Who owns the relationship when the contract ends
The most expensive thing about a recruitment arrangement is usually not its price. It is what the school is left holding when the arrangement stops.
Intermediated relationships end when the intermediary does
If the agent's contract is with a platform, the agent's payment comes from the platform and the family's enquiry arrives through the platform, then the school has an arrangement with the platform and a series of introductions. It does not have a relationship with the agent in any durable sense.
This is easy to miss while everything is working. It becomes visible at renewal, or when a platform changes its terms, or when it is acquired.
Direct relationships require record-keeping the school actually holds
A direct relationship is only an asset if the school can describe it: who the partner is, what was agreed, what they have produced, and who at the school owns the contact. Without that, a direct relationship is one admissions director's personal address book, and it leaves when they do.
That is why an agreement record and an attribution trail matter more than they sound. They are what converts a set of individual relationships into something the institution owns.
What to structure now
Contract directly with the partner, in the school's name, with the commission or fee stated in that contract rather than set by a third party.
Keep the record of every introduction and where it led, in a system the school controls and can export.
Make sure more than one person at the school can see the relationship. A channel visible to one person is a channel the institution does not own.
Where this argument works against us
- Structuring for ownership is more work for the school than being handed qualified applicants. A school without the admissions capacity to manage partners directly may genuinely be better served by an intermediated model.
- Our own outreach and agreement tooling is not finished. Today the record-keeping this page argues for is partly in place — saved lists, unlocks, referral and stage logging — and sending outreach from a school's own domain is still in build.