Dan Tudor

When it comes to selling and interpersonal relationships, the master of them all is Dale Carnegie.

Even if you’ve never read his legendary business books, you probably have heard of one of his most famous titles: “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  It is considered one of the foundational texts of sales and communication best practices in the business world.

Is there a way to apply his principles into your recruiting efforts?  You bet.

Here are the first three of his six famous principles, with some slight adjustments for college coaches and their recruiting needs:

PRINCIPLE #1: Become Genuinely Interested in Other People

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  And yet, for many of today’s college recruiters, this is the one that is the most difficult – or certainly the most frustrating. 

The primary reason this develops into a rather large hurdle for many coaches is because of the two conflicting points of view: Recruits want to get to know you and aren’t in a hurry to do it.  You, on the other hand, have deadlines and decisions you are juggling.  You have three scholarships to give, and eight prospects you are recruiting. 

These two totally different perspectives make it hard to really invest in becoming genuinely interested.  Challenging, but not impossible.  Some ways to show that you are genuinely interested in them that they will take note of?  One of the biggest ways is to send your recruits short, hand-written notes that are specifically about them.  Another way is to spend the first five minutes of your next phone conversation asking them about something personal, but not athletics related.  Their dad’s new job…the upcoming vacation their family is going to take…anything that allows you to ask open-ended questions that don’t “sell” your school or sound like the same questions you’ve asked your other twenty recruits.

PRINCIPLE #2:  Smile

Why was a smile so important to Dale Carnegie?  Because it changes attitudes and affects people’s outlook and opinion of you.

I dug-up some really interesting studies that have been done on “effective smiling” in researching for this article.  The most interesting was a study done in 2007 which found smiles that are viewed as authentic tended strongly to be those that were long and sustained.  It also found that tilting your head while producing that kind of smile strongly gives the impression that you are genuinely interested in the other person, and you are viewed as more trustworthy by the other person.

The study also found that men who produced long, sustained smiles were judged more authentic than women who did the same.  However, females were found to be the better judges of which individuals were “faking” a smile and which ones were genuine.

Minor stuff?  Maybe.  But when we are asked by athletic directors and coaches to come to their campus and train them on the latest effective recruiting techniques, those staffs are usually interested in the little things that can set them apart from their competition.  Consider this one of those little things that might just connect with prospects you are recruiting.

PRINCIPLE #3:  Remember That a Person’s Name is to That Person the Sweetest and Most Important Sound in Any Language

The reason?  We want to feel important, and hearing your own name from someone else’s lips is satisfying and ego-boosting.  Plus, psychologists say that it creates a feeling of connecting with the person that is saying your name back to you.

This principle is simple to put into practice during your recruiting.  For example, one of the things we strongly suggest to coaches we are helping plan and execute their recruiting campaigns is to try and use the prospect’s name at least two or three times in every email or letter.  When you are speaking with that person – especially over the phone – reply to their questions by starting with their name: “Jason, I think what you are going to like most about our business school is…”  Say their name as much as possible.

These three principles are part of the foundation of selling and relating to people developed by the undisputed expert of personal selling and relationships, Dale Carnegie.  They’ve been a foundation for successful companies throughout our country, and they can work for you as a recruiter, too.

Another way to master the fundamentals of recruiting this generation of athletes?  Read our ground-breaking study of how today’s prospects make their final decision, and our recruiting workbooks for college coaches on mastering the latest recruiting techniques.  They’ve helped hundreds of college recruiters become better with their interactions with today’s teenage prospects!

Being original, and creative in your message development as a coach, can be exhausting.

I know it, and you know it.  That’s why it’s so easy to just revert to what you’ve done in the past with your recruiting letters and your recruiting emails.  Recycling your past messages saves a heck of a lot of time, after all.

That’s true, but it also puts you in the risky position of losing your prospect’s attention and not engaging him or her in a real connective message.  If your message looks and sounds like everyone else’s message, why should they choose you?  It’s hard to get the “yes” if your message doesn’t set itself apart from the rest.

