Stop presenting your product. Start speaking to the issue.

Seven lessons take you from what a district is funded to manage to one sentence it can repeat. Then you use it in real conversations.

What you hear

“That's interesting. Send me something.”

What you want to hear

“They're the ones who build the small groups from our own benchmark data.”

Diamond Mining

Seven lessons. One step at a time.

Your product stays out of the first three. By the time it appears, the district has already told you

what it needs.

Issue

Start where the money is

Find what the district is funded to manage, and the person whose name is tied to the numbers.

Problem

Hear it in their words

One issue, two problems: the district's and the person's. Write down what educators actually said, not what you presented.

Solution

Define the finish line

Describe what has to be true for the problem to go away, before your product enters the picture.

CAPABILITY

Let your product prove it

Show what yours does to make that finish line real, then answer honestly: how do you know?

DIFFERENCE

Check what else they could pick

Compare against what they use now, the spreadsheet someone built, the competitor, and doing nothing.

UVP

Write the sentence

Boil it down to one line an administrator can repeat to her superintendent when you're not there.

APPLICATION

Ask it out loud

Use your question in three real district conversations, then keep one page that says what you do.

Three checks before you say it out loud

Rewrite one sentence until it passes all three.

Could a competitor say this?

If yes, the difference isn't in your sentence yet.

Did you just restate the solution?

Words like confidence or engagement describe the finish line, not what you do.

Can she repeat it upstairs?

Say it as the administrator would to her superintendent. If it falls apart, keep rewriting.

Seven lessons . Three conversations. One sentence.

What's Included?

Seven lessons with videos, a written lesson, a workbook, and eight weeks of weekly group coaching.

$1,500 discount for The EdTech Impact Accelerator course if you enroll within 90 days after purchasing this course.

Your Instructor

Meet Michael Bates

I've spent 40 years in EdTech sales. I started in 1985 selling computer-assisted instruction for reading and math, and went on to hold executive sales roles at Jostens Learning, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Curriculum Associates, LeapFrog, EPS Literacy & Intervention, and Matific. I've sold to classrooms, school buildings, and central offices, and built sales operations across 12 countries. I founded Michael Bates Solutions in 2009 and went full-time in 2018. The EdTech Impact Accelerator is the ten-lesson distillation of what I've been teaching founders one at a time. I've spent 40 years making the mistakes so you don't have to.