Super-Short Recruiting Periods & Fast Prospect Decisions: What's the Best Strategy?
Early decision deadlines and the Transfer Portal are just two of the situations that involve compacted recruiting periods. Here are three essentials to remember:
It took a few years, but the NCAA finally heard the outcry from exhausted, time-crunched college coaches:
The Transfer Portal window got smaller, meaning there will be less time for athletes looking to make a decision to do it. All the details are here, but this is the key takeaway:
The move to shorten the transfer windows was expected, as this had been a source of frustration for coaches and administrators all offseason. The NCAA said data from the first year of the notification-of-transfer windows indicate that 61 percent of athletes who transfer go into the portal within the first 30 days.
So, two elements are at play here that recruiters need to pay attention to, even if we aren’t talking about a transfer athlete.:
More and more often, recruiting periods are getting shorter.
For most coaches, that’s a challenge. Why? Because if they aren’t involved in a process of storytelling and branding on a consistent basis, it’s going to be hard for their athlete to make a decision beyond what they already think they know. And what they think they know is this: I’m good, my top three schools should want me on their team, and I’m not going to pay much attention to the other coaches who are trying to get my attention unless something they say grabs me and earns my attention. ‘Earn’ is the operative word here: It’s easy to ‘get’ someone’s attention if your a college coach, but keeping it is harder. How do you keep (earn) it over the short (or long) term? Sequential, consistent messaging by email and mail, supplemented by conversational texts, phone calls, and social media. If a coach does that, it’s Step 1 in the process of navigating through a shorter recruiting period.
Recruiting periods are getting shorter because prospects don’t actually need to take a long time to make a decision.
Especially if consistent storytelling and branding are taking place on a consistent basis.
61% are entering the transfer portal within the first 30 days of being able to do so. But wait a minute: I keep talking about “prospects making a shorter decision”, and the article and change in policy is all about transfer prospects deciding to enter the portal earlier - so how are the two connected?
If you’ve had us on campus to conduct one of our famous two or three day recruiting workshops with your athletic department, you might recognize this image: It’s from results of a survey where we asked athletes who had visited a campus how long it typically took them to decide whether they were ready to commit, and how long it took them to decide:
Prospects who have not yet declared their decision actually make their minds up about things fairly quickly. Coaches are usually shocked to see that nearly 3 out of 10 know within the first week of a campus visit whether or not that program is still in the running, and nearly 7 out of 10 come to that conclusion within the first 30 days.
Shorter windows for making a transfer portal decision? No problem…they’re making faster decisions than most coaches realize (because they don’t verbalize their feelings or intentions to the coaches who are recruiting them.
Bottom line: They don’t take as long to make a decision as they’re letting on. They can, and will, make fast decisions.
3 Must-Do’s for Short Decision-Making Recruiting Scenarios
No use whining about shorter decision making windows of all sorts, and prospects not revealing their decisions even though they have arrived at them. You’ve got a recruiting war to win, and here’s how to start:
1. Define their priorities at the start
Since this isn’t a normal long cycle recruiting play, understanding what makes your prospect tick - and what their priorities are - is essential. The sooner the better, because the clock is ticking.
If I’m you, I’m asking these types of questions as soon as the process starts with a prospect in a short-term situation:
“What’s the biggest thing you DON’T want in a program you end up committing to?
“What’s your timeline for making your decision?”
“What two or three big things do you want to make sure you find out about us as soon as possible?”
“What are your parents helping you with? What’s their advice to you?”
“What do you want to see happen next?” (ask repeatedly through the process)
Steal those, Coach. And add in any others that follow the same tone, direction and discovery path. They set the foundation for the next two strategic maneuvers we’ve seen work well for recruiters.
2. Explain how they should view you and what you’re telling them
The coach who guides is the coach who wins. Not the coach who forces, or threatens, or pressures…the coach who guides.
As you start showcasing both your logical and emotional reasons for choosing your program, it’s imperative that you add in your opinion and reasoning to the conversation. Here’s an example of how that best works:
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