind of maybe had a more broad lens and perspective on the institution strategies and enrollment strategies and. And how I view the funnel. Right. So I'm concerned more broadly with how the institution can meet our enrollment goals. That might include retention efforts. Right. And keeping students here after we do a good job to bring them to our campus and keep them engaged. It might include our financial aid efforts. Right. And how we're ensuring that the education we're providing at McMurray University is affordable. Right. That's a big piece of my enrollment strategy as well. Or might be concerned with working with our athletic coaches and our NCAA sports to ensure that we're meeting our roster goals while also maintaining a competitive program. Right. As you kind of emerge into these leadership roles, you have to be much more concerned about with the holistic perspective of the institution and where you can fit in as the enrollment manager to help encourage some growth where you need to. Right. I think I've kind of backed out a little bit on my view over the years.
- [07:52]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And I think having that full spectrum View really positions you to cut through the noise on this. You're not just hearing about, like, AI from vendors, you're actually trying to implement it in real workflows. I'd love to know. Get to the AI right away. AI is obviously this big topic in ed tech right now from where you sit, right? Running enrollment at a real university. How are you actually using AI tools today? And how's that different from all the hype you're seeing in your. In your inbox?
- [08:21]
A
Yeah, I mean, you hit on. It's a buzzword right now, right? Like, everyone's talking about AI and how it's going to revolutionize not only your industry, but society. And I think, you know, depending on the medium and depending on the, the talking head you're listening to, you'll get drastically different perspectives. Right? Like there's the doom and gloom that AI is coming for everyone, right. No one's going to have a. It's going to recreate everything at scale. And then you have the opposite side of the spectrum where it's like, this is going to change our work to what degree is uncertain at this point. So people fall all in between that spectrum. And kind of where I land, I would hope is closer to the ladder. There is undeniably going to be areas in our work, specifically in higher ed, in the university setting, enrollment management, even more specifically, that are going to be drastically changed by the implementation. And I, I think it's our job to kind of suss out like, what's valuable here here, like what's worth pursuing, what can actually make a difference for us and what is just noise. Right. It's one of 300 vendors that are trying to sell me AI products. And so I think where I most see that take effect in a positive manner are maybe like the data analytics, right? Like, AI just gives us immense power to digest data quickly, to arrange that data, organize it to make decisions faster. Like, I see that every single day right now. And I also think, like, some really great areas that we're going to see improvement in are just like the repetitive test, the monotonous tasks, the data processing, the application workflows, the stuff that we're having people do multiple times in a similar fashion every single day, over and over and over again. And, you know, all of us can identify a few of those workflows in our own life and industry. We have a lot of them in higher ed and we have a lot of them in enrollment management. It's not uncommon for an admissions Office to process 10,000 transcripts. In a given year, these transcripts take all different formats and they come to you in different ways and you need the data off of those that might be PDFs. It's like those are tasks that are really well suited for AI to kind of handle for you and streamline some of those things. So that's where kind of my focus has been and maybe even the precedent for card capture. My startup is trying to occupy that space in enrollment. Right. Those productivity tools, the efficiency tools, I think those are the most useful for us right now. I think they're. I'd be curious to get your perspective on this too. Like there's is a whole wave of like the AI agent salesforce coming. Right. And Jeff, I imagine you're probably, you know, suspect to some of these as well. Like you probably get some of these in your inbox. I've got 10 companies every single day telling me that like, hey, you can multiply your workforce by just using these AI avatars and you'll call a million students and you can text a million students. And I'm skeptical of those right now because I am curious about how students perceive that. Right. And so I think some of the value and some of the innovation there is going to find its way for to us they're going to improve some of the areas that we do. But we're all kind of skeptical of that AI robot giving us a call.
