Ongoing Advisory

A fractional partnership for schools that want sustained alignment across enrolment, brand, and communications.

One-off projects create momentum. But momentum fades without continuity.

Advisory is a sustained thinking partnership that keeps your school's enrolment ecosystem aligned through the year. Regular sessions, in-person visits, and access to Bolsta's tools and frameworks — designed so each conversation picks up where the last one left off.

Input spans all three streams: clarity and alignment, story and experience, and creative and infrastructure.

$1,500 per month. 12-month engagement.

Why an ongoing partnership?

Schools don’t stand still, and neither should the support around them.

Marketing priorities shift term to term. Staff change. New challenges surface. A one-off project can set direction, but without sustained input, teams drift back to old patterns or lose the thread of what was started.

Advisory provides the continuity to keep enrolment, brand, and communications work aligned — without adding another role to the payroll or another project to the calendar.

What's included

Advisory is a thinking partnership built around sessions, visits, and guided conversations.

Each term

3 advisory sessions (60 minutes, online) plus email follow-up between sessions. Sessions cover whatever is most useful — strategy, alignment, planning, or working through a specific challenge.

Each year

4 in-person visits for workshops, facilitation, or stakeholder conversations. Additional visits beyond the included four are billed for travel. Plus one full Enrolment Ecosystem Pulse to track progress and surface new patterns.

Across the engagement

Strategy or alignment facilitation during calls or visits. Input across the three streams (clarity, story, creative). Guided access to Bolsta’s tools and frameworks — journey maps, experience cards, story scaffolds, archetype work, and the marketing flywheel. Priority access on additional work commissioned during the engagement.

What's not included

Advisory is a thinking partnership, not a delivery retainer. It does not include significant background work, asset preparation, or independent project delivery (scoped separately), day-to-day operational responsibilities (CRM setup, content creation, admissions admin), or internal project management and logistics.

School leadership team in discussion

For schools who

  • Have completed an Audit and want to act on the findings without a full project
  • Are implementing brand, journey, or experience changes and want sustained input
  • Want a regular sounding board across enrolment, marketing, and family experience
  • Need continuity after a one-off project to maintain momentum
Book a call to discuss Advisory

What you get

Sustained input across enrolment, brand, and communications — so your team stays aligned and your work compounds.

Regular advisory sessions

Three sessions per term (60 minutes, online) to maintain momentum and keep work on track

In-person visits

Four visits per year for workshops, facilitation, or stakeholder conversations

Enrolment Ecosystem Pulse

One full Pulse per year to track progress and surface new patterns

Tools and frameworks

Guided access to journey maps, experience cards, story scaffolds, archetype work, and the marketing flywheel

How long’s the commitment?

Advisory runs as a 12-month engagement. It’s built as a sustained partnership rather than a short-term retainer, because steady input across the year produces better outcomes than occasional check-ins. The shape reflects how the work actually pays off, not a desire to tie anyone down.

Can we pause?

If your situation changes, we talk about it openly. This is built on mutual value, not a lock-in contract, so the conversation is always a real one. The 12-month shape is there because sustained input works better than stop-start, not to trap anyone who genuinely needs to step back.

What’s included?

Each term you get three 60-minute advisory sessions with email follow-up in between, and you can reach Jacob by email any time. Across the year that also includes four in-person visits for Australian schools, a full Enrolment Ecosystem Pulse, guided access to our tools and frameworks, and coaching and strategic support shaped to your situation. That support flexes to whatever you’re facing. Recently it’s meant managing the communications of a brand rollout, helping a school shape a new vision, mission and values, rebuilding a marketing and admissions team’s processes and roles, and guiding a school through how it uses student images online, along with the policy, creative and communications changes that came with it.

How’s this different from a consultant?

Continuity, without the overhead of a retainer or the cost of a full-time hire. Over time we become part of the furniture: we already know your context, your team and your history, so each session picks up where the last left off rather than starting cold. Schools are dynamic places, and the real value is being able to roll with that, with no re-scoping or fresh quotes for every small thing. We’re simply available, so rather than mucking around with approvals, we get on with the work.

We partner with school leaders and their teams.

Something that once felt strong has started to drift, and misconceptions creep in to fill the gap. We unearth your story by listening to your people, and build the language to tell it everywhere.

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Like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover. We build your website, prospectus and materials on your real story, so the depth and quality of your school is honoured publicly.

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First call, tour, interview, the lead-up to day one — we help you design the moments that matter, so each one serves parents well.

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Schools are complex. We diagnose before we prescribe: one clear picture of your whole communication and enrolment ecosystem, then a sequence matched to your goals and capacity.

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More of the right families, and the staff to grow with. Growth requires all parts moving together, so we look at the whole ecosystem and plan the route ahead.

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A new principal, a strategic reset, an anniversary — we build the story and experience around the new direction so it embeds for years.

Where schools start Brand Story Strategy
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Case Studies

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