How to Sell to a MAT Without Losing the School
Multi-academy trusts have changed everything about how EdTech gets bought in England. A lot of sales teams still haven't caught up.
I see it constantly. A well-run discovery call with a head teacher. Good rapport. Real need identified. The head is genuinely interested. Then it goes to trust level for sign-off and quietly dies. Six weeks later you find out they went with someone else.
What went wrong?
Usually one of three things. Sometimes all three at once.
You sold to the school and ignored the MAT
A head teacher's enthusiasm is real. It's also limited. In a MAT structure, purchasing decisions above a certain threshold — and most EdTech products clear it — go up the chain. Finance director. COO. Sometimes the CEO.
If your entire relationship is with the school and you've got no line of sight into trust level, you're building on sand. The head becomes your advocate, which is valuable, but they're not the decision maker. You've won the room and lost the deal.
You sold to the MAT and the school felt steamrolled
The opposite problem. You got smart, went straight to the top, secured a trust-wide agreement. Excellent. Except nobody told the schools properly, the head teacher feels bypassed, and your implementation is already fighting an uphill battle before it starts.
EdTech doesn't fail at the sale. It fails at the renewal. And renewals live or die on whether the people using the product every day actually wanted it.
You didn't map the stakeholders at all
In any MAT deal there are at least four different types of concern you need to address. Same product. Four completely different conversations.
Head Teacher
Impact in their school, their pupils, their staff workload.
Trust CEO / COO
Consistency across schools, strategic fit, and whether this creates more problems than it solves.
Finance Director
Value, contract terms, and what happens if it doesn't work.
Curriculum / Subject Lead
Whether it actually works in a classroom.
If you're running one pitch and hoping it lands for everyone, it won't.
What to do instead
Map it early. In your first discovery call, ask directly — how does purchasing work here? Who else would need to be involved in a decision like this? Who would be most affected by getting this right?
Most buyers will tell you. They're not trying to hide the org chart. They just won't volunteer it unless you ask.
Then treat the school relationship and the trust relationship as separate threads that need to be managed in parallel. Different conversations, different concerns, different cadences. The head teacher needs to feel heard. The trust needs to feel confident. Those are not the same thing and they don't happen in the same meeting.
The EdTech companies I've seen crack MAT sales consistently are the ones who understand they're not selling a product into a school. They're selling a solution into a system. Systems have layers.
Work the layers.
It takes longer. It closes more reliably. And it renews.
Stella James is the founder of Seventh Sibling, a B2B EdTech sales consultancy helping EdTech companies sell into UK schools, MATs, and colleges. She's also the host of B2Education Unpacked — The Education Growth Podcast, launching May 2026.
