The Business of College Consulting
The Business of College Consulting
Fold the Toilet Paper: Business Wisdom from IECA's Former CEO
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Mark Scalaro, CEO of IECA for over 30 years, shares his unique perspective on the business of college consulting and how the industry has transformed from an avocation into a respected profession. His insights cover the evolution from a field where consultants were openly booed at conferences to today's professional landscape with recognized standards, training programs, and business practices.
• Most consultants struggle with imposter syndrome initially, especially the business aspects
• Market your unique strengths rather than trying to be a generalist competing with established professionals
• Three essential pieces of advice: differentiate yourself, under-promise and over-deliver, and "fold the toilet paper ends"
• Making your behind-the-scenes work visible to clients is crucial as this prevents the most common complaint
• Partnerships require complementary skills, shared vision, and formal written agreements to succeed
• Building positive relationships with school counselors requires empathy for their challenges
• Future growth opportunities include expanding into gap years, military options, career schools, graduate programs, and international education
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Business of College Consulting. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or share it with a friend in the college consulting industry.
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. Hello everyone, so today I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Mark Scolaro, ceo of IECA. For those of you who do not know Mark, which I'm sure you're in the minority, mark has led IECA for over 30 years and I think it's safe to say that he's witnessed and helped shape and transform our industry. So, although Mark isn't an IEC himself, which is my usual podcast guest, I think you bring a really unique perspective and such deep insight into our field, mark, and it's such a pleasure to have you here with us today.
Mark Sklarow:Thanks, Brooke. It's great to be here. I appreciate your finding a place for me, given the fact that I'm not an educational consultant, and look forward to spending a little time with you.
Brooke Daly:Yeah, that sounds great, and this all stemmed from a recent conversation that we had when we were at an in-person board meeting, and I had learned from you that many IECA members turn to you for business guidance, and I was initially surprised, but, thinking about it, it makes sense, with your decades of experience and your commitment to even fostering relationships with IECA members, that they would reach out to you for this type of you know, guidance and advice. So I look forward to diving in with you today and hearing more about what you think about the business portion of being an IEC. So, with that said, I have to address the elephant in the room that you do have. You know, your future retirement. That's in the not so future future and I promise not to talk too much about it because, frankly, it makes me sad and I haven't come to terms with it yet. However, I wanna know, besides spending time with your family and your beautiful grandchildren, what are you most looking forward to in retirement?
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, and I'm glad we're not gonna take too much time, because if you're sad, I'm gonna become sad, sad, and then it's going to be a mess.
Brooke Daly:That's a mess.
Mark Sklarow:You know, I think there's both personal and professional, I think. Personally, I so look forward to reading again. I feel like in the last decade most of my reading has been books on marketing and things of that nature which, by the way, speaks to your point about people consulting me for business advice, which I take seriously. So I try to keep current, but being able to read fiction again has me pretty excited. Actually, when I went to vote early this year, it was at the local library and I renewed my library card and it was the best part of that day. And I think you know I love to cook and bake and I intend to do more of that, which means I better also step up my exercise routine. I love to travel, both domestic and international, and so I expect to do more of that.
Mark Sklarow:That's all on the personal side. On the professional side, it really is unresolved in my mind yet, and we're weeks away. My mind yet, and we're weeks away. I understand that. But there is this accumulated wealth of information, not just information that I've shared, but what I've learned from colleagues. And I do wonder is there something for me to do to be of assistance to IECs, getting started with IECs who hit that bump in the road trying to figure out what's next. I don't know what that looks like, funny Brooke. When I was at NACAC this year, the number of colleges and the number of vendors who came up to me asking me for advice about how to work effectively with educational consultants kind of gave me that brief little oh there's an opportunity, there's maybe an opportunity there, and so we'll see where it goes Obviously much more clear on the personal side of what I'm looking forward to, and I know my grandkids are looking forward to me being available when they say, hey, grandpa, come on over.
Brooke Daly:Oh, I love that, mark, I love it. So do you have any trips planned for 2025?
Mark Sklarow:No, we don't. My wife and I had plans to go to Greece when COVID hit, and so those plans got shelved, and so maybe that'll come back around. But yeah, we're waiting to see, we're also doing some remodeling of the house.
Brooke Daly:That is a full-time job.
