Effective Questioning

Asking for the Commitment Without Really Asking for the CommitmentMonday, November 14th, 2011

So there I was, sitting in one of those annonying small little offices on the floor of a car dealership.

An impromtu weekend test drive at the request of my wife had now turned into a three hour odyssey into the depths of everything that is mind-numbing about the typical car buying experience. But in the middle of it all, a little nugget of recruiting gold: A great way to ask for a commitment, without actually asking for the commitment.

Towards the end my battle of wits with the parade of dealership personnel that take their turn at trying to get you to overpay for whatever vehicle you happen to be interested in, the dealership general manager walked in. Impeccably dressed, and disarmingly reassuring, he uttered a phrase that was absolutely brilliant: “If I call the finance company and they meet your price, can I tell them you’ll do the deal”?

Without thinking, my immediate response was, “Yes, I’d be ready to do it.”

Without thinking, I had just agreed that I would move forward if they could meet the price that I had insisted upon. In other words, I had given them the “soft commitment” they were looking for, and now they could move forward with the final close.

(This is where you come in, Coach)

“Soft Commitments” are a staple in nearly every type of sale. It’s also called a “trial close” and it’s an effective way to guage the interest of your prospect without seeming pushy or pressuring them into a decision. At the car dealership, he simply asked me a question that would reveal my state of mind. As a recruiter, you can use the same low-pressure strategy to get your prospect to give you a hint regarding where they stand in their decision making process.

What are some ideas that might be appropriate for you to use as a college coach? They center around asking your prospect intelligent questions that help reveal what they are thinking:

Ask questions that use a third person as the reason you need an answer. At the car dealership, it was a conversation that was about to happen with the finance company. You can use your head coach, your athletic director…someone who holds a degree of power in the decision making process. Try to make it a person on campus that your prospect hasn’t had the opportunity to meet yet.
Ask questions that use a time of year as the reason for urgency. You can use an application deadline, a national signing day, or some other point in the timeline as the reason you need to get an update on where they stand in the process.
Ask a question with a “because” in it. It’s a powerful word…powerful “because” it gives your prospect an added reason to give you an answer. For example, “I’m wondering if you’ll be ready to commit by the end of the week because we got an unexpected call from a really good prospect, and she wants to visit campus next weekend if we still have a roster spot available.” In our work with other coaches around the country, we find that “because” is a powerful motivator for today’s generation of recruits.

That’s a fairly short list of potential uses of this strategy, and it would be easy to adapt it to your specific situation. The point is, the strategy is used successfully in professional selling situations around the world. Your needs are no different than those in the business world: You want some insight into what your prospect is thinking as they get deeper into the decision making process.

If that describes you, this proven strategy might just get your next prospect to open up.

Do you get the feeling that your recruiting should be doing better at this point in the year? Our team of experts can help. We work with large and small programs around the country, and are helping them produce some of their best recruiting classes ever. Our systematic, research-based approach works. Want more information? Email Dan Tudor directly at dan@dantudor.com and ask for a complete overview on our Total Recruiting Solution program.

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Strategies for Combating the Too-Close-To-Home ObjectionMonday, August 15th, 2011

In a previous article, we talked about some proven strategies for combating the “too-far-from-home” recruiting objection.

You’ve all heard it before…a recruit you really want, and may have even been the one that initiated the first contact, tells you “no” because they’ve decided that you’re too far from home.

But many coaches also face the opposite side of the coin:

Recruits that decide you’re the wrong choice for them because you’re too close to home.

The biggest hurdle for you behind this objection, according to our research, is the fact that many prospects will have already defined you. Growing up nearby, they’ve heard people talk about you, made some observations about your campus or your program, and have decided that you’re not “exciting” enough for them as they look forward to the next four years of playing their sport in college.

