by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
Ockham’s Razor states that all things being equal, the simplest and most direct solution with the fewest number of steps is usually the correct answer to any problem. It’s a powerful philosophy named after William of Ockham who popularized the strategy centuries ago.
When I find myself stuck on something, I often think of this age-old principle.
The problem is that coaches like to pride themselves on their originality, intelligence and problem-solving skills. The thought of deciding on the “simplest” solution or the “too obvious” choice causes otherwise smart decision makers to bypass the right option.
Most of us are guilty of needlessly complicating recruiting with longwinded messages, no clear steps as you get further into the recruiting process, or far-sighted recruiting plans.
I certainly have been guilty of it.
Many years ago, when I was the associate head coach at a top D2 soccer school, I was struggling to get responses from the recruits I really wanted. Dan Tudor, while I was at his Build a Winning Recruiting Message Workshop, grabbed my pen and put a red line through the text of my first contact recruiting message saying, “Reduce! Reduce! Reduce!” I ended up stripping back the copy by about 95%. The result was a very clear and simple message that upped my response rate from 10% to over 70%.
Dan helped me simplify my message and create a system for how I was going to map out a years’ worth of messaging to my recruits.
Key word: SYSTEM. By definition, a system is organized, reliable and consistent and therefore capable of delivering consistently predictable results.
Creating or upgrading your systems is how you can make recruiting simple.
I want you to think of all the repeatable tasks that you do every day, week, month, or year by year as a coach?
It is these repeatable tasks that you can set up organized, reliable and consistent systems to make your recruiting simple.
Right now, whether you know it or not:
You have a process and a system for identifying recruits.
You have a process and a system for taking those leads and putting them into your recruiting database.
You already have a prospect process and system for an on-campus visit.
You have a process and a system for follow up.
You have a process for getting commitments and there’s a process and a system for keeping them excited about their commitment as well.
How are each of your recruiting systems currently working for you?
Are your systems simple and documented allowing you to deliver consistently predictable results?
Each of your recruiting systems is getting you a certain result. If you don’t like the result you are getting, you need to change or upgrade your daily repeatable recruiting processes.
If you want to upgrade your recruiting systems, check out my program where I take coaches through how to simplify your recruiting systems every single month called Recruiting Made Simple. Or you can email me at Mandy@busy.coach for more questions.