Mark Sklarow:You know, I like to say we're doing old people remodeling uh things like like bringing the laundry from the basement up to the third floor, so we don't have to be constantly carrying things up and down. That should be the lead of. What you've learned from Mark Scalero is that he's moving his laundry room.
Brooke Daly:That's perfect. That will be our teaser Mark. Uh, all right, cool. Well, let's jump in. I would love our teaser Mark. Yeah, all right, cool, well, let's jump in. I would love to hear and you know, it's just like I have a difficult time even wrapping my head around 30 years in this industry because I'm like what was it like in year one and two for Mark? But thinking about how being an IEC has evolved over the past 30 years, just talk to me a little bit about the business trends that you've seen, like year one for you versus like today. I mean, it's a totally different animal, right? Like, what have you seen? Yeah, it's such a different ballgame.
Mark Sklarow:I will reflect back my very first annual membership meeting. We had an open forum and somebody stood up and said as small business people, they were just sort of getting started. That was their intro to their remarks. And there was a roar in the room. This person had to sit down and shut up because no one in that room was prepared to be called a small business person.
Mark Sklarow:Back in those days, when I came to IECA, there were virtually no members virtually none who were supporting themselves or a family on the work they did as an educational consultant did as an educational consultant. Overwhelmingly these were people whose spouses were well-off, well-connected in the community. Many of our members, when they would get together, the conversations would be well, they serve on the symphony board and they're on the library board, oh, and we work with some kids to help them find a great little boarding school. And nobody thought of it as a business. Everyone thought of it as sort of an avocation, almost like they were doing community service, community service for the wealthiest among us. Because in fact in those days you know, I remember the job interview that got me hired I actually said in the interview when I, the more I learned about consulting, the less.
Mark Sklarow:I was convinced that I was going to take the job and I said if you're looking for someone who is passionate about helping wealthy kids find their way to the right prep school, I have zero interest. If the interest is in expanding the view of consulting that we're really helping all kids to figure out the educational path that works for them, now I'm interested so to say how has it evolved, it's like, from the dark ages to the place we are today, where people see it as legitimate which I don't know that they did Right. You may have heard me tell the story, brooke, that my first NACAC conference that I went to not knowing that we were hated and despised by the masses, back in 30 years ago I stood up at a session and I said I am CEO of the Independent Educational Consultants Association and people hissed, booed, I was spat upon.
Brooke Daly:No.
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, it was lovely. So think about what it must have been like in those days. People sort of did this by the seat of their pants. Very few people had contracts because that would have felt too much like a business to have a contract. There were certainly no management software that an educational consultant could use. Our membership was 80% boarding school. There were only a handful of people doing college, and so almost everything has changed and it's the professionalization of the field and all that really represents.
Mark Sklarow:I think there is a dignity that has been brought to the field.
Mark Sklarow:I think even those people that still aren't thrilled that consultants are out there begrudgingly acknowledge that consultants today are well-educated, they're committed to their students and client families.
Mark Sklarow:I think there's a little bit of jealousy about the amount of time that a consultant can spend with an individual student, about the amount of time a consultant can spend out in the field getting real-life information, and so the question is so enormous of how the profession has evolved, because it really wasn't a profession.
Mark Sklarow:One other quick story In my first couple of years Harvard University has, in one of its many non-teaching functions it maintains sort of the official database of all occupations, and it did an investigation of the field of independent educational consulting and concluded that it was an aspiring profession, that it was not a real field. And part of their conclusion was based on the fact some people call themselves educational consultants and some people call themselves independents, with no defining, just the word independent. Some people said I'm a private counselor, that there was no uniform name, there was no uniform process for becoming an independent educational consultant and much more that went with that no required coursework and no oversight being done and I remember sitting with the board of directors at the time and said our job is to fill the void. We are going to define this and the name from now on will be independent educational consultant, will be independent educational consultant, and we'll work with universities who want to develop curricula. Along came UC Irvine and UCLA and others.
Brooke Daly:What year was that, Mark? Do you know approximately? When was that?
Mark Sklarow:It was probably pretty close to the year, maybe 98.
Brooke Daly:Wow, okay.
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, somewhere around there, and frankly it's. One of the things that I'm most proudest of is that we took it to Harvard and said no, this is not an aspiring profession, we're going to. It is a profession and we're going to make the world see that this is a profession. It is a profession and we're going to make the world see that this is a profession.