We’re finding that more and more of this current generation of student-athlete prospects are up for the adventure of going “away” to school. So, if you’re a coach that is recruiting a prospect that is starting to tell you that you’re too close to home to be a serious consideration, here are a few proven strategies that we’ve seen work with the coaches we work with around the country:

Focus on mom and dad as soon as possible. Whenever you hear a prospect talk about your college being too close to home, you need to find out how your prospect’s parents are playing into the equation. Normally, according to our national research, parents are a primary outside factor in the decision making process of a recruit. The question here is simple: “Why do you want to see your son/daughter play away from home?” We see parents tending to encourage your prospect to stay close to home whenver possible. Find out what their view on the matter is. If you see that there is a conflict within the family (i.e., prospect wants to go out of the area and the parents are hoping he or she stays close to home) then you need to find out which side is going to win out in the end.
Ask about their friends. One of the big factors in a decision by a recruit to not go far away to play for a program is their friends back home (that includes boyfriends and girlfriends). When you find that a recruit is not open to staying close to home, you’ll want to ask if they’ll miss their friends, or why they see themselves being o.k. with leaving them behind. That doesn’t mean you should use friends or family as a “guilt trip” on your recruit. Rather, you view it as your responsibility to bring up factors that we see playing a major role in the final decision of your recruits so that they are taking into account all possible factors in determining what schools (yours included) they should be considering.
Get them on campus spending time with your team. Assuming that a big reason your local recruit is not that interested in your program is the fact that they have been on your campus and grown-up nearby hearing the good, the bad and the ugly about the school and your program, you need to get them to take an up-close-and-personal look at what you have to offer as soon as possible. And, since they have probably already made up their mind about you and the campus, I recommend that you have them spend as much time with your team as possible. Not you, coach…your team. The one big thing we see being able to alter their initial assumptions about you and your college is a strong bond with your team. As we conduct studies with current college athletes as a part of our On-Campus Workshop training sessions for athletic departments, they tell us that their ideal percentage of time they’d like to spend just hanging out informally with your team is 60% of their total time on campus. If you can achieve that kind of time with your team, you’ve got a shot of creating a bond that overcomes their initial perception of your program.
Make the case that staying close to home gives them a choice. Make the phrasing your own, but the basic thinking we’ve seen work goes something like this: “If you stay close to home, you get the best of both worlds: You get to be your own person here on our campus, but still get to see your family and friends whenever you want. Athletes that go far away to school don’t get to have that choice. They’re stuck on a campus far away from home.” It’s a valid concept that you should encourage your recruit to consider.

In summary, let me go back to a thought that I started the article with:

This generation of recruit is more open to going away to college and play their sport. Social media and familiarity with other parts of the country are just two of the reasons we see athletes willing to leave home and compete elsewhere.

In the long run, you’re going to hear more and more of the “too close to home” objections from your recruits. You can overcome it using these strategies some of the time, but you’ll also want to expand your recruiting base so that you can take advantage of this growing trend. There are lots of tools and resources we recommend that make this easier than ever.

That being said, when you find yourself recruiting a local athlete you really, really want on your team, these proven strategies just might do the trick in getting them to take a serious second look at you and your program.

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A Simple Question That Gets a Better ResponseMonday, August 1st, 2011

Most college recruiters make great efforts to tell their recruits to commit to them.

Today, I’m going to show you that you might be taking the wrong approach with your prospects by doing that.

And there’s science to back-up what I’m about to reveal to you.

It has to do with the very subtle difference between telling your prospect to commit to your program, versus asking them if they will commit to your program. And the research that’s been done on the topic tells us that it’s smarter to ask – and get them to predict or visualize that commitment – if you really want that prospect in your program.

Here’s how it works:

When you get your prospect to make a verbal statement about their intent on a future action – such as whether or not they see themselves living in your dorms, playing on your team, and coming to your college - they are far more inclined to follow through with that commitment. That research is one of the reasons we focus on starting conversations between our clients and their prospects, and focus on having their prospects commit to do things like reply to their email or come and visit their campus.

It’s those small commitments that can signal real interest from a prospect.

So, here’s what I’d recommend you do as you prepare for this next round of messaging to this class of recruits you’re targeting:

When you have decided you want a prospect to start getting serious about you and your program, ask them about their intent to commit to your program. This is an important step: Just asking the question can have a big impact on your prospect. Don’t tell them to commit…ask them if they are probably going to commit.
Try hard – really, really hard - to get some kind of affirmative answer. The science shows that if your prospect gives you a positive statement, more than likely they will evenutally act on that statement.
If you can get them to make that statement in some kind of public way – in front of their parents, or while they are on campus with some of your team – it drastically increases the liklihood that they will commit to you.
If they don’t respond in a positive way on the first try, don’t despair: Asking consistently over time in a professional, collaborative way can build a feeling of trust over time and get them to understand that you’re serious about them and want them in your program.

