#49 - Recruiting Students In Your Sleep With an AI Enrollment Officer
w/ CADE SCOTT
Founder, Enroll Boost AI
🤔 Want to create deeper emotional impact with your institution’s storytelling and content creation efforts?
🎉Join the Newsletter!
Every week I send out a dose of insights and inspiration including:
💪Excerpts from that week's podcast episode
💪Case studies and best practices from other institutions
💪Tips for creating content that resonates and inspires action
(it’s free)
SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Cade Scott, founder of Enroll Boost AI. Cade helps Tech and Trade Schools boost enrollment by building AI-powered chatbots to engage prospective students around the clock.
In this episode we discuss how implementing automated yet personalized communication can drastically improve lead response times and enrollment rates. Cade shares how he leveraged conversational AI to respond to every lead within minutes, day or night. This “speed to lead” approach led to a huge boost in enrollments.
Key Takeaways:
Implement the “speed to lead” method - respond to inquiries within 10 minutes. Data shows this drastically increases enrollment rates.
Chatbots allow you to start personalized conversations with leads instantly, even while you sleep.
Refine chatbot prompts over time. Mistakes will happen, but the tech improves through optimization.
Nurture leads through ongoing personalized communication. Speed is just the start.
Bring prospective students to the next step, like a campus tour, through conversational AI.
Connect with Cade:
Enroll Boost AI: https://enrollboostai.com/
Read about the case study:
Connect with John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni/
Learn more about Unveild: https://unveild.tv
Join the newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
————————
Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:07 - 00:00:27:17
John Azoni
All right. My guest today is Cade. Scott Cade is the founder of Enroll Boost AI. His company helps trade schools, enroll more students by building them an AI driven enrollment officer to engage with students around the clock, significantly increasing the number of students who enroll. In this episode, we're talking about the speed to lead a method and how Cade created this AI enrollment officer and what that could mean for a school like yours.
00:00:27:18 - 00:00:28:19
John Azoni
So, Cade, welcome to the show.
00:00:29:11 - 00:00:31:12
Cade Scott
Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to be on.
00:00:32:01 - 00:00:36:21
John Azoni
Awesome. So we always start out with what's something that people would be surprised to know about you.
00:00:38:01 - 00:00:59:17
Cade Scott
Well, maybe this isn't surprised that two people that do know me or maybe this isn't the biggest surprise, but actually come from a storytelling background. So I went to school to the at the University of Iowa. I majored in English creative writing because I thought I wanted to write books and teach in university for the for my career and for the rest of my life.
00:01:00:17 - 00:01:35:08
Cade Scott
And I actually relocated to northwest Arkansas, to Fayetteville, Arkansas, because I got into the graduate program here for fiction. Oh, gosh, four or five years ago now. And again, chasing that dream. And so if you if you search my name on YouTube or the interwebs, you may find a short horror film out there that I wrote. And you may find some other horror shorts, short stories that I've that I've written and type in.
00:01:35:08 - 00:01:36:19
John Azoni
Their name on YouTube right now.
00:01:37:07 - 00:02:05:16
Cade Scott
Yeah, they're out there and they live in different forms. Now. I'm I haven't published in like any great literary magazine. I've actually written for a company that that publish kind of chat fiction stories. And that's where I really like. I hate horror. I'm just going to put that out there. As in, it scares, it scares me. And so for me to write horror wasn't by choice.
00:02:05:16 - 00:02:27:15
Cade Scott
It was because this platform either you either wrote horror or romance, and it turns out I was a better horror writer than romance writer. So I've written countless horror stories, and that's why I'm really, I guess, good at it is because I had a ton of practice just publishing for this app. And so I then developed that into a couple of short films and here we are now.
00:02:27:15 - 00:02:30:01
Cade Scott
So yeah, storytelling background for those.
00:02:30:01 - 00:02:30:18
John Azoni
That's really cool.
00:02:31:05 - 00:02:32:05
Cade Scott
I don't know my yeah.
00:02:32:06 - 00:02:36:17
John Azoni
I watched The Sixth Sense once and it has horrified me ever since.
00:02:37:03 - 00:02:53:00
Cade Scott
No pun intended, right? No. Yes, that is, that is actually a really great movie. I love Smart horror. So horror that has that's not just in it to jump scare you or that actually is a great story in horror just adds to that.
00:02:53:00 - 00:03:01:19
John Azoni
So for sure, I'm sure. Like that's that's what keeps me from watching a lot of horror films is because I am so easily jump scared.
00:03:01:19 - 00:03:03:05
Cade Scott
Like in the same.
00:03:03:05 - 00:03:08:05
John Azoni
I am the guy in the movie theater that will just scream like a girl.
00:03:08:15 - 00:03:09:21
Cade Scott
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:10:13 - 00:03:19:07
John Azoni
Like it's just totally like it's a reflex scream like a woman. Not not like a girl or a girl. Girl or woman. Females. Yeah, like a female.
00:03:21:05 - 00:03:33:17
Cade Scott
I'm the same way. And I'm the one that has to read. If I'm going to watch a horror film, I'll read the plot beforehand. So I'm not surprise. I'm not scared by the scary element, especially that scare. So I know what's coming. I have to know what's coming. So.