Brooke Daly:I love that. So one of the things that you mentioned is the perception of IECs in the industry, and I assume what you were saying is, you know, outside of our industry. So colleges and high school counselors perceive us as you know. There's a little bit of jealousy there. I would love for you to talk a little bit again. A lot of listeners are just getting started. So when you think about that relationship with school counselors, do you have any words of wisdom for a consultant just getting started? What should they do? How should they build that bridge with school counselors?
Mark Sklarow:So the first thing I'm going to say is to do a little self-introspection and understand and empathize with a school counselor, not just because they have huge caseloads. Colleagues in private schools have small caseloads very often. Let's not generalize, but also empathize with the fact that they've got a principal or a headmaster or a board of directors or a PTO who judges their success by how effectively they work with kids and what does their list look like at the end of the year. And if we remember that they too are feeling tremendous pressure, I think it's easy to say, oh, they're so busy they don't have time for kids. They are making so much personal time available for kids and working crazy hours and they're asked to do the impossible. And then we'll have a school head or principal or school board in small school districts say what do you mean? None of the kids this year got into an Ivy League school, as if it's the counselor's fault. And so let's first start with a little bit of empathy and then think about how does an IEC help those school counselors to better serve their own students? How do we support them? How do we articulate to them that every IEC I know informs the student that the relationship with their school counselor is a primary and important relationship.
Mark Sklarow:I think that they fear meaning the school-based counselors fear that we're saying to kids don't work with your counselor, we know better. When in fact, we all know the opposite is true. I sometimes think that consultants, in an effort to be supportive of their school-based peers, make the horrible mistake of going to an extreme. Oh, I'm going to be visiting schools in South Carolina, you want me to pick up brochures for you? Or even worse, frankly, is showing up at the school. Look, I brought you these trinkets from my travels and I think that it's well-meaning. But it's not well-meaning to make a person feel inadequate is exactly the right word. And so having conversations where we let school counselors know that we acknowledge the important role that they play how can we be supportive of each other in this process?
Mark Sklarow:Having said that, we know that consultants will learn in their own communities that there are certain schools that are going to be open to cooperation Great and there will be schools where the school counselor does not want to hear that you're working with an independent educational consultant and you know what. That's fine too, because if they don't want contact, then there isn't contact, because we're working within a framework where they are important to the student. I think some people have heard me mention when my own daughters were having the senior night and my daughters were in a school with 600 kids in their graduating class of public school in Northern Virginia 600 kids and there was the senior night and the counselor began by saying this is the best counseling department in Virginia. You do not need to hire an independent educational consultant. We don't want to hear that anyone has done that and if you decide to do that, that's who you will work with and I just Did your daughter raise her hand?
Mark Sklarow:We just sat there in stunned silence and then the counselor said but the great news is one, there's a great Virginia College for every student in the class. Two, we have perfected the art of knowing everyone in the class and which state university they should apply to. And third, we set up two nights this year for parents who want to come in and meet. Two nights, 600 parents. And so I thought how interesting that you start by saying no one needs a consultant and then you made the case for why students might need a consultant.
Mark Sklarow:My daughter didn't want to go to college in Virginia, she wanted to go outside of the state. My daughter wanted mom and dad to be involved, at least initially, until she told us to get lost from meetings that took place but at the same time. So the answer to the question actually, she never told her counselor that she was working with an independent educational consultant until she came in with her list. And here are all these small liberal arts colleges from all over the country. And the counselor said how in the world did you come up with this list? And my daughter said well, I'm using an independent educational consultant who told me how important it was that I continue to work with you because you know me better than anybody, and it obviously worked out well and in fact, the college that each of the girls have gone to each of my two daughters other kids from the school began going to those colleges as well.
Brooke Daly:So, yeah, oh, that's great. Thank you, mark. Yeah, I think you brought up some really important points about that relationship. It is very sensitive and we have to be very careful, I think, in how we approach school counselors and how we communicate with parents and students about that relationship. So true.
Mark Sklarow:And we not start from a place of what we do is better. Exactly what we do is different? Yes, and they can be complimentary. They should be complimentary.