So, the lesson here is pretty simple: Instead of spending time just telling your prospect how great you are, make sure you ask them if they see themselves as a part of your program. It’s a better way to gain a commitment from this next class of prospects!

Want help in putting together the right message for your prospects, with just the right balance of information and direction in the plan? We can help. We work with coaching staffs all over the country and help them plan their recruiting campaigns, and even help produce text that they use in their letters and emails…text that works better because it’s based on research and proven science (like the principle we just outlined in this recruiting article).

For more information, or to talk with Dan Tudor about becoming a client of Tudor Collegiate Strategies so we can develop a plan for you, email him at dan@dantudor.com.

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Getting Past Your Prospect’s NoSunday, January 10th, 2010

Dan Tudor True story:

A few years ago, my wife tells me (as I’m driving home from work) that a young man who had just sold a set of "really great" steak knives to her sister was coming over to our house to show us the set.

After speeding through those stages of grief that you always read about at the thought of having to sit through a sales presentation, I arrived home. They were waiting for me.

To make a long story short, the young man does a nice job with his presentation. At the end, he has us on the verge of buying a set of knives that we probably wouldn’t use that often, he says this: "You know, if you want to take a week or so to think about it, I can just call back."

Do I even need to tell you what I did? You got it. I took him up on his offer and took the "out". Suffice it to say that we’re still using the same worn-out set of steak knives that we have for years.

The thing that was his downfall? The same thing as many coaches: He couldn’t overcome the "no". He couldn’t identify the fact that I had some objections that he needed to address, but didn’t. Ultimately, he left without ever having dealt with – and overcome – my objections.

Here’s where you, as a college coach, can learn a few valuable recruiting lessons as you begin to have to face the "no’s" from some of the prospects you really, really want.

Here’s an important truth that I want you to remember when you hear that "no": Their first instinct is to say no, but what they really want is for you to convince them to say yes.

Maybe they think they’re rushing into their decision. Perhaps your team didn’t treat them right on their visit to campus. Or, maybe they still think a better offer from a "better" program is right around the corner.

There are a hundred different reasons why recruits might initially say no to you. Your job is not to shrug and walk away, but to get to the truth behind the no and find out how to re-direct their attention back to you and your program.

When it comes to your recruiting messages and the plan behind it, it’s your copy that must do the job of getting past "no" by overcoming each objection. Here are some ideas that we’ve seen work for our clients:

Before you ask for the big commitment, test out their willingness to engage with you by doing some "trial close" offers. Are they willing to tell you that they are sending in their application? That they plan on sending in a housing deposit? That they want to come and bring their other parent on a campus visit? Those are all good signs that things are heading down the right track. However, you have to be the one to offer them those small "tests" and then see how they answer.
How are you crafting the message behind your offer? Sometimes, re-wording the way you approach the idea of committing to your school works wonders.
In your letters and emails to your prospectse, go ahead and confront the most prevalent objections head on. Don’t be afraid to mention them . . . your prospect has been thinking about them from the moment they started paying attention to you and what you’re offering them.
In addition to your recruiting message, try to get your athletes to tell their story. Do interviews with them and write articles on why they chose your program and what they like about playing for you. What they say will trump your sales pitch every single time.
Make the offer too good to refuse. If you were selling knives, you might do it by offering a guarantee for the life of the product…return it anytime for a full refund. As a college, what are some things that you can do to give your prospect a feeling of confidence in choosing you? They’re looking for safety and comfort in choosing your program…find ways to give it to them.
One last suggestion: Before you ask them to commit, what have you done to help them be better at where they’re at right now as a high school athlete. If you want to give yourself an edge over your lazy competition, find ways to give them help right now and they’ll be more apt to want to stick with you moving forward.