00:03:33:18 - 00:03:34:03
John Azoni
Yeah.
00:03:34:21 - 00:03:35:23
Cade Scott
Yeah.
00:03:35:23 - 00:03:58:04
John Azoni
All right, cool. This is a curveball question is really just a yes or no. Okay. Bryan Piper. Who? I get his. I don't know if you follow Bryan, you wrote a couple of books on marketing, and he's at University of Rochester. Anyway, I get his. I get his newsletter. He he emailed a newsletter this morning about cold plunges, and I and I responded to him.
00:03:58:11 - 00:04:09:21
John Azoni
I was like, I'm going to start asking guests on my podcast what their view on cold plunging is, because I'm just hearing about this everywhere. So, Cade, what are you, a cold plunge, believer or not?
00:04:10:08 - 00:04:27:03
Cade Scott
I've never done it, although I have. I know of the craze, so I haven't partaken in the cold plunge. But I hear it's great. So I'm in the middle. I don't know. I haven't done it. It sounds great. Would I do it? Sure. Yeah. I don't know.
00:04:27:03 - 00:04:45:08
John Azoni
I. I tried the cold shower thing. It was just. It was just uncomfortable. And that's as good as it got. I didn't feel like an urge to feel any spiker. Yeah, but we have a pool, like a aboveground pool, and I'm tempted to just go break the ice out there and shop. Then you should.
00:04:46:04 - 00:04:50:22
Cade Scott
Yeah, do another podcast episode on Cool. Yeah. And tell us how you feel.
00:04:51:08 - 00:05:19:12
John Azoni
There you go. All right. So we're all about, you know, obviously storytelling in content creation here on this podcast. But you know, what good is any of that if you know, people are like fumbling the ball when a website visitor comes in and decides to become a lead or expresses interest. So describe you shared with me a little bit ago when we connected the speed the lead case study.
00:05:19:12 - 00:05:24:06
John Azoni
So describe just like high level what that is just yes yes. The lead method.
00:05:24:21 - 00:05:56:21
Cade Scott
So the speed the lead method speed. The lead is just basically how fast can you respond to a lead once it comes in. So in my case and maybe and other people that are listening to this podcast, their cases, how fast can you respond to an application once that application comes in and there's data out there and there's you, you search this term on Google and there's a ton of just articles about it and how fast you should respond to a lead once it comes in.
00:05:56:21 - 00:06:26:05
Cade Scott
And a lot of the data says 10 minutes or less after 10 minutes, if you can't respond within 10 minutes, your chances of converting that lead or bringing them to the next step in the process, whatever that next step is, goes down significantly. I think like ten times. And then just it's almost near impossible as days pass. So which given all of the data out there, it's surprising to me is how rare this is.
00:06:26:05 - 00:06:56:09
Cade Scott
Like if you fill out a form somewhere or you apply somewhere or, you know, anything as a consumer, when I inquire about something, rarely do I get any kind of response within within 10 minutes. So even though the data shines a positive light on the speed, the lead method in responding to your applicants or leads within 10 minutes, rarely does it actually do companies use that that that data or that method to their advantage.
00:06:57:04 - 00:07:15:16
John Azoni
Yeah, that's interesting because I just got me thinking about like when I'm when I'm like impulse shopping or Yeah, trying to figure out solve a problem or something like that. I'm reaching out to somebody. First of all, it's always kind of like, I want to know right now, like, I like I want to know what it costs or what you know.
00:07:15:16 - 00:07:38:10
John Azoni
I have questions right now, so like any time there's any time, there's any sort of like chat function I really like, I really feel like that brand is elevated. If I can kind of like get instant message with them, even if I know it's, it's a, it's a robot. So like, but like just that, that the importance of like catching me when I'm excited about something.
00:07:39:00 - 00:07:51:08
John Azoni
Yeah. Or not even excited but just like I'm in the the mode just to solve this problem right now And so who, who's going to be the one to, like, catch it before I, you know, move on to something else.
00:07:52:00 - 00:08:15:19
Cade Scott
And I think that's why I mean, logically and I think that the data does point here to why it's so effective is because you're on this company's website or you're on the school's website. You've just probably clicked through the home page, read about the program, read about the product, your excited about it enough to fill out something. And so it's just capitalizing on that interest and excitement.
00:08:17:00 - 00:08:35:03
Cade Scott
And usually if your requests are are or your questions are answered as you're thinking about it or on that website, you won't go somewhere else to to find an answer. Right. If you if you have questions or if you're looking for something and you don't and that something, is it satisfied in that moment, then you'll go somewhere else.
00:08:35:03 - 00:08:49:07
Cade Scott
So I think, yeah, it's capitalize on that, capitalizing on that excitement kind of I guess shutting out the competition before they can even start a conversation with the competition. Yeah, that's why it's so effective. At least that's that's what I think. Yeah.
00:08:49:14 - 00:09:10:14
John Azoni
And you would think that, you know, in the end, if you just make it on to the list of, of people that they're considering, they're going to choose the best option of all those options. But, but really it's more likely that they're going to choose whoever gotten their head first and convince them that they were a good enough solution enough to move forward.