Brooke Daly:Yes, exactly yes. So I mentioned earlier that I was surprised to learn that IECA members are turning to you for business guidance. What are some of the most common pain points that you hear about, maybe from those new folks who are just starting out?
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, and one of the things that I've been luckiest about is going to be a roundabout way of getting to the answer for you is I've loved the fact that I've participated in every summer training institute. Going back to before, it was the Summer Training Institute Principles and Practices Workshop, which originally was a half day and eventually evolved into a five-day program and I've loved the fact that I've been able to teach and when I'm not teaching business skills, how to write a business plan or marketing and some of the other things that I've taught the session that I do in liability professional liability I'm listening. So I am hearing 200 new consultants a year talk about their anxieties and their concerns and their fears, and I will say this there's very little different today than there was 20 years ago in what new consultants are anxious about. Invariably they come in not surprising to you. Most of them feel like I've got the counseling stuff down or I've got the knowledge of how the process works.
Mark Sklarow:I have no idea how to start a business, I don't know how to run a business, I don't know how to do any of that, and so I think because folks at the starting gun at Summer Training Institute, I'm the business guy standing in front of them, naturally and honestly, it's been one of the great joys that I've had here thousands of times helping IECs deal with issues. So what are they? I said I was going to be roundabout, getting to the. What are the big issues? You know what? For people just getting started, marketing is probably number one, and you all everyone listening to this will know that by the time you're in year three, most of your clients are referrals. And and yet, until the referrals kick in, how are you getting those early clients? And the companion to that is imposter syndrome. Do I know enough to be charging? And yet I'm going to charge? But I need to do that because I have to do a good job and I've got to satisfy these clients so that they'll refer me on. So that's part of it. Business relationships the number of times I've helped folks who entered into partnerships who do it during Summer Training Institute You'll find a buddy in Summer Training Institute. We ought to do this together. Oh my God, what a great idea. And then they get going. No thought to what the business really looks like or what it's going to be. I think that's part of it.
Mark Sklarow:I think people trying to figure what they want their consulting practice to look like and not doing any personal work on that, they just decide well, this woman across town is very successful, I'll do what she's doing, instead of thinking first from the personal. What am I trying to achieve? What do I want to do? Who am I trying to serve? Why am I trying to serve them? Does that make sense in my community, however, they define community Increasingly, of course, the impact of technology and everything you know one of the major changes.
Mark Sklarow:But I think all of those and the number of times members have called me when they are at the edge of retiring and my first words are please tell me you're thinking about retiring in the next three years and not you would like to stop in the next six months, yes, tomorrow. Everyone waits too long to do that, and so all of those, I think, are part of the kinds of questions that have come to me frequently over the years. I'm often humored by people will call me, I would say, multiple times per week with what they think is an ethics question, but it's really a business practice question.
Brooke Daly:Can you give an example? I find this so intriguing.
Mark Sklarow:Oh, a member called me and had two of their clients turn in drafts of their application essay. I think you've heard me say this. This is a fairly recent story and they were on the same topic and something really out of the ordinary. I almost don't want to say what it is because I fear that listeners will say wait, I had a student write about that as well but really, truly an obscure topic and it was what do I do with that? And what I love is the proactive nature of that. Do I have an ethical obligation here? How should I proceed? How do I talk to these two different clients and, without being accusatory, say you know, I got another essay that looks a lot like this one. And what was so interesting in this case is it was the topic that was the same I mean down to the detail, by the way but they were completely written differently and so no one was copying an essay. This wasn't AI generated. I think this was probably someone shared. This is what I'm going to write my essay about. And their friend said oh, that sounds like a great idea for an essay, but given the topic, it was impossible to have been true for both of the applicants. But that's the kind of thing or I will hear a member will say to me hey, this test prep company in my neighborhood has made the following offer to me Is that ethically okay? Well, but very often what they're describing isn't really ethics as much as it's a business decision that they need to make. There are issues about intellectual property that come up all the time. You know, brooke, it's so funny.