The simple reality is that we all have different buttons that need to be pushed before we buy. When I listen to knife salesmen and have deep-seeded hatred towards anything that will cut meat, and it isn’t because I don’t want the product. I wouldn’t be there if I didn’t.

Instead, I’m secretly trying to find a reason to help me feel good about pulling the trigger. Buying releases endorphins . . . it feels good. So does picking a college where you know you’re going to fit in.

Still, we’ve all learned from bad buying experiences that have left us feeling empty after the initial high wears off. This is where the job of the sales person becomes increasingly important.

You need to not only help your prospects understand and appreciate the need for your school and your individual coaching, but you need to make them feel good about committing to it. This starts from the initial pitch and should continue even after they tell you that you are their top choice.

Like we teach in our two best-selling workbooks for college coaches, don’t be pushy, but don’t be afraid to explore what reasons stand in the way of a final commitment. Have the confidence to stand behind your program when you know that a recruit could benefit from it as a student-athlete. Even if they ultimately still say no, at least you’ve been given the insight of another objection to tackle down the road. Marketing – and recruiting – is a learning process, but you can’t sell yourself short.

And giving up at the first sign of no is doing just that.

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7 Things to Ask AFTER You Lose a ProspectMonday, October 26th, 2009

Asking the right questions A few weeks ago, in the middle of one of our On-Campus Workshops, I reminded the coaches and athletic directors of a particular school that even after sitting through our session and following our direction on how to alter the way recruiting should be approached, they would still lose more prospects than they sign.

Losing is a part of being a college coach. You’re going to lose games, and you’re going to lose recruits. Both hurt.

You can prepare all week long, and sometimes all of your hard work and dedication just isn’t enough to get the win. The same thing holds true for recruiting: Sometimes, your best just isn’t good enough to lure a recruit away from one of your competitors.

I’ve talked a lot about what kind of questions to ask during the recruiting process, but we’ve never talked much about what to ask your prospects after they say "no thanks". Often times, however, the answers to those questions can be even more insightful than the one’s you ask a prospect before they’ve made their final decision.

Why? Because the answers to those questions can help you shape your strategy the next time around…talking to the next recruit…and battling the next competitor for the best talent.

So, what should you be asking the recruit you have just lost? Here’s a short list of seven types of questions to ask (Note: If you are one of our Total Recruiting Solution clients reading this, get with us to discuss customized strategies for your situation).

"What was the biggest factor in choosing that program?" You want to find out the single biggest reason they chose a competitor’s school. Not a list of reasons, the biggest reason. By the way, according to our studies with hundreds of student-athletes over the past three years, their reasons for choosing a school are not usually in line with the reasons coaches see as the way their decision are made. That’s why this is such an important question.
"Tell me about the feelings you had when you met with their coach and visited their school." The answer to this question is most likely the REAL reason they choose that program. The first question you asked? That’s the "logical" answer they are giving…the "smart" answer that will make them sound like something other than the unsure teenager they really are. This second question will get you to the heart of the matter. The answer that they give you to this question will tell you why they really chose your competitor.
"Was there anything that almost made you choose us?" This will give you two valuable pieces of information: Your program’s strongest point in their eyes, and how close you actually came to signing them. This second piece of information might be sobering…many honest prospects will reveal that you weren’t actually in the game at all, even though you thought you were.
"When did you know that our program wasn’t the right fit for you?" You want to find out what it was about their visit or your message that just didn’t connect with them? This question will probably give you some insights.
"So now that you’ve decided, what do you see your first year at ______ being like?" This might tell you what they’ve been promised or told by the other coach. It will also tell you a lot about what this generation of kids responds to in terms of the recruiting messages they choose to believe, and those that they reject.
"What do your parents think about _________ ?" We know that parents play a crucial role in the decision making process. In our recruiting guides for college coaches, we spend a good deal of time talking about how to reach your recruit’s parents because of this very reason. If you can find out what the parents think of you, you’ll get some good direction on how to change your recruiting message.
"If you ever wanted to transfer, would our program be one that you would consider?" They will probably tell you yes, just to be nice. But that’s not the point. I think you should ask this as a way to let them know that you would certainly love to have them on your team if something didn’t work out, and give them a final reminder that you are a program that remains interested in them. Who knows…maybe that change of heart will take place just a few weeks later? I’ve seen it happen, and the program that lets them know that they are welcome even though you weren’t their first choice stands a good chance of getting a surprise signing late in the game.