00:09:10:14 - 00:09:33:15
John Azoni
Because, like, I'm not always like I'm I'm happy with just a company that can just like, can you solve my problem? If the answer is yes, great. I don't necessarily need to then scour the Internet for all of the other possible options and ways that I can save, you know, $0.25 a month on your subscription or. Yeah, for sure.
00:09:34:01 - 00:09:37:12
John Azoni
Like let's just move on with life, you know, Right.
00:09:37:12 - 00:10:03:09
Cade Scott
Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, That's like, is this solution? I mean, your solution could be the best solution, right? And ah, but is the solution good enough to, to help solve what I'm here for? And I think at least as from a consumer perspective, I'm pretty lazy. Like if you can solve my issue within that moment and then we get going and roll and great, you know, I don't have to do all that other research and searching, right?
00:10:04:06 - 00:10:05:20
John Azoni
Yes. It really is a friction there.
00:10:05:21 - 00:10:06:06
Cade Scott
Yeah.
00:10:06:06 - 00:10:10:03
John Azoni
Yeah. It's it's a it's a quite a differentiator, I feel like.
00:10:10:16 - 00:10:11:15
Cade Scott
Yes. Yeah.
00:10:12:16 - 00:10:40:08
John Azoni
I know. When I was doing I told you earlier when I was doing weddings, I worked for a company that was until we did like a lot of high end wedding videos and I sort of took over the sales part of that. Yeah, a certain point. And then when a lead would come in, I would call them right away and they're always like really pleasantly surprised to get a phone call.
00:10:40:08 - 00:10:44:18
John Azoni
I don't know how that would work. Now when people are like, Don't call me, just text me, you know?
00:10:44:18 - 00:10:47:06
Cade Scott
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:47:06 - 00:11:07:13
John Azoni
So I'm curious. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how phone calls have evolved in the last 13 years, but but that was that was a differentiator, you know, And we would get on the phone, we would get a consultation set up, you know, right in that moment. And we'd go, you know, we'd go over pricing and all this stuff and and I found that that made a big that made a big difference.
00:11:08:11 - 00:11:08:20
Cade Scott
Yeah.
00:11:10:02 - 00:11:17:06
John Azoni
So you were let's see. So the first class dental assisting school of Nashville.
00:11:17:11 - 00:11:18:16
Cade Scott
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:19:13 - 00:11:21:20
John Azoni
It takes me 5 minutes just to say the name.
00:11:23:16 - 00:11:27:05
Cade Scott
There you go. If you get through that, then you're well on your way to applying. Yeah.
00:11:28:09 - 00:11:48:21
John Azoni
It's like you're going to submit an application. Then just start saying the name and whoever reaches out to me before I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. So they worked with your company on boosting enrollment. Tell me. Tell me what your partnership was like. What was the problem they were having when they reached out? Why'd they reach out to you? That kind of stuff.
00:11:49:10 - 00:12:21:11
Cade Scott
Yeah. So they were a brand new dental assisting school in the Nashville area, and the. The owner, a family relation. He's my cousin in law, I guess you could say. So. The cousin of my wife and so he knew I did. I had done marketing and he wanted to start a dental assisting school in Nashville because he found that dental assistance from the other bigger name schools in the area that he was hiring were well prepared for the role.
00:12:21:11 - 00:12:38:15
Cade Scott
So he's like, You know what? I'm going to start a school that trains dental assistants and the right way or the way that's needed. And I was in marketing, he hadn't done any kind of like higher ed marketing at that point. And he was like, Hey, can you help me out? And I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll give it a shot.
00:12:38:15 - 00:13:08:04
Cade Scott
You know? And so the challenge became, Hey, we're a brand new school. We're competing with community colleges and other technical kind of colleges in the area and other accelerated dental programs that had 300 plus five star reviews. And in doing research, I had seen a few dental assisting schools, tried to start and then just kind of faltered after a year.
00:13:08:11 - 00:13:41:17
Cade Scott
It's tough to gain traction. And I was like, okay, we could. And we started doing kind of the traditional types of marketing, you know, or doing digital marketing or trying to get into schools. You know, we had a digital presence, try to get to build a physical presence, sit up, sent out mailers, and we were getting starting to get applications, but we couldn't get anyone to talk to us after they applied or let alone commit or enroll or come in for a tour.
00:13:41:17 - 00:14:04:08
Cade Scott
And kind of looking back, it was because once they applied, a day would pass, we would then send them this kind of blanket generic email that was like, Hey, you've been admitted. Please come to our school. Here's how to secure your spot, pay thousands of dollars to do so, and it was like, you know, looking back, it's like, duh, that's not going to work.
00:14:05:02 - 00:14:21:23
Cade Scott
And so we went, okay, let's try to set up a meeting with them one on one, you know, let them pick their time as soon as they applied, we gave them a calendar link and said, Hey, pick a time. You can meet us, talk to us 15 minutes, and then we'll schedule a tour. And that was starting to work.
00:14:21:23 - 00:14:39:04
Cade Scott
We're starting to get people to book times, but when we showed up to the Zoom link, we were getting no showed. I don't think we had one person show up for that. Wow. So that's surprising. Yeah, I know. I was like, Oh, man, what is this? Obviously, this is this is not working. You know, we tried sending reminders.