Mark Sklarow:In the early days we found ourselves sort of giving people language to use, because IECA's guidelines would say you can't claim to know the secret sauce to get a kid in your job isn't getting a kid in your job, is helping find the right matches between a student's needs and the offerings. And as that language became sort of, I think what most people think of today is the standard language. Things like a great match didn't exist when I came here. You know it was IECA people that developed that language and we began to use it and we loved seeing it extend even to school counselors and everything. But that was all brand new. But then we would hear from members saying, wait, they stole the language from my website and I'm like, well, that's just sort of standard language these days, and so we've had to help people through standard language these days, and so we've had to help people through. You need to distinguish yourself in other ways than redefining what a consultant does, right right, that's fair.
Brooke Daly:So you brought up imposter syndrome and marketing, which are two themes and trends that we've seen on the podcast A lot of folks talk about when they first start they have imposter syndrome and a lot of folks need to initially grease the gears when they're getting started to get those first few clients. So can you talk a little bit about how you would advise a new consultant, like how do you get over imposter syndrome? Do you have any advice there?
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, we know there are two aspects to being a great consultant other than the business side. Right, one is helping students with the process and the other side is really helping students with the self-discovery. And I think that everyone should first understand their own strength. Someone who is really good at the process. That should be the basis of the work that they do and they will learn the other stuff. They'll learn how to counsel parents and they'll learn.
Mark Sklarow:So be careful what you market in the early days. Make sure your marketing plays to your strength, and here's the advice I would give. I understand the desire to get those first clients. Nothing kills a consulting practice faster than not delivering on promises you make. Not delivering on promises you make and so, under promise over deliver. Make promises that relate to the area of your strength and your expertise. I think that really spending time figuring out what your own strengths are you know there are some members who and let me add to that is I really believe in the value of marketing your difference, marketing your strength. If you really, if what excites you is working with first gen, then market yourself as someone who works with first gen. Don't be a generalist when you're being compared to people with 20 years of experience. Tell people what it is that really excites you. If it's girls in STEM, talk about girls in STEM.
Mark Sklarow:Everyone needs to find something that makes their practice unique. Sometimes it's as simple as being bilingual. Sometimes it's as simple as you work primarily with scholarship kids coming from underserved communities. You know, sometimes it's art, sometimes it's athletes. Everyone has to figure out what's going to make my practice unique. The number of times I've talked to new consultants who, when I say what are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish, they'll start by saying and this has happened at least 20 times Well, steve Antonoff has a really successful practice in Colorado, so I'm going to do the same thing as him. And my response is why would a parent who sees the same thing from you and the same thing from Steve Antonoff choose you? They're going to choose Steve. What are they going to get differently from you? You know, maybe it's a little more hand-holding, maybe it's going to be dealing a little bit more on the family dynamic. Maybe it's going to be that when I because I want to work with first-gen kids, we're not done. When you submit the deposit to attend a certain university, we're going to work through the summer to make sure that you are ready, you understand what a syllabus is and you know why you have to go to the orientation and why you have to do all those things.
Mark Sklarow:Figure out what makes you unique, market that uniqueness and be able to deliver on what you promise. It is so much better to over-deliver from the promises you make. There's been amazing studies done on the impact of Yelp and other online reviews and what they generally show. The most impactful reviews are those that talk about being surprised, delighted, over-delivered gave me more than I ever expected. And think about it. If you read a review that said this person made a lot of promises and they delivered them Right, instead, if it was, we went in with some modest expectations and we were blown away. We got more time than we ever thought. They were so helpful, they knew so much. That's the review that's going to hold sway, and so Wow, that is gold right there, mark.
Brooke Daly:Great piece of advice. Yeah, because a lot of clients I mean we've had many clients who have said we'll write you a review, like what do you want us to write, and not that we tell them what to write, but I think it's great to have that to understand how you know effective, you know reviews work Amazing.
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, there's, there's been. There's some research that points to the fact that we know everyone's going to mess up at some point. Right, everyone's going to give a piece of bad advice. You tell someone that this college is right for the following reason and then a week later you learn they just ended their marine biology program and you've got to get back to the client and there's great marketing evidence that families love to hear. I wanted to double check for you. I wanted to make sure that we got that exactly right, and you know what I'm glad I did, because this program was just stopped and it sounds like so even when I'm not here with you. You were thinking about me, you were concerned about me, and all of that works to your advantage. Don were thinking about me, you were concerned about me, and all of that works to your advantage. Don't worry about making mistakes. Worry about how you respond to the mistakes that you make Exactly.
