by Paul Nemetz-Carlson, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
At its very core, recruiting is a promise.
A promise of the future – what it looks like, what it will feel like, and the expected role each recruit will play in that picture of success. A promise of an experience – a combination of an engaging, rewarding academic and athletic journey that provides each recruit an opportunity to learn, grow, and better themselves. A promise of outcomes – a valuable degree and playing career that opens doors to a brighter future.
Recruiting is a promise of what comes next and an explanation of why someone would want to be a part of it.
But you know as you manage an uncertain fall with distance or disrupted learning, limited evaluation opportunities, and daily professional challenges, the pandemic has presented a dilemma for college coaches. You’ve been asked to sell the future without talking about the now.
Because your future classes – aren’t signing up for the current reality.
They’re not signing up for remote learning, virtual meetings, and dorm isolation. They’re not signing up for small group individual skills sessions, split team functions, or competition-less seasons. They’re probably not even really excited about some of the early return-to-sport plans seen on campuses across the country.
They’re signing up for the original promise of their dream – the promise of complete college athletic experience. Your recruits are big thinkers, dreamers – of a generation where things have always worked out and expect it to work out for them.
Coaches, don’t get trapped and too caught up in the now. While many colleagues pause and become increasingly frustrated with their situations, if you want to win recruits over your competitors, shape your recruiting around that return to a sense of normalcy. Keep telling a story of a re-imagined future.
The great news – your recruits are also not currently on campus and you don’t have to convince them that your institution’s plan for this fall is best for them. You have to provide a clear explanation of why your FUTURE is best for them. Even if some health measures and limitations remain, the fall of 2021 experience – if the concept of residential colleges with athletics is sustainable – will be vastly different.
The other great news – coaches do this all the time. Every great recruiting story is part aspirational. It speaks to where you’re going and why a recruit would want to be a part of that future. It explains why they’d want to join a first year 3-26-5 program in the hope it would eventually become the 30-3-5 conference champion. [I was on both staffs – trust me – the second one is much more fun to talk about.]
The only difference is now with all the bad things that have happened in college sports over the last six months, the future cannot be assumed, it needs to be defined and re-defined. For many without games and competition getting in the way, the bonus is that all parts of your story can be internally driven. That is to say, completely under your control as a coach. This year’s recruiting message needs to be delivered with an understanding of the now, but presented with an optimistic, realistic view of the future. It needs to be adapted and re-imagined.
Start with the difficult questions. Be prepared to answer the ones that are most pressing. Our research says right now you need to understand the cost, the value, and outcomes of your student-athlete experience. Our experience says you need to be clear on your institutional policy and what your institution is doing to support and teach your students that meets both their safety and educational expectations.
You have to have answers for where athletics fits in your institutional model and clarity around your role as a coach in the journey. You have to answer what makes your program unique and worth joining. In today’s climate you should be able to confidently answer why they should even be paying for an education at your school in the first place.
Next, think about your visits. Whether you have the ability to bring students to campus right now or not, we can all agree the campus visit rules and restrictions create a less than ideal environment. What visitors now see and experience does not match their vision of campus life and college athletics has been or should be. Does the benefit of being there outweigh the reality of what they see?
For many it makes sense to postpone or pause visits. Or, because there are so many unknowns remain about when and if visits will return, it would be more realistic to re-educate recruits on the role they play in the decision process. We find that visits actually no longer serve as the source of information – with so many virtual tours and so much information available on the internet – but as confirmation of a feeling they’ve developed during the recruiting process.
Re-orient a prospect’s understanding of how they get that feeling. Explain WHY you need to change the process at your school. It’s not normal NOW, but you really want them to visit when it is. Provide them the pictures/interim experiences they need and tell them how much they WILL love it. Many recruits this year are making decisions without visits because coaches are asking them to make them, knowing that when commits arrive on campus for the first time on that delayed visit they are already convinced they’ll love it and they hold their commitment.
Then, get personal. Understand that the pandemic recruiting environment has activated the fear and anxiety of the next few recruiting classes. Be prepared to provide individual solutions to individual problems. Asking about fear and helping them with answers shows you care and are invested in them. It helps break ties and get more recruits to choose you.
This generation of recruits will be asking different questions. Just look at the NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) debate and how many of the best recruiters are already responding. As recruits ask questions beyond your individual plan for their athletic development – what will you do to help them build their personal brand, their image on social media, and post-collegiate options – colleges are heavily investing in brand development programs and individualized graphics.
The personalization of your big picture recruiting story differentiates you from other programs. It shows you care about the things your recruits care about and you will care about them as members of your program. Embrace it, and the future, as another effective way to get through this now.
In my twenty years of college coaching, there has been a considerable shift in philosophy and accepted best practices. There’s been a shift from transactional leadership to servant leadership. A shift from exclusive leadership to an inclusive leadership structure. A shift from punitive discipline to collaborative behavior modification defined by team culture and program-centered understanding of right and wrong. And an overall shift in what’s accepted and what’s expected.
So too in recruiting. From how you communicate, how you celebrate the individual, and the people involved in the process – the dynamics constantly change. Your primary responsibility as a recruiter is to continue to bring qualified student-athletes into your program regardless of the obstacles in front of you. You must be adaptable and prepared to meet new moments.
Do it with a great compelling story that explains why your future is better than others. Deliver it consistently and in many forms. If you do, you’ll continue to stay ahead of your competitors.
Your story is always more than your sport. It’s a story of an all-encompassing experience, one that matches a prospect’s hopes and dreams.
And if that current reality doesn’t match that experience, don’t let the present define where you want to go. Manage the now to create a better future.
Be Distinct. Be Different.