It isn’t always about the money, Coach.
Your athletes – the kids you are recruiting – will choose you even if you aren’t offering a full ride scholarship.
I bring this up because I’ve had a string of e-mails and phone calls the past few weeks from coaches at schools I have had on-campus training sessions with, as well as some of our SFC Premium Members, who are worried about situations at their programs that are becoming all too familiar:
- A D3 college just raised tuitions and cut the amount we can award them. How do they compete against other schools that can offer them more?
- The D1 track program that can only offer partial scholarships and academic awards, and is struggling to compete with their better-funded rivals.
- An assistant Athletic Director who is about to tell his coaching staff that their school’s tuition is going up by $7,000 next year and they can now only accept student-athletes with a minimum 3.4 grade point average.
- A Midwest D1 football program that can offer full ride scholarships, but recruit athletes that are getting other full ride offers. Their scholarship offer is “nothing special” to the recruits they are trying to sign, according to their recruiting coordinator.
There’s a danger in playing what I call “the money game” with your prospects. For one thing, you 
reduce their decision to a price tag. That’s never a smart move when it comes to selling (or recruiting) because it’s easy to say no to if you’re the prospect. “Your school is $3000 more expensive than the other guys down the road? You won’t (or can’t) match it by coming down in price? We’re signing with them.”
Secondly, you take the emotional reasons someone would choose your program out of the equation. If it’s all about price, the look, the feel, the friendliness, the ideal athletic fit…all of it goes out the window. Now it’s a dollars and cents decision on their part: Great if you’re the school that can offer the full ride no matter what the situation, not so great if you have limited funds (or no funds) to offer.
Lastly, you cheapen yourself by becoming a true blue died-in-the-wool salesperson that’s going to focus on the price. Picture yourself on the car lot when the salesman asks you with all the slickness he can muster, “So tell me, what is it we’re going to have to do so that you can drive this beauty off the lot tonight?” Do you have that mental image burned in your mind? Great. You are “that guy” when you focus on price with your prospect and their parents.
Look, I’m not naïve. I know that a full ride scholarship is a powerful tool, and if you’ve got that weapon in your arsenal than you have a tremendous advantage. But don’t think that other less-funded programs can’t steal your best prospects away from you. They can. In a growing number of cases, I’ve taught them how to do it.
If you don’t have a full ride to offer, or have limited financial resources to offer your prospects that you want in uniform at your school, here’s what you should do:
Believe that your product is the best choice for your prospect. Sounds basic, I know, but when I lead On-Campus workshops at colleges it amazes me how many coaches don’t want to present their programs as the best possible choice for their prospect. In some instances, I get the sense that a coach almost has guilt over the thought of convincing an athlete that they would love the school and the program. Snap out of it, Coach. Believe in where you’re at, what you can offer (instead of what you can’t) and be passionate about your program.
Focus on what you can offer them, instead of what you can’t. Our study of this year’s top prospects showed you that many other factors rank ahead of money in terms of top factors for how they choose a school. How your team treats them on their campus visit, what their parents say about the program, and other non-monetary factors play a huge part in choosing a school. Are you directing your conversation with athletes back to those factors?
Frame the decision making process for your prospect. If you are a SFC Premium Member, I’m going to go into more detail on this one aspect of this strategy later this week. But in summary, what I’m talking about doing here is making sure your prospect and his or her parents aren’t using money as the final determinant of where they will compete in college. I think it’s fair to ask them, for example, “Is it smart to make a decision that will effect the next 40 or 50 years of your professional life on who has the lowest price tag?” Or, “If I could show you why we’re more like a BMW instead of a Ford, and why that should be a huge part of the decision for you, would you think seriously about playing and going to school here?” (Disclosure: I drive a Ford, so no angry e-mails complaining that I’m bashing that make of automobiles!)
Focus on the feeling. Whenever you read about athletes who have signed with a school, you’ll usually hear them say something like “I just felt comfortable there with coach so-and-so and her team” or “They made me feel great on my campus visit.” It’s never “Dude, Coach Smith just totally out-bid everyone else. They broke the bank for me!” The school that does the right things to create positive, memorable feelings for the recruits that visit their campus, talk to their coaches, and see their program in action will win the athlete. Maybe not every time, but certainly most of the time.
Ready for some more tough love, Coach?
Here it comes: The money excuse is a crutch. It gives some coaches an excuse for not recruiting with passion for every possible athlete, every time. It’s permission to quit trying. Meanwhile, just in the last three months I’ve seen smart, positive coaches from under-funded schools at all division levels beat their big school rivals for D1 caliber recruits that they should have no business signing.
How are they doing it? By not playing “the money game.”
It’s a game that’s hard to win, and one that most of your recruits don’t want to play anyway.