Brooke Daly:Yeah, great advice, and I love the piece of advice about imposter syndrome and really focusing on your own personal strengths and how you're different or how you're going to differentiate yourself and your market. I think that makes perfect sense.
Mark Sklarow:The more education a person has, the more imposter syndrome they have, because it is by being educated you realize how much there is to know. It's people that know very little, that think they know everything, and it's you know all of us the minute we learn more. I love hearing from members who will say I've decided I'm going to start looking at international universities that's a nice thing to add. Or I'm going to add grad school, and the minute they start researching, that are like okay, timeout, that is so much more involved than I ever imagined. I'm going to continue to do my background, I'm going to learn, but I'm not going to announce that that's a specialty for at least a couple of years, because I think that the more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Brooke Daly:Yes, exactly, exactly. It's so funny. So I'm currently teaching the business course for the UC Berkeley college counseling program and we're at the point we're in, you know, module eight out of 10. And so we're almost at the end of the course. And we're at the point where, in you know, module eight out of 10. And so we're almost at the end of the course and we have a discussion question last week that was basically like so, compared to when you started, how are you feeling right now? And a lot of them said if it makes sense, my head is spinning more and less, because less because now I know what I need to do right, like they have a clear, like you know, framework and action plan. But then more because now I know what I need to do Right, so it's like it's a catch 22.
Mark Sklarow:Exactly right. I remember a time at Summer Training Institute a university president attended our Summer Training Institute and at the beginning, during introduction, said, introduced themselves their name, what university they were with and said I really know 90% of this. I'm coming to Summer Institute to learn the other 10% and, of course, the faculty. That night we're like, oh God, I'm nothing, like someone who thinks they know everything. And as we began the closing event which is for for Summer Institute when we were live, it was a banquet and all the faculty would speak she asked to say something. She said I know what I said upon arrival. I want you to know that I now realize I've got 10% and I have 90% to learn, but I know now where that 90% lies and I am so grateful to have had this chance to learn how much more there is to learn. So similar words to what was said by one of your students.
Brooke Daly:Yeah, I love that. I love it. So I have to ask besides joining IECA, do you have one piece of advice that you would give to every new consultant, or something that you feel like is so foundational that you can't be successful without?
Mark Sklarow:So over the years there are three pieces of advice that I tend to have been sort of known for in Summer Institute. So I'm going to just go right to those and then we'll see if you have any if I go somewhere else in addition to that. So a couple I've already mentioned. Right One is you have to differentiate yourself. You have to figure out what's going to make your practice unique and different from anybody else's practice. Think of it like the college application essay.
Mark Sklarow:If your practice, exactly as you define it, could be done by anybody else in America, then you haven't done a good enough job defining it. It should be unique to you. It should be something that's meaningful and important to you. The second is to always under-promise and over-deliver If you can. Even when you've been at this for years, you can continue to over-deliver, surprise and delight people with what you're able to do for them. It's something you should be aiming for all the time. And the third is to always fold the ends of the toilet paper, and it's the advice I give that I get the most response from, because intuitively it doesn't start by making any sense. And yet I've actually gotten photographs of folded ends of toilet paper and all sorts of things I've gotten over the years that I actually have really Don't show up in the conference surveys, mark.
Brooke Daly:People take a picture and put it in like this hotel did not do a great job.
Mark Sklarow:No, but I've gotten at one hotel that we were at. They folded the ends of the paper and put a little gold seal there and many people there sent pictures to me. And by that I mean that so much of the work that an IEC does is not in front of the client, it's not in front of the parent or the kid. You're doing it in the privacy of your office. You're doing the research, you're coming up with the list, you're reading essays and you need every consultant needs to make sure that they make that all that's done behind the scenes evident to the family. That's how you fold the ends right, because you fold the ends of the toilet paper in the hotel to say, hey, we were here. You didn't see us, you were out having a good time, you were at the beach, but we cleaned your bathroom. We did all that and here's the proof that we were here. Well, how are you showing your clients your tours that you've been on? How are you showing clients that you've been to conferences, that you're meeting with people, that you're attending webinars from College Board or other organizations? All of that your job is to show the parent.
