If you’re a college recruiter who is regularly trying to overcome the cost of your college with your prospect, I give you the $7.50 bottle of water.
When I checked into my hotel room, there is was…waiting for me (and my wallet).
I am old enough to remember when bottled water was a novelty. In fact, it was a joke. “Yeah right”, I remember thinking back in the olden days, “pay for water I could get for free from the faucet? Good luck with that scam.”
A few decades later, the joke’s on me. Bottled water is the norm. So much so that there were actually a few moments when I considered breaking the seal of the hotel bottled water, and adding the $7.50 onto my room bill.
So, how did I get to this point? How did I almost drink a $7.50 bottle of water when I once considered it highway robbery?
If you can answer that question, then you’re on your way to figuring out the formula for selling the cost of your program, or not being able to offer a full scholarship, to your recruits.
I can barely figure out my own motives for almost drinking a bottle of water that would equal a few gallons of gas in cost, so I’m not about to suggest that there is a blanket one-size-fits-all strategy or set of answers that will work in every situation. But I think I do have a good understanding of how our human nature works, and after seeing several hundred recruiting scenarios up-close and personal with the cost of a college at the core of a discussion between coaches and the parents and athlete, I have come up with some solid ideas on why I believe you can win this particular conversation with your recruits.
Or, in other words, how to get your recruits (and their parents) to take a sip of your $7.50 bottle of water:
First, accept the fact that some people aren’t going to drink your $7.50 bottle of water. Either they can’t afford it, or they know they can get it cheaper (or for free) somewhere else. If you aren’t ready to walk away from a prospect because they just aren’t buying the idea of paying a significant sum for your water, that probably means you aren’t seriously recruiting enough good prospects. If you had an over-abundance of top tier recruits, you wouldn’t care if they weren’t interested in your expensive water. If that’s not the case with you, it’s time to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re recruiting enough really good athletes.
You can change the paradigm with repeated exposure. Remember the first time you saw a bottle of water for sale in a hotel room? You probably rolled your eyes like I did. Fast forward to today. Now, when you see a bottle of water in a hotel room, not only is it not an oddity, it’s something you probably treat yourself to during your stay. What happened? Repeated exposure. You’ve come to accept it as “acceptable”. So, how do you use this principle to improve your recruiting argument? Repeated exposure. You need to tell your recruits, through repeated messaging on a consistent basis, why it would be smart to invest in your college and your program. Not enough coaches do that the right way, and it shows in the number of kids (and parents) that choose “cheaper” over the best choice.
We’ve been told what to think. Bottled water is cleaner, more purified, more convenient and better tasting, right? Sometimes, yes. Much of the time, no. But we’ve given up thinking on our own when it comes to bottled water. Water bottlers have told us that it’s better, and why. My favorite bottled water is Dasani, which is bottled by CocaCola. That refreshingly clean looking blue bottle with the little water droplets on the bottle made from formed plastic – as well as that pinch of salt they add for flavoring – make it number one for me. They have told me how to think about in the way it looks, the way it tastes, and the way it’s presented. So, Coach…how good of a job are you doing with your recruits in telling them how to think about your bottled water in the way you and your program looks, the way it feels, and the way you present it? Make sure you have an answer to those three questions, Coach. And make a point of telling them what to think.
Understand that they might have the money, but just aren’t sure they want to spend it on your water. Did I have $7.50 to spend on water? Sure I did. I ended up paying $12 for a bowl of oatmeal the next morning at the hotel’s over-priced cafe, so the money wasn’t an issue. It’s just that I didn’t want to pay the $7.50 for water. See the distinction? So when you hear a family talk about not being able to afford your school, or how they just can’t compete for you unless you cover more of their scholarship, understand that they are probably making car payments, house payments, and may even take nice vacations a few times a year. Furthermore, if that bigger brand school offered a walk-on spot for them at the last minute, chances are they’ll be able to somehow make the sacrifice and pony-up the cash for that college experience. I’ll say it again: More times than you think your prospect has the money, they just don’t want to spend it on you. (So, what can you tell them consistently and creatively that get them to cost-justify the expense in their mind?)
There are some big things they DON’T care about when it comes to your bottled water. The vast majority of the time, they don’t care about how many bottles you sold last year, the quality of the facility that it was bottled in, who else is drinking it, or even how convenient it is for them to access the water. In the same way, most recruits – according to our ongoing research – won’t make their decision based on your facility, your record, who else is on your team, or how big your campus is. It’s about how you relate to them as their coach and if you are consistent in the way you communicate why they should choose your program over others, and if they feel like they are a fit in your program based on the plan that you outline for them (or that they outline for themselves). Are you focusing on the stuff that they don’t care about, or those two big ideas that we know matters most to them? That’s a serious question, Coach.
Like I said, that’s not an exhaustive list. And I’m not conceding the idea that once in a while, a prospect is going to say your facility just wasn’t as good as the other program recruiting them (they’re more than likely just using it as an excuse to cover-up another real objection, but that’s another topic for another day). However, these core ideas on “why they aren’t drinking your bottled water” are proving to be reliable indicators for us as we work one-on-one with coaching staffs in their recruiting approaches.
So, if it’s working for us, we’re pretty confident that it will work for you, too. If, that is, you can formulate answers for those questions we know pop into your prospects’ minds as they consider whether or not to drink your very expensive $7.50 bottle of water.
Want personalized help in creating a proven marketing plan to increase the number of recruits who will want to drink your bottled water? Let us help. CLICK HERE to see us explain the client option that coaches around the country are using for better recruiting results.