by Dan Christensen, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
You have been recruiting this athlete for a while. You’ve seen them play several times. They may have applied. Maybe have even visited campus. What now?
Many of you are in this situation right now around the holidays where a lot of your recruits are just waiting on their financial aid package.
But, this can happen any time of the year when you feel like you’ve done all you need to do and now you are just waiting on the recruit’s decision.
What should you do now? Do you wait and give them space? Put some pressure on them to make a decision as soon as possible?
Here are two things you absolutely should be doing in this situation:
1) Continue to give your recruit reasons why they should choose you
Coach, you haven’t told them everything there is to tell them about you and your school. It might feel like it. But now is the time to dig a little deeper.
What are some factors that are important to that athlete? Let’s say the location of your school has come up during the recruiting process as a little bit of a concern. If I told you to think of four aspects of your school’s location right now, that are positives for your athletes, I bet you could.
Take those four things and write four short, direct messages that are conversational in tone. And send those to your recruit over the course of the next four weeks.
What if you are repeating something you already told them? That is great!
Repetition helps ideas stick in your prospect’s mind. And there is a good chance your recruit totally forgot that you mentioned that piece of information five months ago.
If you want that recruit to be picturing themselves committing and being on your campus next fall, you need to keep giving them reasons why they should do that, especially when they are in serious decision mode!
2) Ask really good questions
This is certainly something you should be doing all along. But, what many coaches do at this point in the recruiting process is agonize over what their recruit is thinking.
Instead of doing that, just ask and find out!
If you are trying to imagine what they might tell you as a reason they decide elsewhere, ask them:
“If you had to choose right now, what would be a reason you would not choose us?”
Boom!
Now you’ll get some feedback that not only tells you what your recruit is thinking but gives you some guidance and ideas for content as you follow point number one from this article.
Are you agonizing over when they will make that decision? Ask them:
“Have you and your parents decided when you might want to make your final decision?”
This will give you a better idea of how long you still have to be recruiting them before they make this big decision.
And then, if you have not asked this question yet and you’d like this recruit to say “yes” to it, ask them:
“Are you feeling like you are ready to verbally commit?”.
The last thing you want to be doing during this time is sit back and wait. Continue to give your recruits reasons why they should choose you and ask them questions to help you get a better idea of what they need from you!