Consider this process your "autopsy" of the recruiting process that has just ended unsuccessfully. But as with any good analysis, you are going to come away with some incredibly valuable information to use the next time around.

It’s getting late in the recruiting year. Are the results what you expected? More importantly, are the results what you want and need? If the answer is "no", then let us explain what our Total Recruiting Solution program is all about. Here’s what to do…email Dan Tudor at dan@sellingforcoaches.com so we can arrange a time to show you what many other coaches and athletic departments have already discovered.

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Making Your Recruiting Questionnaire Match Your Prospect NeedsSunday, April 26th, 2009

by Sean Devlin, Front Rush

What does your recruit questionnaire say about how you recruit? We spend so much time tailoring our recruiting software to fit our needs that we often overlook the fact that the first interaction we have as college coaches with recruits is our questionnaire. No matter what recruiting contact management software you use, we recommend you look at what your questionnaire looks like to see if it’s matching your recruiting goals.

More Recruits, More Recruits, More Recruits!
Some coaches base their recruiting on the pure number of recruits they get…it is a total numbers game. The more recruits in the system, the more potential athletes.

Recruit Questionnaire: In this scenario, you should set up your form to request as little information as possible. We want this to be simple, easy, and usable. The less information that a recruit has to fill out the more likely he/she will complete the form. Just stick with requiring as few fields as possible and only ask the main stuff (First Name, Last Name, Contact Info, Position, High School, etc.). You can always call or email the recruit later to get the other information you need.

Recruits Need to "Earn" a Spot in My Database
Some coaches want their questionnaire out there for only the recruits who are dedicated to complete—not those who are just filling out this form along with hundreds of others.

Recruit Questionnaire: In this scenario, you should add additional fields for recruits to fill out. We want everything from Contact Info to Favorite Cereal. Require them to fill out a bunch of fields and not just skip through the questionnaire. By the time they are done, it will be like an early morning practice…they may even break a sweat. However, you know that you have a prospect who is really, really interested in your program.

Admissions is the Driver Behind My Recruits
Some coaches are mandated by admissions to obtain specific information about recruits…it may be demographic information or it may be academic information.

Recruit Questionnaire: In this scenario, we should take a good look at what admissions is asking for in their form(s). Let’s copy the fields verbatim…if they ask for SAT II, we should also ask for SAT II. This way–if admissions needs a report on the recruits in your system or if they send you recruits from their software, it will easily translate.

Academics is Everything
Some coaches select first by a recruit’s academic skill set and then by athletics.

Recruit Questionnaire: In this scenario, you should set up your recruiting form to highlight the academic fields. Let’s move the academic section towards the top of the questionnaire. We can put SAT, ACT, SAT II, GPA, etc., at the beginning and maybe go as far as requiring their completion. In addition, we can make them numeric fields so that you can search by your top performers later. You could even make a field an equation in the Front Rush system and require it so that recruits can only submit the form when the question is answered (if you use another company to handle your recruiting database management needs, contact them and see if they can do this for your system that you’re using. It is very helpful for you if academics are your top recruiting criteria).

Blue Chip Athletes Only
Some coaches are bombarded with requests and can only accept top athletic performers. These coaches have databases that are athletically very selective.

Recruit Questionnaire: In this scenario, you should not put the questionnaire on the web. Instead, let’s just put a generic form (if any at all) that the recruit has to print out and mail in. For the recruits that we are truly interested in, you can email them the link to the questionnaire. In this way, you can filter your targeted prime recruits.

Recruiting questionnaires are the lifeblood of most college programs. We recommend that you carefully review what your questionnaire is asking your recruit to do, and make sure that it matches the type of responses – from the right type of prospects – that you are desiring.

Sean Devlin leads the software development team at Front Rush, the nation’s leading web-based contact management system for college coaches. Have questions about how to maximize your recruiting tracking, or just how to improve it? Even if you aren’t a current Front Rush client, you can get advice on how to manage your current database more effectively. Email Sean with questions about your recruiting database and branded communications at sdevlin@frontrush.com, or visit them at www.FrontRush.com today.