00:14:39:04 - 00:15:16:18
Cade Scott
We tried sending kind of generic nurture emails. Why isn't this working? Okay, So the next application that came in, I just like I well, what I did was I started kind of applying to different dental assisting schools, not in the area, but like around just around like those that look to be successful. And what I found was those that were filling seemed to be filling their classrooms and expanding across kind of the U.S. There's one thing in common they would either call me or text me within minutes of me applying, and I was like, Hmm, there must be something going on here.
00:15:17:06 - 00:15:42:22
Cade Scott
And so I waited by my computer as soon as someone applied, immediately said, Hey, I just saw you applied love to what would you be open to? We talked about this in the beginning. Would you be open to a call or a text? And I've found that it depends on if that person is 25, they'll almost always say, Yeah, we can text if they're 25 or older.
00:15:42:22 - 00:16:03:13
Cade Scott
They say, Yeah, I'm free for a call. So that's an interesting dynamic because you said now it's like, Hey, don't talk to me. Text me. I think that is that is really true. Most of our applicants want to be texted and that's a really huge advantage. If you can only start the conversation through, start the conversation within 5 minutes, but start texting them within 5 minutes anyway.
00:16:03:13 - 00:16:22:20
Cade Scott
So we found that, Oh man, I started doing that with applications that came in between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. because that's when I was on, you know, and we were moving students through the funnel. We were setting them up on tours. They were coming to the tour, they were getting excited about the school they were committing to the program.
00:16:22:20 - 00:16:44:09
Cade Scott
They were submitting their forms, they were walking in. They walked in the first day of classes and we're like, okay, speed to lead and and in the back of my mind, I knew that term because I had read come to the research that was that was pivotal to start this conversation or was was the first time this B lead method came about.
00:16:45:07 - 00:17:12:08
Cade Scott
Back when I first started marketing. And so I was like, pull that article back up, re read through it, and was like, okay, there's, there is something to this to the speed lead method, but here's the thing, okay, So we understand speed, the lead is important. Being able to talk to them 5 minutes after they submit their application is, is the difference between moving into the next step and losing that lead?
00:17:13:10 - 00:17:35:09
Cade Scott
I can't. Most of these applications now are starting to come in as our marketing is cranking up. Interestingly enough, 7 p.m. or later, like people are applying late at night and I was sleeping, you know, so I wake up the next morning, receive the application, trying to make contact and hear nothing. So I was like, There's got to be a way.
00:17:35:18 - 00:18:12:19
Cade Scott
How do we do this? Do we need to hire someone to like just to work the night shift? Like we're losing students, not being able to respond as quickly as we can and the chat got crazy, was going on around that time and you hear the term chat bot. And so I was like, okay, if I could somehow connect, somehow train chat, CBT on our schools information, hook it up to our, our site in a way that as soon as someone submits an application, it, it, it starts that conversation with somebody, it responds within 2 minutes.
00:18:12:19 - 00:18:38:08
Cade Scott
So that automation sets in. Not only does it respond it, it actually engages in conversation all the way to the point of persuading the student to kind of are talking with the student, seeing if they qualify for the next step, which in our case was a tour. And so after a few and I guess tweaks and just learning about that technology, I was able to do that.
00:18:38:08 - 00:19:02:18
Cade Scott
I was able to set up an AI powered kind of enrollment officer or an admissions advisor who could respond to someone within 2 minutes that they apply and have a conversation with them and move them to the next step. And it was me. It was human like, it was like it didn't sound like that chat bot or that.
00:19:02:18 - 00:19:26:07
Cade Scott
And as a result, we filled the classroom in our first term and we filled it a second term or filling in a third term. And we're on track to to try to open a second class in our fourth term because it's so effective now that now that we're enrolling students and getting our views and that organic site's coming to fruition, not just the paid side advertising, but I could I could flip a coin.
00:19:26:07 - 00:19:49:11
Cade Scott
I knew that. And I have the stats of like if someone applied and we engage within 2 minutes, there is one out of two applicants would end up walking through our doors and committee. Wow. Just and again, there's a long nurture cycle that happens after that. You know, you move them to a tour, they're excited. Then you have to keep them excited for months before they walk in the door.
00:19:49:22 - 00:20:10:17
Cade Scott
But just starting that commerce conversation was essential to that stat. Was it? It it was a difference between zero commits and a full classroom speed. The lead method was vital to to our success, and I believe to a lot of schools success especially trade schools.
00:20:11:22 - 00:20:32:16
John Azoni
Yeah. And what I what I like about just what I've learned about you recently is that you're a good marketer like I because even once reading through reading your case, you're reading through your case study for this dental assistant school, even like because you got to the point where it was like, here's the first thing I tried and it wasn't successful.
00:20:32:16 - 00:21:01:00
John Azoni
And it was like that automated email. And what I noticed about it is like actually that automated email was pretty well optimized. I really liked the step one. Step two, Step three. Like it. I could tell that, like, you have an understanding of like people need this broken down into simple parts and then hopping over to your website this morning, I was really impressed by if you got like the about about Me section or whatever.
