Why Assuming Prospects Aren't Telling You Everything is a Smart Strategy

As your conversations ramp up, and the relationship builds, they start holding back...

Logic would seem to tell us that if we build a relationship with a recruit - or anyone, for that matter - the level of sharing and openness and transparency would increase.

In other words, the more we get to know a person, the logical expectation is that we’ll consistently hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when it comes to what each other thinks and feels.

But in the real world, that rarely happens. Especially when it comes to your prospect, and the decision making process they go through as they choose a college and a sports program…and especially how that shows through in what they do and don’t communicate to you.

Why is all this so important to coaches? Because too many don’t know that, similar to an iceberg, what their prospect is talking about and revealing as the recruiting process moves forward (the tip of the iceberg) is only a small part of their active mindset and thought life during their recruiting process (the rest of the larger submerged iceberg). And when coaches don’t account for what isn’t being told to them, they can completely misread where the recruit is actually leaning, and how likely it is that they will commit to their program.

Why do recruits hold back information and feelings?

Psychology studies actually have a pretty good answer to that question.

Those studies specifically look into why students and athletes looking at colleges might hold back information, particularly emotional expression, during decision-making processes. The key reason is expressive suppression, where people inhibit their outward emotions - it can disrupt social interactions and decision-making because it impedes emotional communication, leading to misunderstandings, reduced social support, and lower relationship satisfaction. Suppression can create a disconnect between a person's internal feelings and the signals they send to others, often resulting in decisions that are less collaborative or supported by others.

(If you want a deep dive into understanding this more, read this).

Again though, the thing I want you to remember is that this psychological action has a direct impact on how your recruiting is going to go with each individual recruit you’re building a relationship with. That’s important, because the number of times coaches misread a recruit’s intentions - especially the deeper they go in the timeline of recruiting - results in lower quality, lower numbers, and a longer and more frustrating process start to finish.

So, let’s change that.

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Four strategies to use with your recruiting class

1. Hold an active mindset that assumes your prospect isn’t telling you everything.

It starts with you, Coach. If you assume they’re telling you everything, you won’t ask deeper questions or probe for missing details throughout the process. We want things to be easy - especially when it comes to recruiting - so we’ll naturally want to take the path of least resistance, and ruffle the fewest amount of feathers as possible, with a recruit you really want.

So in every conversation you have with a recruit, tell yourself, “there’s something they’re not telling me, and I need to find out what it is.” As a recruiter, your goal should be to uncover information, start to finish.