100(ish) Insights From Enrollify's Founder, Mainly About Enrollment Marketing

Full Transcript

Natalie Gleason:

Natalie from DD Agency here with a not so subtle message about marketing. You're listening to this podcast, so chances are, you're looking to really learn and grow, which is fantastic, seriously, bravo. But we all know smart effective marketing oftentimes takes a village, and that's where DD Agency comes in. Smart and effective are two okay words to describe us, but let me be very clear. We also aren't afraid to push the envelope. We put on our lab coats and test the new and exciting every day. So if you want to join forces with a digital marketing agency who challenges conventional thinking, it's DD Agency. Learn more about our team and our services at ddagency.net.

Natalie Gleason:

Enrollify people, what is up? If you're wondering why this voice is feminine, it is because it is not Zach Busekrus. Hi everyone, I am Natalie Gleason and I will be actually hosting this podcast, our 100th episode of The Enrollify Podcast and putting Zach in the hot seat for once -

Zach Busekrus:

What?

Natalie Gleason:

As the interviewee. Super excited to be here and for what we have to cover today. So hello and welcome, Zach. How are you?

Zach Busekrus:

Natalie, it is a privilege to be a guest for the very first time on The Enrollify Podcast. I don't know how I feel about this to be honest. I'm a little nervous.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah. We're also in the same room, for everybody that cannot see us right now, which is very cool, and I can tell that the seat is currently cool that he is in but it's about to get super hot.

Zach Busekrus:

Ooh, that's good, that's good.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah.

Zach Busekrus:

I'm already sweating. I'm like I'm drinking a lot of water because I don't know what we're going to talk about today, so ...

Natalie Gleason:

Right.

Zach Busekrus:

Ugh.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah. So we do have a lot to cover and I'm pretty much ... I try to be a stickler about time too, I'm very like, "Oh, let's put some structure in this so that we don't end up talking for three hours," which we totally could. So I think we should kind of dive right into this. Like I said, the premise of this episode is really to cover where we've been, where we're going, random tidbits about Zach himself and some behind the scenes about the Enrollify team. So hopefully it's entertaining, if not helping you grow in your enrollment marketing role.

Zach Busekrus:

Nat, who are you? Like -

Natalie Gleason:

Oh shoot.

Zach Busekrus:

I mean for the people that are like, "Yeah, she's clearly better than Zach as a host already but who is she?" Like tell folks who you are.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah. That would be very helpful, thank you for that prompt. So most relevant I think to who we're speaking with, I came from the ed tech realm. So interesting story about how I heard about Enrollify which is I think more interesting than Natalie's background, you can read my bio on the blog. I was working for Mongoose, if you haven't heard about Mongoose, they are a super progressive, forward-thinking ed tech company and they have a texting platform and a chatbot and about a year and a half ago, we were about to launch Harmony, which is their virtual assistant chatbot.

Natalie Gleason:

I was looking into different ways that we could tap into the enrollment and education space and go to market with this brand new product and I got a LinkedIn message from some rando named Zach, who was talking about Enrollify. I think it started with a review platform, Chatter, that, "Hey, Mongoose has a free listing here, and we'd love you guys to take a look at it, make sure it's good to go, and also maybe potentially talk about how we could collaborate on things," and I was like, "Okay, all right. I'll take a look." Checked it out, I'm like, "All right. This guy, this team, they're onto something here with Chatter." Then I learned a little bit more about Enrollify altogether and then I actually met Zach over Zoom conversations and it was just a lot of really awesome marketing conversations. So from someone who worked for marketing at the ed tech company, I just really enjoyed our conversations and geeking out over what works and his perception of what Harmony could be at the time too. Like you started offering suggestions on our tagline and our messaging, and I'm like, "Who is this guy? Who do you think you are?"

Zach Busekrus:

Totally unsolicited, yeah, yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

But I was just super impressed and we wanted to get in. So to date I'm super excited that I'm no longer with Mongoose but I ended up leaving, I needed a change of scenery, and actually ended up at the same parent company that Zach works for too called Direct Development, where it's a family of brands and I kind of oversee marketing strategy across the board. So behind the scenes I am involved in Enrollify and it's just awesome how ...

Zach Busekrus:

Beautiful story.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, full circle, here we are, ready to continue that relationship.

Zach Busekrus:

I don't know if you remember this, but I think I had just found Loom like a month before, and we were launching Chatter, and I thought, "You know what? I want to be notified, like when people actually view this." What was essentially like a soft sales pitch, right? So I remember getting a ping saying, "Natalie Gleason has watched your video," and I thought it was like the coolest thing and for those of you who don't use Loom, you really should. But then you didn't respond and I think I had to follow up like once or twice -

Natalie Gleason:

Sorry.

Zach Busekrus:

I was like, "Hello? Hello? Anyone there? Earth to Natalie." Then right, when we did talk, it was really you and the Mongoose folks that first suggested that Enrollify consider some sort of partner program. At the time we were thinking of like, "Hey, people can buy one off ad space on our podcast or in our newsletters," and it was really you all that helped inspire the idea of what would become our partner program, so ... So thank you.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, you're welcome. Sorry about ghosting you on the initial outreach.

Zach Busekrus:

It all worked out. It all worked out.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, you know, as marketers, we get super busy. So you all know what that looks like.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Excuses, excuses.

Natalie Gleason:

Okay, all right.

Zach Busekrus:

Segue.

Natalie Gleason:

Segue into what we're really diving into today, and we've got a ton of questions for you to cover. All right, so let's dive right into the questions. First being set the stage. Give us the skinny on how things started and how things are going. What was your vision when you started Enrollify way back when in this series and how have things lived up to that or not?

Zach Busekrus:

That's a great question, and I've been briefed by Nat and our team here that I have to be concise with my answers.

Natalie Gleason:

Please. Please.

Zach Busekrus:

For all of our listeners, those of who you have followed us for a while or have listened to more than one episode, know that brevity is not my strong suit. So I'm going to attempt to be concise here, but be patient with me.

Zach Busekrus:

So there's a long story, but the short, short story is as Nat mentioned, Direct Development is Enrollify's parent company and Direct Development has been in the education marketing space for quite literally three decades. I have been part of the team since 2013 and worked with a number of incredible institutions, really sort of dove into this idea that was still novel at the time of inbound marketing. Like this idea that you could create really, really good educational content, and then organically attract the right qualified prospective students to your school, to your college or university. We got on board HubSpot really, really early, before people knew, before HubSpot was sort of like a household name and we took some of our legacy clients, brought them onto HubSpot, helped them sort of implement inbound strategies for the very, very, very first time. That totally revolutionized like DD and the business, and that was really, really exciting for a while.

Zach Busekrus:

But one of the things that I started realizing in late 2018 was that while our marketing services were taking off, while there was a lot of really, really great stuff happening in the industry, while schools were becoming a little bit more used to and excited about digital recruitment strategies, there was this missing component in this space around how do we help essentially sort of like unpack a lot of the learning, a lot of the content, a lot of the insight that we have and make that insight, make that learning accessible and available to any person working in admissions or marketing in higher ed, who might not be able to afford an agency services. Might not be able to sort of like go all in on inbound, but could benefit greatly from some of our learnings.

Zach Busekrus:

So I went to the team and I said, "Hey, I'd like to go and figure out what we could do in the community space." Like what would it actually look like to build a different kind of association? What would it actually look like to be able to build a community that was digital first, and they were gracious enough to say, "Yeah, go think on this." So a few months later, I came back with a pitch and I said, "Hey, I think that there is this convergence happening between admissions and marketing and I think that there needs to be a community at the center of that convergence, and that community needs to be based on quality content. That needs to be sort of like the core of the community, and that idea ended up becoming Enrollify."

