The Business of College Consulting
The Business of College Consulting
Leveraging Business Principles in the Admissions Process with Stef Mauler
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In this episode, Stef Mauler, founder of the Mauler Institute, shares her story of her early days as a Canadian navigating U.S. college applications to becoming a Harvard MBA graduate and launching her own thriving college consulting business,
Stef discusses her strategic growth and the pivotal decision to hire writing coaches. Her business acumen shines through as she details her unique college admission strategies by leveraging business principles and helping students craft their unique selling points.
Stef opens up about her strategies for success, such as time management and setting professional boundaries. Discover how building a supportive community rather than viewing others as competition and being generous with knowledge can be powerful tools in client retention and satisfaction. This episode is jam-packed with insights to inspire and guide whether you are an emerging consultant or a seasoned pro.
Welcome to the Business of College Consulting podcast. I'm your host, brooke Daly, founder and CEO of Advantage College Planning and Advantage College Planning. Franchising, building and growing a business is not for the faint of heart. In this podcast, you'll hear incredible stories from successful college consultants about growing a thriving business. They'll share the secrets behind their remarkable growth and the trials and triumphs shaping their path to success. Hi everyone, thanks so much for joining us today. I have the pleasure of introducing Steph Mahler from the Mahler Institute. Steph, thank you so much for being on today.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's my privilege. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yes, of course. So, Steph, let's just jump right in. I would love to hear your origin story. How did you end up founding Mahler Institute? How did you get into college consulting?
Speaker 2:Well, for me it's kind of a long and windy path. That starts when I applied to college. So I grew up in Canada, which is only interesting as it relates to college. So the Canadian system is much more similar to the British system, which means a few things. One of those things is college admissions is largely based on grades. So no essays, no rec letters, it's just grades. So you go into school, you fill out your form. Kids with the top grades get their top choices, so there's no spots left.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to go to school in Canada. I come from an immigrant refugee family. My mom was a World War II refugee from Ukraine, and so such is the case with virtually every immigrant refugee family. It doesn't matter where your country of origin is, but the story is the same, and that is, education is supremely important, as it was in my family, and so I was interested in some of the more selective schools in the United States. Long story short, I did my undergrad at University of Pennsylvania and it was so interesting to me, coming from a system that was so quantitatively based, I couldn't understand why there were so many kids who were class valedictorians with perfect test scores not being admitted to their top choice schools. And then there were kids like me who, I mean, I was smart, I was not my valedictorian and I couldn't even take my standardized tests in Canada to make the deadline. So I had to drive 13 hours to Princeton, new Jersey, while I had a cold, armed with only a book, because we didn't have test prep in Canada. And I took my SATs at Princeton High School during their homecoming parade. No way, they were no bueno.
Speaker 2:But I did get in and so, to be perfectly honest, I started volunteering in the admissions office when I was a freshman in college. I started out as a tour guide, walking backwards, avoiding potholes, and eventually grew my role and I loved working there. But it was also really frustrating because for every kid who was admitted, there were easily seven or eight more who would have been at least as successful. We just didn't have the space right. It's just a math problem. We all know this in the business there are far too many great candidates and not enough spots in these fancy schools. So I just started to look for patterns. What were the patterns that distinguished the kids who got in from the kids who didn't?
Speaker 2:Found a pattern, developed a system like 30 years ago, used it on myself when I applied to graduate school and again, without a 4.0 GPA or an 800 GMAT or the ability to donate a building which helps and is legal Bribing crew coaches or the ability to donate a building which helps and is legal Bribing crew coaches not legal Donating buildings very legal I couldn't do that. But I was admitted to every MBA program to which I applied and so I did my MBA at Harvard and then, post-business school, did a more traditional MBA path and ran a few divisions of a consulting firm in Washington DC, but off the side of my desk, because I always loved working with like really smart, interesting, ambitious young adults. I was kind of the unofficial graduate school counsel for all of my colleagues who were doing their obligatory you know, two, three years of work experience before going off to business school, and so everyone who used my system ended up in top programs in the US, a handful in the UK. We ended up moving to Texas for my husband's business. I got tired of flying back and forth so I ended up leaving my position because my husband took one internationally and it was three months. I also had a young child at the time, three and a half years old.