- [11:44]
B
I think students are savvy and smart and the basic questions like with this credit transfer and just stuff, I just need to know, I think they're going to accept that. It makes me think of this story. I worked in higher ed for 21 years and the enrollment vp I worked with my last part of my career had this philosophy of, you know, we need to be offer boutique every, you know, as many counselors as we can hire. Like everyone should like have their own, almost have their own counselor. And I was like, I get your idea. It just is not realistic and we're getting at the real tension. I think it sounds perfect for a smaller school. I think like, like yours and you find tools, we might find tools that move the needle while others are just noise. But do you worry about over automating the process to hurt the relationship that we're building with the prospective students?
- [12:32]
A
Yes, I do. And inevitably I think that's probably where we're going to go. I think that's where higher ed and enrollment management and admissions and even sales to a more broader extent outside of higher ed. I think it's heading this direction where Higher education. And people like me are going to be enticed by the products that are out there, right? And they're going to be ubiquitous. As AI technology gets better and there's more of a marketplace to find for this, there's going to be not just two companies offering these services, are going to be 300 companies offering these AI agents that's going to allow accessibility on a price point to be really, really cheap, right? So everyone's going to have access to these AI agents. And so, Jeff, you're probably no stranger to this. You've probably seen some of these posts too, where students who are high school seniors, they'll post on social media, like, look how many postcards I got today. And it's a stack of 6,000 postcards, right? Or they'll complain that I got 6,000 emails today because I signed up for an ACT test. My fear is that because these AI agents will be so accessible and ubiquitous that we're all going to lean into it. And now we're just replicating that postcard experience with AI calls, with AI video calls, with AI text messaging and phone outreach. And like, I worry that we're going to over saturate that experience where everything's going to be tuned out, right? So, like, even the valuable messaging and even the interactions that matter the most, students are going to tune those out because they've been overloaded with so much messaging. And I think, you know, we're just sometimes we're kind of naive to that, right? It's like, oh, I can add another 10 AI agents and multiply my workforce times 100. And our outreach, we can now reach out to 600,000 students in a matter of seconds. Yeah, I want to do that. I think it's tempting to have that response, but I do think we need to be really critical about the student experience here and what we should be willing to subject them to, to engage the institution to figure out what their fit is. So I don't, I don't know that we've reached, you know, an inflection point yet with the agents, but I think we will get there very, very soon.
- [14:43]
B
And we can't see, I mean, we can see it happen unfolding in front of our eyes, like you and I are around, can see the companies coming up. And maybe you think about this. Five years ago, AI, no one even used the term AI, except, what would, what did we call it in emissions enrollment? It was called chatbots. Right? That was. The thing is chatbots, and that's a different model, you know, Some were kind of AI, but it really was like, give us your, your scenarios and your content and we'll load it up into this bot. And they didn't really, their peak was really, I mean, five years ago. Did you. And I, I don't even know what my question is around this, but my point is like we all thought kind of that's, oh yeah, this is gonna, this kind of makes sense. But it took so much work to make them work and they just kind of didn't quite hang on there, you know, it's just one little part of AI now.
- [15:32]
A
Yeah, we kind of perceive that as a novelty. Like look how innovative we are that you can engage with Wally the Warhawks Chatbot on our website. It's like this, that's like, that's so customary, you know what I mean? Like, it's just like such a standard experience for any site to have. Like, it's no longer, you know, immensely valuable nor is it expensive where back then it's like, you know, you paid a pretty penny to have that type of feature. And so yeah, it's, it's a matter of identifying like what is valuable and what can have a direct impact and what's just going to be additional noise or what's a trend. Right. Like what's going to fall by the wayside or is just kind of a standardized piece to our operations now. And I really don't know like where the AI agents fall in that. Right. Is that just going to be a standardized experience where students become accustomed to it or is this going to be something where it's like, you know, flash in the pan, overloaded, just hit them over the head with it. And then everyone realized like, ah, this probably isn't the best way to engage students.