With that in mind, I pulled-up four easy-to-use strategies to start the Summer off for you.  They were originally developed for a struggling D1 college football program almost three years ago.  These tips, coupled with time we spent on their campus for their coaches, helped to turn their recruiting around (this year, they just missed out going to a bowl game…but they’re much closer to making it happen than before).

I think any coach, at any level, can use these to become more persuasive, more genuine recruiters:

• Tell more stories about failure.  Most home recruiting visits consist of boasting, bragging, or tearing down a competitor.  Coaches we start to work with seem to want to cram as many success stories down the throat of their prospects as possible when they get the chance to get in front of them via letter, email or personal visit. 

So, the first recommendation that I’ll make is to tell stories of athletes that have failed at your school – IF that failure was the result of a poor choice they made or advice that wasn’t followed during their time under you as their coach.  Telling a story about failure can enhance your credibility, and let the athlete know that you’re being honest with them in what mistakes not to make once they commit to your program.  Honesty, as I’ve been telling coaches this week during our On-Campus Workshops we’ve been doing for college athletic departments, is one of the key things prospects actively look for in a coach and their program. 

One more word of advice: Make sure not to use the real names of athletes that are the subject of your failure stories…your prospect will want to know that you’ll keep their mistakes and failures confidential if they occur once they get to your program.

• “Understate” rather than “Overstate”.  Instead of making promises of stardom and glory and happily-ever-after, present a range of possibilities that might happen in the athlete’s career at your school. 

Don’t promise them the starting job; instead, let them know what kind of competition they’ll face along with the promise of an equal shot at the job.  In general, make promises on the minimums you can deliver to your prospect.  You know what will happen?  Something really interesting…your prospect will “add to” your minimum promise in their mind, instead of “discount” your pie-in-the-sky promises that are too good to be true – that’s human nature, coach.

• Never feel bad about taking the “underdog” role.  Why?  People (even your prospects and their parents) have a tendancy to root for the underdog IF a compelling story is presented that builds the case for them joining your quest to build a champion.  Too many coaches I talk to are ready to jump off of the gym roof if they finish last in their conference or take over a struggling program. 

Instead of shying away from being the underdog, embrace it!  But do so with the right approach and the right motivation for your prospect to “join the revolution” and becoming a champion.  Need help with developing your story?  Click here…we’d love to help you. 

• Plant questions you’d like your competitors to address.  Attacking your competitors directly comes off as petty and unprofessional (like I said before, it loses more prospects than you probably realize).  But during your conversation with your prospect, you can bring up issues, questions or topics that would raise doubts about your competitors.  This is a good, subtle way of planting questions in the mind of your prospect that they’ll want to raise if and when they talk to a competitive school that would recruit them.  Done correctly, this is a great technique for raising your stock in the mind of your prospect.  We go into a lot of detail on how to do this in our two recruiting workbooks for college recruiters.

Persuasive recruiting happens when you have a plan in place, and you execute that plan.  These are just a few of the many techniques you can use to break out of the recruiting doldrums, and do it in a way that propels your recruiting results to levels that would really surprise you.

Look, we all know recruiting at the college level is stressful, competitive and confusing.  Being more persuasive is the great equalizer…it doesn’t cost more, it doesn’t reward longevity, it doesn’t discriminate based on division level.  Learning to be persuasive is the greatest tool you can develop as a college recruiter.

Start with these four principles, and grow from there.

During this Summer break, consider becoming a client of Tudor Collegiate Strategies.  We’ve done some really exciting things for the coaches we’ve worked with this past year…click here for more information!

Phone calls seem to be on the minds of college coaches recently. 

Not a surprise, really.  The NCAA is giving coaches more flexibility when it comes to calling recruits, and there’s no doubt that a phone call is critical to moving the recruiting process forward.

Forward, that is, towards getting a “yes”.  The yes is what every coach is looking for, and there are definite rules that apply when it comes to putting yourself in the best position to get that thumbs-up from a recruit.

