909: LIVE From the 2024 ⁠Career Education Convention⁠ - with Dana Hutton, Chief Marketing & Enrollment Management Officer, Southeastern College

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to ed up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. We're here at the Career Education Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, put on by our great friends at the Career Education College and University group who always bring together those serving career college students. And we would not be here without our amazing partner and sponsor, Lead Squared. I've got a great Lead Squared-er with me right here. He's Douglas Carlson, head of partnerships at Lead Squared. Douglas, welcome back again and again and again, my friend. This is now you're getting a little taste of what it's like to do many of these in a row. I think we've got nine or 10 today, so you're going to be tired, my friend.

Douglas Carlson: This is fun. Also, I like Lead Square. You know, that works out. It's a big square. I'm from Colorado, so it's always kind of funny. What's the plural?

Joe Sallustio: Well, I don't know. That's why you have to correct me. Is it Lead Squarers or something else?

Douglas Carlson: Lead Squarer? I don't know. Maybe our guest will know.

Joe Sallustio: Probably not. But we will find out what she's doing anyway. Let's make sure we get her in here appropriately. She's Dana Hutton, chief marketing and enrollment management officer at Southeastern College. Dana, welcome to the mic. How are you?

Dana Hutton: I'm great. Thanks for having me today.

Joe Sallustio: So the first thing I'll say is when you're in charge of marketing and enrollment, which I do find that many separate those roles. You know, marketing didn't get us enough leads and admissions didn't convert enough of the people. You get the crisscross. So I'd love to see somebody who's overseeing both because I think it's a critical mistake in higher ed to separate those. But they're really hard jobs. How are you doing? How are things going? And tell us about Southeastern College.

Dana Hutton: Yeah, well, thank you. It's really a busy job, as you know. You have so many moving parts. It never stops. But it's what makes me tick. I absolutely love what I do. When it comes down to admissions, that's where I started. I started in admissions in 2007. So just a few years ago. I know what I'm doing. And then I finally made my way into marketing. So I'm still learning something every day when it comes to marketing, because it's forever evolving. Therefore, admissions is also evolving. When people have it separated, you are going to have that friction, you are going to have that finger pointing, unless you're able to bridge that gap. I'm actually working with someone I met here at the convention, just trying to help them bridge the gap right now, because they're kind of experiencing the same thing. So just trying to show some of the things that I've learned along the way and share some of that information.

Joe Sallustio: Can you tell us a little bit about Southeastern College? You obviously span a couple different states, but would love to just learn a little bit more. What are your big programs? Where are your bigger and smaller schools? Just tell us a little bit more.

Dana Hutton: Absolutely. So Southeastern College, we do span across North Carolina, South Carolina, and we also have campuses, of course, in Florida. Our main campus in Florida is the West Palm Beach campus.

Joe Sallustio: Nice location.

Dana Hutton: Yeah, exactly. And then we have the Miami Lakes campus, which is a branch campus. Then we also have locations in Charlotte, Charleston, and Columbia. So out of the five campuses, we are mostly allied health. We have really expanded our program portfolio in the Carolinas over the past year and a half. So we have degree granting there now. We are offering up to a bachelor's degree in two of our campuses in Florida, which is exciting. And our larger programs, of course, are like nursing with practical nursing and registered nursing. Sonography is a very big popular program with us.

Joe Sallustio: Interesting.

Dana Hutton: And then we just started an early childhood education program in the West Palm Beach and Miami campuses and we offer up to a bachelor's degree program there and we own a Primrose preschool. So there's a big need for that post-pandemic.

Joe Sallustio: This is music to my ears. I have almost a three-year-old and my goodness, just one, the cost of it, but also just the availability, like at any price point, you need to get on a list and maybe you'll get in, maybe not. So thank you for making more availability.

Dana Hutton: Absolutely. It was a huge need for our students when we saw that post-pandemic, we were working tirelessly trying to find places for them to have childcare because as we were coming back, but a lot of those places had gone out of business during that time. So a huge need there. Obviously, we know that there's a big need for nurses. You know, projected shortage of nurses and in the state of Florida, with private education there, we have about 960 schools that belong to the FAPS organization, but we produce about 60% of the nurses in the state of Florida.

Joe Sallustio: No kidding. That's great.

Dana Hutton: Yes.

