Lessons From One Year in Business

When I began this journey, I was 50% more excited than I had been in a long time and 50% scared out of my mind. It’s been 10 months and 25 days since I decided to leave school and work full-time at SchneiderB Media. In that time, I’ve had some bad times, but thankfully, the good ones have outnumbered the bad ones!

I’m writing today to share some lessons that I’ve learned in the hopes that you can apply them to your own life in schools.

1. Fight Imposter Syndrome

To be very transparent, I had a lot of self-doubts when I began this journey and questioned myself many, many times.

Could I support my family by being self-employed?

Why would someone hire me?

What if I failed?

These were the thoughts I was battling last summer when I was definitely dealing with imposter syndrome. With the positive support of family and friends, though, I followed the advice of focusing on the next task to help the business rather than focusing on the doubts and negative thoughts. Slowly, my imposter syndrome faded to whispers in the background. The doubt is still present at times, but much less so.

If you suffer from imposter syndrome, I see you.

My advice to you is to acknowledge the thoughts but don’t be controlled by them and focus on the next task to help your school, family, or other areas of your life.

2. Dreams Are Important, But They Are Only The Start

It had always been a dream of mine to work full-time at SchneiderB Media, but I was afraid to make that transition and thought it would happen someday by magic.

However, I often was reminded of this quote from Colin Powell, “A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.”

In order to make my dream a reality, I’ve been working very hard, but I can share that I’ve loved every minute because it’s doing something that I love.

From my experience, having dreams and aspirations are incredibly important but make sure that you are ready to do the work.

3. Inbound Marketing Works For Schools

I was fortunate enough to have my journey with inbound marketing recognized by Hubspot back in 2014.

I knew inbound marketing would help schools get more inquiries, but I was a little fearful that I could replicate that success for other schools as a consultant through my Fractional Digital Marketer program.

Well, after working with a handful of wonderful schools for 10 months and 25 days, I can tell you that an inbound marketing strategy works and is one that I can replicate at schools.

I’m happy to share that one of my clients' inquiries are up 9.8% YTD.

If you are interested in learning more about my Fractional Digital Marketer program, I encourage you to check out this page.

There are some things I miss about working in a school, like seeing the kids, talking to colleagues, and having free coffee, but overall, my life being full-time at SchneiderB Media has been incredibly rewarding.

If anything I mentioned resonates with you, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m always happy to chat and offer support in the same way that support was offered to me.

About the author 

Brendan Schneider

Hey, I’m Brendan, and this is my blog. After 28 years working in private, independent schools in mostly admissions, enrollment, marketing, communications, and fundraising roles, I decided to make SchneiderB Media my full-time job, where I help schools get more inquiries through my Fractional Digital Marketer program. I also started the MarCom Society, a membership created expressly to help, support, and train marketing and communications professionals at schools.