Our previous tips on strategies that college recruiters can use to influence and win over their prospects were some of Dale Carnegie’s most proven techniques.
Carnegie, the master author and business guru who penned "How to Win Friends and Influence People", has some bedrock principles that can easily be applied to college recruiting. After all, at the heart of every recruiting effort, coaches want to connect with their prospect in a way that draws a recruit towards their program.
So to complete his thoughts on the matter, we wanted to give you another three Carnegie principles that you can put to work for you immediately:
PRINCIPLE #4: Be a good listener
When you begin a new relationship with your next recruit, make it a goal to let them do most of the talking. That’s one of the strategies we stress in our recruiting guides we have developed for college coaches, and it’s one of the things that Carnegie believes can be the difference between developing a good relationship with your prospect or just being another salesperson in their eyes.
When you do most of the talking, you make it impossible to discover what is really motivating them to consider your program. You also are cheating yourself out of valuable information that you can discover from the comments your recruit will make "off the cuff" during conversations. However, if you are doing all the talking, it’s unlikely that you’re going to give them the chance to do that.
A good rule to follow is to try to let your prospect do 80% of the talking during any conversation. That means asking great questions, and then giving them lots of opportunity to talk afterwards. Expect to ask a lot of follow-up questions, and maybe even re-stating your original question in different ways in order to get your prospect to tell you everything that’s on your mind.
PRINCIPLE #5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interest
It’s not about you, Coach. It’s about your athlete. What I mean by "talking in terms of the other person’s interest" is tying-in the benefits and strong points of your school or program directly to the athlete’s self-interests.
For example, if you finally have that brand new locker room and are ready to show it off to a new group of recruits, don’t assume that just walking them through the room will do the job. You will want to make sure that you give them examples of how it’s going to impact them personally…get them to imagine hanging-out in the new locker room instead of your competitor’s older facility…see if you can get them to agree that they deserve a facility like this after all the work they’ve put in to their sports career.
If you fail to connect your benefits directly to them, you will have a hard time effectively using all of your program’s benefits to the fullest extent.
PRINCIPLE #6: Make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely
When I go to a college for one of our On-Campus Workshops with an athletic department staff, and bring athletes in behind closed doors for one of our focus groups, do you know what I’ve been hearing more and more the past few months?
It’s this: Your athletes and prospects are actively searching for honest. A coach who is genuine. They are looking for the fakes, and on the alert for getting sold something that’s less than completely accurate.
Making your prospect feel important is, well, important. But doing it sincerely, in a completely unique way, is of the utmost importance in their minds. So, the question I have for you is how do you creatively and uniquely create that feeling for your recruits right now? If you don’t have a great answer for that question, you need to stop what you’re doing and develop a strategy that address this vitally important desire for this generation of student-athlete that you are recruiting.
Coaches who can make each one of these six principles originally developed by the legendary Dale Carnegie will find themselves in the best possible position to win over the athletes they really want, year after year after year.
Haven’t brought Dan Tudor and his Selling for Coaches team to your campus yet? You should! We’ll produce a customized workshop for your staff and give them unique insights into what will be the most effective message for the recruits you are trying to attract to campus. Click here for all the information.