Joe Sallustio: Coming back to a little bit of the operational piece, we have such a diverse audience here at the podcast. We've got many of your colleagues from nonprofit higher education. And I've worked in both career education and in nonprofits. And one of the things I found is that in schools that, you know, your 200-year-old nonprofit higher ed institution, they've got one way of thinking about enrollment and marketing. And in the career college side, it's very different. One of the differences is when you're at a multi-campus institution, getting everybody to do the same thing all of the time is a challenge that you'll never feel if you only work in one campus, one institution. You've got people on site typically, yeah, you're all moving them around and doing the same thing, but you've got to manage multiple locations. Probably have to travel to those locations to make sure there's compliance going on, make sure that the experience you get in West Palm Beach is the same one that you get if it's the same program in another location. Can you talk about that complication and how you manage all of that? Keep it all together.

Dana Hutton: Sure, yeah. You know, one of the things that I'm a firm believer in is transparency. I think that when we withhold information from our people, it causes, you know, one, their sentiment, that nervousness. And so one of the things that I do every single day is I huddle with my directors of admissions. So I huddle with them for 20 minutes, no longer. And everybody knows that they've got to be there at 11:30 and it ends at 11:50. But I huddle with them because I want them to have communication every single day, whether they're in North Carolina or South Carolina or Florida. And it's actually become something that we really look forward to. We have kind of a structured way of how they come on. They share with me like visitors that are coming to the campus, things that they're working on, exciting things that are happening at the campus that day. And any kind of success story, because I want it to be exciting. That's the way we start off our day. And it's kind of even gone into a place where sometimes we even vent, right? Like maybe you're having a difficult employee or something like that that you're struggling with. And they're like, you know, how would you handle that? And it's not always about how I would handle it, but there's that peer interaction too. So there are different things that come from that particular huddle, but we're also talking about compliance sometimes. We're also talking about, hey, have you listened to recorded calls today? If not, and you have that time, let's do it this afternoon. So communication is just key. And always making sure that people are in the know. I was here at one of the sessions yesterday, which I found awesome because it's just so much information about compliance regulations with marketing. And I had probably six pages of notes that I'm gonna take back to my team. But I'm not gonna give them all six pages at once, you know, so there's just like little things. So we're gonna be working on some of those things just making sure that they're across the board which we do that pretty often, but that's the way that I handle most of the communication. And then you know like you said it's across multi-campuses and every campus has their own culture, but I love that like that thing that's what makes our little world go round. So we have structured ways that we do things. We don't have scripts or anything like that. We have outlines of how we would work.

Joe Sallustio: Guides.

Dana Hutton: Yes, because we want them to be obviously compliant, helping the students. But I like seeing their personalities blend in there too.

Joe Sallustio: Well, and I think one of the... There are very few things that are all good or all bad. And there are certainly challenges to having multiple locations. But what you're describing is actually a lot of the opportunities as well. It seems like... There's an opportunity to knowledge share, test things out. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like is there sort of knowledge transfer? There we go, yeah, that's the right word. That's why I'm here. Yeah, so like something that it picked up from one campus to transfer to another that was really helpful. Advice from a campus. I'm getting a lot of nods, so please just go for it.

Dana Hutton: All the time, you know, and that's what's so cool is that it happens all the time. So you know, I have experienced directors of admissions that have been with us for 10 plus years. And then I have newer DOAs who have been there maybe two years at the most. So best practices are always happening. And a lot of the times, like I will call on, you know, like our Director of Admissions in Miami. They're very process-driven. They've had a cohesive team there for over a decade.

Joe Sallustio: Wow.

Dana Hutton: And so I'll be like, hey, you know, why don't you share with us what you all have been doing? And then I'll ask, you know, is that something that you feel like would transfer over to your campus? And hey, sometimes we have to put our own tweak on it. But for the most part, you know, it's like let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's learn from one another. And I think it's really good when they hear from their peer versus me constantly, you know.

Joe Sallustio: You know, being in admissions has always been a difficult, I don't want to say difficult, but most rewarding career somebody can get into. It's not recognized typically as a career. Nobody goes into college and pops out and says, you know what, I want to be in college admissions. It's a lot of times in a traditional institution, you might have been a student and now you end up in admissions or you were in sales somewhere and you go into education admissions because you want to help students and have the sales pay off but in a different way, relationship building. Keeping people in admissions has always been very difficult. And so you see like Acro and others come out and say that the average shelf life, so to speak, of somebody who's working in admissions is two to three years and then they move on. You just mentioned that you have so many, maybe that you've had a cohesive team in some of your institutions with people who've been there for years. What's the secret? What's the secret to keeping people in enrollment?

