We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Raymont Burke recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Raymont, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
As an Engineering Teacher, the cost associated with providing cutting edge high cost experiences and curriculum to the children I served hinged on financial support from the principal of the school and the school district. Engineering is a high-end field with a high operating cost. School district’s don’t have the financial capacity to employ qualified Engineering Professional at their going rate of pay. I experienced through the years, a lack of understanding of this concept. Many schools that hired me wanted to “say” they had the program, but did not want to adequately fund it. They struggled with funding the program or the salary for the Individual bringing the programming. This is where I came up with the idea of an after school Engineering option at a lower rate. iSTEAM Education Solutions was born. iSTEAM Education Solutions focuses on offering lite engineering after school programming. iSTEAM Education Solution also offers school hour programming as well. This solved a problem of the school districts having to shell out large sums of money to acquire and retain industry certified individuals to host Engineering programming.
Dr. Raymont, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve been in the education arena in various departments for about 29 years,. I started off in at a rural school district as support staff for IT and eventually made my way to the instructional side as demand for STEAM programming grew. While bringing Engineering to the masses as a classroom teacher, funding had always been an issue. School districts struggled with keeping pace with the technology trends, as we know shifted quiet frequently. I solved this problem by taking time and cost associated with providing Engineering and high-skills programming, and providing the service at a discount as compared to the market. I’m most proud of the amount of interest this idea garnered and it’s potential for this service to impact a wider market.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Marketing your business can be tricking and a job in itself. I started off doing general posts on the three major heavy hitting social media sites. I fell short when it came to creating a website to host transactions and the marketing material to promote my events. This is where I elicited the help of a Marketing guru. Once we met and discussed my vision for what I wanted to see, I had to fill out a few documents to assist creation of webpages and flyers etc. The result was a robust website, iSTEAMrocks.com that houses everything related to my business.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
The most effective strategy for growing my clientele was reaching out to former school districts I worked in, friends and family. Word of mouth still has weight in the business industry. Once you create a rhythm of communicating to your identified clients, your sure to bring in the business.
Contact Info:
- Website: isteamrocks.com