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EdSales Edge Show
EdSales Edge is the strategy podcast for education founders, consultants, operators, and leaders selling into education.
For years, this show was known as Breaking the Grade, a space to challenge the status quo in education and think differently about how change actually happens. That mission hasn’t changed.
But the work has.
Over time, one thing became clear:
Education founders don’t just need inspiration.
They need clarity.
They need real strategies for selling into schools.
They need predictable ways to generate leads.
And they need to understand how trust is built in a system that doesn’t move fast, and doesn’t give many second chances.
EdSales Edge was rebuilt to match that reality.
Hosted by Josh Chernikoff, a two-time education founder who’s built and exited companies in this space, the show breaks down how selling into education actually works—across B2C, B2B, B2B2C, and B2E—always through the lens of how education institutions really make decisions.
This is not a show about hacks, shortcuts, or quick wins.
Education doesn’t work that way.
On EdSales Edge, you’ll hear:
- Real strategy for selling into education systems
- Conversations with education decision-makers who explain how buying actually happens from the inside
- Stories from founders, CEOs, and operators who’ve built real traction selling into schools—what worked, what didn’t, and what actually moved deals forward
- Teachings from the EdSales Elevation Experience, the system used to help education founders move from unclear and invisible to trusted and in demand
You’ll learn how to:
- Define your Perfect Client
- Pull the right credibility lever
- Move from being hidden… to trusted… to building a real lead engine
Josh is joined by his good friend and mentor, John Gamba—Director of Innovative Programs and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Penn GSE, and a former education founder who’s led companies through real growth and successful exits. John brings the institutional lens, shaped by years inside districts, universities, and education systems, seeing how decisions get made when the doors are closed and what earns trust over time.
Together, they sit on both sides of the table, the builder side and the system side, so the show stays grounded in reality, not sales theory.
If you sell into education and you’re tired of guessing,
guessing who to talk to,
guessing how decisions get made,
guessing why interest doesn’t convert—
this show is built for you.
EdSales Edge
Clarity. Credibility. Real traction.
If you sell into education, this is where you earn your edge.
EdSales Edge Show
You Crushed the Demo—But Still Can’t Close: The $100K Mistake Education Founders Keep Making
You crushed the demo.
The buyer smiled. They nodded. They even said, “This is exactly what we need.”
And then… nothing.
That silence isn’t harmless. Every “We’ll be in touch” costs you weeks of follow-up, lost momentum, and deals that should already be on your books.
In Part 1, “Your Demo Is the Problem” with John Gamba, Entrepreneur in Residence and Director of Innovative Programs at Penn GSE, Josh and John exposed a hard truth: most EdTech demos fail before they even start. Founders pitch products, not pain. They confuse polish for persuasion. Head nods happen… but deals don’t.
Part 2 picks up exactly where that left off. Now that your demo is solid, the real question is: what happens after the head nods?
This is the next leak in your funnel, the moment when enthusiasm quietly turns into indifference if you don’t take control.
Because in founder-led sales, praise isn’t pipeline, confusion costs money, and every vague next step is a lost opportunity.
This episode is your wake-up call. Josh reveals how the top 10% of education founders, leaders like Paul King, Kathryn Adabonyan, and Wayne Bovier, stopped collecting compliments and started collecting contracts. They replaced feature tours with funding-aligned conversations that moved buyers from interested to invested.
If your demos impress but don’t convert, this is your reset before another quarter disappears.
5 Big Takeaways for EdTech Founders
1️⃣ Why Praise Alone Doesn’t Close Deals
Head nods, smiles, and “This is exactly what we need” don’t guarantee contracts. Josh explains why enthusiasm stops short of intent and how silence after the demo is actually a polite no.
2️⃣ The One Step Founders Often Miss After a Demo
It’s not the demo that fails, it’s the next move. Josh shows why every vague next step costs weeks of follow-up, lost momentum, and deals that should already be booked.
3️⃣ How to Turn Your Product Pitch Into a Partner Conversation
Shift your mindset from “here’s my product” to “here’s how we solve this together.” Josh breaks down how funding-aligned conversations make buyers see the value and act on it.
4️⃣ Clarity Is the Secret Weapon in Founder-Led Sales
If your pitch is clear, buyers can retell your value to their team. Josh shows how tying outcomes to KPIs like attendance, test scores, and funding makes your offer tangible, urgent, and impossible to ignore.
5️⃣ Urgency, Fit, and Proof Drive Decisions
Josh walks through the exact elements buyers scan for: clarity, proof, fit, confidence, and urgency. Miss any one of these, and the deal stalls, even after a perfect demo.
Your buyers aren’t ghosting because they don’t care.
They’re ghosting because your demo stopped one step too soon.
📩 DM me “Demo” to see the exact framework education founders use inside the EdSales Elevation Experience to turn clarity into contracts, and conversations into cash.
📤 Know a founder stuck after “wow”? Send them this episode, it could save their next quarter.
✍️ Loved the show?
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so more education founders can stop losing deals after “wow” and start turning demos into dollars.
#EdTech #FounderSales #LeadGen #EdSales #BreakingTheGrade #DemoStrategy #PipelineGrowth #JohnGamba #JoshChernikoff #ClarityConverts