00:21:01:00 - 00:21:32:18
John Azoni
It's like who I am. It's like it's literally one sentence about you. But then I scroll down. I was like, Who you are? And it's four points about like, Mm, This is the profile that describes you. If we're a good fit for each other. And I was like, Man, that's brilliant. Like, I should steal that, you know, because, like, because that's really what and I, and I started to think I'm like, I'm way more interested in how he understands me than do I understand his background.
00:21:34:06 - 00:22:01:14
John Azoni
And so, so all that to say like, you know, I feel like you already have a good understanding of, you know, how to optimize communications and stuff like that. But even so, embracing failure is, is a huge, huge part of that. And you never know what's going to work. I just posted a poll this morning actually because of the because of this, because I'm like, I got to that part.
00:22:01:14 - 00:22:05:23
John Azoni
In your case, I was like, oh, that'd be great. Podcast episode. Just like people talking about what they tried that didn't work.
00:22:06:07 - 00:22:06:17
Cade Scott
Yeah.
00:22:07:04 - 00:22:29:20
John Azoni
And people have been people have been jumping on this poll and saying, yeah, let's embrace failure. I mean, it's viral by my by my state Senate. You have nine poll respondents within the first half hour. That's viral to me. So this thing, I think, you know, Oprah's going to talk about this tomorrow and that at the very least.
00:22:30:22 - 00:22:47:17
John Azoni
But yeah, I think anyway all that to say like I like that even somebody like you that clearly has a good understanding of what people need to hear and how to move people through a funnel, you still have to try things and fail and just learn from the failure and embrace the failure.
00:22:48:14 - 00:23:15:05
Cade Scott
Yeah, no, that's I'm happy to say I am one of those poll respondents who said, yes, I would love to learn through other people's failures because yeah, that's how I mean, that's how I stumbled across this. A AI powered enrollment officer. It was when I taught creative writing at the university. As I was an adjunct. I used to tell my students each draft of your paper should you're aiming to be less wrong than you were before.
00:23:15:05 - 00:23:32:23
Cade Scott
And I feel like maybe it's a glass half empty kind of viewpoint for some people. But that's how I view even marketing. I'm just like each day I'm trying to be less wrong than I was the day before because I know that I'm never going to be like completely perfect or right on something. And so it's just like, how can I?
00:23:32:23 - 00:23:59:07
Cade Scott
And that's optimization. How can you be less or more efficient? Is the glass half full? Glass half empty is less wrong? How can the process be less wrong than it was yesterday? You know, and that's kind of my my philosophy and how you're able to and then having a strong bias toward action is another one of my favorite phrases, because it's like you can't learn, you can't fail unless you're like, just go and do it.
00:23:59:07 - 00:24:08:02
Cade Scott
Just go and try something and see how it does and then adjust when you when you're like, Oh, this worked, this didn't, you know. Yeah. So yeah.
00:24:08:17 - 00:24:28:12
John Azoni
And I think so I mentioned Brian Piper's email this morning about cold plunging and actually the point of his email was give things time because like the first time he did called plunging in this whole cold stuff was like it was uncomfortable. He didn't like it. It wasn't really producing any results, but he stuck with it for I can't remember now, like a year or something like that.
00:24:28:12 - 00:24:52:03
John Azoni
And and now he's starting to see results and he can stay in this ice bath for 3 minutes plus and and not be out of breath. And but he likened that to content marketing and how you need to you need to give things time and you need your leadership needs to know that this is going to that content marketing is going to take time to figure out.
00:24:52:03 - 00:25:00:06
John Azoni
And and I really think that that's key with anything. And I think about like how your cousin in law, you know, trusted you with his new baby, you know. Yeah.
00:25:00:07 - 00:25:01:02
Cade Scott
And yeah.
00:25:01:13 - 00:25:28:21
John Azoni
And you probably felt this pressure to like be the hero and like and just hit like, smash enrollment numbers right away. Yeah, Yeah. And you now feel validated and you feel like you didn't let him down and stuff like that, but like having to go through that, that trial of a failure is, is so important. I've worked with, I worked with one client at my previous production company I work for.
00:25:28:21 - 00:25:50:02
John Azoni
We kind of like did a little experiment. We partnered with a Facebook ads expert, and so it was this sort of a friend of mine who owns a car repair shop, and they just really they're just a really cool I just love it as much as you can. I mean, I don't love any car repair shops, but I love this one.
00:25:50:02 - 00:26:16:02
John Azoni
And I posted about it on Facebook multiple times because they've they've just been really cool every time. And they they like know me, know me, my name and all this stuff anyway. But we we started to work with them on Facebook ads because we found this guy that was his niche was Facebook ads for car repair shops. And he could just like Subaru and like just smash their numbers with this this campaign that you had.
00:26:16:18 - 00:26:36:15
John Azoni
But the the important part was, hey, there's going to be a month or two of just testing and you have to be along for the ride with the testing. And I am my friend with the car dealership. He was like, uh, he's like, we're not going to see numbers like in the first month. If we're not seeing numbers, it's it's not, it's not worth doing.
00:26:36:15 - 00:26:54:23
John Azoni
So we were kind of like, All right, we'll take a risk. We'll try to hit. And we did. And it was it was the ran into challenges specifically with how his company is set up and the communications flow and like a lead would come in everyone had to adjust like their their front desk sales staff had to adjust to how do we handle these Facebook leads?