Speaker 2:It was about three months before I decided and realized it was not good for anybody in my family for me to not work. I was not a good wife, I was not a good mother. I needed to do something, and so I just started looking at where I was volunteering my time and it was all in terms of like education, uplift programs, and at the time I didn't even know that this was a thing. So I actually was thinking about going back into admissions and, in sort of doing my interviews, I ended up speaking with a woman named Anna Ivey interviews. I ended up speaking with a woman named Anna Ivey who is the former dean of admissions at Chicago Law School and in our first conversation she just said to me there's no way that you could work in higher ed. You're way too blunt and the inefficiencies will drive you nuts. And she said look at my business and that's so. Really, it's Anna Ivey who introduced me to the whole world of IECs.
Speaker 1:Wow, and there you go. What year did you start, steph?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was starting to sort of investigate end of 2009. And then I really sort of launched in 2010.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, okay, cool. So that's how you ended up here. So tell me a little bit about your business today. How is it different from when you first started?
Speaker 2:It's much larger. So I really did this because I was bored. Quite frankly, I never expected this to be a huge business, but I'm also, you know, there are only so many times you can paint your walls and move boxes around and so it's certainly much larger. It's certainly national, I think. Like a lot of us, I have a national client base. So I was, you know, zooming, or, at the time, skyping, before COVID hit, and, with lots of mentorship and some therapy from Evelyn Jerome Alexander, I've added to my team and come up, sort of started to overcome my control issues.
Speaker 1:That is not an easy task though, but Evelyn is the best person to get you over that she is. That's awesome. So when did you start growing your team?
Speaker 2:Well, I, I again. I kind of dipped my toe in um lightly. Gosh, probably now about five, not long enough ago, that's. That's probably. If I were to do it differently I would have grown it sooner.
Speaker 2:So I started out just getting help with essays on my seniors. I didn't outsource because, again, self-described control freak. So I know a lot of people use services like prompt or just outsource essays to essay coaches. I don't. And the reason I don't is because in my business, the way that I approach the college application, I really believe that all of the elements of the application really need to work together in concert, and so I can't have somebody working on an essay without understanding what the resume says and what the teacher recs are trying to do, and so I'd never outsourced any part of the process.
Speaker 2:But I started just doing sort of contract essay-ish. And then about three or four years ago I added full-time coaches to my team and the way that my business works is a little bit different than most. I still work with every student directly, but in addition to me, in January of their junior year they also get a writing coach who works with them on polishing resumes and rec packets and essays and all that kind of stuff. So I still work on the larger strategic stuff positioning college lists and then they're working with them more day-to-day and I still review every single application before it goes in.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, good for you, cuckoo. Yes, right, so do you have any other college consultants on your team, or is it just SA coaches who you've added? I?
Speaker 2:mean, I call them college consultants. They're IECs but they don't really delve into like college list building, just because they don't have the time, the experience. And some of them are doing different things, Like I've got one who's wonderful, who is you know, who teaches at Columbia and NYU, so he does his part-time, he does a lot of MBA admissions. He's another HBS guy. I've got some who are former teachers, you know. So different people have different day jobs. I guess I'm not in California so I don't have to have the W-9s, Right?
Speaker 1:That's awesome, Good. So when you think about when you first started your business, clearly you have a business background. When you think about marketing your business, is there anything that you feel you've done differently than most in the industry we hear about? Oh, it was word of mouth. I have this big mom group or I did presentations. What did you do? That's different.
Speaker 2:I did, and it's interesting that you say so.
Speaker 2:When I first started, I actually had a bit of a complex about having a business background rather than having an education or a counseling background. So I did go back, I went to UC San Diego and did the program there, and but so initially, when I thought about how I'm going to do this, I really thought that was a deficit. And it wasn't until I changed my thinking to sort of lean into what makes me different that I found that that was really a source of strength. And so I looked at where are my strengths, where am I different? It is my strong business background, and my whole positioning is how do I leverage proven business principles to help students develop and execute successful college admission strategies? And so that is my whole positioning.