- [16:28]
B
I think it's going to happen. I think of, I keep trying to envision what it's going to look like. And I imagine the first year student comes in and she signs up for Samantha the chatbot. And Samantha has access to her calendar, knows she likes to go to basketball games, knows when her test, has her schedule and says, hey, hey, there's tickets to this basketball game, it's free. You should go to this. You have a test, you know, here, this day and that's going to be useful. There's going to be a lot of those things that's going to be, it's just where do we draw the line? What are going to be? Those use cases? But it's, yeah, I mean we are there. So.
- [16:59]
A
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. And I think, you know, like the tools that we're using right now in admissions, like our CRM products and things like that, inevitably that's where these products are going to end. Right. Where out of the box features are going to include all of the things that you just mentioned. And knowing all the data points that we can acquire on students, for us to be able to toggle on and off a button, to have like that type of custom experience for students, it's going to be accessible for everyone. It's just a matter of, like, we have to be cognizant not to abuse that and to define some, you know, parameters, like what's the sandbox we're going to play in with this powerful tool.
- [17:36]
B
Right, Right. Well, let's talk about Card Capture. You co founded this company early last year in 2025, while you're still a VP and CEO at McMurray, where you're at. Walk us through the aha moment that made you say, this is. This is a problem that needs a solution and I'm going to build it.
- [17:53]
A
Yeah. And I think ultimately that's how most products start. You're trying to solve a pain point that you're experiencing in some capacity. And that's certainly true for me and the development of Card Capture. I've been recruiting students for over 15 years. And in all 15 years that I've done this, I've always participated in college fairs. Right. In these settings where we go to students, where they're at, they funnel in through the college fair and are engaging universities learning about them. But a big piece of that experience is making sure the universities can connect with you. Right. And sharing your information and data. And for 15 years, I've been perplexed that we haven't streamlined this process for not only the students, but also like the college fair coordinators and for people like me who are receiving that data and then have to like, either type it into our CRMs or figure out some way to digest that. It's just been a consistent pain point. And even though we've had some technology come out in the last few years to kind of target this experience, the landscape has shifted pretty drastically, specifically in Texas. So I'll give you an example. Like, we have a pretty firm and strict device band in the state and in the school setting. So students cannot have their device on them, they cannot use their device. And so that's problematic when you go to a college fair. And the predominant way that you exchange information is through a QR code on your device. So card Capture you know, an AI and the invention of AI just got to a point where I was like, I think there's a solution here. I think I can solve this and maybe just solve my own problem and see if it works for other people as well. And so that's kind of where card capture was born out of. Let's solve that idea for everyone. So for students who do have access to devices, it's a simple registration where they get their QR code, and then card capture app for the admissions reps scans that QR code. We might encounter students who are at a campus that bans devices. They don't have access to a phone. We still encounter students who don't have a cell phone.
- [19:48]
B
Right.
- [19:48]
A
We need to be cognizant of those students as well. For card capture, it works with QR code or without it. So students can enter that fare, fill out a physical inquiry card, and card capture can scan that card and translate the handwriting and data for the university reps, and it solves the problem for everyone. Right. So when you have those device bands, oftentimes we might have to ask or other platforms would have to ask the fair counselor, say, hey, why don't you go and print off 600 barcodes and hand these out to students one at a time so that universities can scan them? It's a heavy lift. Right. So we solved that issue for the fair coordinators, we solve the issue for the students, and we solve the issue for the university reps. So we've put it through the paces this past year and really happy with the product and card capture, and I think it fills a void for us.
- [20:36]
B
You're in a unique position in that you're an EdTech founder and a current EdTech buyer. That's a genuinely rare position. Has building card capture changed how you evaluate or think about other vendors who are pitching you at McMurray?