Zach Busekrus:

So we started off very small. It was really like a blog. Then we graduated to a podcast and today we're sort of this thriving content hub and got some exciting things coming down the pipeline that we'll talk about I'm sure later on in this conversation but that's how it started, so ...

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, needless to say an impressive start organically, the growth that we've seen is awesome here and we're not stopping now, so ...

Zach Busekrus:

We better not be.

Natalie Gleason:

That's right.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

So as a marketer yourself, given your experiences in starting with DD back in 2013 and now founding Enrollify, is there anything that you've learned through your interviews and all the people that you've spoken with that you do apply to your day to day? Any sort of philosophy or core thing that you never knew before but through all this, you now practice?

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. I mean so many things. One of the things I like to tell folks when I hop on a partner meeting or I'm about to start an interview with a guest that I'm particularly excited about interviewing, they ask me, "Hey, so what exactly is Enrollify? What is it that you guys are doing? What are you building?" One of the things I get to say a lot is that I get to learn full-time. Like that's basically what I get to spend most of my time doing is like talking to people that are way smarter than me, that have done really, really cool things in their respective spaces, that have built some of the best ed tech companies or have helped lead their college or university through a massive sort of paradigm shift in how they think about recruitment and I just get to ask them to share their stories and to help impart some of the wisdom that they've garnered over their tenure upon me, and that's just ... I mean that's a remarkable privilege, right? That I just get to like tap into the minds of people that are doing some really, really cool things in this space.

Zach Busekrus:

So a couple of practical things. I was interviewing, it was I believe Rand Fishkin who said this, and Rand Fishkin for those of you who don't know, he founded Moz and he is now the founder of SparkToro. He's a big sort of like thought leader in the marketing space and he was gracious enough to come onto the Enrollify podcast which was a little bit outside of his industry but he just is a whiz, a wizard when it comes to all things SEO. So he came on the pod, and one of the things he said which really stuck with me. He said, "One of the challenges that most marketers face when they're trying to develop content and strategy, when they're trying to develop a go to market strategy, what they do is they try to sort of like adopt some sort of messaging that they've heard before or a tone or a style of like what they think success should look like." He said, "When it comes to messaging, when it comes to copywriting, when it comes to even something as small as a podcast interview, you should speak, you should write how you speak and how you write." Like conversational tone. When Zach writes an email, it should sound like Zach writing an email to Nat, right?

Natalie Gleason:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Busekrus:

When Zach sends an email out to the Enrollify audience, it shouldn't sound not like Zach, right? That really stuck with me because at the time, especially as we were just getting started, it felt like you had to emulate ... Like I remember listening to The Daily, The New York Times podcast, and Michael Barbaro who is like their host is just fantastic. His intonation, the way that he conducts conversations, the way that he tells stories is just so absolutely beautiful and I aspire to be like Michael. But I'm not like Michael and the way that I talk is not like Michael Barbaro, and what he does is so great and so excellent, but that should have no bearing on how I conduct an interview or how I send an email, et cetera.

Zach Busekrus:

So that's a long way of saying that one of the first lessons that an interviewee has taught me or has encouraged me to do that has very much changed the way that I approach just about everything I do is say, "Hey, market like you talk. Market like you write," and know that that is more than sufficient and that is in an era where people talk about being authentic and being who you are, et cetera. There is nothing more authentic than actually communicating how you communicate.

Natalie Gleason:

Yes. It's so easy to fall into that trap of business professional Natalie, how diplomatic do I need to be in my writing so that the message comes off clear and fair and all the things, don't overthink it. At the end of the day, we're talking to other humans, so ...

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, no, and I think that that's a nice segue into the second learning too around there's just a lot of potential in the community marketing space and what that means, at least to me, is every marketer knows that word of mouth is the ideal. If you can just get people talking about whether it's your product or your service or ... We're enrollment marketers, so your institution, your program. Then you've done your job. A referral from Natalie saying, "Zach, you should go study at this particular MBA, you should go enroll at this particular MBA program." That is going to matter way more to me, that is going to hold an amount of influence that's significantly greater than any sort of advertising message that I receive.

Natalie Gleason:

Absolutely.

Zach Busekrus:

As marketers, it's like, "Okay, how do you replicate that?" I think that the closest thing to word of mouth is community marketing, and so I think a lot about the various people that have come on the show that have talked about sort of like a conversation on marketing, that have talked about sort of the importance of building a community behind your brand. Like the differences between audience and community and the real difference there is anyone can have an audience. An audience is an email list. A community is like you can remove yourself from that situation and you don't have to create content and people are creating content and having dialogue amongst themselves. Like that's when you know that you've created real community, right?

Zach Busekrus:

So I think the greatest of initiatives, the thing that I'm most excited about what we're doing here at Enrollify is trying to create a community of people that work in enrollment management and admissions and supporting arenas around that, and I think if we can do that successfully, we can genuinely say that we've done something that has bettered the industry as a whole. If we can first focus on community, first focus on enabling people to feel like they are actually learning and there's this reciprocity between sort of like learning and sharing. If we can figure out how to do that, I think we've won. So anyways. A long way to go to get to there, but I think focusing on community first in your communications, community first in your marketing. That's what separates I think the leaders from the followers.

Natalie Gleason:

Totally, and I think too the sense of community, a lot has to do with that sense of belonging. Like maybe we don't all have the same setup at our institutions or at our companies that make us relatable across the board, but there is something in here that we do share in common. So thinking about maybe one thing that you've seen as an obstacle or a challenge that a lot of our listeners are experiencing over the past year. I know pandemic, aside from the pandemic and all of the COVID obstacles, is there anything that has come up from multiple conversations or what you've heard that is kind of that sense of we're all in this together and there's something that is here that we can help solve together?

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah. The thing that comes to mind is marketing attribution, and while people like to talk, like you go to conferences, and there's always the vendor presentation with the name brand institution and they get up and they talk about how they executed this incredible search campaign and not like traditional search but like a paid search campaign or, "Hey, this is how we generated a $10.00 cost per acquisition of a new inquiry from Facebook and this is everything that we did and it was this amazing campaign and we increased enrollment by 10%."

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Sounds amazing. Perfect. Great.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, sounds amazing, right? It sounds like everything just happened seamlessly. This isn't to discount any particular strategy or approach or any particular vendor or company, but at the end of the day, I think it's very fair to say that everyone is struggling with this question around marketing attribution. Specifically, we are living in a world where it's like there are multiple touchpoints in any customer journey, and especially prospective student journeys. Think about grad school. You're talking about an 18 to 24 month on average timeline from when somebody becomes aware that they're interested in potentially pursuing a grad program to when they actually enroll. That is two years, there's a lot of shit that happens in two years. A lot of emails, a lot of social posts, and so how do you give credit where credit is De?

Zach Busekrus:

So I think that the unifying thing that I have seen throughout the people that I've talked to, the interviews that we've done, and just even conversations that we've had outside of the podcast, have been around ... Okay, the world is multi-attribution. Like the future of marketing is multi-attribution. There is no one single channel, there is no one single tactic, there is no one single strategy that gets all the credit for enrolling a student. I think we've known this in theory, but I think in practice, this has become much more real.