Dana Hutton: It is a great question.

Joe Sallustio: I only ask great questions, Douglas.

Dana Hutton: You know, I'm a firm believer in treating people how you want to be treated. And, you know, in all of our institutions, for someone to work in admissions, they have to have a four-year degree. So these are educated individuals and they all bring something to the table. So whether they're a director of admissions or an assistant director of admissions or even a senior or an admissions coordinator, you know, I'm constantly looking for those folks to have an opportunity to grow. But I just started an admissions leadership committee and I invited, I kind of cast a larger net and I was really excited about the participation that we had with that but it's having them to be engaged in more than just the day to day but also making sure that they have all the tools to be successful, they see the opportunity to grow, they have an understanding that working with every department so closely in the organization that that's normally where people grow from. So I think it's a lot of the encouragement, the nurturing, you know, and just making sure that they enjoy what they do.

Joe Sallustio: I find that, sorry Douglas, I have just one quick follow-up. I don't know if you know ACAP, the association here, and they do like an admission certification and there's ways to do professional development which I love. But there's this, and I don't know if it exists still in your institution or others, where well you know we've got Douglas, he's over in admissions if we pull him to help to get him involved in this project, then he's not gonna be as focused on the admissions numbers as he needs to be. And I've always found that very limiting for people in admissions. I want Douglas involved in that because yeah, he's not gonna be as focused on those numbers in that moment, but the more I get him involved in this other thing over here, the more knowledge he gains, and the more he's gonna feel like this is a career, not just a stop in the ladder. You could be in admissions for 15 years if you want to and be paid and rewarded and that's... I think we have to change in career colleges and in any college is this is a viable amazing professional career. What do you think?

Dana Hutton: I agree wholeheartedly Joe. I mean, like you said, the shelf life sometimes is two to three years, right? Sometimes it's even more minimal than that. And if you have a great employee, I think that you find ways to help them to grow and you help them to see where that future can take them. I was one of those people.

Joe Sallustio: Me too.

Dana Hutton: And I remember applying for the regional position and my boss was like, but we don't want to lose you here. And I was like, I want to grow. So I'm either going to grow or I'm going to go. And that's what I tend to look at when we have excellent employees. I just had an admissions coordinator who I think was a great employee. Right bus, wrong seat. And so, you know, I spoke with this individual. It was like, I really looked at your predictive index. I think that you would be a great fit for financial aid because I don't want to lose you as an employee. You know, you're on time. You come in with a great attitude. You're punctual, but I want you to be happy and successful.

Joe Sallustio: By the way, if you can stack your financial aid department with great admissions people who know financial aid, it really helps a little.

Dana Hutton: It does, right? Way to bridge the gap.

Douglas Carlson: I also love the Jim Collins analogy, right bus, wrong seat. And it's so important to recognize that. So I applaud you for making sure you get the right people in the right place. Because not everybody's meant to be in financial aid. Not everybody's meant to be in admissions. And it's about finding that right place. So I really applaud you for that. I'd be curious to go down the marketing path here. So we talked a lot about admissions and obviously you have two hats.

Joe Sallustio: Sorry, that's my fault because I love it.

Douglas Carlson: I know you do. I can talk about it all day. Tell us a little bit about what's going on in marketing. How are you thinking about it? What are the big initiatives? What are some best practices you might throw out to some other folks?

Dana Hutton: Sure, going back to five campuses in three states, you've got to get creative in some of those markets. So we have a really decent footprint in Florida. Charlotte is a very saturated market. We are very inquiry-rich there. And then you hop over to Charleston, and it's just getting creative to get inquiries. So we actually work with MDT as our marketing and they're great because we have weekly calls with them. We have weekly calls which we're able to come on and we talk about what's going well, what are we faced with as far as challenges, what can we do better and so one of the things that we've struggled with in that particular Charleston market is just you know the quality and quantity. So sometimes it's one or it's the other but we're having an issue with both. So, you know, we put our heads together the other day, their portfolio is expanding. So we've done a lot more outdoor in that particular market.

Joe Sallustio: Interesting.

Dana Hutton: It is interesting, right? Because I'm like outdoor, I'm kind of, I'm over that, right?

Joe Sallustio: For people, it's like, okay, billboards and bus stop ads and you know, there's a lot of outdoor that it's hard to ROI it. That's why people don't do it is typically because it's hard to track it.