- [20:52]
A
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It gives me a unique vantage point and I'm fortunate to have a really talented co founder who is much more on the product development, the coding, and who understands those mechanisms really, really well. But just by nature of exposure, now I know more about those areas when it comes to our technology platforms and have a better way of kind of identifying those platforms or those software solutions or AI solutions that are really tailored to my experience as a higher education practitioner while also being mindful of data practices, while also being mindful of security protocols. Right. Like, those things are really, really important to me as we develop card capture and an integral part of that experience. But I also care about those things if I'm evaluating tools to then implement within our higher education enterprise, within the admissions landscape at McMurray University. So I think it gives me a unique ability, kind of suss out like, yeah, this founder right here, this product, they understand this product is not just an overlay of another industry and they're trying to sell it to me. This is actually tailored to my experience, and they know what I'm looking for. They know, like, little intricacies and nuance about my data, about the workflows that I have. It also gives me an understanding of just like the underpinnings of the app. Right. I know how they function. I know if you know how they function and how they're relying upon AI, APIs and integration, you kind of know where your cost and price point should be. So if you're not as familiar with that, you're much more at risk to being sold at a price point that might not be fair to the institution. And at a small private institution like McMurray University, you know, we don't have unlimited resources, unfortunately, so we have to be really, really efficient and really, really productive with the tools that we're using. So I would say certainly, you know, building card capture has, has helped me in those areas and vetting some of these vendors that are going to be good partners with us. I also think it's really kind of like a testament to. To my skills as like a marketer. Like, it's a big component of an enrollment manager. Right. And so you kind of have to go out on a limb if you're an ed Tech founder, you kind of have to be the one that's champion the product to say, hey, here's the issue. Let me solve it for you in these ways, and here's why it's valuable. Right. People have to believe you, Jeff. They have to believe that you're going to fix that problem for you. Otherwise they're not a client. And so while it's not indirect one for one, it has refined my abilities to be a good marketer, to engage students and to really identify what their problem and what they're trying to solve with their college decision framework. Right. What's what, what's important to them, and how can McMurray University solve those and align with them? So, you know, kind of indirectly, it's really helped me refine my skill set there too.
- [23:44]
B
Yeah, we have that in common, Grant. You know, I came from the other side, and it really helps when you have that perspective. And you brought up one thing that Reminded me of kind of my whole philosophy when I started EdTech Connect was, you know, if you find the price points aren't aligning and you're being sold something that just doesn't feel right with pricing, often it's, it's the vendor isn't focused on higher ed, or maybe they're trying to then figure it out. You gotta give them a little, a little leeway there. But if they, if you're, I won't even name the huge companies that we all know that higher ed is tied to because they have to be. But although they have so many resources, there's such a small fraction of their effort that the licensing, the price point and the product roadmap will never align to a university scenario. And that's kind of the idea behind EdTech Connect. Let's have a pure source network and I'll share what, you know, what's working. So I can see that, you know,
- [24:34]
A
those incentives aren't aligned. Right. Like some of these software companies and tools out there, they want the enterprise clients, right? They want the big contracts and they'll tailor around that. Oftentimes they'll just kind of iterate, like, here's this product that we built for this industry and this particular use case,
- [24:49]
B
tweak it for you. And then yeah, yeah, maybe it works
- [24:52]
A
for higher ed too. Do you want to pay us, you know, $50,000 for that? Like it's just. And so then we're stuck with these clunky tools that we're really forcing that don't often integrate with our other platforms really well and then it causes more work for you. So yeah, I'm much more inclined to find those vendors and partners like an EdTech Connect that understands my challenges specifically and have designed around those, not the inverse.
- [25:15]
B
It feels like your perspective really shows up when things get harder too. Like when institutions are facing bigger structural challenges like we are now. I think not just day to day operations, that's when your definition of a good solution probably shifts. I want to ask you about, you know, the enrollment cliff is a phrase we keep hearing. The demographic dip in younger students going to college, it's hitting many institutions hard. How is McMurdy thinking about that challenge? Is it a challenge? And what role does technology play in your strategy to, to address it?