Zach Busekrus:

Now what's great and exciting is that there are more tools than ever before that can help us understand where prospects came from. What their actual digital footprint looked like on their journey to enrollment, and that's really exciting. I think that that's what folks should be leaning into and investing in is software is insight into what is that journey, what does that actually look like. So I think like the unifying factor and I think the word of encouragement that I would give for folks is like, "Hey, nobody has the corner on multi-attribution. No institution has figured out exactly where to invest all of their marketing dollars in a way that is like just systematically true." There's still a lot of guessing and testing, as there probably always will be with marketing, but I think the difference is that now we are living in a world where multi-attribution is actually possible, and you can assign some level of credit to a particular action, whether that's a blog post that a prospect read, whether that's an email that they opened, whether it's a digital advertising display ad that they clicked, whatever it might be.

Zach Busekrus:

So the unifying factor is nobody knows how to do marketing attribution really well. There's a lot of room to grow in our understanding of some frameworks that we could use to get better at it, and I think that there's just a lot of hope because of the tools that are now available on the market where there's going to be a world very, very, very soon where we can give value, where we can assign credit to individual actions that a prospect takes on their journey to enrollment, so that admissions can get excited about like this is how we influenced this population, marketing can get more credit around yes, you did, but here are all the things that they did that we did super well to enable those conversations to happen and we're just going to see with much greater clarity the things that are working really well and the things that aren't.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah. So of more behind the scenes here at Enrollify, these are things that we deal with as well when we're planning and we're reflecting and we're analyzing and we're looking at what we possibly can to see what is working and how our audience is consuming this robust content that we do put out across platforms. Imagine if we just had this core podcast and that was it. Do you think that we would get the reach that we need to grow?

Zach Busekrus:

No. No.

Natalie Gleason:

No. Heck no. So speaking of that, then like what are some of the other Enrollify resources that, shameless plug, you want to throw out there that intentionally we put together to provide the information, that digital hub of content that our listeners, our readers, can go to for more?

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah. One of the questions that we asked ourselves as we were forming Enrollify was how could we help enrollment marketers optimize the resources they do have to generate the results that they need? Like that was the big question we were wrestling with is like we want to teach people to fish, as opposed to fishing on their behalf. Anyways, one of the things that became very evident was that we needed more than just a blog, we needed more than just this one podcast. We needed e-courses, we needed robust digital guides that actually walked people through, "Hey, here's how to set up a marketing attribution system at your organization." We needed stories from leaders in this space to ... I don't know, inspire people. Like to get people excited about education marketing. To remind people that, "Hey, the work that you're doing really matters." So we launched Starter Stories, which is another one of the podcasts that's a part of this network.

Zach Busekrus:

We didn't have to do all these things. We could have doubled down and just focused on trying to grow the podcast. I think that, I don't know, maybe we should have. Maybe that would have been easier, but we've always been about again trying to help meet people where they're at and trying to help give them ideas, insight, et cetera, to optimize what they do have. Whether that's their time, whether that's their team, whether that's their budget. So I think it would have been impossible for us to do that effectively for everybody that's working in this space with just a blog post or just a podcast. So we are evolving into something much greater than kind of like where we've been. I think it's safe to say we've been a really awesome kind of resource for folks to come and read content. We produce for ideas these fun little videos that share new ideas, new musings that people can adapt and use in their particular context. We've got four or five, soon to be like six different podcasts as part of our network. We've got some e-courses right now, we're building out even new e-courses that are video-based which is really, really exciting. I don't know if I'm allowed to share this, but -

Natalie Gleason:

Uh-oh.

Zach Busekrus:

Should I share?

Natalie Gleason:

Sneak peek.

Zach Busekrus:

I think we can share it. You know, we're also going to be rolling out a jobs board. Like we want to help people -

Natalie Gleason:

What?

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, yeah. Newsflash, and we want to do this different. Like it's going to be a very, very different kind of experience, and so the goal, like what we're actually trying to do is we want to be the place where higher ed comes to learn new marketing skills, discover new software and services, network with the best minds in the industry, and find their next gig. Like that is what we are aspiring to be. We're not there yet, like let's be clear. But that's what we're building towards. So any sort of educational resource, e-course, new podcast that falls into that sort of like broad umbrella of a mission, that's what we want to do, that's what we want to focus on.

Natalie Gleason:

Yes, and it's not possible at all to do that with just our team here. And Zach, total credit to you for pioneering Enrollify and all of this, but we're getting to the point where that guest contribution and who's going to become part of these conversations and help us grow beyond the people that work here at DDHQ. So let's continue that momentum and make sure that these resources are available and other people have product input.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah. We'd be remiss to not talk about our partners, who have helped make all of this possible. Do you think that this is an important part of the story? So we mentioned that Enrollify is part of the Direct Development family of brands. But what we did very, very intentionally, from day one, is we decided as a team that Enrollify was not going to be this direct lead generator for DD, and DD Agency. DD Agency, full services, education marketing agency, fantastic, fantastic team of people there. But while the temptation was let's just build this great resource out, let's get all these email addresses, let's promote all this free content, and then let's turn around and try to get people to buy DD Agency services. Like that was not the coal, and we intentionally said, "You know what? No." So much so that we literally, we bought a different CMS, a different CRM. We decided that anyone that came into the Enrollify pipeline was never allowed to be communicated with or reached out to by a DD Agency salesperson unless that person had also opted in for DD Agency content.

Natalie Gleason:

Sure. Right.

Zach Busekrus:

I think that that's really important because we wanted this to be a safe space for people to come and learn and not feel like their information was just going to be abused or sold or ... That there was some sort of lead-in to services. Like we really wanted to draw that hard line. But if we drew that hard line, then we knew that we needed help funding this thing. Like we needed help creating this thing. Like if we're not going to rely on DD Agency to support this from a revenue standpoint, from an investment standpoint, how are we going to do this?

Zach Busekrus:

So we went to, after the conversation we had when you were still at Mongoose, we started going to a couple other people, trusted folks in the space and said, "Hey, here's what we're trying to do. This is what we're trying to build." People got really excited about it and are still really excited about it. So we are very much still fleshing this out. Like how do you strike the balance between delivering great content, partnering with the best brands in the education marketing spaces, the ed tech spaces, et cetera, but then also at the end of the day make sure that what you're really focused on is delivering great value to your subscribers. Like we don't want our subscribers to feel like this is just another media company -

Natalie Gleason:

Eew.

Zach Busekrus:

In this space that is just pummeling ads at us. Like we're subscribed to ... I will not name the association, don't worry, but a couple of associations in this space and you get their newsletters, and like 75% of the content is ads. That is like the antithesis of what we're trying to do here. So I don't know, you tell us as our listeners and followers -

Natalie Gleason:

Absolutely.

Zach Busekrus:

Like how we're doing here but like the goal from the very, very beginning was like we want this to feel separate. We want this to feel genuine. We want people to understand that no no no no, this is a resource for you. So much so that even in our messaging, even in our language, we're very specific. This is for the enrollment marketer, not enrollment marketing, not enrollment marketers, not higher ed marketers, this is for the individual. This is for you, this is for anybody that's working in admissions or marketing in higher ed, and we want you to see Enrollify as your biggest ally in the context of your career. Like we want you to think about Enrollify as this is your best friend. This is the group that you can lean on when you're thinking about your next gig.

Natalie Gleason:

Zach, Zach, I have to stop you right now -

Zach Busekrus:

Please. Please.