00:26:54:23 - 00:27:14:06
John Azoni
And like there's this big learning curve and there was some success. But it really it really just like highlighted the the point of like when you hire somebody to to do something for you to solve a problem. So it's not an even exchange of I'm going to give you this money and my problem will be solved. It's true.
00:27:14:07 - 00:27:34:18
John Azoni
It's like you're going to get you're going to get in here and we're going to figure this out together. But I like it. But it's more you're saying like, I need someone to commit to this problem, you know, over a long period of time. That's what Brian was saying in his in his newsletter of like content marketing should be an investment of like, you know, 12, 18 months before anyone says it's not working.
00:27:36:02 - 00:28:00:03
John Azoni
Anyway. That's just what stuck out to me. I just, I just I really appreciated in your case study that you included the failure points because it really actually deepens. I was just I was just like, analyze things that I read. I'm like, why does this appeal to me if I were a buyer of cards, you know, if I was like someone, I'm like, I actually really like this is failure stuff is in here because it actually deepens my appreciation for what you do.
00:28:00:12 - 00:28:25:03
Cade Scott
Mm hmm. Well, thank. Yeah, Thank you for sharing that. I it's making me think now I should go back and tweak the case, study a little bit, because what I don't mention is we started marketing with the goal of of enrolling during a certain term, but that term came and went without any students. And so it was like, yeah, that pressure that I felt was like I and props too to my cousin LOL.
00:28:25:03 - 00:28:45:23
Cade Scott
Bryan Dr. McLaughlin for for investing and waiting and, and kind of like seeing it out because I remember telling him it's like he's like, all right, well, yeah, we'll just move it out to the next term and keep, keep rolling, you know? And I'm like, We're close, man. We're close. And I'm not saying that just to preserve my my job or anything.
00:28:45:23 - 00:29:03:04
Cade Scott
It was like just a couple of tweaks here or there because I start that's when I was starting to figure out, okay, if I can respond quickly. It seems there seems to be some traction here and so I was like, All right, I think a few tweaks to the website, a few tweaks to our process here and where we often roll in like we've learned a lot.
00:29:03:04 - 00:29:24:09
Cade Scott
But in this three month span where there's nothing that has happened, you know, and lo and behold, like that next week I think we started to get a lot of commitment. So awesome. Yeah, maybe I'll go back and add that in because yeah, there was a point where I was like, Oh, how have we failed? There's nothing, you know, And we were supposed to have a term at this point, but like, I feel like we're close because of all that failure, you know?
00:29:24:09 - 00:29:26:15
Cade Scott
So. Yeah, Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Yeah.
00:29:26:16 - 00:29:44:04
John Azoni
Yeah. So, so you made this a I chat bot and let's see. So. So tell me like, well, first of all, do you have a coding background or did you, did you tell me you worked with a company that did this or like they know they did the coding for you or whatever.
00:29:44:08 - 00:30:30:08
Cade Scott
No, no, I if anyone out there knows of Zapier basically, and just other applications, I just get really good at connecting the different hooks that needed to be connected and prompting the technology. So we use the saber integration with our specific CRM that tags an application that comes in as a new applicant and anyone with that tag gets sent to set to a conversation basically which activity which is prompted to act as the enrollment officer or me and is trained on our data, just are about our program.
00:30:30:08 - 00:30:48:06
Cade Scott
Just common questions that I've found that applicants have and and their goals to qualify and then answer any questions and move to the next step. So no coding involved other than knowing how to hook things up and prompt chat CBT in a specific way.
00:30:49:10 - 00:31:04:02
John Azoni
What were were there any iterations of that process? Like did you hit any points where the the chat bot like misunderstood? Oh yeah, the student's response or said something that you were embarrassed by or something like that?
00:31:04:03 - 00:31:27:17
Cade Scott
Oh yeah, yeah. Especially at the beginning. There were times where it, yeah, there was a refining of the prompt because there were times where it would like I and I might share this on, on my LinkedIn or somewhere because it's kind of a funny response where it would ask so many questions like just, just like if you think I guess of a salesperson like that trying to get to know you.
00:31:27:17 - 00:31:48:07
Cade Scott
So they'll ask a bunch of questions to uncover a problem. It was asking way too many questions and going way deeper into things and it needed to be. And the person was like, Hey, no offense, but can we move on to like answering some of my questions? And so I had to refine the props and that was kind of a funny like, Oh, and that person still became a student, thank goodness.
00:31:49:15 - 00:32:01:15
Cade Scott
But again, just like, okay, I have to, I have to tweak it. So it only asks two specific questions. And if that person comes out the gate asking their own questions, it just scraps it and moves on.
00:32:02:15 - 00:32:09:12
John Azoni
I imagine the student like meeting you in real life is like ask weird asked so many questions. I don't really know so.
00:32:09:12 - 00:32:30:23
Cade Scott
Much about my life, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's there's part of that. There's, there's times where there's a specific phrasing within the prompt that it would just kind of carry on and repeat what the student said and the student would happened a couple of times before I tweaked it and changed it. But the student just thought it was.
