5 Great Questions to Ask Prospects at the Start of a Recruiting Email

The goal of any recruiting communication is to get a response. Thy these:

When it comes to talking with their recruits, most coaches are way to formal, and way too polite.

Now if you and I are talking or going back and forth in an email exchange, that’s fine. We’re two professionals, we’ve learned how to communicate beyond just the basics, and we understand our roles in each other’s professional lives: You tell us what kind of program you want to build, and we help you do it. As we talk, we usually don’t have to dig for responses or interaction between each other.

It’s different for your prospects.

They don’t know you, they don’t necessarily trust you, they’re nervous, and most of them aren’t all that good at communicating.

All that to say: They need your help, Coach.

So when you’re putting together an email, or you’ve started using voice notes to recruit your prospects, I’m going to suggest you start with a question. Right out of the gate. First sentence. Don’t ease your way into the real reason you’re getting in touch with them, start with it.

Starting with a question - rather than a polite, rambling opening paragraph that doesn’t really say anything - focuses their attention towards action that you define needing to happen next.

With that in mind, here are five questions I’d suggest opening with to start an email to a prospect that we’re finding a lot of success with for the coaching clients we work with:

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“I was wondering: What’s the #1 thing it’s all going to come down to for you?”

It’s what you’re really wondering most of the time, so why not just ask it?

When you ask them this, follow it up with why you want to know, what your own #1 thing was when you were deciding where to go to college, and what your own new freshmen who you recruited used as their #1 thing. Then, as a closing, restate the same question and ask them to reply.

“What’s turning out to be the hardest part of this whole decision making process so far?”

It’s one of the big things that most recruits can talk about without thinking:

Once the recruiting process gets started in earnest, teens usually start focusing on the