Natalie Gleason:

Because first of all I had goosebumps and I'm slightly weeping because that's all beautiful and I think ... That message needs to be clear to the subscribers. Like absolutely, this is why it's built, this is our purpose, this is for you. I hope that's loud and clear, but back to your other point about like you tell us.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

Like I think all of the feedback that we've gotten thus far has really propelled us in certain directions to build the next thing or to think through the next thing, so without that user generated feedback and thought, then we're nothing.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. And again, we are ... One of the things I love about our team and I talk about this all the time is like ... We're really good at owning what we're not good at. Like we're really good at being like, "You know what? This sucks, or we're not nailing this right now." I think that the reason we have been able to grow is because we've got this core value of like treasure transparency, and that's just so integral to everything that we do. Or at least aspire to do, but yeah, anyways, maybe enough about us.

Natalie Gleason:

Enough about us. Here we go, we're droning on. But I do think it is going to be helpful to just dive into more of the hot 100 list. The point of getting to this 100th episode of Enrollify, how can we make this a different episode than before, other than someone else hosting and you being the interviewee. I think we just need to get into a super quick back and forth. Give me what's fresh on your mind about what I shoot at you over the next 10, 20 minutes.

Zach Busekrus:

Okay.

Natalie Gleason:

Are you ready for this?

Zach Busekrus:

Yes, I'm ready. Let's do it.

Natalie Gleason:

All right, buckle up people, because it's about to get real. All right, ready, what are the five channels or platforms in higher ed that marketers should be looking at for recruiting for undergrad?

Zach Busekrus:

Well I mean there are the obvious. TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and I think YouTube definitely for sure. I think though that -

Natalie Gleason:

That's four.

Zach Busekrus:

That's four, I know, I know. The four obvious. I think rather than focusing on platform though, to be totally candid with you, we could throw a fifth one in there as well. We could talk a little bit more about the stuff happening in the community space with like the ZeeMees of the world, the Unibuddies of the world. I do think that those channels make a lot of sense and folks should double down and focus on sort of like strategies that incorporate people that are conducive to people that are a part of these sort of like membership-based groups -

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, but you're about to say something prolific here.

Zach Busekrus:

But I think the question we should be asking is how do we take the format of content that we have and ensure that that ... The format of our existing communications are actually conducive to next generations. I think that like ... The fact that there is still, I have still, and we're pretty in the know on these things. I have yet to see a single communications flow of any college or university that is video first. Like it just doesn't exist. Every search campaign still has tons and tons and tons and tons of emails. Now there are videos in those emails, but is there a video first communication? A video first post inquiry communication flow? I have yet to see one, and so I think rather than focus too much on channel, because I think that channels, they're kind of obvious. People know that they need to play in these spaces. What's harder is to think how do we funnel, how do we package our message into a format that next generations actually care about.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Well if you're listening and you do have a video first strategy -

Zach Busekrus:

Please call us out. Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

Please come to us and tell us more. All right, who are two people that influence you and why?

Zach Busekrus:

Oh gosh.

Natalie Gleason:

Just pick two.

Zach Busekrus:

Okay, just two. I have a lot of great influences. Okay, maybe a little bit more obvious one is Guy Raz who -

Natalie Gleason:

Is it obvious?

Zach Busekrus:

Guy Raz, for those of you who don't know who Guy Raz is, he is a podcast host and he works for NPR and his kind of claim to fame is the How I Built This show, and I've listened to that show for I don't know, three years, four years maybe and have pretty much listened to every episode. I appreciate his approach to storytelling, I appreciate the way that he asks questions and I aspire to be a little bit more like him in the context of my own podcasting career. So Guy Raz, and then the second one is probably Sam Parr. Sam Parr is the founder of The Hustle who actually ... The Hustle was just acquired by HubSpot which is a big deal. Congratulations to Sam and the team there. The reason why ... Like Sam's a fiery character. If you haven't listened to the My First Million podcast, it's totally worth listening to. A lot of the ideas that I've had that we recycle and repackage in the context of Enrollify stem from ideas that are shared on that show.

Zach Busekrus:

One of the things thaT Sam just does really, really well is he knows himself. I mean the dude is like not afraid to embarrass himself. I mean they have hundreds of thousands of millions of downloads per episode, right? They're a really big podcast. Not afraid to just really lean into who he is. Understands his value, also understands his blind spots, and I think especially in media, it's hard to admit things that you don't know. It's hard to be a genuine voice because you always want to feel like you're the host. You must be the smartest person on the call or -

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Yeah, subject matter expert, all day long.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. People come and they ask you these questions, like what are the five channels and platforms higher ed marketers should be looking for, right? I was like -

Natalie Gleason:

How dare they.

Zach Busekrus:

I better not have the standard answer, I better come up with something good. Sam just like doesn't care about any of that. He is who he is, he owns up to his mistakes, but at the same time, he delivers consistent great value. Like he is just an idea machine. So Sam Parr and Guy Raz I guess are two of my current influences.

Natalie Gleason:

Excellent. I am not taking it personally that you didn't name me.

Zach Busekrus:

Well Nat, you're too obvious.

Natalie Gleason:

Oh yeah. You keep saying that everything's obvious. I don't think anything that you're saying now is truly that obvious across the board.

Zach Busekrus:

Oh, you're too kind.

Natalie Gleason:

Like you've got a lot going on in your brain that let's just hear it and put it out there. So you kind of touched on two of your influencers being major podcast hosts themselves. So like what are five things that if somebody were starting a podcast that you'd want them to know that you think would be super helpful in getting that off the ground?

Zach Busekrus:

That is a great, great question. Number one, insert yourself into the conversation. Maybe a little bit more than you think that you should.

Natalie Gleason:

Right, like I should interrupt you right now and -

Zach Busekrus:

Exactly. Exactly.

Natalie Gleason:

You're like looking at me like, "Come on Natalie, have a conversation."

Zach Busekrus:

No, but I think ... Especially if you have a podcast where you're going to have 100 episodes. People do develop a loyalty to you. Like they're interested in your story and I think sometimes, or they appreciate how you ask questions. This is maybe not everybody but this is the people that keep coming back, they're coming to hear the interviewee for sure, but they also are curious what is Zach going to say about this, what is Natalie going to say about that. So I think the temptation sometimes, at least for me is like, "Okay, you need to make sure that you minimize your talking time, because one Zach, you talk too much, and two Zach, people are here ... They want to hear Brandon [Bastid 00:37:44]. They want to hear Mark Kilens from Drift. They're not here to listen to you."

Zach Busekrus:

One of the things that I've just learned is like that might be true to an extent, but people also do want you to insert your opinion. They care about what Zach thinks. To anyone starting a podcast, if you plan on growing it, I do think it's important to insert yourself into the conversation. Be comfortable with sharing an anecdote that might be slightly tangential to the core conversation, but allows your listeners to get to know you a little bit more. Get to know how you think.

Natalie Gleason:

Absolutely.

Zach Busekrus:

So that's number one. Number two, don't be so worried about time. I think that with podcasts, there's this temptation to like...

Natalie Gleason:

As I set the stage, I'm like, "We're going to try to keep it under 45 minutes."

Zach Busekrus:

I totally get that, and maybe this is just a me thing, but I believe that if content is good, it could be five minutes and excellent, it could be 55 minutes and excellent. Focus more on making sure that the content is good. Worry less about how long the content is. Sometimes you can deliver value in five minutes or 15 minutes. Other times, it takes 45 minutes to get to the meat of something, and be comfortable with that I think is really important.

Zach Busekrus:

Number three, I would say when it comes to sourcing, guess. Shoot for the stars. Like legitimately people like talking about themselves and most people, right?