00:32:30:23 - 00:32:57:23
Cade Scott
I can imagine getting that response from someone and being like one, recognizing that it was a to be in like, what the heck this is. Anyway, safe to say that they aren't students of ours, but there's times it's had too many emojis and stuff like that. For all of you out there who are listening, the prompts for a find to to an optimize to to a T and I and I would I would not to clog up my funnel.
00:32:57:23 - 00:33:02:23
Cade Scott
But if you would like to apply and try to break it, go for it because I think it's.
00:33:02:23 - 00:33:03:15
John Azoni
A good challenge.
00:33:04:01 - 00:33:25:09
Cade Scott
In its in its ability and if it doesn't do what I need it to do, then I can further refine it. So try to get it in there and break it so you can see for yourself that it won't ask you too many questions or just repeat your response. But yes, there is some heavy optimization and tweaking to the prompt itself to now it's like it's a well-oiled machine.
00:33:26:09 - 00:33:32:10
Cade Scott
And when I open those messages, I'm not kind of cringing to see if it made a mistake. It's it's moving people along pretty well.
00:33:33:09 - 00:33:54:14
John Azoni
Yeah I judgy but I mean you got to you got to keep an eye on it, you know? Yeah. You really got to you got to understand why it's coming up with the response as it is. And prompt engineering really is a skill. I was at the grocery store the other day. Normally we normally we do like a like a pick up order from like Aldi or if you guys have.
00:33:54:16 - 00:34:20:01
John Azoni
Yeah, we do Kroger, but the last few weeks it keeps like we've been trying to get we were trying to make this dish that's like uses the 92nd rice in a bag that you just put in the microwave for 90 seconds and it's like ready to go and they keep not giving us the rice. So we've had to like, keep kicking this dish down week after week.
00:34:20:01 - 00:34:38:23
John Azoni
And finally I was like, I'm going to go to the store for the one for once, you know, the first time in like a year. And by the way, is the most stressful experience. It's like all these elderly people that are just like making decisions in the middle of the aisle and you are trying to get around and people.
00:34:38:23 - 00:34:57:21
John Azoni
Yeah, anyways, but I took this, this really messy list. I put it into ABC and I said like, organize this by department at Kroger. And it did. And so that was really helpful. And I started to like get to the checkout and I was like, Why did my wife want me to buy apples? We just, we have a thing.
00:34:57:21 - 00:34:58:14
Cade Scott
I know.
00:34:58:19 - 00:35:11:17
John Azoni
Yeah. Like I was just thinking, I'm like, maybe let me just check her original list. And it said, Get produce. Definitely not apples. But Beatty was like, Definitely get apples.
00:35:12:05 - 00:35:14:22
Cade Scott
Interesting. That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:15:17 - 00:35:25:22
John Azoni
And it was like little things like that where I was like, Oh, okay. Added like another 20 minutes. I had to go back and like, okay. I interpreted her saying this as this and that's not what she meant.
00:35:26:08 - 00:35:28:00
Cade Scott
Did it mess everything? Anything up?
00:35:28:00 - 00:35:41:18
John Azoni
Yeah, no, I managed to course correct. Pretty good, I think. But you know, by that time in the, in the shopping experience I'm like so overstimulated, I'm like, I just want to get out of here. I don't know if you have any. You have kids.
00:35:42:08 - 00:35:45:08
Cade Scott
I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One. Yeah, it's Buxton, too, but yeah.
00:35:45:22 - 00:36:09:20
John Azoni
Okay. That's the Prime like stressful groceries. And when my kids were little, but the grocery drop off and pickup thing was in its infancy, no pun intended, but I remember going to the grocery store with my oldest, who's now eight, and I just texted my wife after I'd been there for like an hour and a half. I was like, At this point, I'm just putting things in the cart.
00:36:09:20 - 00:36:27:23
John Azoni
I don't even know what I'm putting in here because it's so like you're trying to find something over on this side of store and then the next thing you need is over on the other side of the store and the kids wanting everything that they see. And you're like trying to navigate people. I just think that's that grocery store is experience is really hard.
00:36:27:23 - 00:36:42:01
John Azoni
And then when you add kids on to it, I left the other day thinking, imagine if I had both my kids with me, how stressful that would have been. And I had a I was a shopping assistant shop. Yeah. Yeah. So. Well.
00:36:42:08 - 00:37:09:23
Cade Scott
The good news is Chatty Betty is right now. Well, when I first iterated, it was still three before it turned to four. And that was the worst it was ever going to be. And with four, it's gotten astronomically better. I can just tell on the quality of responses from 3 to 4 how how good it is. And I've and I've kind of there's different like the way we train the Chatty Betty on the material.
00:37:09:23 - 00:37:41:05
Cade Scott
It's like the way it's engineered and plugged into the prompt. It's like it's not going to confuse. It's going to recognize it's definitely not apples and yeah, yeah. Um, and so yeah, yeah that's, I've been on to kind of just the regular chatty Betty for and asked some things and said, Hey, can you group these things together And it'll give me like things from far off and it's like, oh yeah, I have to remember sometimes it is, it's more of a creative, like a generative.
00:37:41:05 - 00:37:48:16
Cade Scott
It's not like a, it's not good with facts just yet, you know, unless you feed it the facts beforehand.
00:37:48:16 - 00:37:49:14
John Azoni
Right, right, right.