Mark Sklarow:The number one ethics complaint that I have gotten from parents over the last three decades has been the consultant didn't do much and that they charged me $5,000 and we only met with them four times and they handed me a list of schools big whoop. And I think, well, that's the fault of the consultant, not the parent. The consultant needed to explain how did that list come to be? And it's based on the tours and the research and all the work that was done and it is, you know, making sure that when parents ask questions like my kid wants to go to that school in the Midwest, are there halal options for that kid when they get out there, well, why should you know? You're going to have to say let me look that up for you. And it's the follow-up. It's saying I've done the research, that school doesn't have a halal option, but you know what? Here are five other small liberal arts colleges that do have halal options for you. So I think it's bringing to reality, bringing to the forefront everything that you are doing to be a great consultant.
Brooke Daly:Wow, great advice, mark. I'm taking mental notes myself because I feel like now I'm thinking about my team I don't know if we do a great job I'll be honest of you know, showing our clients what goes into that. You're 100% right. Wow, and interesting that that's your number one ethics complaint. Interesting, great advice all the way around. And I didn't. I would have guessed that folding the toilet paper was about being detail oriented or over servicing, right Like, but yeah, wow, I learned something today. Thank you more. All right, so can we go back to partnerships? You touched upon this and I didn't grab onto that subject when you talked about it, but you and I talked a little bit about partnerships and I think that they seem so appealing for a new consultant because they're so you know they're wary of going solo and the challenges that they're going to face alone. But what advice would you give to someone if they haven't entered into a partnership yet and they say, mark, this is what I'm thinking about doing? What would you tell them? Yet?
Mark Sklarow:and they say, mark, this is what I'm thinking about doing. What would you tell them? I would ask what different skills the partners are bringing into the relationship. A partnership where both are former school counselors and nobody's done business is not a partnership that adds to what's lacking for the individuals that are involved. Except misery loves company. So that's my first is what skills are they each bringing in? It's also, what are they going to bring to the relationship that you can't get on your own, and that's a slightly different question.
Mark Sklarow:If you are both partners in Savannah Georgia, it's going to be a hard process to start. Yet if you tell me several of us want to be partners and we're in Akron, youngstown, the three C's Cincinnati, cleveland and Columbus, we have got five partners in five different cities in Ohio. Wow, now that's sounding a little interesting to me, because you're talking about covering the entire state of Ohio. I also want to know individually. So if somebody came to me and said we're thinking about being partners, I would separate them and I feel like a bad cop. I would separate them and I'd ask one what are your goals for this, for your consulting practice, and ask the other person the same and the number of times they will not be on the same page, that they just have this.
Mark Sklarow:One will say I want to really help underserved communities. I'm retired, I want to make a little bit of money. I don't have to support a family on this. And the other person is I've got three young kids at home and I'm trying to find a way to support them, but not work during the hours that I have to parent my kids. Have you met each other? There needs to be a conversation here. I also would say and I'd be hard-ass about this there needs to be a written contract. I wish I could quantify it, but I would bet 90% of the time that partnership issues have been brought to me like we don't know what to do. There was not any signed agreement, they were just winging it. Because at the beginning it feels like what are we even agreeing? Like it's we don't. We don't have any clients yet, we don't have any inventory, we don't have a building.
Brooke Daly:Let's just work together.
Mark Sklarow:We're going to work together and then it's the first time someone gets a client, it's wait. Are we sharing the fee from that client? Do I keep mine? And invariably something's going to go awry. And so I think a partnership can be a wonderful thing, but I think each has to bring something unique, special to the table. But more than anything, you've got to have a singular vision.
Brooke Daly:Yes, I love that. I love that. That's such a good point. And a partnership I mean it should be a legal agreement, right, Like it is like marrying someone and you don't want to get married on the first date. I would be a good example of that. Like you might want to slow it down a little bit and get to know each other a little bit, and yeah.
Mark Sklarow:Well, and what's even crazier is it's like getting married for financial reasons and not figuring out what those financial reasons and before you actually move ahead. I mean it's, but across the board. I mean the fact is, even when consultants bring on associates, that same thing it's does the. Are the associates you're bringing up? Did they buy into your vision of what you want, the consulting practice? Do they understand the financial arrangement?
