The education sector can be one that can be very appealing to work with if you are in a number of fields. If you deal with technology and software, or services that support children with special educational needs, for example, then you can find plenty of niches within education where your products and services will be desirable to schools and other institutions.
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Budget and The Education Sector
However, as with any private business working with the public sector, there can be budgetary issues and getting contracts can be more difficult than when supplying to other private companies or members of the public.
So, is your idea for a business supporting education a good one?
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Can It Be Sold to Private as Well as State Run Schools?
If your business idea is rooted in innovation, then you may well be able to garner interest from private educational establishments as well as state run schools, and this will mean schools with larger budgets can be pitched to.
Equally, if you provide products or services aimed at schools that may have extra budget or charity funding due to working with special needs children, this may mean you will be able to offer what you do to them with them having a little more money available to invest in what you offer.
As an example, people with expertise in behavioral analysis who work with children with learning difficulties and special needs, can come from both the public sector and the private sector and can be very much in demand. The average BCBA salary in the US is currently just under $55k, which shows that this is a service schools are willing and able to pay for to help their students.
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Are You Limited to Local Schools?
Services a business provides in person, whether it is things like behavioral analysis or more routine things like cleaning, are restricted to local schools you and your staff can travel to. This means if you can’t drum up enough interest locally, you’ll have to look to other sectors to gain clients.
However, if you provide something that can be delivered remotely, such as software or equipment, you have a much larger pool of schools you can serve and better chances of winning a lot of business with the right product and good marketing.
Locally focused businesses can be a success too, however make sure you do your market research to ensure there is enough need to make your business viable, or think about how you can diversify by, for instance, also offering cleaning services to offices or retail stores.
Any new business that targets a niche market needs to research that market very fully, however education can be a good choice in some ways. This is because it is something that is constant and always has needs, and which also values innovation and new products that can enhance how students are taught, or how a school is managed and run.