Natalie Gleason:

Some people.

Zach Busekrus:

Some people, yeah thank you for correcting me, some people have ideas that they think are good that they want to share with the world. They will share an idea with anyone that will listen, and in my experience, and I use LinkedIn for everything. Like LinkedIn is -

Natalie Gleason:

The power of LinkedIn.

Zach Busekrus:

The power of LinkedIn, yeah, that's an internal joke. We say it all the time. Because LinkedIn organic is still awesome today and hopefully will be for another couple years before -

Natalie Gleason:

The next thing.

Zach Busekrus:

Before the next thing. But right now, it's beautiful. Sending people connection requests and saying, "Hey, I have ..." No, you have to do a little bit of homework, like go google their name, this is the framework, literally. Like this is how easy it is. Google the person's name, go find something that they wrote, go find another podcast they run, whatever it is. Go skim it or go listen to five minutes of the podcast, send them a LinkedIn connection request, say, "Hey, I read this post that you published on Inside Higher Ed. I found this particular insight interesting. Would love to have you on my show to talk about x." That's it, right? 90% of the time, that will work. They will accept the connection request, they will come on your show. It really is that simple.

Zach Busekrus:

So do a little bit of homework, but shoot for the stars. Like we've had people on this show who have huge followings. Like way, way bigger followings than like The Enrollify Podcast has. Like Rand Fishkin, he's a major player in this space. We had the founder of Marketing Brew which is a division and sub-newsletter of Morning Brew on the show. These people have huge reach, right? Yet they came on our humble little podcast. So think shooting for the stars is really, really important. I feel like that's maybe sufficient. That's three.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. That's three. Those are solid, a solid three.

Zach Busekrus:

Good, good.

Natalie Gleason:

Thank you. It's all about quality, not quantity, right?

Zach Busekrus:

There we go. Yes.

Natalie Gleason:

So super random. We're going to switch it up and talk about your routine. So like Zach personally, other than coffee because I know that's a top thing that you consume, what are the top three breakfast choices that you go for to have a successful, effective day?

Zach Busekrus:

Oh gosh. Well my standard used to be a couple eggs, maybe a piece of bacon, maybe a piece of toast.

Natalie Gleason:

Maybe.

Zach Busekrus:

Maybe, maybe, yeah. But I guess the standard was there was no standard. But then I started following Seth Godin a little bit more and one of the things that Seth Godin talks a lot about is like ... He has the same thing for breakfast every single day because it's one less decision that he has to make.

Natalie Gleason:

That he has to make.

Zach Busekrus:

And so since I read that, and breakfast is one of those meals where it's like ... I like breakfast, but I don't love ... Like I'm a big foodie, and I love a good dinner. But I could care less about what I eat at the start of my day. So I eat oatmeal with some peanut butter and some shaved almonds, and that's pretty much what I eat every single day for breakfast.

Natalie Gleason:

Oats and nuts. There you have it.

Zach Busekrus:

Oats and nuts. That's it. That's the magic sauce.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, to somebody who I very often, and we'll get to 11:00 in the morning and realize I haven't eaten breakfast, so then -

Zach Busekrus:

Oh gosh. You're one of those.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah. I got to work on this, so I'm very aware, people. What is your one go-to song when you hit a creative slump? You're all about Spotify playlists.

Zach Busekrus:

I am all about Spotify playlists.

Natalie Gleason:

Leading into this week where we're in the office together and we're getting the full team together, Zach of course throws out a Google doc sharing what songs do you want to hear on Sonos as we dig into the workweek. So yeah, what is your go-to?

Zach Busekrus:

Oh, my go-to, my go-to. So I mean I guess to be totally candid, I have horrible tastes in music.

Natalie Gleason:

What?

Zach Busekrus:

Like I am a sucker for just like crappy pop music. I mean my wife makes fun of me all the time because like whatever latest Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift song is out there, like I dig it.

Natalie Gleason:

Mainstream.

Zach Busekrus:

I dig it, yeah. No, I wish I was one of those people that was like, "Yeah man. Check out my Spotify playlist. I've got everyone from the diverse ... The originators of reggae to like underground hip-hop that you've never heard of to Shania Twain." That's just not me. I'm just a sucker for a good pop song.

Natalie Gleason:

Oh my gosh.

Zach Busekrus:

But, but, I will say, I will say, that I recently stumbled upon this playlist. It's actually not a Spotify playlist. It's called BigDeskEnergy.com and it's actually this guy Tyler who was at Morning Brew and Morning Brew was recently acquired by Business Insider and he left and he's doing some cool things in the tech space. But he put together this really, really epic ... Like it's EDM meets pop meets other things, and it's just ... I mean I listen to it almost all day every day.

Natalie Gleason:

Awesome.

Zach Busekrus:

Like when I'm not in meetings, I'm listening to Big Desk Energy. So BigDeskEnergy.com, shout out to Tyler for putting together such a great playlist. But it's either that or like Justin Bieber.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. I'm definitely going to check that out because I vary between the EDM, I need something to pump me up. I want to move a little bit, shake a little bit, versus I can get into the 90s grunge. Sometimes you just got to like crank it out to Nirvana and get your stuff done. You said Shania Twain, so I just have to say this now too. When we're looking at the 100th episode milestone, what comes to mind first for me is (singing). So shout-out to Shania Twain and that epic song that we've made it this far, and to all the haters out there which I don't think there were any, shame on you.

Zach Busekrus:

It's all the haters in her mind.

Natalie Gleason:

Because we're still going strong.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, and if Shania, if you're listening, we could use some new intro music for the pod. So if you are inspired, please email me at Zach@enrollify.org.

Natalie Gleason:

Moving on. Pick one school's tagline that you've seen recently that you really liked and why.

Zach Busekrus:

Gosh.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, we're bringing it back to higher ed. We kind of went on tangents.

Zach Busekrus:

We veered off. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I can't say that I have seen a tagline recently that I've really liked. What I will say is I've seen schools more ... Not a lot of them, but a couple of them. University of San Diego School of Business kind of comes to mind as like being a school that is really interested in totally changing their messaging so that they are creator-focused. What that means to me is there's a number of studies out there that talk about how kids today, 12 to 17-year-olds, more of them want to be YouTubers and more of them want to be sort of like Instagram famous than they want to be lawyers or doctors or astronauts. Yet colleges and universities just haven't spent a lot of time, or I haven't seen too many great examples of folks changing the messaging in their communications to speak to the creator economy, the future creators. Like there is this understanding that kids want to be, kids are more entrepreneurial today than they were even a decade ago. A lot of that is because social media has given people the idea that like it's really easy to create content, to put something out there, and to amass a following. We've sort of democratized influence in a way. Thanks to social media.

Zach Busekrus:

Obviously there are a lot of cons to this. I don't think that everyone is meant to be a YouTuber necessarily. But one of the things that's cool about what the University of San Diego School of Business is doing is they are taking like a, "Hey, we want to speak to that audience. Like we're very entrepreneurial in our thinking and we want to be so provocative as to say that like you can come and learn frameworks here to help you build the next TikTok or to help you think differently about what the future of media will be." I just appreciate schools that are willing to ... Pardon my French, but be so ballsy as to lean into that direction. I think coupled with that, one of the challenges in higher ed, and I won't pretend to understand sort of like all of the nuances that exist here but one of the challenges is that higher education is this like beautiful, like welcoming, like diverse community, and I think that there are so many pros to that. I think one of the cons and I don't think that this is a real con but maybe one of the perceived cons is that you have to water down any sort of differentiation to appeal to kind of like the lowest common denominator.

