by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
Over the course of my 23-year coaching career, I certainly have had my fair share of being at programs where there was a lot of objections to overcome.
The first time I was a head coach, I was in a small town of 10,000 people, no Starbucks, bad facilities, no winning traditions, surrounded by Big 10 programs, among many other things.
I didn’t have a lot of features to sell and honestly, that held me back at first.
I was using our lack of having all the best things as the reason for why I couldn’t get recruits to come and play for me there.
Because I had that mindset, I was being my own worst enemy because I was going into each conversation not believing what I was selling.
Recruiting with that mindset yielded me zero recruits.
My reality was that I chose to accept the job at that school. I either had to sell what I could control or I was going to fail miserably and quickly.
I didn’t have much to sell at first, but I believed in my ability to coach and my vision for what the future was going to be for the program I was at.
The vision statement I shared with the recruits was “What will our program look like for the next 4 years with them a part of it.”
Throughout the recruiting process, I learned quickly that recruits don’t care about your past or your present, they only care about how they fit into your future.
I used my vision statement as more than a destination; I used it to inspire, motivate, and get recruits to see themselves as a big part of our future.
I believe that coaches that consistently sign the recruits they want have gotten really good at communicating and selling on how the program’s future expectations, goals, and aspirations will meet the recruits needs and help them achieve their goals.
Communication of a vision is the difficult process of inspiring your recruits to see the future reality which you see and are committed to make happen for them. Communicating your vision will help recruits focus their energies to see that their real needs can be met with your program.
Communicating your vision is talking about the future, evoking images and responses in the mind about what it is going to be like for them over the next 4 years while at your program. Communicate your vision so people can feel it, see it, feel it, and there is a passion around it.
When communicating and selling your vision to recruits remember the following:
- Clearly articulate the vision of your organization.
- Be enthusiastic toward vision and the benefits.
- Repeatedly share the vision in various ways, in order to be effective.
Concentrate on the what’s-in-it-for-them and the what’s-in-it-for-you will usually take care of itself.
If you’re looking for better ways to define your vision with recruits, Mandy Green. Through her work at Busy Coach and Tudor Collegiate Strategies, she is helping college coaches get better recruiting results every day. Email Mandy at mandy@dantudor.com to set up a strategy call.