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How to Ask “Super Qualifying” QuestionsMonday, April 9th, 2007

If you’ve seen the movie "Jerry McGuire," you’ll remember this scene.

Jerry, a pro sports agent played by Tom Cruise, is at a crucial point in his "recruitment" of the star #1 draft pick that is being courted by a rival agency that fired Jerry earlier in the movie. Jerry is the hotel room of the star and his father. Jerry, through a phone call from the rival, finds out that his million-dollar superstar made a commitment with his rival even after the father promises Jerry that they’ll sign with him earlier in the story.

If you’ve seen the movie, do you remember the pain on Jerry’s face as he realizes that he’s just been undercut by his rival and lied to by his would-be client? That was the only time in cinematic history that I’ve seen an actor smiling from ear-to-ear to keep a straight face, while the blood vessels in his forehead were bulging out under beads of sweat. It was a classic scene.

If you’ve been recruiting at the college level for a while, you’ve probably experienced a similarly frustrating incident: You’ve been working your rear end off trying to get a commitment from a prospect. Phone calls. E-mails. Maybe even a personal visit. In your heart, you think you’ve got the prospect. The prospect may have even told you that they were going to commit to your school. "It’s a done deal" you think. And then it happens. You find out that your prospect that you’ve worked so hard for just committed to another school.

You probably looked a lot like Jerry McGuire when that happened.

How do you prevent something like that from happening again? I mean, we’re getting very close to commitment dates for a lot of sports…you, as a coach, have put a lot of work into your recruiting class. Months of hard work, perhaps. Is there anything that you can do that will guarantee that your prospect won’t turn his or her back on you and sign on with your rival?

Well, nothing is "guaranteed." But there is a type of question that you can ask that will really cement a prospect’s commitment with you and get you inside their head during this crucial time.

It’s what I call a "super-qualifying question." It goes a little deeper than the basic "qualifying questions" that we’ve talked about in our book for recruiters, "Selling for Coaches". It basically is a question that assumes commitment, and then takes it a step further by asking the prospect to tell you how they’re going to handle other schools that are recruiting them.

Here are some quick examples:

"How do you think the other coach will counter when they find out you have committed to us?"

"What will you do if the other programs try to counter with {fill-in-the-blank-offer}?"

"What will your parents do when the other program counters with {fill-in-the-blank-offer}?"

"Do you believe that the agreement you have with us is the best agreement that you can make for yourself and your college education / playing career?"

Powerful. Simple. Very, very effective.

Will it "guarantee" a commitment from your prospect? No. Nothing can do that short of a signed letter of intent. But these questions will force your prospect to do one of two things: Lie to your face (difficult to do in this instance, don’t you think?), or be very honest with you.

Try it the next time you’re feeling like you’re in a "Jerry McGuire moment" with one of your prospects.

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Dan Tudor

Asking for the Commitment Without Really Asking for the CommitmentMonday, November 14th, 2011

Strategies for Combating the Too-Close-To-Home ObjectionMonday, August 15th, 2011

A Simple Question That Gets a Better ResponseMonday, August 1st, 2011

Getting Past Your Prospect’s NoSunday, January 10th, 2010

7 Things to Ask AFTER You Lose a ProspectMonday, October 26th, 2009

Making Your Recruiting Questionnaire Match Your Prospect NeedsSunday, April 26th, 2009

How to Ask “Super Qualifying” QuestionsMonday, April 9th, 2007

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Dan Tudor

Asking for the Commitment Without Really Asking for the CommitmentMonday, November 14th, 2011

Strategies for Combating the Too-Close-To-Home ObjectionMonday, August 15th, 2011

A Simple Question That Gets a Better ResponseMonday, August 1st, 2011

Getting Past Your Prospect’s NoSunday, January 10th, 2010

7 Things to Ask AFTER You Lose a ProspectMonday, October 26th, 2009

Making Your Recruiting Questionnaire Match Your Prospect NeedsSunday, April 26th, 2009

How to Ask “Super Qualifying” QuestionsMonday, April 9th, 2007

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