Zach Busekrus:

So you see taglines like advance your career here or learn, do, exceed. Maybe that looks good on like a little banner when you're walking down towards the student center on your campus and whatnot and maybe that's okay, I don't know. I just believe there's so much more creative potential in higher ed, there's so much more that we actually offer to students. This is a stepping stone to the rest of the world, and I wish that folks could maybe think a little bit more, a little bit more deeply about how can we differentiate. Like you actually as a school, you shouldn't be trying to attract everyone. Like gone are those days. We are living in a world, 2026 like, anyone that works in admissions, anyone that works in marketing is very sober to the reality that higher education as an entity has a brand problem right now.

Zach Busekrus:

So I think that the schools that figure out, "All right. How do we maintain diversity as a top priority but then how do we also get really, really honest with ourselves and speak really clearly about these are the kinds of students that can excel here in a unique way and that's who we're going after?"

Natalie Gleason:

Right, and that's -

Zach Busekrus:

Those that get that, they're the ones that are going to win, and I believe there's tons of room for folks in this space. Like this does not need to be limiting. I just think that the future of education, the future of institutions is going to be much more personalized, much more specific, and higher ed marketers, admissions folks, need to kind of lean into that and not veer away from that. Not worry so much about like the potential of excluding one particular kind of persona at the risk of like watering yourself down so much that nobody knows what it is that's distinct about you.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Yeah, we've talked about this internally too where it's ... It's like you're sending an email to the full team and you're not exactly calling anybody out or tagging a specific person, so you're sending it to everybody and there's action items woven in but nobody really does them because they don't know who exactly we're talking to. So it's those two layers of cutting through, right? It's the we need to cut through to be different, to differentiate. Like nobody wants to see the same messaging across all their institutions as they're looking for their next big ticket college tuition price point, but it's also the cut-through in terms of like we're speaking directly to you and that's okay.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

It's like just do it.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, and honestly, I really ... I don't think that you have anything to lose. Like I really ... I think that if you don't, you're going to lose it all. It really unfortunately is going to be that simple.

Natalie Gleason:

Great. Was there a specific tagline in there?

Zach Busekrus:

No, so no. I avoided the question because I mean to be honest, I should have read these questions before we got on.

Natalie Gleason:

Oh, just joking.

Zach Busekrus:

But yeah, no. So nothing specific but again the schools that are leaning into bringing differentiation, the schools that are actually doing the work of thinking ... Being honest with themselves, what are we actually good at and then leveraging that, those are the schools that I would follow.

Natalie Gleason:

Awesome. Is anybody keeping track of how many ... The point here was to have 100 insights, randomly or not, I don't know what count we're at but here's a random one for you. I want you to name ... Name all the seven Snow White dwarfs.

Zach Busekrus:

What?

Natalie Gleason:

Like you're on the clock.

Zach Busekrus:

Okay.

Natalie Gleason:

Just name them.

Zach Busekrus:

Name.

Natalie Gleason:

Ready, go.

Zach Busekrus:

Gosh, okay. Sleepy, Dopey.

Natalie Gleason:

Yes.

Zach Busekrus:

Sleepy, Dopey, Happy.

Natalie Gleason:

Yep.

Zach Busekrus:

Grumpy.

Natalie Gleason:

Four, okay.

Zach Busekrus:

Did I say Sleepy?

Natalie Gleason:

You did.

Zach Busekrus:

Oh.

Natalie Gleason:

You said Sleepy several times.

Zach Busekrus:

Geez, I think I maybe saw Snow White once.

Natalie Gleason:

Sleepy, Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy.

Zach Busekrus:

Bashful. I didn't say Bashful.

Natalie Gleason:

Oh shoot. That was in my ... I also don't have a list in front of me.

Zach Busekrus:

So we have five. We have five. How is this -

Natalie Gleason:

Doc.

Zach Busekrus:

Doc. Doc.

Natalie Gleason:

And ... And ...

Zach Busekrus:

Our listeners are probably yelling at us right now.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, they're like, "Come on, what is it? Tell us and you'll win a prize." Point there being is like okay, there are seven dwarfs in the Snow White group, and also a quick shout-out to our internal Enrollify team, the people behind the scenes, where I typically live.

Zach Busekrus:

Oh no. You're not going to make me match. You're not going to make me match the team to the seven dwarfs, are you?

Natalie Gleason:

Like not necessarily this person is Doc and this person is Bashful, but if you had seven team members and you could make their own names.

Zach Busekrus:

Okay, okay.

Natalie Gleason:

Who do we have on the list? You don't have to name who lines up with who, but -

Zach Busekrus:

I'm going to pivot here slightly, but if I had ... If we had seven team members, first of all, that would be amazing. Like Enrollify ... Enrollify is, it's impressive, what we've been able to do.

Natalie Gleason:

We're small but mighty.

Zach Busekrus:

Small but mighty. Small but mighty, right? I mean, I'd be remiss not to again call out you Nat, first and foremost, just for all of the work that you've done to make what we are today like significantly better and greater than what I could have ever imagined it would be, and in such a relatively short period of time.

Natalie Gleason:

Thank you.

Zach Busekrus:

I think of Sam. Sam is one of our designers and he is just, he is so talented. If you need a creative approach to anything or a different perspective or you just want something that's like freaking beautiful, like Sam is your guy. I got to work very closely with Sam on sort of like the initial mock-ups of what Enrollify, the website would be, and that was such a fun experience, and to this day, we get messages from folks saying, "Hey, your website is different." Newsflash, exciting announcement number two, we have a new website coming up.

Natalie Gleason:

Look for the relaunch.

Zach Busekrus:

Look for the relaunch. But the current kind of as is state of the site, we still get lots of really good feedback on it and like Sam gets a ton of credit for pushing the envelope and thinking a little bit differently about how do you sort of showcase a robust content resource in a way that's beautiful and user-friendly, and then ... There's so many people. Like there's the exec team at Direct Development that like first of all made Enrollify possible, allowed us the time to kind of build this out and gave us a little bit of runway. But I would be very, very, very remiss if I did not call out two other people that are ... I have also used the word remiss like three times -

Natalie Gleason:

Can we edit that out? My gosh, you're so redundant.

Zach Busekrus:

What was so funny is I don't think I've ever said that word before in the context of a podcast interview. Or maybe never.

Natalie Gleason:

It's that whole concept of like once you say it for the first time, then it's now woven in too many times.

Zach Busekrus:

Another thing I say a lot that I've realized is I say the reality of the situation is fill in the blank. I say that, like my wife gets on me about that.

Natalie Gleason:

Zach knows all.

Zach Busekrus:

The reality of the situation is schools need to do a better job at communicating with prospects in a differentiated way. Anyways, I digress.

Natalie Gleason:

You also say you all a lot.

Zach Busekrus:

You all. You know what it is? It's because so I grew up in Hawaii, and in the way that I speak today is very different than the way that I spoke then. Like my parents were born and raised there as well, so I grew up in a culture where like ... It was called pidgin, and pidgin is sort of like...it's this conglomerate really of like slang. English, Japanese, Chinese, like native Hawaiian in there and it's just this ... It's basically just Hawaiian slang. The way that you talk there is very, very, very different than the way that you talk in Northern Virginia which is where I moved when I was 16.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Yeah.

Zach Busekrus:

So I had to train myself to say you all as opposed to ... We just said guys all the time and -

Natalie Gleason:

It's not y'all.

