The First Thing New Prospects Want to Hear Coaches Talk About
SPECIAL SERIES: "First Contact Strategies That Create Unfair Advantages"
College coaches everywhere are about to make their new prospects regret answering the call, text or email.
Why? Because those coaches are struggling to find a way to immediately connect with today’s teenage student-athlete.
As a result, “What do I talk about first?” is a common question college coaches ask before they begin communication with a new recruit, and rightly so:
Lots of us have been approached by someone new we’ve just met, a salesperson we needed help from, or a coach we need to learn from, only to ignore whatever they start to tell us because of how they started off their first conversation with us.
So, what prospects want to hear from you first is critically important to understand - because honestly, we find that the vast majority of coaches approach first conversations the wrong way (see this article we published on what most coaches will screw up when they make their initial contacts with recruits).
Here’s the first thing you should communicate with your new recruits:
Tell them where you saw them, or found their information.
Might seem like a simple little nothing detail to you, but to them, it gives you some needed credibility:
It tells them that you know who they are, and remember where you saw them. That quietly lets them know that you didn’t just get a list of names from a tournament or recruiting service blindly, but instead have a reason for intentionally contacting them.
It tells them that there’s a reason for talking to you. Specifically, you have a reason to reach out to them (because you saw them and liked their abilities) which means they should at least take a little time to get to hear what you’d have to offer them.
If you saw them in person, tell them a few specifics about what you liked.
If you found their information through an online resource, or through them reaching out to you and your program, talk briefly about what stood out to you in the information that you saw.
Being specific with details about your where you found out about them creates a feeling that they’re wanted right from the start. And as you start off your initial contacts with new recruits, feelings matter a lot. (Actually, as evidenced in this popular article and podcast, the feelings of recruits drives their decisions from start to finish).
Taking a honey badger approach to first contacts means you start with something they want to hear, not something you want to say. There’s a big difference. Try it on September 1st, or with the next contact you have with a new recruit you’ve just started to communicate with.
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