Speaker 2:At risk of sounding a little bit crass, I really believe that finding and getting into the right college is not so different from running a business or selling a product, and our students are our wonderful products, and all of their interest, goals, experiences, values, personality, quirks, obstacles are all the things that make them uniquely that. So the first thing we do is well not the first thing, my younger kids.
Speaker 2:They're still in product development mode, but when we get to junior year we start to identify like what is it that makes them unique and special and different? Because everybody has something. It's just a question of figuring out what it is right. So what's your value proposition? Next, it's you know, in business we would call it how do you identify your target market? In school, it's how do you find the right list of colleges? And we want to find a list of colleges that will both encourage, support but also challenge our kids to grow intellectually, academically, professionally, but also socially, artistically, athletically, spiritually. We want the schools that will encourage growth on all dimensions, just not the brain dimension, and also the schools that will appreciate what they bring to their school community. And then the final piece is the piece that everybody gets all excited about, but it's the easiest piece if you do everything else right. And it's the marketing piece, right? It's how is it that you leverage that college application to fully communicate all of those things that make that kid special? And so that's my positioning.
Speaker 2:And so when I started, I actually got my start by talking to clients of private wealth advisors, because these are people who are used to paying for expertise. I mean I never understand people going to libraries. I mean maybe it works, but I don't understand going to a place where people get free information and expect them to pay for information Right, so I look at who pays for information clients of attorneys, clients of wealth advisors so I started in those audiences. It was the right demographic for me. They understand my language. There are people who value education and, quite frankly, as we all know, unless you have like, really, really, really, really, really deep pockets, it's not something you can buy.
Speaker 1:Right, Exactly, yes, it makes sense to go after your target right, and I know that you have or at least in your marketing you have your niche right, Like are you, do you focus mostly on the highly selective?
Speaker 2:school. I think that that's my reputation, but I think if you only do that, you don't have a very big client base, just by numbers. I mean, I do happen to have a bunch of students who are, yes, targeting all those crazy lottery highly selective schools, that is true. But I also work with kids who, you know, made some mistakes or are perhaps a little slower to bloom. I mean, and I think, like I love working with my highly accomplished kids, they're amazing, I learn from them every day. I mean, I am very optimistic about our collective future because I see the kids who are coming up, yes, but the ones who are honestly the most satisfying, the most fun, are the ones who are a little bit slower to bloom.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had a kid a few years ago. It was pre-COVID and he I'm in Texas, for those of you who don't know he was like big, big football phenom. I mean, in ninth grade he was on ESPN, he was, you know, mr Golden Fingers, and then in 10th grade he stopped growing, he stopped at five foot nine. Oh, wow, no football career. And this is a kid who was about a 3.1 GPA. He had no other activities because in football, like in Texas, if you do football, you have time to do nothing else because it's all summer, two days, all of that. And so this kid had, you know, his confidence was trashed. Super nice kid, but in working with him he was doing something for me. I forget what it was and he wrote. He wrote a paragraph for me and I was like you're actually a really solid writer. I said no, no, I'm not, I'm not. I said no, you actually really are no. And so I said listen, this summer he was going into 11th grade, I want you to go do the young writer studio at Swanee. No, no, I'm not smart enough. I'm like no, no, no, you go.
Speaker 2:And so I told his mom. I was like listen, he's going to call you after the first day and he's going to want to come home. Don't let him. It's two weeks. The kid can suck it up for two weeks. So he went, he called home. Mom didn't let him come home, said you're there for two weeks. We can't come get you. You're in the middle of nowhere, all right, he stayed for two weeks. At the end of two weeks he fell in love with Swanee. He ended up applying their ED. He ended up getting in. He majored in business, he ended up playing for the football team.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Which was a losing team. I think they lost every game, but it didn't matter because he was playing and they all took school spirit and losing every single game. And he is now graduated, he's got his pilot's license. He's living the dream. So those are the fun kids.
Speaker 1:Yes, right, oh, you're so right. I love that. So I have seen you present at many different conferences and I love and I mentioned this to you before we hit record but I just love your perspective and your business acumen, but also just your very practical approach to business. Can you share and I'm sure that after your presentations you talk to a lot of IECs about starting a business, growing a business what are the things that you would recommend based on what you've learned about our industry? What are the biggest mistakes that newer consultants make that you wish they would change or not do or do differently in order to be successful?
