by Dan Christensen, Tudor Collegiate Strategies
As a college coach, it is important that you recruit everyone in a prospect’s circle. Their parents, their high school coach, their club coach, or maybe someone else that is helping them get recruited, should all be included.
But, one concept that a lot of coaches do no consider is who else in their own circle should recruits be hearing from.
When an athlete commits and gets to campus as a first-year, they will spend a lot of time with you, their coach. There are other people involved in their experience though.
The most important people, that we won’t go into detail about today, are your current athletes. They will certainly help sell your program in the recruiting process.
There are two other people that your prospect should be hearing from in the recruiting process because those people will be very important to that athlete’s experience.
1) The training staff
This can include the athletic trainers as well as strength and conditioning coaches. Or even nutrition staff if your school has them.
People that will be supporting your athletes’ performance when they are officially on the team, should connect with recruits. And for a few reasons.
One, your recruits are curious about the resources they have available to them as an athlete. Maybe your prospect has had a history of knee issues. How will the training staff support them in case of re-injury, or even just in injury prevention?
But, the other main reason this connection is important in the recruiting process is because it creates feelings for the recruit that are critical to getting them to commit.
Feelings of being wanted and supported. Feelings of being comfortable in knowing a little bit more what they can expect as they envision themselves on your team. These feelings will go a long way when it comes decision time.
A personalized letter or email from someone on the training staff is a great route to go. Maybe there is even a follow up phone call or Zoom call where the recruit can ask questions. And certainly, when they come to campus for a visit, they can meet with someone from the training office in person.
Doing one or all of these is a great way to go above and beyond in the recruiting process.
2) The Sports Information Director
For some of you, this could be anyone that falls under this Sports Info umbrella that deals with your program. Maybe someone that does graphics for social media. Could be the person that writes the post-game articles. Connect them with the videographer that helps create highlight videos.
For others, everything I just mentioned might fall on one person’s shoulders. If so, that is your person.
Why connect your recruits with someone that is mostly doing behind the scenes stuff?
Let your recruit know how valuable those people are in making your athletes look good. Or creating content that they can share with friends and family like an article and picture after they score the game-winning goal.
This connection doesn’t have to be anything too elaborate but again, an email or letter from the SID expressing how excited they are at the idea of getting to work with that prospect if they choose to come to their school can go a long way. It will create feelings of being wanted and supported that we know are so vital in successful recruiting.
So, this week, talk with your training staff. Talk with your SID. Figure out a way to get them involved.
And I understand that they are very busy people. So, do as much legwork as you can in informing them or even helping them create a message to send. If you’re a Dan Tudor client, reach out to your rep and have them help you put together some messaging and a plan for getting these people involved.
If you want above and beyond recruiting results, you need to be willing to go above and beyond in the recruiting process!
Want more ideas like this for how you can stand out in the recruiting process and better connect with top prospects? The staff at Tudor Collegiate Strategies works with over 500 programs around the country to help them create winning recruiting plans. If you want to learn more, you can contact Dan Christensen at danchristensen@dantudor.com.