Effective Recruiting When Time is Short
What if you only have a month or two to sell a prospect on your program and college?
A question that doesn’t get asked enough, but occurs regularly. Here’s what this coach, who is also a client, asked earlier today:
So, first things first for those not familiar with the other part of our work with college coaches: We help them create communication plans, and actually develop the text in those messages for them to send recruits. So the ‘monthly topics’ referenced here is the communication plan we’ve developed for his program. If you aren’t a client, just think of it as a topic you chose to talk about with one of your recruits.
When you begin recruiting a prospect, but it starts at what would normally be the end of the process for you, a different approach is indeed needed. All of the traditional ways we teach coaches to tell their story as a way to build a long term understanding of their program for recruits kind of gets thrown out the window here. There just isn’t time…we need the CliffsNotes (yes, they’re still around) version of your expanded recruiting story, zeroed-in on what we know is a priority for your new recruit.
Here’s how we recommend approaching that challenge - it’s not as complicated as it may seem, actually:
Ask your new prospects what the major decision making factors are.
Do it by verbally agreeing with each other that the ‘normal’ longer recruiting process can’t happen right now because of time, and when you need them to make a decision.
Make it clear that you’re going over all of this with them because you are really interested in them, and want to take the process seriously and not miss anything that they might need to know in order to make a decision.
Whatever their major topics are, focus on them during the time period you have.
If you’re a client, you can always go back and take relevant messages from past cycles that would address their needs and answer their questions. If you’re doing this on your own, create messaging that would go out every 6-9 days, or even more frequently if your recruiting period is only two to three weeks, to ensure you cover all the topics.
After each topic, ask your prospect if that answered the question, and if not, find out what else they need to know. And, don’t be afraid to ask them how you compare to the other colleges and programs they’ve been going through the process with over the longer stretch.
Move through the topics, one by one, until you are done.
Of course, lots of variables can occur as you’re going through these steps, so be prepared to pivot your communication accordingly. But overall, this is the approach that works when you have a shorter than normal time in which to recruit a high value prospect.