It was 2019 and Scholars Edge was in a slump.
The 15-year old Nanaimo-based student summer house-painting company offered a near parity service to its main competitor, which was bigger, more established and doing a better job at getting the top students. Scholars Edge was being outspent and outshone as a brand. Being a distant number 2 for so long was hurting the company’s morale and forward energy.
Scholars Edge founder Jamie Wilson brought in Brand Intervention to help the business find an edge.
Research revealed that the students the competitor was attracting were the university A-listers: confident, ambitious and looking for an opportunity to challenge themselves.
So we decided to shake up the old Scholars Edge business model and go after these students with exactly what they were looking for.
The Business Ownership Experience
The first order of business was to rebrand the company as a reality competition for Canadian university students. The Business Ownership Experience was born. We limited the number of participants to 40, and introduced judges, mentors, rules and rewards.
The competition would provide ambitious and hardworking students with a powerful online platform to brand themselves and launch their future careers.
The house painting itself was really just the commodity that the students had to master to do well in the competition. This freed us from having to make painting the focus for the students. Instead it became all about their experience – a chance to learn how to run a small business while competing against other top students doing the same thing. The tone of the messaging changed drastically. Here’s the old website and the new one.
This immediately appealed to a different kind of student: those ones already looking for a challenge and a chance to prove themselves.
This changed everything for Jamie and his team. Now they really had something to sell when they did their on-campus recruiting in January.
The training wrapped in February and the competition is now live! The first Dean’s List with the Top Ten is already posted on the brand new website – which has been brilliantly helmed by Steffany Hunter.
Each student has their own YouTube channel and blog to post weekly updates.
Here’s the first bi-weekly posting of the Dean’s List:
As you read this, the students are out there marketing their businesses, writing estimates, posting videos, managing contractors, preparing financials and learning if they have what it takes to run a business.
All the while competing to make the Dean’s List. My hats off to them and best wishes to all!
Know someone who needs a house painted? http://scholarsedge.biz/