- [25:48]
A
Great question. And it is the question, right? And if you were going to have a question that would define my role as enrollment manager, that's, that's probably it. Like, here's the challenge ahead. How are we going to position the institution and the enrollment management office specifically to address those challenges to hit the goal. And how can we use technology to do that? Right. Like, that's a big piece of, like, my everyday thought. So I think for me, it's like, you got to do the X's and O's really well. Right. Like, you've got to be able to process and be engaged with your students timely. Right. If they send in, you know, an application, you don't reach out to them for another five weeks. Like, that's not really a great way to engage a student. So you have to have those components ironed out. Technology definitely aids in some of those pieces. Right. But aside from that, you've got to have ways to position the institution to identify students who can be a fit. And that always doesn't mean our traditionally focused, you know, high school graduate students. So for McMurray, that's certainly a piece of our enrollment strategy. Right. But we've also had success at identifying other student populations that we can serve really well through the expertise that we have on campus and our academic portfolio and programs that helping attract other students who can benefit from a McMurray education. So I'll give you a couple examples. We started a dual credit program at McMurray probably three or four years ago, and we have seen that program explode. So we're serving high school students in the high school setting across 150 public schools and private schools across the state, and delivering programs, associates degrees to help them achieve their goals in high school, but also to start carving that path towards college credential and a college degree. And because of that, We've enrolled nearly 3,000 students a semester that have helped bolster the enrollment profile of the institution, help drive some revenue to support other experiences at the institution, while providing a foundational and a great product in education for high school students. So that's one area, right? That demographic clip that's coming our way, that's here. We can hedge a little bit by saying, let's, let's kind of weather the ups and downs in some of our freshmen profile and cohorts by finding some other areas to strengthen the foundation of the institution. So the dual credit cabinet is a really great way that we've done that. We're also launching new graduate programs and new undergraduate programs in health sciences and business AI to help draw in additional students who can benefit from those programs, but may also help us hedge against some of the edge and flow in the freshman class. Right. If we have new graduate programs that are bringing in adult learners, that's One way that we can strengthen the financial viability of the institution as well. So I would say that's a few strategies for us on how we're looking at the challenges ahead and kind of addressing those, right, through technology, but also just through being strategic and. And leveraging the existing programs and resources and expertise that we have to attract more students that we previously didn't serve.
- [28:47]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when you think about responding to something like the enrollment cliff, a lot of institutions turn to marketing channels they feel they can control, and social is usually at the center of that. You've published research on how universities use social media in their enrollment marketing. Years later, has the industry gotten smarter about social, or are most schools still making the same mistakes?
- [29:12]
A
Yeah. Well, I'll commend you, Jeff. You had to dig real deep on the resume to pull that one up. So I think I published that in 2012. And so obviously the social media landscape has changed pretty drastically, but I still think there's some staples there from some of that research I did in 2012 and some of the work that we're doing now in enrollment management and marketing. So, yeah, I mean, you have to be there, right? You have to be where the students are when they are wanting to engage to learn about the institution. So social media is a big piece of what we do in marketing our programs at most institutions, including McMurray University. And we're on as many platforms as we can do well. Right. So I think that's the challenge, and I think that's oftentimes where institutions miss the mark. Right. Everyone knows I need to be here, I need to be on TikTok, I need to be on Instagram, I need to be on whatever the platform is and whatever the platform is going to be tomorrow. Right. We know those things intuitively, but typically we don't always understand what it means to develop, like, really great content. Right. And to do it well. And so oftentimes social just becomes like this copycat. Right. I saw this trend. We're going to recreate that, but it doesn't have a unique tone or students can't always see themselves in their social media and your social media presence. Right. That's where institutions go wrong. So you have to have authenticity there. You have to have a really strict and persistent content calendar that's always generating good content. Right. You need a balance between the curated content and the organic content that students are producing themselves about the institution and balancing those one area that. And I always see institutions do this wrong. And I'm not going to profess that we don't have this figured out at McMurray University. But it's one thing I always advise the marketers that I work with, right? Oftentimes, like we're known in higher ed, be like, hey, let's create a student experience for everyone, right? Like, let's get a chess club, let's get a hammock club, let's get a ultimate Frisbee club. Like, whatever. Like, we'll. We'll have innumerable iterations of these student organizations. And all of them are like, hey, we need a social platform. You know, we need McMurray Frisbee on Instagram and TikTok. And so we kind of give them license to use our brand. And they don't always realize what's necessary to create a really great experience on social media. So what you're left with is this unwieldy dinosaur of 300 different social platforms that are all borrowing and utilizing the university brand. And what it results in, it actually degrades from your brand affinity. Right. Students go there and see that someone has it posted in that club for three and a half years, and the posts were terrible to begin with. They're going to project that experience onto the university at large. Right? So you almost have to defer and say, no, you can't do it. You don't really understand what it means to run this social page and this content well, nor do you have the persistence to do it routinely. No, you can't do it, right? You have to protect that brand. You have to protect that brand university. And sometimes that means you got to be the bad guy as a university marketer. Now, there are certainly iterations where people do that well, and there's clubs that do that well. I'm not trying to say that all of them are bad, but that's typically where I see institutions miss the mark a little bit.