Zach Busekrus:

It's not y'all because I'm also not from the South.

Natalie Gleason:

Right.

Zach Busekrus:

It's you all.

Natalie Gleason:

It's you all or your all's website.

Zach Busekrus:

Your all's website.

Natalie Gleason:

You do. I'm like, "That's a Zachism."

Zach Busekrus:

That's a Zachism.

Natalie Gleason:

Because I don't know. What were we actually talking about?

Zach Busekrus:

I also, I also, so yeah, actually we should circle back on the people that made all this possible that are amazing. But the last thing I will say is I also ... When it comes to grammar, I am terrible. I am terrible, and you know why, it's because where I grew up, the way that you speak is so different, and I just never learned. I did really well, I was privileged enough to go to some good schools, but grammar, just not my thing. To this day, like I have to like ... I slack all the time, messages out to the team and I'm like, "Well, that was grammatically incorrect." Even like the than versus then, something as simple and dumb as that, I'll spend time thinking about.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, but I personally ... I used to be a grammar freak, to the point where I'm text messaging a boyfriend and they're not my boyfriend anymore because they didn't use the right punctuation. That's like, "Come on Natalie." I turned myself around, so now when I see ... I think on social media or on Slack, communication channels, I'd rather see an improper use of your than an edited. A sign that something was edited.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Natalie Gleason:

It's kind of like ... Just do it. Put your stuff out there and don't worry about edits and making everything perfect.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

I've come to really appreciate people that put it out there and not overthink.

Zach Busekrus:

I like that. I like that. Well hey, I appreciate that. You're speaking to people like me. But the last two people that I think we definitely need to call out in the context of people that made Enrollify possible. First and foremost is Matt. Matt on our team, he built Chatter. Chatter, which is our review site. It's basically like Yelp but for higher ed. Matt built that from scratch, with very, very little direction. It was literally like, "Dude, I think we should make a Yelp for higher ed where people can review software and service agencies that work in the higher ed space." Okay, and he was like, "All right, I'll figure out how to do this." He had never done this before and he did it, and he's just been such a champion of basically all ... Every product, project that we've had.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. The new, the innovation.

Zach Busekrus:

Like he's so good at taking a legitimately half-baked, maybe even quarter-baked idea and bringing it to life. Which is amazing. And then Tatiana.

Natalie Gleason:

Tatiana.

Zach Busekrus:

Tatiana, the heart of Enrollify. I mean she really has helped us grow into something that was a side hustle if you will for DD to a fully functional operation/division.

Natalie Gleason:

Oh my gosh, wait, she just walked by.

Zach Busekrus:

Oh and she just walked by.

Natalie Gleason:

She just walked ... In the flesh.

Zach Busekrus:

She's in the flesh, she's actually here. Look at that. Look at that timing.

Natalie Gleason:

Wow.

Zach Busekrus:

But she really, really really gets a lot of credit for helping us treat this community as an actual business. What that means is like, "Hey, we need customer support. We need processes. We need standardizations. We need to make sure that we are consistently delivering value to our subscribers. We need to make sure we're not over-emailing people." The amount of like 'we need to make sures' that she sort of champions is just absolutely nothing short of remarkable, and we would not be here without sort of her guidance, her leadership really, in helping us build an organization that is so much more than just a blog and a podcast.

Natalie Gleason:

Absolutely, and it's really ... Tatiana, one of the few that Zach just rattled off in terms of who's on this team. There are more, sorry if your name wasn't called out.

Zach Busekrus:

Oh gosh. I'm going to get some angry Slacks later.

Natalie Gleason:

Everybody here does work in some way with our brands and with Enrollify. So shout out to all of you and thank you to our listeners for letting us give credit where credit is due. Because it's really important that we do that, and we've got two more questions.

Zach Busekrus:

Love it. Let's do it.

Natalie Gleason:

Ready?

Zach Busekrus:

Yep.

Natalie Gleason:

What are five events that enrollment marketers should consider attending for the remainder of 2021? Whether virtually, in-person, what do you see out there that might be worthy of either shelling out some cash to attend or just truly learn from. Because that's what we're all about too is, "Okay, if you're not going to learn it from us here at Enrollify, here's where else you can take a look."

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, you know, I should really know more about what are the higher ed marketing events that are on the docket. I know a couple that I would recommend. Then I have a slightly different answer to your question. I'm going to take it in a little bit of a different direction.

Natalie Gleason:

Fine.

Zach Busekrus:

But first and foremost, so HubSpot. We've talked about HubSpot a couple times already. They've really positioned themselves as an incredible CRM. I think that their best use case, at least for right now in higher ed, they are the most robust, sophisticated marketing attribution platform available in the space, in the market right now. So CRM in higher ed means you got to be able to host the application, HubSpot can't really do that, so it's not really a good answer there. But they are just a very sophisticated marketing attribution platform and automation platform. Anyways, they put on an annual event called Inbound. Many of you have probably heard of it and/or maybe even attended. They have consistent really good content, so I would go. I think obviously it's virtual again this year. So I would definitely go to Inbound. I think it's pretty cheap too. Maybe like $40.00, $60.00 for a virtual, all access pass. Maybe a couple hundred. Who knows, I don't know -

Natalie Gleason:

Don't take his word for it.

Zach Busekrus:

I have zero idea how much it costs. I just know that it's cheap, relatively speaking. So definitely go to Inbound. AMA Higher Ed Symposium. So I'm probably going to get in trouble. I do think that it's totally worth going to if you can and whatnot. My big thing with events in general, and this is I guess the slight tangential answer to your question, is there's just unfortunately, there's a dearth of really, really good content. I think the why behind this is because either one, presenters, when they go to ... Again, we've presented at a lot of events and I feel people's pain. It's like you've got like a 45 minute window and then you've got 15 minutes of Q&A maybe, and you have to decide, do I want this to be this really inspirational like 30,000 foot talk, or do I want to get really, really, really, really specific and walk people through exactly how to do something. It's very hard to do both and sometimes you don't know who's going to show up to your presentation and so maybe you've attracted a bunch of VPs or presidents and they don't want the detail. They want the story. That's what they want, and they want proof that it's going to work.

Zach Busekrus:

Maybe you're going to attract people that are like, "Hey, we're the boots on the ground folks and we want to ... Yeah, we understand like what a freaking Facebook ad is. We understand the importance of Facebook being a part of your enrollment marketing mix, but we want to understand ..." Let's get specific about psychographic profiling.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, tell us how. Break that down.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, what does iOS 14 update mean for what we can and can't do, what we can and can't know about people interacting with our content. Like there's an audience that wants to know that kind of detail. So as a presenter, it's really hard to know who you're going to get, so I think most conference presentations quite honestly end up being lackluster, not because the person isn't capable of producing content, not because the event itself doesn't want good content, but simply because it's not enough time to communicate really good ideas and actionable insights.

Zach Busekrus:

So my recommendation is instead, what would it look like to spend that time, that money, that energy finding some course or finding a cohort and ... This is not a plug for Enrollify, we're not offering anything like that right now.

Natalie Gleason:

Right now.

Zach Busekrus:

Right now, yeah, stay tuned. But like I really think the small cohort based learning opportunities, and there are people that do this. AMA has some that I've heard really good things about. There's another one that somebody just ... Oh, Academic Impressions has a couple of trainings and cohorts that I think are really worth tapping into as well. So I think your money and time quite honestly is better spent ... Like if you want professional development, don't just go to the big industry conference this year. Use that money and say, "You know what? It's more time, more effort on my part, but I'm going to commit to the four week cohort, or I'm going to commit to the six session mini sort of like conference or whatever it is." Because I think that you're going to get way more out of that that's actually going to be practical and actionable in your context.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. Right. Great points.