Speaker 2:It's a really great question. I think anytime you're starting a business, it's scary, and getting clients is scary, and so I think the biggest mistake is the IEC who takes on clients for the revenue and not because they're the right fit. So I would challenge everybody, just like we do with our students, to think about what makes you special, what's your superpower, what's your niche, and be very diligent about knowing what's in your box, what's outside of your box that you never want to touch, or what's maybe on the lines where you can collaborate with somebody else. So for me, in my box, I only do undergrad. I typically work with students who are liberal arts or STEM. I don't work with performing artists or visual artists, for a few reasons. One is I don't have expertise in auditions or portfolios and, quite frankly, we were not compatible working styles.
Speaker 2:I like structure and lists and plans. I'm a super Jay on Myers-Briggs. I don't like last minute. I'm a little bit blunt, not for everybody. I'm glad you like it, but if it's not for everybody, I'm you know I'm not here to talk about your feelings and I'm here to talk. Let's do strategy, let's execute strategy, let's get you to where you want to go. So for me artists outside my box, I will always, you know, refer them out For me.
Speaker 2:Recruiting athletes you know athletes. My oldest was a recruited athlete, so he was a football player in college. But I don't know enough about that area. So that's something that's on my line, where I will partner with another IEC, I'll work on the more academic application and then an IEC like Katie Anderson will do all of the recruiting. So I would just know what's in your box, know what's outside of your box, because what you don't want to do is start damaging your reputation because you're sort of dabbling in areas where you don't have that expertise. Figure out your expertise, nail the expertise and then, if you want to grow and add different areas, do that, but do it intentionally.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that advice, steph. It's so true, and we talk a lot about how clients, a certain type of client, is going to attract other clients of that type, right? So if you start taking on the wrong type, you're going to find more of those and it's only going to get exponentially worse. So, yeah, and it's so tough at first when you feel like I don't care who it is Like, I just need a client and so I'll work with anyone, especially in those first couple of years. So it's very difficult to implement that, but I think it will serve you well in the long run by working with people who you really can serve well and they'll refer you instead of attracting the wrong type. I love that. So I have to tell you I was thinking of you the other day.
Speaker 1:My daughter does competitive dance and I had to buy her a new dance bag and it's a very high end.
Speaker 1:You know dance equipment company and I had to email the company for some reason customer service related, and when I found the email address for the company, it was an at gmailcom email address and I couldn't believe it and I had a stiff moment because I remember very clearly you did a presentation at a conference and one of the things you were really encouraging new consultants to do is please have an email address from your domain. Do not use a Gmail address because it looks unprofessional. So it was all I could do in my correspondence with the company to not put PS please use an email address at your domain glamourgearcom in this case. But I was having a Steph moment. So, anyway, I thought that was great advice, because professionalism, especially when you're first starting out, I think is so important and if you're, you know, sending out a Gmail email address like that does say something to your prospective client audience, whoever you're emailing. So I really appreciated that advice and I was. You know, every time I see it, I think of you.
Speaker 2:I sometimes I'm sure you get solicitations from like marketers all the time with like buying lists, and I will email them back and say if you're a marketing company, please get a professional email address. Just friendly advice. Yeah, and, by the way, if your marketing was actually good, you would know that I'm a B2C company and I don't need your list of educational institutions. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so funny Anyway. So that always makes me think of you. Do you have any other pieces of advice? I feel like you have so many great words of wisdom. Any other advice for newer consultants on just professionalism or what to do when you're first starting out?
Speaker 2:I think first yes, block your time. Yes, I love that.
Speaker 1:You are a strong time. I love it.
Speaker 2:It's really it's much easier to make exceptions and to become more available than to rein it back once your clients are used to having access to you 24-7. So definitely block your time. And I would say one of the most important lessons, and something that I cherish every day, is build a community of IECs. When I first started in Dallas, the most not all, but most of the other IECs here were not super friendly. I remember my first campus tour trip was in LA and I was brand new and trying to talk to folks and I actually befriended a group of IECs from California because the Dallas area ones were not quite so friendly. And I remember one of them went up to another Dallas-based IEC and said oh, have you met Steph? She's from Dallas. Do you guys get together every month? And this other IEC said oh, absolutely not, she's my competition. Oh, I know. And I think, said, oh, absolutely not, she's my competition. Oh, I know, and I think so. Yes, now you know whatever.
