by Paul Nemetz-Carlson, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
In recruiting, coaches are constantly fighting for the hearts and minds of an unpredictable generation. It’s a competitive business that relies on emotional decision-makers trying to sort through mountains of logically presented information.
Know that when you understand how recruits make decisions and how to get them to make those decisions on your timeline – you feel more in control and confident in your recruiting plan. Success comes from telling a compelling story – delivered consistently – that explains why your program is the right one and why it’s better than the recruit’s other options.
In my experience, I’ve found that most coaches are only one to two small adjustments away from dramatically changing their results. My hope as I continue to share ideas is that one of them sparks the conversation that identifies the right tweaks for your program.
For the past year, I’ve been sharing an edited list of tips every few months to help coaches refine and improve their message. Here is the third version. It’s 20 of the better ideas I’ve offered each morning over the last three months on my @PNC_777 Twitter account as my “Recruiting Tip of the Day.”
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The Basics:
- Recruiting is about identifying, contacting, and selling your prospect on what makes your program better than their other options. Spend time on all three areas – evaluation, creating ways to connect, and consistently telling a compelling story.
- There are two sides to every recruiting relationship. Two understandings of the process. Two sets of fears and concerns. When you understand the rules for both sides – recruiting gets easier and you get better results.
- Your athletic recruiting process is DIFFERENT than your institutional admissions process. The best coaches outline it in a way that works for their program and explains to their prospects WHY that’s a better approach.
- Better results come from better direction. Coaches who properly set, communicate, and stick to a DEADLINE gain control over the process and win more recruiting battles.
The Most Liked:
- Recruits continue to choose the school that wants them the most. Don’t let them try to figure it out – verbalize it, repeat it, and back it up by consistently showing up.
- Most prospects start by talking to a lot of schools. Your job is to help them trim that list. Stay on the list by consistently telling a compelling story. Or get off it by asking the right questions that determine you’re a poor fit.
- Quite often your recruiting story is trying to provide a vision of 3 years in the future to people that perceive you as you were 3 years ago. Success comes when your recruits believe your version of HOW and WHY that future will become a reality.
- You control whether parents are either your biggest asset or your biggest obstacle. When you engage them early – and provide answers to their questions – you create an advocate that will help you identify and overcome prospect objections.
Consistently Showing Up:
- The best kids have options and they often don’t manage the process very well. Recognize it’s not always the first call that sells them, but the repeated showing up that moves them to a point where they’re ready to actually listen to your story.
- Sometimes the best strategy is to just keep calling after the other coaches have stopped. Proving you care more, you want prospects more, and you’re more investing in their success is always the most compelling recruiting pitch.
- The recruiting process doesn’t start on the first contact day. And it doesn’t end on the day of a commitment. It’s an ongoing effort that includes the work before you know a recruit and continues after they decide to join your program.
- You probably spend a lot of time editing emails, letters, and social media posts. Success isn’t the perfect message that changes a recruit’s mind, it’s showing up consistently, building trust, and capturing a recruit’s heart.
Social Media:
- Social media isn’t just a thing you do, it’s a thoughtful strategy. To be effective – it requires a plan that uses the right platforms to meet recruits where they are – strengthening the emotional connection they hope to make with your program.
- Give your social content purpose. You may like Facebook and Twitter, but your recruits use Instagram and Snap. If you want to create something effective today, meet them where they are and give them the behind the scenes Insta Story.
- The easiest social media recruiting story is the celebration of an upset or big victory. The hardest, yet most important, is the consistent telling and retelling of what it’s like to be a part of your program on a daily basis.
- What you do after recruits commit matters because you have to feed their need to believe they’ve made a great decision. Fortunately, if you have a smart social strategy for fans you already have a plan in place that speaks directly to this need.
The Importance of Personalization:
- The most effective recruiting plans have a big picture approach to engage a qualified pool, directed conversations to pare it down, and deliver a highly personalized message to the best fits to get them to choose you.
- Recruiting is both marketing (a message for many) and sales (a message for one). To be successful – attack it like you coach your team. Have a big group vision and a plan for each individual.
- The reason you see the chrome, neon, and infinite uniform combos is because programs are chasing recruits’ desire to feel unique and special. It doesn’t have to be uniforms, but you need to acknowledge IT somewhere in your recruiting story.
- Recognize you will spend a lot of time trying to help your prospects realize your level and program will – in fact – match their college athletic dreams. Embrace it and stay committed to telling your story!
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I hope there was something in this version that helps you improve your story and how you’re telling it.
Over the past 20+ years being involved in college athletics, I’m constantly reminded – in a conversation, an experience, or a moment of reflection – that we’re all so lucky to be in the dream business. And that recruiting, at its core, is finding new ways to tell the right story to the right individuals, matching their hopes and dreams with your reality.
Thanks for letting me continue to be a part of your professional journeys and your daily efforts to support the dreams of others.
Be Distinct. Be Different.
Paul Nemetz-Carlson is a former Division I coach and Director of Operations who is one of the key advisors and consultants at Tudor Collegiate Strategies, helping our roster of clients to be more effective in their recruiting approach. For more information on all the ways TCS helps the college coaching community, click here.