What It Looks Like When Your Home Visit Recruiting Plan Hits the Target
A coach we work with followed the advice we gave on home visits. It worked! Here's a quick summary, and what you can learn from his success
Many of you read the huge article we did on how to execute effective home visits, and had plenty of follow-up questions.
Most of them revolved around specific situations, in specific sports, in specific division levels. It’s hard to answer each individual scenario accurately, but what we can do is offer up a general example of what it looks like when the approach we recommended is executed exactly as it should be.
Here’s the first part of the text message that came from one of our clients, a football coach, who was in a transfer portal battle with some other programs going after a prospect. Here was the first part of our text exchange:
This exchange brings up a few things that we didn’t address in the previous column about home visits:
Decisions don’t always happen on the spot at the home during the visit. Sometimes, the family wants you to leave, and discuss it in person. That’s not a bad sign, that’s normal. As long as you follow the final steps we outlined, you’re doing your job on the home visit.
Parents and prospects open up on their home turf. One of the constant feedback points we hear from the coaches we work with is that families are more apt to open up in their home, where they’re most comfortable, when it comes opening up about concerns, objections and obstacles as they are trying to envision life on your campus and in your program.
Follow-up is important. Don’t wait for them to get back to you. Lead the way and make sure there’s a next meeting as a part of the next step.
The visit initiates other action forward. Parents get involved in relaying information to you that they haven’t before. Non-communication becomes FaceTime calls. That leads to a great conversation in person. If you look for more momentum forward in the process with a recruit, start with scheduling a home visit.
The in-person home visit lets you see who’s behind what objection, question or motivation. Without that kind of interaction face to face, a lot of things get kept quiet. They’re discussed between the family members and those involved in the decision, but never brought up to you. Great things happen face to face.
Like the ad says, “your results may vary”, but this general outline that we’ve tweaked and re-targeted over the last two decades as new data has come in has proven to be very effective. Try it on your next home visit!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Honey Badger Recruiting to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.