Zach Busekrus:

Anyways, that was I think two events and then a tangent, but that's kind of what I'm good at.

Natalie Gleason:

And then crap on events.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, and again, I don't mean any disrespect to anyone working in the event space. It's really, really hard, especially right now. But that's my awesome opinion.

Natalie Gleason:

But you're also allowed to have these opinions and what you've experienced and what you've heard and from your own seat, I feel the same way too, with you've got to really look at what you're getting out of the event and I hear a lot about workshopping and how can we a group full of people that are like-minded, that have similar things that they need to battle through in a room where ... It's like a war room where we're talking through, "Okay, what is the enrollment strategy robustly," but drill it down and talk about actionable things that we can take back to campus and implement, so ...

Zach Busekrus:

No, and I guess to that point too, it really is just about like ... Your expectation. If you're hoping to get concrete actionable insight for how to have a better year than you had last year with your strategic enrollment initiatives, then I don't think a standard sort of like classic industry conference is the way to go. I think your money would be better spent in some sort of like cohort-based learning environment if you're just looking for some, "Hey, I just need some inspiration. I just need a break. I just want to kind of get a rough understanding of what other people are thinking about and talking about." Then by all means go to AMA.

Natalie Gleason:

Yep. Meet new people.

Zach Busekrus:

Yep.

Natalie Gleason:

There's always that too. Absolutely. All right, and then lastly, again -

Zach Busekrus:

We've reached the end.

Natalie Gleason:

I have no idea what the count is, the hot 100. In let's say 30 words or less -

Zach Busekrus:

Oh god.

Natalie Gleason:

What message of gratitude or inspiration do you have for our Enrollify friends? How can we leave this episode feeling to that point inspired?

Zach Busekrus:

Well, so my grandfather. He was an engineer and he had this saying that he imparted upon my siblings and I. Any time we were working with him in his wood shop, and he would always tell us to measure twice and cut once. I'm sure somebody else has said that. I don't know who. But in my mind, yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

It was just your grandfather. He coined it.

Zach Busekrus:

Grandpa Jack coined the term, and I think one of my challenges has always been that I tend to just jump in. I'm not a really good planner. I'm very much more ... The way that I like to operate is dive in and then figure out how to do it. Jump out of the plane and build the parachute on the way down or whatever it is. One of the challenges with that is in the context of Enrollify is you're asking a lot of people to bet on you and believe in an idea that you haven't even really fully formed. That's a lot to ask, especially from your team, from your executives, but from your subscribers, from your partners. We launched something called Enrollify Premium and we shut it down six months later.

Natalie Gleason:

Shut it down. Yeah.

Zach Busekrus:

And we shut it down because we didn't feel like we were able to deliver the kind of value we wanted to be able to deliver and that was the one paid product we had for subscribers at the time and that was a hard decision. That was like a whoops, like dang, that sucked. People were super gracious about it, but that was hard. That was like a mea culpa moment, and I guess the gratitude that I have for you all, the gratitude that I have for our subscribers is that you've been really patient with us as folks that maybe should have measured a couple of times before we cut or maybe should have been a little bit more intentional about, "Hey, this is our roadmap, this is what we want, this is exactly sort of like our go to market strategy with Enrollify." You've walked with us as we've pivoted. You've been gracious enough to subscribe to other shows that are maybe a little bit outside of your area of expertise or your domain. Like we are telling stories of ed tech companies and their founders, maybe you don't really care about that but you're subscribing to it.

Zach Busekrus:

Like you are following the stories of people that serve the industry, even though like ... It's not directly connected to your job as director of marketing and communications at this liberal arts college, and I just have the utmost gratitude for those of you who send a message, an email, or reach out on LinkedIn and say, "Hey, I was listening to this podcast and this insight that so and so shared changed the way that I thought about this," or, "Hey, you know what? I stumbled upon this blog that you guys wrote on search trends and I'm revisiting my SEO strategy. Thank you." Or reviews that people leave on Chatter. Like it's just so every single communication that we get to this day makes me feel happy and excited and ... Okay, even though I feel like there's 117 things that we're doing wrong or that we're not doing sufficient or we're not doing as best as we could, even though Nat, you and I argue over like, "Hey, we have limited resources. How do we leverage these resources best?"

Zach Busekrus:

When I get that message, when our team gets those messages, it makes everything else okay, and it's just enough momentum, it's just enough of a kick in the ass to be like, "No no no no. Keep going. Keep going. Something that you're doing is resonating. Something that our team is building is striking a chord. People are finding value in it and it's okay if you stumble along the way." So thank you to our listeners for your graciousness and forgiving us and when we miss an episode here and there or I miss a FRIdeas episode because of X, Y or Z reason, thank you for the kind words and thank you for walking with us. I think we've got some really exciting things coming down the pike -

Natalie Gleason:

I know.

Zach Busekrus:

And we're going to grow in a way that I couldn't have even imagined us growing even 12 months ago. So I'm just filled with gratitude.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, here's the Kleenex. Okay. Here's the Kleenex, I'm going to pass it over.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

Because if nothing else from this particular episode, the heartfelt gratitude for everybody involved in this vision coming to life of Enrollify and who we are and what we're trying to do here, it's total gratitude. But it's also like this episode itself. We bounced around, we have intention all day long, but there's also we're going to go on tangents and not everything is going to be part of the bigger picture. There's learning along the way. So that evolution, there's ups and downs and the walking with each other, I really love that too, so ...

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, we want to be, at the end of the day, we want to accompany you. Like we want to be the people that are walking with you throughout your career. We want to be the place that you come to upskill, to reskill yourself. And we want to create the kind of content, bring the right partners together, that are going to help you do just that. So as you have ideas, I think there's this Jen Rubio quote, she's the founder of Away that I've used on three different episodes already, so forgive me. But she's like at least quoted by saying that, "No one cares about what a brand says about itself. People care about what other people say about you." I'm very cognizant of the fact that like sometimes, I think we are really ... We're just cool as shit, and I want people to get that.

Natalie Gleason:

Right. We're the bee's knees.

Zach Busekrus:

Yeah, and you know, we're not. We're doing something cool, we're delivering value, but like ... At the end of the day, if this isn't building the kind of community that we aspire to be building, we want to know. So talk to us. What do we need to do differently, how can we shape a community that's digital first but maybe not exclusively digital, we'll see. But digital first in a way that we can act as a true companion on your journey to success. Like that's ultimately what it's about.

Natalie Gleason:

Absolutely a two-way street.

Zach Busekrus:

Yes.

Natalie Gleason:

We learn from you, you learn from us, we all learn from each other. Let's go.

Zach Busekrus:

We want to build a community, not an audience.

Natalie Gleason:

Boom. Mic drop.

Zach Busekrus:

Mic drop. All right guys, thank you.

Natalie Gleason:

Thank you.

Zach Busekrus:

Thanks Nat.

Natalie Gleason:

Yeah, that was fun.

Zach Busekrus:

If you are an enrollment marketer, working in marketing and communications or enrollment management and would be willing to be interviewed on the podcast, or if you have an idea for a topic that you'd like to hear covered on the podcast, please reach out directly to me at Zach, Z-A-C-H, @enrollify.org. We sincerely look forward to working with you to make Enrollify the most trusted go-to digital resource for enrollment marketers out there.