How to Frame the Right Market Question
Length: 60 minutes

Key question: When enrollment weakens, what evidence would actually allow us to say demographics are the primary cause?

The session introduces four tests for any demographic explanation: scale, timing, and distribution.

• Explanatory power: Is the population change large enough to explain the enrollment change?
• Addressable market: Which households are realistically accessible and relevant to the school?
• Current, potential, and theoretical markets: Where does the school enroll now, where could it realistically grow, and where does opportunity exist only on paper?
• Conflicting evidence: What should leaders do when population, income, competition, and funnel indicators point in different directions?

Participant work: Each participant reframes one current school question using a structured “whether X is primarily driven by Y or Z” prompt and identifies the evidence that would need to be true for demographics to be the primary explanation.

Outcome: A sharper, testable market question.

Optional time to meet with the instructor and peers to debrief on the weekly session and materials.