So with that in mind, here are three really important strategies when it comes to getting a “yes” from a prospect you are recruiting:

YES STRATEGY #1: Don’t react negatively

We’ve all sent an email, or said something in haste over the phone, that we wish we could take back.  Either we’re upset by what we’ve just heard, or we say something that just doesn’t put us in the best light with a recruit (or their parents) as the recruiting process gets started. 

It doesn’t even have to do anything with recruiting…we’ve all overreacted to something trivial, and wish we could take it all back and start fresh.

What it means to your recruiting conversation: It’s great to feel passionate about what you’re selling, especially if your school or program has a lot to be proud of. But before launching into a feverish sales “rationale” with your teenage prospect or their parents, take a minute to figure out what your prospect really wants. Some prospects want security and might be looking to commit early, while others might like the excitement of trying to see how many top tier schools they can have a shot at. They might want a challenge, they might want to feel wanted, they might want to know that they will fit into your team dynamic.

What is it you’re really selling, Coach? Is it what you should be selling to that prospect you’re about to call for the first time? Know before you get started. For this generation of college prospect, it’s often something more or deeper than the thing you’re excited about. And sometimes, it’s less.

YES STRATEGY #2: Disarm Your Prospect

In recruiting, we’re not really talking about “opponents” in terms of how you might view your recruits (their parents, perhaps…just kidding).  The prospect and their parents are not your enemy. And in a negotiation about what you’re offering them at your program you’re better off thinking the same way. That is, instead of looking at the recruiting process as two sides facing off over the offer you’re making, you’ll get much better results if you “step to the other side.” In other words, do the opposite of what your recruit expects.

And the easiest way to do this? Simply agree with your “opponent” on as many points as you can. Build consensus first, before you try to defend a single counterpoint of your own. Most negotiation experts tell us the best negotiators even steer clear of using the word “but.” They instinctively replace it with “and” wherever possible.

What it means to your recruiting conversation: This is a lot like what we’re doing in our Total Recruiting Solution plans that we develop for coaches when we try to ask questions designed only for a “yes” response. For instance, stating our prospect’s own rationale right back to him and tacking on a line at the end – something that might sound like, “Wouldn’t you agree?”

These are just copywriting tricks, of course. The bigger idea is that when you can show agreement with your prospect’s own opinions – in person, over the phone or in print – do so. It will pay off in the end.

YES STRATEGY #3:  Change their frame of mind.

This is a more advanced tactic, because it requires listening better than most people and thinking more creatively than anyone else in the negotiation. Its one of the things we go into more detail on in our recruiting guides for college coaches.

What you’re doing is looking for solid ways to “reframe” the objections to your counterpoint in the discussion you are having with your prospect. You’re actively exposing the objections and stonewall tactics… then finding a way for both of you to get around them.

This is where a real recruiter shows his or her expertise in overcoming an objection.

What it means to your recruiting conversation: As tough as this is to do, the parallel here is easy. Too often, I’ve seen new college coaches try to avoid the prospect’s potential objections to an offer or opportunity rather than raising them in their recruiting letters, emails and conversations. But just because you don’t confront the reader’s doubts or objections doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Or that they won’t stop your recruiting effort cold in its tracks.

When you get the urge to sneak around an objection, don’t. Especially at the start of a relationship with a new recruit.  Take time to actually list every objection you can. (Even better, make this list before you start writing the recruiting letter.) You’re playing your own devil’s advocate, coming up with every reason why a prospect might NOT want to take a serious look at your program.

Once you’ve got this list, you can use it to tweak your recruiting outline. You can even hit each objection head on, writing responses almost in a Q & A style. Or try making every subhead a persuasive resolution to every doubt you suspect your prospect might have about what your program is offering.

But be careful. This isn’t about dismissing a legitimate objection out of hand. Rather, you’re easing doubts and building consensus, and getting them to see the advantages of what you’re offering them.

As many of you start your phone calls in the not-to-distant future, you have a desire to start hearing “yes” as soon as possible.  That doesn’t happen by accident:  You have to earn the “yes”.

And, earning the “yes” from a new prospect requires active, engaged communication that helps them overcome their initial objections they might have about the idea of competing for your program.