Speaker 2:13, 14 years later, things have thawed somewhat. There are still a few in my community who are not so open, but I'm always very open when I have, like when Erica Dietz came to town from California and wanted to know about the market, or when Shane Bybee decided to go beyond test prep and get into. I mean I'm very happy to have copies. I mean I've recommended and wrote letters of recommendation to IECA for people in my community because the more people are around the better.
Speaker 2:This can be a very lonely job if you don't have a group of colleagues and I find the more we collaborate, the more all of our business grows. So I would say, don't be worried about the competition Because again, everybody has their box. I can't do what Shane does, he can't do what I do. We refer people back and forth all the time and he's literally five minutes away from me. I have a group of IECs like you know Louisa Robb and Jill Maddenberg and Denise Bayless and Stacey Kadesh. Every month we're on a like we call it, you know, pot of gold as our pod, you know webinar, and sometimes we have a ton to talk about and sometimes we don't, but that's okay because we know that we've got this group. So find your people, go to the conferences, visit the campuses, but definitely get a, get a collegial group.
Speaker 1:I love that advice. Thanks, deb, and I think that's so important and a lot of people have mentioned that. You know the the importance of getting involved and going to IECA or HECA conferences and meeting people, because it's actually nice, they don't have to be in your backyard. If you have people across the country, then if you have students applying to different schools, then you can call up someone in California and say, okay, my student wants to apply to. You know UCLA and USC, what do you think? And you know you can get some really great advice. So absolutely yes, awesome. So can you tell me a little bit about where your business is headed? What does success look like in the next year, three years, five years?
Speaker 2:That's such a great question and I ask myself that every day. So my perennial problem is capacity and trying to figure out where the leverage points are and how I can take on more capacity without compromising quality or personal attention. So that is my perennial challenge. What does success look like? We were just in the professional retreat discussing this very very thing. I mean, I would like to keep growing because I would like to continue to help more and more students. The team I have in place I only have contractors, but I feel very fortunate with the team I have. They're amazing across the country and I love that. Even though each one they're all contractors, I think they very much feel like a team and nothing makes me happier than when they reach out to each other without me to get advice and share ideas. So that makes, so I feel really good about that, because that's my business management background, like I just think.
Speaker 1:Love it. Steph, can you share a little bit about how you found your people or your SA?
Speaker 2:It's yeah, well, funny enough and, and you know, it's not that I haven't had some who didn't work out, nobody who is terrible, but again, I have a pretty defined approach, a pretty defined structure and I work with a pretty specific client base who is applying to certain kinds of schools for the most part so it's not for everybody, Because I think it's really really tough to hire for, because you need somebody who not only has a very strong command of the English language and understands sentence structure and grammar which is harder than one might think but also knows how to get insight. What does it take to get into these top schools? So it's not just about telling the story, but what's the insight? And how do you get a kid, how do you drive a child, a teenager, to insight? So part it's, you know, part English teacher, part taskmaster, part editor, part therapist, part mom and I say that mom universally, both my, you know moms and dads, both the men and women are mom.
Speaker 2:So I think it's really really hard to hire for and it's kind of like what you said about clients when you find people, they will find their people. Yes, right, and so I think that if you can find one or two great people and then say, bring me more like you, it kind of grew that way. So one actually I got I had mentioned Shane Bybee, who's one of my colleagues down the street, so one of my. I got I had mentioned Shane Bybee, who's one of my colleagues down the street, so one of my contractors, who now I mean, she's quit all of her other jobs and even though she's still a contractor with me, she essentially works with me full time. But she was an English teacher doing test prep for him and he said you know, I really think that she'd be better working with your population and she still does some test prep with him on the side. Just contact her, she's free to do that. So she started I do a one week summer bootcamp.