- [32:26]
B
Yeah.
- [32:27]
A
Yeah.
- [32:27]
B
Well, Grant, to close this out for anyone listening who works in higher education, whether they're an enrollment professional or administrator or an ed tech founder trying to serve institutions like yours, what's one thing you wish more people in this space? Understood.
- [32:43]
A
Yeah, it's. It's a great industry. You know, if you're going to spend the majority of your life and time during the day of the week, you want to do it at a place that you feel like it's making a difference. Right. And I think we have the good fortune of being able to confidently say we're doing that in higher ed, whether that's at the university setting or developing products to help facilitate the university experience. So that would be my encouragement. What kind of leave you with, if you got a young, if you're a young professional in the field, see if this, this lines up well for you, right? And see if this is something you really enjoy. And then commit yourself to making a difference and carving out a career path. And I also offer that to people like me sitting in my chair. Like, we've got to create some career ladders for really talented people to kind of move up into leadership roles in a higher ed and maybe in enrollment management specifically. And so we've got to create different structures and incentives. And the salary levels have got to change because our institutions and the students that participate, participate at our institutions are really going to be leaning on some people that come in behind us to do the job well. And if you're an EdTech founder, stay with it. You know, it's. There's very rare instances of overnight successes, Jeff. I'm sure you could do 10 podcasts on that topic alone. I think the edtech founders that are successful, and this is what I'm committing to with card capture, are the ones that can be persistent. Right. If you believe that the product and your platform is solving a problem, you're gonna have to weather out the storm, you're gonna have to stick it out. There's gonna be some times where you kind of feel not as confident in stepping out with your product, or there's gonna be some lulls where you haven't engaged a client maybe like you would have. But I think it's those founders and those people who are persistent and have a little bit who are inclined to taking some risk and stepping out there, they're successful ones. I think card capture solves a problem. And so if you have listeners out there, Jeff, who are tired of keying in their inquiry cards or want to solve this problem at the college fair, Jeff, send them all my way. We'll be happy to have a conversation with them at card capture.
- [34:48]
B
Will do. Grant, this has been a great conversation. Appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective and some. Some very real insights from both sides of the table. So thanks for, thanks for joining today.
- [34:58]
A
Yeah, appreciate it.
- [34:59]
B
I'll put links to grants LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well as card capture. So thanks again.
- [35:05]
A
Bye.
- [35:05]
B
Bye. That's a wrap of this episode of the Signal. If today's conversation sparked a new idea or challenged your thinking, that's exactly the point. This show is about cutting through the noise and helping you see what's actually shaping higher ed right now. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found this valuable, leave us a quick review. It helps more higher ed leaders find the signal for deeper ed tech insights, news and trends delivered monthly. Subscribe to the Signal Monthly newsletter at edtechconnect. Com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.