Hitting the Sweet Spot: The Key to Successful Marketing

How to hit the Sweet Spot?

As a boy I loved baseball. Starting at three years old, I would put on a catcher’s mitt, grabbed a glove and pretended I was my favorite major leaguer at the time. Epic games of whiffle ball in our back yard with my brothers and neighbor kids occurred regularly. I sought to hit the ball over the fence for the homerun as my brothers or friends threw the ball as fast as they could. If I hit the ball in just the right spot on the bat, the ball launched from my ball over the fence. Homerun !

The place on the bat that produced the most power without the sting when I hit the ball, The Sweet Spot. The key to successful marketing of a product, school, service, or fundraising event is finding the sweet spot and hitting a homerun so to a speak. What is the sweet spot? The sweet spot is the intersection of your target customer’s needs and what is special about your organization’s product, service, attribute, or feeling and how it can meet your customer’s needs.

So how you can your organization successfully hit the sweet spot? First, gain an understanding of your target customer and their need or problem that needs to be solved. Second, identify the products, services, or uniqueness that meets your target customer’s need. Third, create communication that emotional connects target customer’s needs with your product or service that solves the customer’s needs.

In conclusion, Hitting the Sweet Spot is the key to successful marketing. The sweet spot in marketing is where the needs of an organization’s target customer’s meet intersect with your product, service, attribute, or feeling . Understanding your customer, identifying the products or services that meets your target customer’s needs, and communicating how your product or service will solve the problem of your target customer needs are all necessary to hit the sweet spot.

Parent Involvement and Engagement

Increasing Academic Achievement Through Involvement and Engagement.

The stats don’t lie . Both parent involvement and engagement are important to academic achievement and emotional well being of students in America’s schools. Parent involvement are the activities that parents do to support their child’s learning.This could be supervising homework, attending a parent teacher conference, or a parent reading with a child. On the other hand, parent engagement includes activities that are more proactive and collaborative with teachers and school staff. For example, if a parent volunteers for a school committee, reads to a class. or works with educators to plan curriculum.

Students who have parents that support them academically are 81% more likely to graduate from high school than those that don’t. Also, students who parents discuss class courses with them are 44% greater to attend post-secondary education. In contrast, students whose parent who don’t provide academic supervision or support have a 34% greater likelihood of dropping out of school. 95% of students with actively involved parents have better emotional and physical health. And students with involved parents on average have a 98% school attendance rate.

As evidenced by the stats above, parent support and supervision in a student’s education results in High attendance rates, Emotional and Physical Health, Higher graduation rates, and greater enrollment in post secondary education . In contrast, students whose parents don’t supervise their student’s learning or provide support have a 34 percent higher dropout rate.

Parent involvement and engagement result in positive outcomes in the areas of attendance, academic, and emotional and physical wellbeing. Parent involvement activities include parents reading with their children, supervising and helping with homework, volunteering in a classroom, and attend parent teacher conferences. Some parent engagement activities include two-way communication between the school community and parents, School Family Fun Nights. Parent Workshops on academic and emotional and physical wellbeing, and being involved in the Parent Teacher Association. Encouraging parent involvement in their child’s education and engaging them in their child’s school community will pay greater dividends for schools who successfully do so.

A Comprehensive Approach to School and Non-Profit Fundraising

The Art of Fundraising

In the movie Jerry Macquire. professional football player, Rod Tidwell tells his sports agent Jerry Macquire show him the money. Rod Tidwell says, “Show me the Money” over and over until Jerry starts to say it. For private schools, PTAS, and public-school extracurricular departments, and non=profit organizations, the more Apropos phrase for these organizations where is the money. In the movie, sports agent, Jerry Macquire, had the responsibility to get his client Rod Tidwell the largest and financially lucrative contract possible. Schools and non-profits alike have the task to raise the money to ensure their organization’s financial health, to meet the organization’s mission, purchase needed equipment or supplies, make capital expenditures, or expand the reach to more students or clients.

Where is the Money is the question private schools, non-profit organizations, PTAS, and public-school extracurricular departments must answer. These organizations must use successfully fundraising methods to meet the financial needs of their organization or department. So, then what makes for successful fundraising?

A Comprehensive Approach to fundraising that includes multiple avenues of fundraising activity is the key to successful fundraising. A combination of regular special events, annual and monthly d committed donors, business and family sponsorships, and grant writing allow for a comprehensive strategy to raising funds. This approach allows the organization to spread a wider donation need and diversify funding sources.

Audits and Special Education Compliance

AUDITS, IDEA, and Ensuring Compliance.

IDEA , Individuals with Disabilities Act was signed into law 1975 by President Gerald Ford . The goal of IDEA was and is still today is to ensure students with disabilities receive a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and are educated with their non-disabled peers as much as possible. educated with their nondisabled peers and progress through the curriculum. IDEA has been reauthorized multiple times through put four decades since its inception, saw a name change, addition of early intervention services, and improvements to the original 1975 ACT.

Special education case managers, administrators, and schools, and districts have a number of requirements under IDEA. Writing annual Ieps, completing special education evaluation assessments within specific timelines, documenting Indicator 14 outcomes, and conducting local screening meetings are just of some of requirements special education professionals must ensure occur by specific timelines, have specific content and data, and follow IDEA guidelines. to meet legal compliance and avoid legal action, avoid complaints with state and federal officials, and provide the highest quality education and services for each and every student.

To ensure a district or school is IDEA Compliant, a robust auditing process should be implemented by each and every school or district that is serving students with disabilities. An audit review of a school’s or district’s special education student records should occur frequently and regularly. It should be rigorous and exceed state and federal requirements. The audit of should include a review of a pre-determined number of individual records. Indicator fourteen data collection, timelines, and local screening data.

In conclusion, schools and school districts serving special education students have specific responsibilities under IDEA. To ensure these requirements are being meet, a robust and regular audit process should be implemented by education organizations serving special education students. Review of individual student records, indicator fourteen data collection, timelines, and local screening data should occur to ensure compliance with IDEA.