Speaker 2:I only do it one time a year because it's really brutal, but she worked with me in my summer bootcamp and then we kind of grew from there and I think somebody saw my, I did a class at UC Irvine and so somebody watched the YouTube video and reached out and so we kind of went from there. I found my one of my New York guys through, again a mutual contact from business school. It's just sort of like it grows. I wish that I had the silver bullet of where to find people, because I'm still looking for people too. So if anybody is out there and is looking, because again capacity, I'm trying to find.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's awesome. Good to know. I know that's a very common question. Well, how do I find people? And yeah, so that's great, great, I don't have the magic answer. Yeah, the magic answer.
Speaker 2:When you find them, treat them well, pay them well.
Speaker 1:So, that's great advice. Yes, I love that. That's so true. Like, don't take them for granted. So professional development is a big part of our business. As you know, we talked about conferences, you know, college tours, how. From a business perspective, though, professional development like where do you get your business inspiration? Or like are there any events, podcasts, books that you've read that have been?
Speaker 2:inspirational. Yeah, so I mean anybody starting out absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely needs Steve Antonoff's what's it called Student of Colleges. I mean it's the Bible, so good, so definitely a must read. You know I'm a business person, so I like business books. A must read. I'm a business person, so I like business books.
Speaker 2:So one of my favorites is Getting Naked by Patrick Leoncini. I love him. He's one of my favorite authors. So it's a basic consulting book. It's short All of his books are super short but really have great lessons. And so this is and I very much follow this advice, which is essentially sharing all of your information right, don't keep it close to the vest, especially if you're somebody like me who doesn't like to sell. I mean, I will give people my entire strategy in the first initial consult, which is free, but it's how do you implement that strategy and how do you execute it that they're paying for Exactly. So I love that. I'm right now reading one of my classmates, charles Duhigg's. The Power of Habit is my current book, which is really great. So I like that. I honestly CNBC is on in my house 24-7. So I just watch the market a lot. But I'll be honest with you Probably my biggest inspiration is I have an inner core of girlfriends.
Speaker 2:There are eight of us from business school and we make it a point and we're all over the country and we're all in different. You know. One is you know um a full-time you know chief mom in her house. One is chief strategy officer for PBMH, which runs um Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. One is an entrepreneur Like. So we're all in doing different things but we, without fail, meet somewhere in the country every six months. So we just met in Palm Springs. We usually zigzag the country. So every six months, without fail, everything goes on hold and we meet for a long weekend and I have to figure out how to write these off, because every time we meet we figure out a business issue, we find an opportunity, we solve a problem, and so I get tremendous inspiration from them.
Speaker 1:I love that Wow.
Speaker 2:It's cheaper than therapy. Yeah right, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Mini vacation with the solving business problems. You're checking all the boxes. I love it, yeah, it's great. All the boxes, I love it, yeah, it's great. Cool. So often we find, or I've just seen, that newer consultants don't have the, I guess, the confidence to set their prices maybe where they should be. Can you talk a little bit about your pricing philosophy, or do you, can you share any advice for newer consultants on pricing?
Speaker 2:In terms of how to find the right pricing or Well, first I think that you need to figure out are you going to do a package or are you going to do hourly, and the reasoning behind it. And here is actually where Evelyn and I are in different models. So she is fully pay for time, pay for time, pay for time, pay for time, which I totally understand. I am only package. And the reason I am only package is because I, again, I'm a business person and so I believe in aligned incentives and so I never want a family to think should I call stuff, should I email stuff, should I meet with stuff? I don't know if it warrants meeting in seven-minute increments, which is how I would charge if I was doing hourly. I always want them to call me, I always want them to email me, I always want them to meet with me, because seemingly small things, especially early on in eighth and ninth grade, can have really, really big repercussions.
Speaker 2:Also, when we get to essays, in my business we don't limit the number of essay drafts. We limit the number of applications but not the number of essay drafts, because we find that for a lot of students, for most students, to get to their best essay personal statement, we're upwards of 12 to 15 drafts and if Johnny doesn't want to pay for, doesn't want to do essay draft six and mom doesn't want to pay for essay draft six, I don't get essay draft six and I don't get Johnny's best work. So that's my philosophy for why I just do flat fee. If you're looking at trying to set rates, I would look at who else is in your community. What are the tutors charging, what are your test prep companies charging and where are your sort of attorneys charging? And it's probably somewhere in between there.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. That's a very common question. Do I do hourly? Do I do packages? How do I set my rates?