Dana Hutton: It is. And at first I was just like, I don't know. You know, and suppose, when you're looking at your budget and everything, it's like, okay, where, how am I going to follow this? But we have these little posters all over the Charleston market and they have been excellent there, surprisingly. So we're happy about that. But then you move on over to like the other campuses. You know, we do a lot of geo-fencing and geo-targeting with different things, which has been really cool. Like that's a great learning experience.

And with our early childhood education program in Florida, we actually have about nine schools in Palm Beach County high schools that offer an early childhood education program. So we've partnered a lot with those folks to, you know, just making sure that their students have the opportunity to continue to get their either their associate's degree or their bachelor's degree. But yeah, I mean, marketing is a new age, especially with AI and everything else. It changes daily. It's very hard to keep up with it, especially, you know, as you're in a role like yours where you're a step away from the detail sometimes, you know where you've got somebody or MDT who's running Geo fencing and they're targeting and you're just going how many leads are coming in? What are we doing with them? What's the cost? How do I understand ROI and then there the changes like the Google changes and all that.

Joe Sallustio: It's very hard to understand. I've found so I was in a role similar to yours just to keep up with like what the heck is going on.

Dana Hutton: Sure, you know, we were all looking at like ChatGPT, you know this time last year and what was that gonna do right? You know now it's really changed everything. I mean, you know as far as like going through and just making sure that you know your landing pages and the keywords and you know, are those aligning with what's happening in Bing and ChatGPT and all the other, you know AI formats. And then you know, we have all these marketing regulations now too. So, you know, you're having to come through every ounce of your marketing on a pretty much, you know normal basis.

Douglas Carlson: Also review every page of your website. Make sure that the disclaimer, any disclaimer is there. There's rules, the regulations coming down where you have to put a program value, the program value calculations. And there's so many things that you have to do in a rule. I respect you so much because it's, there's so many opportunities for mistakes. You have to keep so much straight as a CMO slash chief enrollment officer. So I mean, kudos to you and the work because it's not easy.

And what do you do to keep yourself going? Because you know what? Start after start after start after start and year after year after year. It can burn out even the most passionate people. What's your secret to keeping your engine going?

Dana Hutton: I think you just have to be a consistent student of your profession. You know, that's what keeps me going. I've learned so much in the last year. You know, partnering with Douglas and Andrew Tenzer and team there with the rollout of Arms and Squared.

Joe Sallustio: Douglas Carlson?

Dana Hutton: Yeah. Okay, sorry. You know, and then, you know, just learning every single day something that I can take back to our team. What can get us excited? What can make our jobs easier? We help, you know, hundreds of students. And, you know, what can we do to make sure that we're communicating to them more efficiently too. So that's what makes me tick. Other than that, I'm a dog mom. And they also help me keep going too.

Joe Sallustio: Very good. Anything else you want to add Douglas before we close this one out?

Douglas Carlson: So the last piece I always want to talk about is what do you think is the future? What's your crystal ball? And like you're a really interesting vantage point because you have both marketing and admissions. So you see really the early trends. Where do you think education is going? What's going to look like over the next five years? What's going to stay the same? What's going to change?

Dana Hutton: It's a great question. It's definitely something that we have to stay on top of as far as knowledge and making sure that we're educating our rule makers. Big component of that. But yeah, I mean, I think that we're gonna see more and more vocational opportunities for students. I don't know if there's even a way to say the traditional education route anymore. I'm a little iffy on that. The traditional and non-traditional, I think that's gonna be definitely a different thing. But I think we will see more of the shorter term programs.

I think that for our industry, we just have to make sure that we're doing right and following our integrity and our processes to help all of the students that are looking for that quicker program, quicker way to get into their careers because that only strengthens our communities and our economies.

Joe Sallustio: Well, there you have it, everybody. Such a great episode. And thank you for your feedback and transparency. Because it's a, you know what, if you hear about everything going on in higher ed these days. It's so many people are leaving so I give so much credit to those that are sticking by their students and sticking it out so I appreciate you very much. I also appreciate my co-host. He's Douglas Carlson. He's Douglas Carlson. I like saying it now. With Lead Squared whose generosity allows us to be here to interview my guest today, your guest today. She's Dana Hutton, she's Chief Marketing and Enrollment Management Officer at Southeastern College. Dana, thanks for being here. Did you have a good time while we were at it?

Dana Hutton: I had a blast. Thank you so much for having me.

Joe Sallustio: Thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, you've just ed-uped.