Having eaten my share of airport restaurants breakfasts over the last two decades, allow me to make an observation:
There isn’t anything remarkable out any of them.
In some respects, that’s fine, because you’re usually eating an airport breakfast in between flights, or during a delay. There isn’t much variation from airport restaurant to airport restaurant, and it doesn’t require much thinking to know what to order I’m a creature of habit, so I usually stumble into ordering “the classic breakfast” or whatever that particular restaurant calls it.
Can I give you an important recruiting lesson from this observation?
Here it is:
Without anything else to judge it on, we’ll usually opt for what is safe, and what is known.
The program that won a championship last year, or the one that’s closest to home (or the one that’s farthest away)…your prospects are constantly being pulled into making the safe choice.
Don’t believe me? How many times has a prospect told you they aren’t coming to compete for you, and that they “just” want to stay close to home…or that they “just” wanted to take the offer that was $1,000 more than your offer.
When they use the word “just’ it’s a signal that they are struggling to find a significant difference in what you offer versus what another competing program is offering. And when I say ‘offering’, I’m not talking about money necessarily…I’m talking about the entire composition of how they’re viewing you: Your program, your coaching staff, the degree, the location…everything.
Your goal? Get them away from using this dangerously poor methodology for making a decision.
Here are two proven strategies to turn their attention to you, if you happen to be defined as the risky choice in their eyes:
Give them a detailed outline of the right way to make this decision. If we’re agreeing that they are tempted to make a safe choice much of the time, let’s also agree that they’re doing it that way because they don’t have a better alternative plan (and how would they?…they’ve never been through this process before).
What they need is for you to outline an alternative way to make this challenging decision. Explain that they need to make their decision differently, and how – and when you get to the ‘how’ part, suggest decision making points that would highlight your campus and your program favorably. Your job is to guide them to your college, help them along – and use some logic that matches your strong points to get that done.
And by the way, doing this earlier in the process instead of later in the process is strongly recommended. The more they and their parents have to think about it and discuss it amongst themselves and with you, the better.
Tell them how they should think about those strong points you tell them about. Don’t merely show them what you have or list the features of your college and campus, explain the why behind their benefits, and what the prospect should think about it. Define them for your recruits – literally offer-up a meaning for each benefit, and explain how they should view that benefit.
For example, if your campus is located in a city setting and tends to be viewed as something other than a typical, traditional college campus by most recruits, explain that they should view the campus’ location as a positive: “One of the reasons you should want to come here is where we’re located. It’s a huge positive for our players, because we’re able to give them incredible internship opportunities that most other schools just can’t match. Remember that! It’s one of the big reasons you should choose us.”
Two simple strategies to help your prospects overcome one big recruiting hurdle: Defining one of their choices as being better than the other, and understanding why they should view it as better.
It’s imperative that they get help from you in defining the reasons behind the decisions they make.
Making your case to recruits is one of the essential components of bringing in a new class for your program. If your approach isn’t gaining the mind of results you’ve been hoping for, we have a team of pros that can work one-on-one with you and your staff to design a comprehensive approach to messaging the right way, and giving your recruits the reasons they need to to justify you as their top choice. Click here or email us at dan@dantudor.com to set up a conversation about how it would work for you based on your unique situation.