Selling to Schools: 4 Ways to Help Educators Recognize the Value of VoIP

By Wayne Landt

Purchasing in the education market is heating up. Priorities are being determined; resources are being allocated. In fact, this is an ideal time to connect with education technology (ed-tech) pros, before the end-of-school-year rush. Many K-12s and colleges have the budget and the need to update legacy phone systems, and transitioning to unified communications is a great way to better connect with their communities.

However, there’s no shortage of competition — and not just from rival VoIP resellers. Other tech investments are also considered high priorities, and they are all competing for the same money. For example, many school districts are considering large expenditures on tablets and other learning technology for the classroom, and decision-makers are weighing the pros and cons of that type of purchase against that of a new communications system.

No matter if you are going up against another phone system provider, or competing for money against other projects, you can increase your chances of winning the deal by focusing on some key factors.

Phones aren’t sexy, but they’re critical: Classroom technologies, such as new tablets or virtual learning, are intriguing and appealing. Parents get excited about new gadgets and fun learning solutions, and teachers like having new tech tools, as do the kids. By comparison, new phones aren’t sexy, or even interesting (depending on who you ask).

Specializing in products or services with this lack of trendy tech appeal often makes it feel like you’re at an immediate disadvantage.

Go beyond surface-level comparisons, though, and a phone project can be more critical to the operations of the school than any tablet and friendlier to the budget — giving a slight boost to its appeal. That’s why, when positioned correctly, a well-thought-out proposal for voice can win the budgeting fight even against the “got-to-have-it” tech products of the moment.

To properly position the solution, you need to understand two primary things about the school you hope to work with: Its funding situation and its need to reduce costs. Many schools are feeling the squeeze. In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted that many schools are losing funding:

“While data on total school funding in the current school year (2016) is not yet available, at least 25 states are still providing less “general” or “formula” funding – the primary form of state funding for schools – per student than in 2008. In seven states, the cuts exceed 10 percent.”

In fact, many school budgets are below pre-recession levels.

Costs are rising — sometimes unnecessarily: Not only are funding sources drying up, but to make matters worse, costs are rising for many districts. Over the last several years, many schools took advantage of federal funding for telecommunications services and locked into a VoIP solution where they could take advantage of this money. That funding has been incrementing down; so every year, the schools’ costs have been going up. By 2019, the outside funding for a school’s cloud-based VoIP system will essentially be zero.

To beat the more “interesting,” high-profile tech projects and get funding for a phone system, do a deep dive into the school’s costs to own and administer their current systems. You’ll want to review their current provider contracts, what they pay in ongoing license and support, and what they spend to maintain their current voice infrastructures. You will probably find a good deal of legacy costs that, with a properly designed solution, can be eliminated or reduced.

You can offer discounts: Many vendors offer discounts to government and education entities. It would seem reasonable that these discounts would make their way into every agent’s or VAR’s proposal, but often this type of special pricing can be rather complex, and mistakes are made. Some VARs miss including the discount entirely, or misunderstand the application of the discount and are forced to eat their mistakes.

Other times, sales misses happen because the pricing and discounting structure is confusing to the customer. When possible, work with a vendor that keeps pricing and discounts simple and straightforward. An all-inclusive price makes it easy for the customer to understand your proposal and be comfortable that they are going to get all of the features that they saw in the demo.

You can relieve the admin burden: When talking with ed-tech IT pros, I often hear that legacy phone systems are one of the biggest pains that IT administrators deal with. These proprietary systems often require a technician to go through weeks of training just to be able to do simple administrative tasks and have their own “language” and ways of doing things that are not at all intuitive. IT administrators almost always prefer simple-to-use systems. They particularly appreciate a system where the responsibility for managing it can be spread among several people and the learning curve is very shallow. That frees IT up to focus on higher-value activities and can save the school district headcount.

Understand Who Holds The Purse Strings

One word of advice: VARs often spend a great deal of time with IT personnel. This makes sense as they are often responsible for buying infrastructure products and services. However, this singular focus can also lead to hiccups later on in the sales process, because at some point, the person who holds the purse strings has to get involved — and it may not be the IT team. If the decision-maker has not previously been engaged with the project, this person needs to buy into the business case about why the phone system project should be funded over others, and why your recommended product is the right communications solution.

The people that hold the purse strings should also understand the value that you bring as a reseller or MSP — and most importantly, as a trusted adviser. If you can demonstrate how you can save them money and reduce headaches, all while improving the way their schools function, you will have set yourself apart from the competition.

From understanding the specific pain points of a school’s communications needs to offering clear, easy-to-decipher cost proposals, successfully selling VoIP into schools is rooted in being a good IT partner to your prospect and customer.

Wayne Landt is director of worldwide channel sales for Digium.