00:37:49:14 - 00:37:50:09
Cade Scott
So, yeah.
00:37:51:00 - 00:38:08:20
John Azoni
That's great. Okay, so oh, you talked about the risks. All right, So, so tell me about your company. So you got this thing down to, like, a well-oiled machine. Now you've worked out all the kinks, and and so your company is is based around this.
00:38:09:09 - 00:38:09:16
Cade Scott
Yeah.
00:38:09:17 - 00:38:10:18
John Azoni
Technology. Is that true?
00:38:11:06 - 00:38:45:13
Cade Scott
That's true. Yeah. So what? What? Basically, I'm giving you the same speed to lead ability and conversation ability. So when your staff is is not there or when you're not there to answer every application that comes in, not only can you respond through automation within 5 minutes, but you can respond and engage in a conversation and move that student to the next step, whatever that next step is.
00:38:47:09 - 00:39:10:00
Cade Scott
Because again, what I found with just auditing other trade schools and other schools is sure the speed the lead is there sometimes like you'll I'll get an email or call or or maybe not a call, but a text within 5 minutes. But it's that it's that non-personalized kind of generic email and text, which I think is is good.
00:39:10:00 - 00:39:35:14
Cade Scott
At the very least that's you want to you want to give acknowledgment that, hey, I've applied and we've received your application and we'll review it. But what this allows you to do and what the chat bot that I'm able to create allows you to do is again respond in as if you are there in a personalized way, start a conversation and move them to the next step without.
00:39:36:04 - 00:39:41:22
Cade Scott
And you wake up the next morning and you realize, Oh, I have a tour today, you know, like or whatever that next step is.
00:39:42:14 - 00:39:46:00
John Azoni
Yeah, that's the dream. Yeah. Converting leads.
00:39:46:05 - 00:40:16:23
Cade Scott
Converting leads in your sleep. Yeah. And that's that was the most satisfying thing when I would wake up because I have a little notification every time and it's, it's probably doing not good things to my brain, but I wake up like, how did I get a notification of like the student applied, started a conversation and they'll tell me like the student responded and the students now are coming to a tour on Wednesday at five, you know, So that's extremely satisfying because it is.
00:40:16:23 - 00:40:40:16
Cade Scott
It's where I wake up and I'm like, Oh, it leads converting through my sleep, you know? So that's that's what I'm that, that technology I'm, I'm giving now to other trade schools who are interested, who want to incorporate the speed, the lead method and that that personalization outside of just the generic but actually starting a conversation with that.
00:40:40:16 - 00:40:41:01
Cade Scott
Student.
00:40:42:01 - 00:41:06:02
John Azoni
Yeah, that's awesome. I love and I love the, the focus on on trade schools too. I think that's like a really good like niche thing to kind of really refine around. Yeah, and I would imagine they probably have much more specific questions than maybe that just someone out of high school applying to. Yeah, a big state university would be asking.
00:41:06:02 - 00:41:33:08
Cade Scott
Right Well into like you could use it like a state at a state university, but to me the decision that went into the college that I picked was it it spanned a variety of factors. Like it was like, what am I majoring in? What's that school strong and how close is it to home? It became less about, you know, how many conversations could they start with me and how quickly and became more about those other factors.
00:41:33:08 - 00:42:03:21
Cade Scott
Whereas a trade school, if I decide to be a dental assistant now I'm looking at dental assisting schools, which dental assisting school is best. And that's it's, it's like, okay, which phone am I going to? It's like any other. I don't want to say any of the product or any anything thing that you would buy, but it's like you're are software but it's, it's, it's that it's it's now which school I know I become a dental assistant I want to become a dental assistant which school's going to give me the best shot at that or the best or the great advantage or is going to.
00:42:04:07 - 00:42:34:00
Cade Scott
And again, what I found is, is sooner you can kickstart that conversation, create that personal connection with someone that your your chances of enrolling that student, that student walking and go way up before they even have a chance to talk to any other dental assistant schools. You know. So yeah, I think that's why it's really unique to the trade spaces, because you're competing, you're not competing with a university 100 miles away.
00:42:34:06 - 00:42:47:16
Cade Scott
You're competing with the three or four or five or six other dental assisting programs in the area or trade programs in the area. And it just becomes about, you know, who's who's best at that point. And so how can you differentiate yourself?
00:42:48:09 - 00:42:55:18
John Azoni
Right. Well, cool, man. This has been this has been really great. Where can people reach out to you out if they want to get in touch with you?
00:42:56:06 - 00:43:18:14
Cade Scott
They want to get in touch with me. They can reach out and my website in Roll Boost Icon. There you can find the case study that John was talking about. If you want to read kind of step by step what we were talking about. And there's a section on there too, to schedule a 20 to 30 minute meeting with me to talk about, hey, what does this look like for your school?
00:43:19:00 - 00:43:26:19
Cade Scott
How can we implement this, be the lead method and that personalization, that conversation through a I cool.
00:43:27:00 - 00:43:36:01
John Azoni
All right, awesome. Um, yeah. So go check out Enroll Boost. I for sure. It's really cool technology. Kate, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
00:43:37:01 - 00:43:38:18
Cade Scott
Well, thanks for having me as fun conversation.