Sylvan Learning Hires Chief Revenue Officer George Shipley to Support Franchisee Revenue Growth

Sylvan Learning* has announced a new executive role with the hiring of George Shipley as Chief Revenue Officer, a role in which he will oversee sales activities tied to the company’s major initiatives. He will ensure that Sylvan’s corporate team is doing its best to serve franchisees with a major focus on driving local owner revenue growth.

Shipley will help create sales strategies and determine what additional resources are needed to best support franchisees. This will include leveraging Sylvan’s business intelligence group, contact center and parts of the existing operations support team to create a dynamic and robust sales organization that will be responsible for improving the conversion of people contacting Sylvan into Sylvan clients. The overarching objective will result in same-center revenue growth.

“Our goal is to provide new and existing franchisees with best in breed student recruitment and conversion practices across the system,” said Shipley. “We see an immediate opportunity to improve lead tracking and sales conversion so that we have more insight, allowing us to optimize marketing plans more effectively.”

Shipley will also help Sylvan through a technology upgrade to the contact center to improve omni channel, speed-to-lead and analytic capabilities by leveraging best in class technology in the contact center space. Sylvan went through a six-month vetting process to identify the best solutions in the industry to ensure it is providing the best support possible to franchisees in growing their student base.

“This new role is entirely dedicated to helping Sylvan Learning franchisees grow their businesses, and my metrics of success are focused on franchisee revenue growth and successful business outcomes,” said Shipley. “To me, it’s entirely about the franchisees. They are my internal customers and our department is dedicated to helping them grow their businesses.”

Sylvan Learning’s Franchise Owners Association (FOA) President Lesley Mitchell has been a franchisee for 10 years with four centers and one satellite in Calgary, having worked her way up from being a center director to purchasing her own center. Mitchell comments on looking forward to how this new position will help all franchisees increase revenue.

“Any time that there is an opportunity to identify revenue growth for franchisees, that’s always going to be a positive,” said Mitchell. “I think George brings a wealth of information to the table from diverse backgrounds, but specifically through his experience working with colleges in the past and their onboarding programs. He brings an expertise in that area to look for opportunities in the marketplace that we’ve yet to tap into as well as how to increase our presence in the marketplace to increase profitability. The FOA has had this conversation for a while, so we’re happy to see that the corporate team is helping us increase the number of students in our centers.”

In 2017, Sylvan Learning began building positive momentum that led to system-wide revenue growth through new marketing initiatives and program offerings. Now, the company is planning to build on that success with Shipley’s initiatives to grow center revenue growth, implement a smooth technology transition at the contact center, and build his internal team focused on converting leads.

“It is important that we continue to evolve as our industry and technology change,” said Sylvan Learning CEO John McAuliffe. “Bringing George on board and developing this department will help us remain a leader in the space while doing the best we can to increase our franchisees’ student count and revenue.”

To learn more about owning a Sylvan Learning franchise, visit www.SylvanFranchise.com.