Speaker 2:I think both are right. You just have to figure out what's right for you, based on your approach to college counseling, and what the right end product looks like for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly no, that makes perfect sense and I yeah, I love how you phrase that because I I completely get it. I have a couple of different attorneys and you're right. I always question myself like, does this warrant? And you'd like, should I ask the question? And you certainly don't want families you know, students or parents to have that same feeling of I don't know if I should reach out or not. Yeah, good, thank you, steph. All right, so any other daily practices or habits or that you feel have contributed to your success, or anything else you want to share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean probably a few things that might be different from others. So one and I did this many years ago and it amazes me that not everybody does this is. I got out of the practice of coordinating teenager calendars many years ago and it amazes me that not everybody does this is. I got out of the practice of coordinating teenager calendars many years ago and it was life-changing. So if you don't have something like a Calendly or a Setmore where students can schedule their own time, I would greatly recommend it. Two, I removed 60-minute meetings from the options, which has been game-changing as well. So I only offer 30 or 15-minute meetings and usually that's sufficient, unless we're doing something specific like reviewing assessment results or doing a college list. So that, I think, was really important.
Speaker 2:I also block. I block my Thursdays from clients. Oh, cool, so I'm still working, but it gives me time to do revisions and edits and get my hair done. I mean, so Thursday is sort of my no client day. And then, just in terms of oh, another process which might sound really strange is Well, two things. One is I copy parents on every single communication, with the exception of essay edits. I copy parents on every single communication, with the exception of essay edits, and I keep every single email and I know that sounds and I don't do business over text because I cannot keep a copy of the files and so I usually. I mean it's rare that I need to go to it, but just last week I had a mom who I don't know, maybe I think mom's in law school, so I think she's a little bit stressed. But I basically got a nasty gram from her saying we're almost at the end of so-and-so's junior year and we haven't done this and we haven't done this and where is this?
Speaker 2:and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I could very calmly go back and say on this date, I not kept all of those emails. I would have been scrambling. The other thing is, while I do only package, I do have an hourly limit in my contract just to protect me. I never track the time, but in the event that I have a student who really is overly demanding, I can go back and check all of those communications and say, no, we are now at our limit. So that's really important. It's a little bit tedious, but that's really important. And then, just in terms of personal and this is a fairly new habit thus I'm reading the books on how to create new healthy habits is I am now and I learned this from a classmate of mine who's really gotten into mindfulness. He's a very, very successful venture capitalist but he's very now involved in mindfulness and so he was doing a Zoom session for a few of us in the class and it's a new habit which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually been really game-changing for me.
Speaker 2:And that is every morning. He said it's 5-5-5. So five days a week you get up. First thing you do don't look at your phone, don't do anything. Drink a glass of water, then sit at the edge of your bed for three minutes without saying a word. Think about what you're grateful for and think about one intention for the day, and then go take a cold shower and if you can't get into a cold shower, take a hot shower, but end cold. And I can't tell you how much that has just changed. First of all, I don't hit snooze anymore. I used to be the queen of snooze. I don't hit snooze anymore and it just I don't know if you're like me and you're hectic, and I've got kids and I've got a dog and I've got a dog and I've got all of it. It's 5, 10 minutes and I find it really sets the day up very differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like setting the intention for the day. Yeah, and I've read a lot about brain health and they actually say that your thoughts matter obviously more than you give it credit for. You wake up with negative thoughts or feeling overwhelmed then that has such a negative impact in your whole body for a long time. So I love that thinking about what you're grateful for and then setting the intention. Awesome, steph, it has been such a pleasure chatting. Oh, it's so fun. It's always fun to see you. Yeah, thank you so much for being on. How can our listeners find you, should they want to reach out?
Speaker 2:Just a website themallerinstitutecom. I'm on Facebook and that's honestly. That's the extent of my social media.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you, steph. Thanks, have a great day, greg. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Business of College Consulting. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. If you did enjoy it, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or share it with a friend in the college consulting industry. I'll see you next week on our new episode and, in the meantime, take care.