More often than coaches realize, the thing that is grinding your prospect’s decision process down to a snail’s pace isn’t a “thing” at all.
It’s probably a person.
At an increasing rate, the individual recruiting scenarios we track and help manage for our clients that end up grinding to a halt late in the process are the result of a coach – club, high school, or private coach – advising their athlete (your recruit) to wait. Either for a potential “better” offer, or because the coach isn’t convinced that you are “the right fit” for their prospect.
If you don’t take control of that situation from the start, it’s likely that you’ll be plagued by the problem throughout the process.
And most coaches don’t.
You’ll know that you are in the middle of that kind of developing situation when one of these warning signs appears as you are in the middle your recruiting relationship:
- You’ve had regular contact with your prospect, and it abruptly stops. Or, your normal mode of contact back and forth (by phone, text, etc.) becomes something less personal and less interactive (email, messages sent through the coach).
- The parents of your recruit suddenly become the surrogate for communicating with you, mentioning that their son’s/daughter’s coach wants them to “slow the process down” or “take a look at all of our options”.
- The coach, once someone who would keep you updated on the process and what was going on with the family, suddenly becomes vague about what is happening behind the scenes.
That’s not an exhaustive list, of course, but they are some of the telltale signs.
What prompts a coach to suddenly become involved in the recruiting process, sometimes in a negative way? Usually, it comes back to a realization by the coach that their rising young athlete is developing into an athlete that may warrant expanded attention from a variety of colleges. Sometimes, the coach has the best interest of the player at heart; they want them to have the maximum number of opportunities to take this next step in their sports career. Much of the time, your recruit’s coach sees an opportunity to bring added publicity and recognition to his or her program by having the highest level school(s) possible show interest and go through the recruiting process with their rising star. In other words, they see that there is something in it for them if they can parlay that recruit’s experience into a rising reputation for their club or high school program.
I’m not going to fault a club or high school coach for looking out for their own interests. That being said, I definitely don’t think you – as that athlete’s potential college coach – should refrain from looking out for your program’s best interests, nor do I think that you should give-up control of the decision making process to that other coach’s timeline.
The simple solution is, of course, to maintain regular contact with the family and coach as best as possible as the prospect goes through their more expanded search process.
The more complex – and more effective – long term solution to the issue comes back to a familiar theme: Recruiting the coach of your recruit through consistent messaging. The good news is that it doesn’t require quite the intensity as we would normally recommend in your communication with high school prospects: Our research and focus group studies with club and high school coaches shows that a recruiting message every 21-28 days is more than sufficient for the vast majority of coaches. And, unlike your recruits, coaches are really looking for one key thing: To be treated like a peer as you update them on the recruiting process with their athlete.
In other words, you need to justify why your program is a smart choice, while building up your personal connection with that coach through keeping them updated on what you are talking about with their athlete. Sell your program, and bring that coach into your inner circle when it comes to the recruiting process. Simple as that. And yet, even after reading this, the majority of college coaches won’t do much to improve the way they approach club and high school coaches they are in contact with. Even though it’s the only way we’ve discovered to bring a self-centered coach into your inner circle.
The number one complaint we hear club and high school coaches make about you, a college coach, is that when they have an athlete who is talented, college recruiters swoop in and want to be friends, and want their help in the process, only to disappear or go around them to get the athlete’s interest. It’s important that you remedy that feeling, Coach. If you don’t, and assuming your recruits’ reliance on their current coaches for advice and direction continues to deepen, you can expect the recruiting process to stumble in the years to come because of what club and high school coaches are doing to your efforts behind the scenes.
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