Mark Sklarow:What I often hear from the associates brought on is well, they're charging $4,000 per kid, but I only get $2,800. I want to make all $4,000. And like did anyone ever explain to you where the other 1,200 is going, that this is paying legal fees and website fees and you know, for the accountant and all of that? And the answer is no. And so they're like well, the principal is just keeping my money. Well, if you have it written down, so it's understandable that there's a really good contract involved. There just has to be contracts. And again, remember, you know, brooke, in my first or second IECA conference my first one was in Raleigh, north Carolina, my second one was in Boston, and so I think this was in Boston One of the breakout sessions was being a great consultant without any paper. It was literally a session teaching other consultants that you should have no paper, no files, and I don't mean back then there were no electronic files.
Mark Sklarow:So it literally meant nothing files, so it literally meant nothing.
Brooke Daly:Oh, my goodness, wow oh that's so funny. I wonder if that person is still in business. They are not, oh, not super surprising. That's so funny. So, mark, I have two more questions that I would love to ask you. I know we're running against time here. I would love to know, based on what you've seen either in like counseling, consulting like trends with parents or students, what business opportunities do you see available in the future, or what do you think IUCs should just be aware of or thinking of?
Mark Sklarow:Yeah, I think the field's going to continue to grow. I have no doubt about that. There's no question that that's good news and I don't want to hear that we're about to go off a cliff of seniors. You know the number of seniors and stuff. It's going to decline by like 2% and when at maybe a quarter of all kids are using consultants, it's up to some extent.
Mark Sklarow:There's plenty of opportunity for growth and I think the growth is going to happen increasingly in the heartland. But I think that consultants will need to look beyond some of the traditional pathways, meaning consultants should know a little bit about gap year. They need to know a little bit more about military options. I think they need to know more about career schools, and I think that that will help propel the growth, these additional avenues that I think consultants should be skilled in. Part of what's going to propel growth in the next decade is going to be grad school on global, all indications are that's where some of this growth is going to occur. So if I were to look at a consulting, if I were to start my own consulting practice which I want to assure you there's zero chance of me- doing it.
Brooke Daly:That was one of my questions, mark. If you were going to start an IUC business?
Mark Sklarow:Never, never never, but if I were, I would make sure that there it would be a multi-person practice where I have my grad school specialists, I have my global specialist, I have my you know someone looking at alternative pathways, including career schools. I think I would want to make sure that, when parents came in and said we don't know what's the next step, that we're not just automatically assuming, oh, you don't know, whether you mean private or public or no. I think one of the questions we're going to be looking at do we even mean a four-year degree? Are we going to be looking for something else? And that includes five-year medical programs. I mean, there's so much other than a four-year undergraduate degree and I think that we have to be open to the likelihood that more and more schools may go to three-year degree. I mean there's so much that's going to be happening as colleges, who all listen to me, so they're going to take my advice to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. So who knows what creative things colleges will come up with.
Brooke Daly:I love that. I love that, Okay. So one final question is are there any questions I didn't ask you today that you wish that I had? Or is there just one piece of advice for our listeners or new consultants based on your 30 plus years of experience?
Mark Sklarow:So probably the most important piece of advice that I would leave at the end is do what you're passionate about. You know most consultants tell us in surveys that they love the work that they do. Well, that's because they went into a field that they're passionate about, and so figure out what that passion is, where it lies, which segment in our own little world it really gets you going and concentrate on that. And the final words that I would say Brooke, you know this is really in. As you know we have we announced today the new CEO starts December 2nd.
Mark Sklarow:So Thanksgiving will be my last. I'll leave for Thanksgiving break and be done as CEO. Those I'll still be around, it would just be. This is my chance to thank everybody, and I don't mean just IECA members. I have learned from IECs, whether they're members of IECA or not. I've loved the people I've gotten to know. I have loved the admissions reps that I've gotten to know. I'm just incredibly fortunate to have been able to have a career that I was passionate about and had a chance to live out that passion in a way that brought me to so many amazing people.
Brooke Daly:Mark, we're so lucky to have you and we were so lucky to have you for 30 plus years as leader in our industry, and I know I speak on behalf of many colleagues when I say you'll be sorely missed, but I'm so glad we had this opportunity today. It's been such a pleasure to have you and so fun to hear about all of your experiences. So thank you so much for taking the time.
Mark Sklarow:Well, thank you, Brooke, for letting me just kind of tell stories for an hour.
Brooke Daly:Anytime. 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.